young maid

Last week we started off on Monday with a messy house.  Seems like Mondays are always messy.  I knew I had a full week ahead, and was already tired.  Not a good combination, I'm afraid.  Besides that, sometimes I feel like shouldn't have to do all the work, you know.  So.  Being that we were in somewhat of a desparate situation, I devised a game.

It was awesome if I must say so myself.  (And I must.  Cuz I don't think anyone else around here thought it was very awesome.)



First, I had to set the stage.  I announced with great enthusiasm, "After the Family Home Evening lesson I have a fun game planned!"
Yayyyy!  (This was very exciting because we don't do FHE games, or fun treats that match the lesson, or anything else cool like that.  We just have a lesson.  Period.  And sometimes we throw in an ice cream cone if we're feeling crazy.)  After my little announcement, excitement was high.

As promised, we had a brief but meaningful discussion led by dad.  Then?  The game!!!  "OK, mom!  It's time for the game now!  Remember?"

Oh yeah, I remembered. 



Here's how the game went.  "This is such a fun game.  I made it up myself, and it's really fun.  You know the game 'Old Maid'?  It's kind of like that.  But this game is called 'Young Maid'!  Doesn't that sound fun?  It's really fun!  (Insert big, convincing smile here.)  This is how it works.  We are going to have two teams.  I've got this list of 'tasks', and you 'get' to be 'young maids'!  And who ever gets their list done happily wins!  Doesn't this sound fun?"

Silence.  Blank stares.


"And if we are all happy while we play the game, we will all get ice cream!  Won't this be fun?!!!"



They loved it.   Oh, they might have resisted a little at first.  There might have even been a few, "Mom!  This isn't a fun game!" remarks.  (Which I contradicted with an oh, contrare!  it's fun for me!!!!)  Dad might have even been less than enthused.  But really, my game was a hit.  Half hour "young maid" = semi-tidy house.  We wrapped up the night with ice cream in our freshly cleaned kitchen and I, at least, was happy as a clam.

I think I'm gonna market this idea.

mr. sam goes to work with daddy

 

 

 

 

When Courtney had to drive around and check out some jobs one day, he asked Sam if he wanted "to work" with him.  You've never seen a little boy get dressed and out to his carseat so fast.  I have a feeling that working with daddy is going to get increasingly exciting as time goes by.  What little boy can resist a ride on daddy's "quiptment"?

and then he proceeds to use his shirt as a pocket

Can I just say that we find the coolest stuff inside Sam's clothes?

the best medicine

The other morning got off to a rotten start.  I felt more nauseous than normal and had a pounding headache to go with it.   After we got the big girls off, it was just Sam, Claire, me, and my throw-up bucket.  Oh, and The Little Mermaid.  Thank goodness for Ariel on rotten mornings is what I say. 

Well, it turned out that I got feeling just better enough to do some running around because I'm a pretty good chauffeur like that.  Still, I felt pretty icky.  I walked back into the house after ballet lessons that afternoon, trying to rally myself for the whole dinner and bedtime routine.  What I found was Miss Claire, gussied up in a baby blue ballgown, high heels, and a fur shawl.  Of course, I proceeded to tell her how lovely she looked.

"Why, thank you.  I was going to marry Sam, but he wasn't good enough for me."


I laughed.  Out loud.  Laughter really is the best medicine. 

i told him so

We've had soooo much snow this year.  (Thankfully, it's almost gone.) 

It must be said that I'm a fair weather fan regarding snow.  I like it from about oh, lets say about December 1st through New Years.  And then, I'm kind of like, okay, that's good- I'm ready for Spring.  That wasn't exactly how it went down this year.  That being said, it was pretty fun for the kids.  I was really holding out for a snow day a few times, but grrrrr.  I don't know what it would take for us to get a snow day around here.  I would have just kept the kiddos home to play for a day, but knew they'd be missing a bunch of days for our family vacation.  It just seems like there isn't enough time in the day.  I know education is great and all that, but that darn school day gets in the way of being kids sometimes.



Quite a few years ago Courtney fulfulled one of my deepest wishes and got me some cross country skis for Christmas.  We went only once and I loved it but then I got pregnant, and had a baby, and then I got pregnant and had another baby, and- well, you know the rest.  So I've mostly just puttered around the fields with my skis.  The last few winters I've tried to tell Courtney that I thought the kids would love to learn how, but he was not a believer.  Thought they'd hate it, he did.

