POST OVERLOAD

So, I got a bit behind. Not exactly sure why. Guess I was too lazy to put pictures into the computer or something.

Anyway I fixed that today. I made only 10 posts or so. (Okay, it's really only 5) And I thought about just making it one big long post - but then decided to be nice to all of us and break them into their own posts. Which ended up being a good thing, because I tended to talk a bit too much in some of them.

I decided I would link to the posts in this post, so that you can read them as you please or you can read them all - it's up to you.

Here's a way to say 'Thank - You', The Dead Live Again, Lex is A Ladies Man, Someone Had a Birthday Party and How We Spent Memorial Day!

Enjoy!!!

What Happens Next...

Memorial Day 2011

Memorial Day is usually the same for my family. The only thing that changes is the weather.

This past Memorial Day was no exception. It was supposed to rain all day, but it didn't. When we got to my parents to start the walk to the cemetary it was cloudy, but not raining. After we got to the cemetary the rain started. By the time we left the cemetary it had stopped and the sun came out. Then clouds came back, then the sun. Oh well, it was still a nice day.

Most of us walked to the cemetary. The only ones who didn't was my dad (he's lazy), Eric, Tanis and Nate. Eric had to drive Tanis because Tanis is still pretty sick and I didn't want him walking to the cemetary, Nate chose to go with his Daddy.

Because Shaylyn and Lex literally RAN ahead, I had to speed walk to keep up with them. Shaylyn and Lex had to stop and wait for me a couple times cause they had NO CLUE where they were going, and by this time my nephew decided to join them. So, I was trying to keep up with 3 kids. My nephew kept telling me I wasn't going fast enough and that I had to hurry up. Yeah, he pretty much says whatevers on his mind.

We got to the cemetary before all the other walkers and Eric got the boys out of the car and met up at the graves with us. Because there wasn't a lot of us there yet, I was able to get some nicer pics of the headstones.

We didn't stay as long as we usually do because the rain started. So then we headed back to my parents house. We had a bbq and then all the guys started playing games, while most of the women visited.

After a bit my little sister and I decided to go downstairs and play Just Dance and my Glee singing games. She's about the only one who'll play those games with me. It was a fun night and when we had enough of the games, we went up and just visited.

It was a very low key, relaxing day and I'm glad we get to have some holidays that are relaxing!

What Happens Next...

UNO!

So baby girl turned the big ONE on May 13th. We had a fairly calm day that day and didn't do anything major as I knew we'd be doing a family party for her later on in the month. Well, I took my sweet time doing it, but I finally got my act together and we had her party this past Saturday.

She was so happy and must've known it was her big day! She had smiles for everyone and enjoyed every single one of her gifts. She even enjoyed the clothing. Her favorite gifts by far were a little play purse, a toy cell phone and a book.

She started to fall asleep before we got to the cake, but somehow she figured out it was then cake time and woke right up. She even dug into her cake! Yay, Ailey!!!

Here are my fave pics from the night. I will put all the pics on the family website in the next few days.












This is the video I made of her 1st year to share with the family. I'm sharing it here in case anyone has 20 minutes to kill and wants to watch her grow. LOL!!!

And if any of you are curious, Ailey's 12 month stats are as follows:
(Her dr. appt. was 1 week after her bday, so I wasn't a slacker there. Although Eric had to take her to this appt., which was hard for me. ::sniff::sniff::)

LENGTH: 30 1/2 inches (90th %)
WEIGHT: 22 lbs. 8 oz. (70th %)
HEAD: 46 1/2 inches (75th %)

So, she is still tall and thinning out. Wonder where she gets that from. ;)

What Happens Next...

Reader's Theater

Our school is HORRIBLE at scheduling things. I swear. They put all these 'programs' and stuff either on the same day or within days of each other. Ugh. Guess it's a price you pay with lots of kids, huh?

So the day after Tanis' Wax Museum, Lex had a reader's theater. It's where the kids read some poem and what not. Lex had fun. He was reciting his lines for a few days before the event and had it all memorized. He was happy because his 'girlfriend' (on his right) got to say the lines with him. LOL!

Anyway, here are some pics of our little ladies man and a video (About 8 minutes) for those that are interested in that! And for the record, the baby crying in the video wasn't mine! LOL!!! It was actually his teacher's.

What Happens Next...

