My Fish

I about fell over the other day when someone referred to Mason as a "fish". To think at the beginning of the summer he was a screaming mess when it came to the water. I can't believe the progress he's made this year. It seems like every time we go he gets a little braver and does something new. Like jumping into the water by himself.

Here's Mason and Mia floating. (The picture of them holding hands and floating isn't as good)

and here they are jumping off Grandpa's shoulders into the pool.

Mia usually likes to spend her time getting dive sticks.




I did forget to mention yesterday that I did make it back to my car (mostly anyway) after dropping Mia off before I started bawling.

First Day of Kindergarten

Well due to poor scheduling 6 months ago.... I just didn't realize the date at the time. Mia and I had our dentist appointments this morning. Hers was actually at 11am. Thank goodness her teeth are great and it went quick since I then took her home to have lunch then drive her to school for the first day. She has been sooo excited for the past week so today it was only a little bit of a surprise when she tried to wake me up at about 6:30am. This from the girl that usually sleeps until at least 8:30-9am. Here she is in the front of her school:

I parked in the front so I could take some pictures out front. Then I walked her to the Kindergarten playground in the back (where I'm to drop her off) where she waits until the her teacher comes to get the class.

and here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Thornhill.

Mason and I then went to run some errands and it was a nightmare. While Mason is usually great when separated from Mia........ today gave me an insight for the next few months. The problem is he is still into skulls and skeletons. Since the last few weeks in August the stores have begun the Halloween season. So no matter what the store he spies something he wants ie. a skeleton cup, placemat, rug, bag of bones, etc. Then when I don't but his heart's desire I get the crying. Today resulted in full out screaming, crying, kicking and hitting (as I dragged him out).

Then we picked Mia up from school and of course I had to snap a few more pics.

Mia ran over to our neighbor, Niki, to tell her that she went to school. Niki asked Mason what he did while Mia was gone and Mason replied, "I threw a fit in the store." She looked at me as in really? I shook my head yes. She says, "Well, at least you're honest about it." If only he sounded a little guilty or sorry about it. It was just so matter of fact. When Mike came home later, I said, "Mason, tell Daddy what you did while Mia was in school." Mason- "I threw a fit in the store."

I'll be counting down the days until Halloween is over.

Feast or Famine

That's what it is with my posting. It seems like the last couple of weeks have been crazy. The outside pool at our gym is being drained Monday so we've been going every day for the last two weeks. I feel like we're living on borrowed time so we took advantage of every day left. Not to mention I still have to run errands ie. grocery store, farmer's market, post office, library, etc. and with the added appointments like school open houses we are constantly on the go. Mia is so excited about starting Kindergarten, me too! As excited as I am for her I know I'm going to be doing the ugly cry all the way home after I drop her off. I'm planning to get some pictures but I'm guessing the teacher isn't going to want someone's mom following them in the classroom the first day. What do you mean the crazy crying lady with the camera is distracting the kids?

Anyway time to go get ready since I have a doctor's appt. this morning, need to finish folding laundry, pack the family's clothes to go to the in-laws, etc. I think my first break that I get when the kid's are in school at the same time will be spent just sitting on the couch taking a breather. It's wishful thinking anyway....

INSTALLING A HUSBAND

For lack of something better to post....as I'm too lazy to write something long at the moment and still haven't downloaded from my camera... I'm posting the following "joke-mail".

Dear Tech Support,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attentio n 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as:
NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.
Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
What can I do?
Signed, Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE, First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.
Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.
If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications; Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. However, remember that overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1 Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.
Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)
In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.
In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.
We recommend : Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7
Good Luck Babe!
Tech Support

Jim Gaffigan - Religion

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I first saw this on Oprah and was inspired. I posted the full lecture not because anyone visiting my blog would want to watch a video for over an hour but so I could easily find it later.

I was crying again watching the piece on him tonight on TV. I too wept tears for a man I never met.

