Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Twitter (and Facebook) updates: Late May through mid-November



Houston, home sick: "I was wiggling my tooth and it started bleeding." Me: "Why were you wiggling it?" Him: "There was nothing else to do."

Houston fell in the river at school. Me: "You...fell in the river." The office ladies: "With your kids, if it's not one thing, it's another!"

(Playing Electric Avenue for the kids)
Me: "This is the first rock song i ever heard!" They seem less than impressed. Losers.



The kids and i were reading. Juanito just walked in with his hand covered in blood and announced, "I cut myself. Just letting you know."

I just told Houston that a strawberry isn't a berry, but a banana is, and i BLEW HIS MIND.

We just spent the past hour and a half watching a house down the street change into a pile of rubble.

My neighbor repeatedly called it "chicken pops," and i ... kind of wish that was the actual name.

I just opened a jar for Zane, and he exclaimed, "WOW! You are IMPRESSIVE! I was struggling with that!" I am stronger than a 3rd grader!

OMG. There is a construction truck that has been beeping for half an hour. Is it driving backwards in circles around the block??

10-year-old neighbor: "Do you got a girlfriend?" 4-year-old neighbor: "No." 10-year-old: "Is that because you're gay?"

Houston just burned his fingers by holding a metal bowl and pouring boiling water into it. Him: "Remind me never to get metal walls."

Houston just said, "Wow! I'm closer to being 20 than to my birth." Me: "You're not allowed to talk anymore."

We wanted to stand by the Bear Butte sign, so we parked and started walking, thinking, "Meh. We haven't seen almost any buffalo at all, so what are the chances of one being RIGHT HERE?" And then a GIANT buffalo suddenly stood up just off the road from us. We all made a dash back to the car and DROVE closer to the sign.

Middle of the afternoon, Katrina randomly decided to take a nap in our bed. Seems like a good plan to me.

We decorated cupcakes for Harry Potter's birthday. Because we're nerds.

Zane got a free icee because he was smashed in the face with a ball. I think he probably thinks it was worth it.

Age 11: Katrina finally decided that she wants a door on her room. So we bought a door, and Juanito's been working on getting so it'll fit.

Blueberry picking! Juanito's haul: 1 blueberry. My haul: 2 pounds. I win. (Mostly because i don't like blueberries.)

There's a gigantic moth in the room, and i'm doing my best to ignore it, but it starting to circle my head, and i might wake everyone up by screaming if it tries to land on me.

Katrina: "The new Dork Diaries book is going to be HOT PINK! I really want to get it, because it will look so cute on my shelf!"

Juanito, trying to set his new watch: "What does this mean? Oooo. What does this mean? Wait...what does this mean?" Katrina: Hands him the instruction book. Girls for the win!

First there was the wind, and that knocked out our power. And then the rain started, and the thunder and lightning. This storm is kind of impressive. (Thankfully our power just came back on.)

Juanito calls our kids weird nicknames, and just today i've heard Houston call Katrina "Trinsel" and Zane call Houston "Hoosely-boosely." I never imagined these nicknames when we named our kids.

With construction in our neighborhood, we can no longer go north, east, OR west from our house. South it is!

Juanito and Zane are camping. Zane's wearing camouflage so that the wolves and bears can't find him.

When Juanito was all, "Hey! Want to go out and do something with me?!" lifting 200 pound pallets was not what i had in mind.

Me: "It's the first day of fall!" Houston: "Thanks a lot, Obama!"

Me: "Seems legit." Katrina: "When did you start saying 'Legit'?" Stop judging my outdated expressions, KATRINA!

Houston wrote me a note: "May i call my friend?" Me: I'm on the phone. Him: I know! That's why i'm writing a note! Me: I'm USING the phone! Him: "Ohhhhh."

Houston has an order form that does carbon copies, and he just realized it, and he is FREAKING OUT from the coolness. "Even the thing i wrote a second ago is copied!! How does that even WORK?!!"

Katrina is upstairs trying on different outfits and taking pictures of herself to see what looks the cutest.