What Kind Of Name Is Amadeus?

Every year the 5th graders at our school do a Wax Museum. Kind of odd, I guess - but I suppose it's to help make history/biographies more fun and real. I've known this day was coming since Tanis started 5th grade, but I was surprised that they were doing it at the end of the year.

Anyway, Tanis got this note at the end of April telling the parents all about the wax museum and what not. The kids were to read some biography, do a 1 page report, make a poster and then dress as whichever person they read about.

I didn't give it a lot of thought and figured it was an easy enough project for Tanis to figure out on his own. Well about 2 weeks before it was due I asked him if he had a person in mind or if he even had a book. He said he had chosen Mozart but no he hadn't read it, but that it was at school. So I told him he needed to bring it home and read it.

-- I still don't know why in the world he chose Mozart. We are so not a classical music family over here in the least, so I'm a bit confused... --

The next week I asked him about it again, and he said he never read it and that he had to return it to the library! UGH! I talked to his teacher when I saw her a few days later and asked her how long the book had to be. She said it didn't really matter as long as they read one. So I went home and scoured the internet.

I found a few books with relatively short enough pages that Tanis wouldn't get too stressed about and then had Tanis tell me what book he had gotten at his library. He pointed out the same book I was looking at. YAY! I then ask Eric to pick it up from the book store on his way home. He agreed but in the mean time actually discovered that the library by his parents house had it. So we borrowed the book instead.

Tanis then spent the next 2 nights reading it. Wednesday night he had to make his poster and his report. I set to work on the poster as he doesn't type very fast and I knew it would take all night for him to write the report. When I finished the poster I looked at his report and saw that he pretty much just plagarized the timeline from the book. Guess he needs more help on how to write a report, eh?

So because this report was due the next day and it was getting late, I took over the report. I made him look through his information while I was doing this to get 10 facts down that he could use when someone came to him.

Because I wrote the report I found out many interesting things about Mozart. Like the fact that he was super close to his Dad and his older sister was also fairly musical, so he spent a lot of time, while he was young travelling with his Dad and sister performing. During his travels he fell in love with some lady, but she didn't feel the same way. Later on during his life he went and stayed with this girls family and then fell for her little sister, whom he then married.

At one point in his life he was trying to get a better job and his Mom had the job of travelling along with him. She got sick and died and then because he felt guilty for her death it drove a wedge in the relationship between him and his Dad. Him and his wife had 6 or 7 (Can't remember the right number at the moment) kids, but only two actually survived for a long while. Most of his kids died within months of being born, and 1 actually died within hours.

It's kind of my opinion that they way he dealt with all this loss and heartache was by throwing himself into his work. He was working so hard and was so busy that he then started to get sick and he eventually died. He died while in the middle of writing a requiem, actually. One of his pupils had to finish is for him.

Okay, sorry for that. I was just amazed at how little I really knew about this guy and then how much I learned by skimming a 70 page book. I have a little bit more respect for Mozart now. LOL!

Anyway, here's my little Mozart. I think he started to feel sick this day (He's been sick off and on for 2 weeks now and has been really sick these past 4 days. So much so I had Eric take him to Instacare on Saturday to see if he had Strep. The rapid stress test came back negative, but they apparently still took samples to send to the lab as his throat is really quite raw) so he's not so smiley in the pictures.

I went to the DI to find clothes to make due. I got lucky. The little necktie thing was a little girls jacket/top that I cut up and sewed onto a piece of another shirt...I made the dang wig out of a scarf and pantyhose. I don't sew real well, but I was able to get this to come together nicely enough.

Okay, enough yammering...Here's MOZART.......For real this time. ;)

What Happens Next...

I Do Appreciate Them

Teacher Appreciation week was a couple weeks ago.

I never got a note for Shaylyn's teacher or Tanis'. And of course, Lex showed me his like mid way into the week. I didn't do anything for any of the teachers that week. It's not cause I didn't want to, I just couldn't really think of anything to fit into the mold that was presented for Lex's teacher and like I said neither Tanis nor Shaylyn had a note. This could be because Shaylyn's teacher had a baby in mid-April, and isn't at school and Tanis' teacher doesn't have a room mom. I also had 'one of those weeks'.