The infamous duck story

My friend's son Brandon thought this story was funny anyway. We were at our Moms and Tots playdate at the park and Mia comes running over with a grasshopper that she had caught. I was telling the other moms how Mia just loves to pick up insects and animals. Last Sunday we found a Praying Mantis in our driveway and Mia of course had to scoop him up. She wasn't allowed to keep him though as I hadn't seen a Praying Mantis in a long time therefore they're special. I also told them how the last time we were at Dutch Village Mia just walked up to a duck and picked it up. Mia wasn't believing us that ducks don't like to be picked up and walked around with him for what seemed like a really long time. A long time for me was probably an eternity for the duck.

Mia's last day of tumbling

Mia insisted on wearing her bathing suit on the last day of class. I tried my hardest but could not talk her out of it. I then made her wear underwear under her bathing suit since I didn't think a bathing suit would give "good coverage" during stretches. Her underwear of course stuck out the bottom the whole time. I assure you if Mia should decide she wants to continue with tumbling or dance (and I can afford it) then we will buy her some new leotards.

Some pics from Mia's class.

Mia and Mason with their teachers, Missy and Anna Thompson at Champion Gymnastics.

Mason's last day of Tumbling

Both kids really enjoyed Tumbling so tomorrow will be Mia's pics. Since it was their last day (last Thursday) they got to go downstairs to the gym area for some special fun after they were finished upstairs. They got to hang and fall into a foam pit, fly like Peter Pan in the tramp room and jump down a long trampoline.

Here they are stretching.

and here is a little bit of the floor exercises.

In the middle of the upstairs is the "castle house". The kids enter through the tunnel and it's a 2-story fun house. The kids always get to play for the last 5-10 minutes of the class.

Mason went flying second in the Tramp room. He was so excited that he couldn't contain himself while Miss Anna was strapping him in the harness.

Captain Jack


Ever since Halloween last year Mason has had a fascination with skulls and skeletons. I had bought him a skeleton t-shirt and his wardrobe has since expanded to at least 5 shirts. He is now into pirates as he associates pirates with skeletons. So on any given day he is dressed as either a pirate or a Harley biker or both.

The shirt he happens to be wearing when we went to the mall a few weeks back was the shirt that was purchased as a bribe for not screaming in swim class. So we go into the Disney store and he sees all the "Pirates of the Caribbean" stuff..... I kind of like him with dreads.

Back to the beach

We went back to the beach Saturday and it was windy! I was a little disappointed as I thought Mason would have done more "swimming" had the lake been calm but both kids still had a great time jumping the waves and body surfing. The whole time I had that Seinfeld line going through my head. The downside of being at the beach on a windy day is that you can't really sit down with a book and relax. You're constantly watching to make sure your kids haven't been swept away.

Now Mason asks to go to the beach at least a couple times a day. It really is nice having the beach just down the road. Sometimes I take it for granted but then realize at times I am living the "good life". We woke up...I made breakfast and sat around leisurely reading the paper, got dressed and took the kids to a birthday party, went to the craft fair in the park, went out to lunch with Mike (sushi, by ourselves!), beach and ordered pizza for dinner. A great day by "mom" standards.

Beach progress

When we were up in Manistee for the July 4th holiday we went to the beach and I figured that would be the time when Mason would venture into the water. I thought with his sister and his cousins swimming that would be the time for him to go. Nope. He wouldn't go near the water. The next week we went to the beach down the road from our house and he started playing in the water. He never ventured in pretty far but he started jumping the waves and once he fell down he would lay down in the shallow water. I was amazed that in just a week he had made that change.

We also started swim class that next week at an indoor pool and he was about 50/50. Half the time he was screaming/crying with a death grip on his teacher's bathing suit or he was OK to make it without screaming in the class for a small bribe (a new skull t-shirt). He never did ENJOY the class and we'll leave it at that.

We went to visit Mike's parents again last weekend and pretty much spent ALL our time at the pool. Mason was warming up to swimming (with a death grip on you), jumping off the side of the pool (to you) and going underwater on the steps. Pretty much where he has always been for skill but starting to get a little braver.