So.  Then Grandpa J. lets Ryenne borrow his old skis and Kate tries out mine and they love it.  Even Emmy stuffs tissue in the boots so they would stay on and falls around the yard on my skis.  (It was pretty hand actually, because whenever she fell and got all tangled up, she'd just pull her feet out of the boots and get them all straightened out again.)  And then I got to tell Courtney "I told you so", which always brings me great joy.  I also make him say, "yes, you were right and I was wrong" because I like the sound of that sometimes. 

baby gray is here!

 

Another cousin, hooray!  The kids have all waited a long time for Uncle Shawn and Aunt Kelsey's baby to arrive.  In fact, when this little guy's mom and dad decided to wait to his birth to find out if he was going to be a boy or girl, the cousins were dying of anticipation!  We were so excited to get the message early one morning that BABY BOY had arrived, safe and sound!  In fact, the girls knew it was likely he would be born that day, and made sure I would call them at the school to let them know if their new little cousin was a boy or a girl!

 

Hoping these two little guys are buddies!

 

The other day we were looking at his beautiful baby pictures, and the girls were oooohing and aaaahing over him.  I thought it was so cute when Ryenne exclaimed, "Oh!  I'm so proud to be his cousin!"  They are in love.  Me too, I might add.  I was so happy to spend an afternoon cuddling him after Kelsey got home from the hospital.  And today I'd had a little bit of a rough morning and happened to run into Kelsey and baby Gray.  Lucky for me, I got to cuddle him for a while and what do you know?  That little guy turned my frown upside down! 

Welcome, Baby Gray.  We're so happy you're here!  





ps.  Kelsey showed me this picture of Shawn when he was a little guy.  When Sam was small, I always thought he looked like Shawn, but I couldn't believe when I saw this.  It's like looking at a circa 1982 Samuel!

king george for two, please

 

Since Courtney and I have been together since the beginning of time we have a high school song.  Of course we do!  (That was the cool thing to do, you know).   But give us some credit, because at least we chose one with a little staying power.  George Strait, Cross My Heart, thank you very much.  I have to admit I love music but I've never been one to keep up on what's cool and what's not in that scene- which I'm sure is shocking to you since I'm always on the cutting edge of all things hip and trendy.  But alas, I do have to say:  George Strait has class.  I like me some of his music. 

 

Therefore, when I heard the cowboy was riding away and this would be his last concert tour I thought to myself:  Darn it self, I know you haven't even been to a concert before, and you and your man are typically too cheap and a little too uncool to do things like that, but this has to be done.  And even though it was two months after tickets went on sale (because I'm nothing if not johnny-on-the-spot about things like this) I set about to finding a pair of them to give to my best guy for Christmas. 

 

 

Uhhhh.  That went well.

 

 

Lucky for us, I have a great friend who happened to hear about my despairing search and happened to find me some tickets that some sweet lady was selling for almost nothing after having won them on the radio.  Lucky for me she either didn't know how much they were going for, or was tickled pink to make even a little cash that I was able to get two semi-decent seats for a grrrrrreat price.  Even luckier, my sweet sister-in-law was willing to venture into the ghetto to pick them up for me.  A Christmas miracle, indeed.

 

 

 

And so it happened that me and my high school sweetheart went to hear King George play in his very last concert.  Here is the verdict:

 

*People watching was almost as good as the listening was.  Okay, it was better. 

*Beer and loud music do funny, funny things to people.

*I could have worn ear plugs and have still heard very well, thank you. 

*I'm not much of one to drool over movie stars (which um, hello! he's more than just a singer! didn't you ever see Pure Country?)

but I think Mr. Strait is pretty handsome, even though, holy cow-  he's getting old.

*Which, now that we've mentioned the movie thing - You're great, George, but stick with the singing.

*I love myself some George Strait and all, but some people reaaaaaallly love themselves some Martina Mcbride and George Strait.

(I would say we could have done without Martina Mcbride,but I'm afraid the lady sitting behind us might hunt me down- 

She was a fan in the most enthusiastic of terms.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally. . .

*Wouldn't you know it, he never even played Cross My Heart.  Couldn't believe it.  We had to listen to that back at the hotel, which was actually pretty enjoyable.  Who knows, if he'd played it for us we might have even been inspired to dance in the aisles.

 

Probably not, but you never know about people at concerts.