By the weekend, I was feeling better and decided I really needed to show appreciation to these teachers. I have been way impressed with Lex's and Shaylyn's teachers. Tanis' teacher didn't really impress me AT ALL, but she deserves recognition just as much - and Tanis has really enjoyed having her.

Because I had the opportunity to go into Lex's classroom every Friday I got to see the way his teacher taught and how sweet she was with each of the kids. Even the way she disciplined children was very calm and loving. I wish I could parent that way.

Every time I talked to Shaylyn's teacher at PT conferences and when I'd see her in the halls on Fridays, she was always so positive and you could just feel the love she had for each of the kids in her class. I'm pretty sure she has a nickname for every kid in that class as well.

Tanis' teacher just kind of seemed to be 'there'. I dunno. Every other teacher he has had has gone out of her way to help him where he struggles. She didn't. She didn't really even act like it was a big deal. Even after I pointed it out to her. But even saying that, she was always polite and we could have a small chat if she saw me in the workroom on Fridays. I didn't dislike her by any means, like I said I just wasn't that IMPRESSED with her.

Anyway this idea came to me pretty much all on my own. YAY!!! And I hope the teachers enjoyed it. We actually 'hand-delivered' the one for Shaylyn's teacher because she happens to live in the same apartment building as my little sister and we were LITERALLY in the neighborhood. I made sure I explained to Shaylyn's teacher's hubby that my sister lived in the building so we seemed maybe just a little bit less psycho.

So here we go:

* We bought plain jars/vases. I then used my handy dandy Cricut and cut out the words "You Make School Sweet" in vinyl. I then added a little red vinyl apple to each jar. (Had to have the apple, right?) I then tied a different colored ribbon on each jar.

* We then bought a few things of candy to go into the jars. Tanis made this part of the gift easy. He told me that his teacher really liked yellow laffy taffy, so I bought laffy taffy and decided to make each teacher a 'color coded' jar. Tanis' teacher had yellow, Shaylyn's had green and Lex's had purple. (They were the colors in the laffy taffy bag). I then added some mints and 100 grand candy bars.

* I had the kids write little notes in three categories: I ENJOYED _______, I'LL REMEMBER ________, THANKS FOR ____________.


* I made each teacher a card following this card made by KWerner.


* Inside the card we left this message. (My effort to bring the candy we chose into the gift...)


* The finished product.



THANKS SO MUCH TO ALL TEACHERS OUT THERE. YOU DO AN AMAZING JOB!

What Happens Next...

I Was A Senior Hottie (Eh, Then Again....Maybe Not)

So my friend at Utah Mom's Life happened across this blog hop and I decided to jump aboard. And I'm probably going to go overboard on pictures, but this is fun - right?

So this is my Senior Year photo:



What? It doesn't look like a real 'Senior Year' photo? That's because it's not. My mom decided it was much cheaper for her to take a few kids at a time to Sears Portrait Studio (With coupons in hand), than to pay whatever company the school hired. But, if you want a 'real Senior photo', here you go, taken right from the year book:


Here's a few facts about Senior Year...

* I was NEVER a morning person

(See, I told you... I'm quite scary in the mornings - still)

* I spent an awful lot of time with some dude named Eric...

* I acted, a bit...Wish I would've done more





* I was in Concert Choir - which I've decided is for those people with even a small bit of talent, but not yet talented enough for Madrigals...(And as a bit of interesting useless history...My 2nd cousin married my Choir teachers daughter) So in the Spring we got to go on a Choir tour to Vegas:

...Can you spot me?...

While in Vegas, that dude Eric and I got hitched.


(Okay, not really...it's was a digital picture thing where they stuck our heads in some premade picture)

After the Choir Competition we headed to Disneyland (It was my first AND only time at Disneyland - SERIOUSLY)

(The dude in this picture is one of Eric's buddies...)

* I was also in Lit Mag. Which was our school's poetry/writing book. It was seriously one of the greatest 'clubs' I've ever belonged to.


(I'm totally rocking the scrunchie and those girls that are hugging are sisters, just so you know...)

* Graduation sucked...End of story. But here's some awesome pics of it for you to enjoy!





And that my friends is me, in all of my Senior 'hotness'... And truth be told I much more enjoy these photos of my Senior hotness than I do of the photos of all my mommy hotness.

Now if any of you would like to be as brave, all you gotta do is do it and link on up!!!

What Happens Next...