Today we went to the beach again and the sand was so stinking hot on the walk down the dune that I literally thought we had burned our feet. The kids were crying (I was almost too). We went straight for the water to cool our feet off. I then started setting our stuff down, got my chair out, started reading... when I look up and see Mason wading pretty far out in the water. I bring out his swimmies and tell him he can't go that far out unless he's wearing them. He hasn't really worn them in the water before so he instantly starts putting up a fight and whining. After some discussion (and I believe a threat to throw him in the lake) he agrees to put them on. After they're on he's standing there just scowling at me and I say, "well, go try them out". He stomps off still scowling and after a few minutes I see him smiling. I return to my beach chair and look out to see him swimming and floating! Next thing you know I have to get up every few minutes to yell out to Mia AND Mason that they're going too far out and need to swim closer to shore. What? When Mike got done with work he met us at the beach. I saw him coming down the dune and pointed to Mason who had taken off running back into the water. He wanted to show Daddy how he could swim and proceeded to swim out into the water. I think Mike was a little shocked seeing how that only last week if you showed Mason a noodle/inner tube/etc. he would have just started screaming. We've made big progress this summer and I can't wait to go back to the beach again.

Playing catch up

Here is Mia with her prizes for the coloring contest: a big cookie and a strawberry Italian soda. She was in such a great mood that she even gave Mason her cookie and shared her soda.

I tried to post the link to the local paper with the picture of the kids but alas I've come up empty.
We went up to Manistee and spent the 4th with most of Mike's family. It was a nice time filled with lots of beach time, pool time and good food. Every year we try to get a pic of all the cousins together so here is one.

Mike's sisters and us took turns with the meals so his mom could relax. It was our attempt to get her out of the kitchen and hang out. If we got her out of the kitchen then she started cleaning. It's hard to break out of set habits. Fortunately or unfortunately....cooking and cleaning is something that's very easy for me to walk away from.

While Mia and Bailey are like "Ebony and Ivory". When I look family pics that include me...I'm like the Asian exchange student in the class photo of the yearbook and I hear that song from Sesame Street running through my head...One of these things is not like the others...... I don't think Mia looks as Asian as I do but everyone always tells me she is my "mini me". I'm pretty smitten with her so I guess I'll take that as a compliment and let her deal with it when she's older.

Where are the videos?

Posted a couple of things from Youtube and then realizing they're not showing up on the blog. What? I've done it before......

Anyway, I've been super busy running the kids around. This morning I'm waiting for the water heater guy so who knows how much time that's going to eat up. I'll post if I get more time.

The "other" VBS

It's no secret that was a little disappointed with how VBS was run this year at my church. This was Mia's 2nd year at the "other" church's VBS. The other church is CRC and while some people may be offended that a Catholic family sends their child to a CRC church, I have no problem with it. This VBS is so organized and the music is phenomenal. They build their own set, have their own band, their own singers and the Pastor leads it all. Here's a view of what I see when I pick her up.

I'm still blown away by the organization... you get a newsletter at the end of every day, there are pictures added every day to their site and of course a DVD to purchase. There's pretty much been 600 kids every day.

Lot's of stuff to post through the week as usual but too lazy and no pictures. I keep saying I'll post that later and then don't.

Mia's Mini Me

OK, didn't add the bow to the pettiskirt because I discovered I suck at making big bows. I thought since I can make hairbows just tying a bow for a skirt will be easy. Not! I did however make a pettiskirt for her doll with the left over scraps. It's kind of short and I was NOT going to attempt that last ruffle in mini size. Mia was thrilled with her little look alike. When I posed the question "where will Mia where this?" Apparently the answer was: to walk to Walgreens pushing her doll in a stroller wearing the same skirt. She even picked out the bowflops I made to finish off her outfit. Aren't we fancy. I keep mulling over making another one and doing the double ruffle, changing up the color and trying to sell them. I'm afraid I'd just be wasting a lot of time though.