Zane doesn't want to use his hammer, because he doesn't want it to look used. Seems...pointless.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Friday and Saturday



Yesterday, Zane was given the Student of the Month award for the moral focus "Respect." I tried to be sneaky when i went to the assembly again, and of course Zane spotted me within seconds of walking into the room. So he wasn't particularly surprised, but he was really happy and proud of himself, as he should be. He's such a sweet and friendly kid, and i'm super proud of him. Go Zane!

I also, yesterday, worked on figuring out what we're going to do for Advent activities. It's getting more complicated, both because the kids are getting older and aren't maybe as interested in doing some of the things they used to find amazing (like visiting the reindeer), and because there's less time in the evenings. They all have more homework, and Katrina's got Heart and Sole twice a week, and Juanito's got Zumba three times a week, and Zane's got Boy Scouts once a week, and Houston, Katrina, and i have got church group on Sunday night. And so our only real nights to do stuff are Friday and Saturday. The rest of the time, it has to be stuff that can be done in a very short time. But that's still fun. 

I thought about skipping the Advent stuff this year, but all three kids mentioned how that's one of their favorite things to do at Christmastime. So. It's on.

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Today i got out my sewing machine and was totally productive. I "made" two blankets - by which i mean that i took pieces of soft material and hemmed the edges. (Katrina's shall henceforth be known as "The blanket that broke my sewing machine." I was sewing hers, which sounds a lot easier than it actually was, because that material, it turns out, is horrible to sew and kept slipping all over the place and needed to be pulled through with considerable strength. So i was concentrating hard and leaning forward, and suddenly the needle broke and the foot flew off and pieces hit me and it was like a miniature explosion. Juanito, two rooms away, heard, "Sew, sew, sew, BANG!, scream!" I don't entirely know what happened, but Juanito was, happily, able to figure out how to put it all back together, and after some adjustments, it was back to normal. Phew.)

ANYHOW. I made two blankets and two towels and fixed three headbands (one of which i have to re-fix), a sweatshirt, and a jacket. I feel like i got something accomplished, which is good. But more importantly, i feel like i got the "Stuff i have to sew before i can work on Christmas presents" out of the way. 

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Veteran's Day




Today was the Veteran's Day assembly at the kids' school. Houston (and the 8th grade band) was playing a song for the assembly, and he really wanted me to come. And Zane, as a Boy Scout, was helping escort the veterans to their seats. And so i went.

I don't usually think of myself as being particularly patriotic. I mean, i'm really happy that i live in the United States, and i'm super-thankful for all of the rights and privileges involved. I'm totally a pacifist - not a fan of war, ever - but at the same time, i totally respect people who are willing to sacrifice for their beliefs and for the good of the country, and i'm thankful for them. So Veteran's Day is always kind of a weird day for me. I'm totally thankful for the soldiers and their sacrifice, but i totally wish that there wasn't ever a need for soldiers. (I know i'm completely ridiculous. I do.)

So ANYHOW. I was at the assembly today, and the veterans all came in to the gym with all of the kids from the entire school, from young 5's to 8th grade, and then we stood up to do the Pledge, and halfway through the Pledge my eyes kind of welled up. There were the little kids all yelling the Pledge because they know it, and then there was this WWII veteran right in front of me, and...sniff. And then we sat down and the band played and we sang along for the second time through, and i was fine. And then they played parts of all of the official songs of each branch, and the veterans from each branch stood during their song...and i got all teary again. (I did NOT, however, get remotely teary during the "touching" poems. Poetry. Bleh.)

I seriously teared up like, 3-4 times. I'm kind of a dork.

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We finally revived book club after about 3 months. Maybe 4. A ridiculously long time, anyhow.

And then we hardly talked about the book. Which is fine, except i felt a little bit bad for Katie, who was there for the first time. 

Monday, November 9, 2015

Great Wolf Lodge: The rest



The kids woke up at the crack of dawn (or so it felt), ate the delicious little sugary cereal boxes that Karen had brought for them for breakfast, and were dressed in bathing suits and ready to go down to the water park at 9:00. (Morning people. Bleh.)

We swam and did the lazy river and the water slides and the hot tubs and repeated the whole process for hours. Zane's preferred method of doing the lazy river is: Get everyone to make a chain with their tubes. Drag the chain around the "lazy" river at top speed. A million times.

