Jack's birthday

I'm just bad at this NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) stuff, I missed another day... or two.... Oh well.

But boy did we have a busy day yesterday.... that's my only excuse. We had Jackson's birthday party which was at a movie theater from 12 to 5. That's 5 long hours with 15ish eight to eleven year olds. We saw Planet 51 and the kids all loved it. The adults thought it was just okay (or at least I did). The best part as far as the kids were concerned.... while the aliens were seeing the human man naked for the first (and only) time one of them cocked his head and said... "uh that's an odd place to put your antenna." Brad and I were a little surprised the movie went 'there'. But there was much high pitched giggling from the little girls sitting in front of us and when polled later boys and girls alike cited that as their favorite part.

Before and after the movie we were in a party room that was actually situated on a balcony of sorts overlooking the main lobby of the movie theater. It had several games for the kids to enjoy; a basketball shot game, Foosball, ping pong, and air hockey along with a chalkboard the length of the room. The downside to all these games with balls was that occassionally the balls ended up down on the lobby floor. Luckily there were no serious injuries. Here are a few pictures....

Jackson looking sweetly at his brother (ok maybe he was looking at him with that know it all, I'm in charge today look - but from a distance it looks kind of sweet, wouldn't you agree?)

One of my favorite kids in the world (and Jackson's too) Jake.

Josh's ice cream cup exploded on him... oops.

Jack was in kindergarten with Niall and they've been friends ever since.

Teddy was in kindergarten with Niall's brother Devlin and they've been friends ever since. (it's nice how that's worked out so well!)

Teddy's best friend Matthew

Teddy

Chae, Sophie, and LaLia (Sophie and Jackson have been in class together since preschool and are known to carry on like an old married couple)

That's the card Sophie made for Jackson that includes a picture of them at the end of second grade - how cute is that.

Jack opening presents with Brad and the kids looking on.

At one point a bunch of the boys started an impromptu game of telephone...

While the girls played basketball and air hockey.

Then we took some group shots.....

Isn't this a handsome looking group!

Okay, perhaps they are a bit crazy at times

This is their movie star pose

Here they are very, very mad. Jack's so mad he's hiding.

Jackson couldn't believe that everyone was so surprised by my antics.

I think they've all had enough... well maybe not Jackson and Matthew.

Camela

Two little stories from today

1.) Whenever you leave the house (really it could be anyone leaving - we could have just met you) Bandit GOES BALLISTIC. He barks and jumps and runs and barks and runs back and forth across the house and more than anything he barks and a close second is he runs to whatever window he can see you from best (he travels around the house as the car drives away) and runs up to it as if he could go through it. Well..... we went and got our Christmas tree today and when we got back we were thrilled to discover Bandit had broken one of the windows and there was glass all over the dining room. Luckily the glass is double paned and even more luckily somehow Bandit didn't get hurt. AND even more, more luckily Brad had an extra window just hanging around in the basement. Seriously who has an extra window in the basement. Do you think there's any chance Bandit will learn not to slam the windows so hard?

2) We got back from seeing the Blind Side to drop off my MIL and then Brad and I were heading back out to go on a dinner date. I walked Ricky to drop some things off and was told that Jackson had inadvertently hit the Christmas clock with a tennis ball he was throwing for Bandit and it shattered the glass front. Then - not realizing it was actually glass, thinking it was just plastic, he through some of the pieces at Teddy's face. OMG. Jackson felt awful. (of course only awful that it was glass and could have actually hurt Teddy, not that he'd thrown something at his face - oh and he felt awful about the clock to begin with as well.) Luckily no one was injured and our extremely wonderful babysitter had it all cleaned up and out of the way lickity split. She said Jack was a model boy after that.

Camela

Decorating progress pictures

One of the fake trees; it's in the living room. I found a note in each of the two boxes of Christmas tree ornaments that I had written to myself last year. (I crack myself up) It says: CHRISTMAS TREE PLANS (1) Real tree in fam rm - Red & Gold ornaments w/a few others special ones (2) Fake Tree in Piano Rm - red, white, silver ornaments (3) Tree up high above door Tie securely left over gold OR silver shiny snowflake ornaments. We put the tree up high before I read the note so I didn't put the ornaments on it. I'll have to put them on when we take it down... oh well.

The newest tree. It's in the kitchen and perfectly sized because it's so narrow. It is where I'm putting up all the ornaments the kids have made over the years. I've been wanting to do this for a few years and thrilled I finally got around to getting it done.

The garland on the stairs that you see right as you walk in the front door.

The only real hallway on the first floor. The tree and garland can be seen from the street as you drive up to the house.

The snowflakes that are opposite the front door. A few years ago they were lighted stars which is really what I wanted. But then they died because we sort of ended up using them as a night light on the first floor until they burned out somewhere in the spring (oops). So the next year we went to get a replacement (cuz we couldn't get them lit again to save our lives), but they only had snowflakes. Then the same thing happened again last year and now this is the third string of odd lights we hang there. (and each year I like the strand less). But it's part of my grand plan to be able to turn off all the normal lights and only light the house with Christmas lights and candles for the party. Hopefully this will be the year. No lights - woo hoo!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day, spent with family and friends.

Our dinner was wonderful and I'm very thankful for my family. My parents divorced 25 years ago and I am very thankful that I was able to have both my parents and in this case my Dad's extended family along with my MIL all sitting down together for a nice, peaceful and fun Thanksgiving dinner. It's nice to be related to adults.