I got a phone call this afternoon from the newspaper telling me Mia won 3rd place for a coloring contest. We need to go to the Alpenrose tomorrow at 2pm so she can get her picture taken for the paper and get a prize. I'm guessing that not a lot of kids entered. Her coloring started off good but then there was a lot of black and scribbling. When she brought it to me to send in I said: Mia what's this? It looks good here but this just looks like scribble. Mia: Yeah, well I had to hurry to finish it up so I could be done with it. So I sent it off anyway. Funny!

Also to add to the fun of my life I discovered that Mia left the freezer door ajar last night when she got her dessert out. I discovered this around noon today. All the ice cream, Popsicles, etc. are garbage and some of my meat thawed. Guess, I have a lot of cooking to do tomorrow.

My go at the Pettiskirt

I saw some pettiskirts at a local upscale children's store and noticed they sell for $80. The matching tank top was another $80. I thought maybe I can make one so I found some free instructions on Ehow. I did change them a little bit and the skirt itself is "easy peasy". I don't have a ruffler foot for my sewing machine so I gathered by hand and doing that last ruffle was a b****! You can see what the boutique petti's look like here. For some reason I couldn't get that good of a picture. I still need to add the ribbon though so I'll try taking another pic of the finished product. All in all I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. If I do another one I think I'll do the last ruffle in a contrasting color to give it more pop. Now....where is Mia supposed to where this?

Smile!

Haven't posted forever. I seem to get in a pattern of posting every day and then not for weeks. It's not like I don't have stuff going on... visit to my parents, Mike's 40th birthday, visit to the doctor (Mia), visit to Mike's parents....plus the usual chaos that is my life. I like to have pictures when I post so if I think of what I want to post and don't have a picture or just was to busy to upload from my camera... I don't. The latter is usually the problem.

A few days ago I got a letter from the kid's modeling agency basically informing me they are going away from the composite "head book" and going to digital with the website. I didn't get their pictures done last year thinking I was going to just get out of it. They don't get that much work. In yesterday's newspaper there was a big article about another local girl that models with the same agency. So out of the blue about five minutes ago I decide to go to the website to see if they've put any of the models pictures there and if so to see what they look like.
There's Mia on the homepage. Shock! I don't think it was her most recent modeling picture either. Now do I keep them in or not?

Mia's Sherbert is now Mia's Sunshine

As I stated before I just wasn't crazy on the name "Sherbert". So I kept trying..... how about: honey, Riley, um.... cinnamon, paprika (anything orange, yellow)....amber? No, No and No. Mia wasn't having it. Then the other night Mason was goofing around, "Good night honey"...."Good night pumpkin"...."Good night sunshine."
Mia: Sunshine? I like sunshine. OK, we'll name her sunshine.

Mason is very excited that he came up with the name and Mia gives him the props for it. Sunshine?..... How come I didn't think of that? I used to sing both of them "you are my sunshine" all the time when they were babies and I didn't think of it. Funny.

In other news, Mia had a swollen foot Saturday morning from what appears to be a mosquito bite. I'm talking swollen like her foot almost looked like it was going to pop. We tried everything Benedryl, Motrin, topical extra-strength Benedryl, soaking it, ice.... nothing helped. So last night I say, "If it's not gone tomorrow we're going to the doctor". Really, it's not like the swelling went down and came back..... it never went down. So last night after her bath the swelling finally went down. It looks better this morning too. The mosquitoes are HORRIBLE here. We've been holing up inside because of them. Even with repellent or citronella candles nothing seems to work. Let's hope we survive the weekend without looking like some kind of pincushion.

The Great Bible Reef

That was the theme for Vacation Bible School this year. They lowered the age to 3 this year so I signed Mason up. He stayed 3 out of the 5 days. Hey, I'll take that ....at least I got to grocery shop by myself.