By 3:00, Houston and i were finished, and Katrina and Juanito joined us half an hour later. Houston immediately put on his pajamas, which he then declared he was staying in for the rest of the day. And...i think he did. Katrina got her face painted and then curled up in the room for the rest of the day. Zane was finally dragged away at about 5:00. We got pizza and it was delicious. And then the kids all curled up upstairs and watched TV (Zane was all, "How do you work a TV?") for a couple of hours while we adults sat around and talked and talked and read and ... i don't remember, exactly. Tried not to fall asleep?

And then, at 9:00, we went down to the "dance party." It was the worst dance party ever. (Or so i thought, until the next day when i saw the exact same dance party being repeated in the middle of the afternoon with exactly two kids participating.) There were lots of people, mostly under age 9. The music was really quiet, so you could just barely hear it well enough to dance to it. And they were all songs like "The Chicken Dance" and "YMCA" and "The Hokey Pokey" and other stuff that could not possibly be offensive to anyone, ever. I mean, it's a good policy, to not play inappropriate music with kids there. Obviously, it is. But DUDE. Lame. So Karen, Juanito, and i all danced like it was awesome. Zane sat on the steps the entire time. Houston started out standing near us and pretending to dance, until the "Whip Nae Nae" song came on, and then he was out of there faster than a speeding bullet. Katrina, who was just exhausted, sat on the floor to watch. So it was just us adults dancing, while kids all around us looked at us like, "So...do you think they think they're cool?" I'm not sure why we didn't just give up and leave. It would have been the sensible thing to do.

By the time we were in the room for good, it was 9:30ish. We let the kids watch one or two more episodes of "Full House" or whatever while we sat around and talked and read. And then Karen was watching some cooking channel contest, so i started watching on the second-to-last episode, and then we had to watch the finale to find out who won.... So it was late by the time we got to sleep.

Sunday morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed, packed everything up, and went for all-you-can-eat pancakes at Steak and Shake, which was located just down from our balcony. (All three kids commented on it the first day. "HEY! There's a Steak and Shake right there! We should go!") Once everyone was sufficiently filled with delicious, delicious gluten, we headed back to GWL, changed into our suits, and did all of the water stuff again.

For a while, all six of us played in the pool - Monkey in the Middle, Follow the Leader, contests to see who could swim the farthest under water with a child on his/her back.... It was really fun, even though we had quite an audience when the kids (and Juanito) were leading during Follow the Leader and were doing ridiculous things. When we were talking about our favorite things later, all three kids said that that was maybe their favorite part of the entire trip.

We told the kids that we'd stay until they were finished. Karen had to leave by about 2:30, and i was finished by then too, so we both got dressed, took some pictures, and said goodbye. And by 3:00, our kids (minus Zane) were totally ready to leave as well.

Today was spent mostly in pajamas, resting and enjoying having a day off from school. I'm so glad that the teachers had trainings today, because my kids totally needed the day to completely crash and rest.

So, in summary: It was a great weekend. I loved seeing Karen and getting to have lots of time to sit and talk to her. I wish we lived closer so that we could see each other more often! The kids had tons of fun. Juanito enjoyed having time to just read and read, since he couldn't work on any projects.

All around awesome. Yay!

Friday, November 6, 2015

Great Wolf Lodge, day one!


We are at Great Wolf Lodge with Karen this weekend!

I dragged the kids out of school at 1:30, and Juanito got out of work early, and we got on the road at about 2:00, drove 15 minutes, and then sat in traffic for at least half an hour. Juanito and i were both like, "SERIOUSLY?!" It ultimately took us about five and a half hours to make the four hour trip, which isn't as awful as it could be, but was terribly frustrating. On the bright side, the kids were awesome. For a while, all three kids (and i) sang along to a CD with lots of Taylor Swift songs and other random awesomeness. I think Juanito was torn between amusement and a serious desire for quiet.

We got to GWL, found Karen, brought all of our stuff up, and within minutes of our being here, the kids all had their suits on and were ready to go play. So they played for an hour, and then we all had snacks and fun in our room for an hour, and eventually they went to sleep.