We had my grandfather who is 93 years old (I think) who still bowls every week and drives. He lives with one of my cousins who unfortunately had to work and wasn't able to be here. My Mom and step Dad and my Dad and step Mom and Brad's mom. My Dad's brother Gary and his wife Carol, his sister Marla and her husband Keith along with their two high school age kids; Sarah and Kevin. And my sister and her husband and my two wonderful nieces along with their Colombian born au pair, Angelica. My sister's girls and my boys ran around like crazy people as they often do and totally and dramatically destroyed my relatively straight bedroom. The boys did a reasonable job cleaning it though so it ended up being okay.

Teddy was in a good mood and overall very lovely and helpful all day long. It's so nice when I get glimpses of my wonderful boy. (another thing to be thankful for this year)

Camela

I'm sensing a theme

We went to some parent teacher conferences today for Teddy; four to be exact. One was band and we learned from him that Teddy is not as organized as he could be and often forgets his sticks and music book - Brad and I were shocked speechless... Our Teddy!!? Not organized? No. Not prepared? It can't be. Okay I'm done with band, now for the other classes.

Challenge Reading: Teddy is a really great kid, I really like him but he's consistently rushing through his classwork to get to whatever book he's reading instead of working more carefully on what he should be working on. He's getting a B but should easily be getting an A in my class. He's just not putting forth his best effort or really much effort as all. He's really smart and is basically skating by on smarts alone. With just a little bit of effort he'd have an A.

English: Teddy's a good kid; funny. He really rushes though his work during class, doing the bare minimum so he can pull out a book to read. Uh, he, um, well, he's really not putting forth much effort in here. He's getting a B but with just a tiny bit of effort, really just using the class time for what it's for; reviewing his work alone and with peers, he'd be getting an A. He is very smart and really should have a high A in here.

Social Studies: (very matter of fact) Teddy is getting an B. The place he could really bring up his grade would be in tests and quizzes, well except the county assessment. He's one of only 3 kids to have gotten 100% on the multiple choice part of the test and he got a perfect score on one of the written sections and only 2 points off of the other, so he did really well on that. He's really smart but he usually rushes through his classwork so he can pull out a book to read. Though even with that sometimes I'll call on him after he's been clearly reading for a while; head down, clearly engrossed in his book. I'll call on him to sort of point it out to him that he needs to be paying attention and he always gets the right answer so it's hard for me to even say anything about it. (Brad suggested she take the book away from him as soon as she sees it). He is really smart and is skating by on it. He's not putting forth any effort in here and with just a little effort on his part; even a quick review of the material before a test, he'd be getting an A.

Camela

Thanksgiving countdown - 3 days to go

On today's Thanksgiving agenda is;

- Grocery shopping for all the supplies. Brad did this earlier today and woo hoo, we have most of what we need - CHECK

- making the cornbread for the new cornbread stuffing recipe that I am going to make this year. It's a whim but man did it look good when I saw Michael Symon make it on Food Network. I'm not going so crazy as to make it from scratch or anything crazy like that, but I'm making the Jiffy Brand that several people I know like. I've made a part of what I need because Brad totally ignored the list I gave him and decided I said I needed 2 cups of cornbread instead of the 8 I actually need (he's at the store again right now).

- moving the tables around. I've decided to put several tables end to end and have one long table for the 21-22 people we have coming and I'm going to put it starting in the dining room and crossing the foyer and ending in the living room. I'll put a sign on the front door that tells people to come in through our garage - we're a casual bunch so that doesn't bother me at all. (As an aside to the number of people - we knew we were having 16 or 17 people coming (not sure about my BIL's mom yet) but hadn't heard from either my dad & step mom OR my mom and step dad. I think it's kind of funny that I managed to get answers from everyone except my parents. But today we learned that they are coming as well which is absolutely wonderful, I'm thrilled everyone can make it.)

So the table move though is going to require quite a bit of rearranging. First we need to move the drum set (in the LR also known as the music room) to the basement. I'm afraid I'm going to have to move the Xmas tree I already assembled in the LR as well and I'm not yet sure where it's going to go. Then the kitchen table moves to the dining room and the round "puzzle" table goes to the kitchen for our meals till after thanksgiving. Then the fold out dining room table from the sun room moves to the living room and the leaves for it need to be brought up from the basement. (I have this super cool folding table that has 2 leaves and expands to seat 10 I think, certainly 8. But without the leaves you push it together to card table size and then the top folds back onto itself and ends up half the size of a card table and has worked as a hall or foyer table in the various places we've lived for many years.

The best part about this table arrangement is that I can totally get everything set up now, or maybe tomorrow and it'll be out of the main traffic patter of our normal lives - so it won't bother our normal routine. And we'll then be able to use the round puzzle table as a serving table and people can fill their plates in the kitchen and then bring it to the table. I think it's a stroke of brilliance.

On tomorrow's agenda - making the stock for the stuffing, finding the table cloths, setting the table.

Camela

A couple of things

- I was struggling for a blog post tonight and Brad said I should write... "My husband's home, my husband's home" and let that be it. I almost went with that.

- When Teddy got home he was delightful and I saw a glimpse of my wonderful sweet kid - the one I know still hides inside his current surly exterior..... for about 10 minutes and then he ripped the foam finger Jackson was playing with and made Jack cry. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

- While cutting in around the baseboards today Bandit stood roughly three feet from me and barked and barked and barked and barked. I asked Jackson to throw a ball for him or something and he refused. I told him I was going to get rid of the dog if he didn't help me out (he knows full well I want to get rid of the dog but won't as long as the kids really, really don't want us to) and so he said - ... "weeeeell if you put it that way, I'd be happy to"

Okay, I'm all tapped out now.
Camela