And then Karen and Juanito and i all sat up and talked and talked and talked. And it was fantastic.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

My mom


Katrina, Houston, and i visited my mom in the hospital. She had knee replacement surgery yesterday, and she's doing SO WELL. She's already walked (very short distances) several times, and she's totally on pain medication, but she says that it hurts much, much less than she was afraid it was going to hurt. I'm so glad. It's a minor surgery, but it's still surgery, so of course i had to worry (it's what i do!). And i think that she was really apprehensive about the pain and recovery, and i think that the general outlook, in everyone's opinion, is just a lot rosier than we were afraid that it would possibly be. Yay!

Warmth and sunshine are good things


Today was an amazingly beautiful, warm day, especially considering that it's November. Juanito, Zane, and i took a walk to enjoy the sunshine and warmth. We walked down toward the construction that's been going on since FOREVER, and it seems like it might actually be getting close to being finished. Yay!!!

There were some construction guys who were putting the finishing touches on the road - the painted "Only" and arrow and bike lane pictures on the road. We, of course, stopped and watched them for several minutes. It was quite fascinating. Did you know, for example, that they spray paint it and then toss little glass beads into the paint? They do! And then they blow it all off with a leaf blower. Because otherwise the cars that come along will slip on the loose beads and mess up the paint.

As we were walking along, Zane noticed a leaf that had blown into the path of the line being painted on the road. The road now has one leaf-shaped hole in the paint, and Zane is the proud owner of one white-painted, glass-beaded leaf.

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My mom had knee-replacement surgery today. According to my dad, it went really well. She had quite a lot of motion before, so that should help with the recovery, which...seems reasonable? I went to visit her in the hospital a couple of hours after she got out of surgery, and she was still quite (adorably) groggy, slurring words and falling asleep mid-sentence, sleeping for 30 seconds and then waking up and then falling asleep again. She'll maybe be in the hospital for an additional night, because they did the surgery late enough in the day that she was pretty much out of it for the rest of today, but she seems to be doing really well.

Here's hoping that the recovery is swift and as painless as possible!

Monday, November 2, 2015

Normal


Katrina had Heart and Soul after school, and then stayed home from zumba with me tonight, and the two of us snuggled and watched Project Runway and drew pictures.

Zaney got a perfect score on his spelling test, which was awesome...except that it meant that he somehow got more homework, because now he has a harder list, which was devastating to him. So he and i studied for his new spelling words and watched silly YouTube videos occasionally as motivation to keep going.

Houston worked on a writing assignment for history class. He and i might disagree about what constitutes half a page of writing. But if i were his teacher, i'd totally give him bonus points for making it interesting. He totally makes up little bits of information to make things funnier or more interesting. Him: "Is that okay?" Me: "Sure. As long as you're not changing information, it's like you're writing historical fiction!" Him: "This is a real person, MOM."

So it was a normal day. My favorite kind.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The Giraffe Story


We got to church today, and Stacy yelled across the parking lot, "Hello, the Moores! I have something for you!!!" And he led us to his giant green van, opened a giant box in the back of it, and handed us six copies of the book that Juanito and i made years ago.

Stacy works with an organization that is trying to educate and get books to kids in Haiti, and he was over at our house one time and saw the book that we'd made for Katrina for Christmas. He was all, "This is exactly the kind of thing we need!!! Can we use this?" To which Juanito and i immediately agreed, of course. So they got their editor to make it better and their translator to translate it into Haitian Creole, and now it's an actual book. Crazy. The cool thing is that for every hardcover book sold here, they send five paperback books to Haiti. Yay!

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We spent the afternoon at my parents' house. It was a gorgeous, sunny day today, so the boys were outside for hours. Meanwhile Katrina and her cousin played with American Girl dolls upstairs in the quiet, enjoying having a lot of time to just hang out together.

After Fifty6 and the Element (our church's student ministry), as we were driving home, Katrina said, "This was just the best day i've had in a long time. I got to have my book published, which is really exciting. We got to stay extra-long at Grandma's house. It's a clear night, so i can see the stars. And we got snacks at church."

She was really excited about the book. She showed pretty much everyone she saw, and she's planning to bring it to school tomorrow as well. Happy girl.