4th of July

Drive-In Tradition

Every year we go to the Drive-In. I love the drive in! I love getting to watch two movies back to back and not worrying about having to get the kids home to bed. They take their sleeping blankets and we take out a seat or two from the back of the van. We take pop-corn in a grocery bag and yummy grapes or other fruit. Then we get there, park the car backwards, pop the hatch and lay on the floor of the van eating pop-corn and watching movies. The two younger ones usually fall asleep before the middle of the second movie and when it is all over, we drive home in peace. (exhausted of course!) We haven't made it there yet this summer because they haven't shown anything the kids could see without nightmares so I am now crossing my fingers for a kid friendly show so that I won't be forced to break our tradition! Here is the front of our drive in, notice the movie titles and you'll see what I mean. Cross your fingers for us, OK?!!

Blueberry Pickin'

One of the most fun days this summer was spent with my pal Becky, her kids and my own favorite Bubble Gum Girl. We went across the river to pick BLUEBERRIES! We all had so much fun. First off, we all rode in one van together so we got to talk and laugh which was wonderful in itself when you don't get much "Girl Time". We got there and the girls took off toward the blueberry field. Here is a cute shot:

Of course the girls decided once we started picking that we were going to have a contest between the mommies and the daughters on who could pick more blueberries. We each had our own bucket and they let Em be on my team. (The littlest one and apparently also the biggest eater!) I think those girls knew what they were doing when they assigned the teams cause this is what my bucket looked like when I handed it to Em to carry: Here is what it looked like when I turned back to add more: Hey Em, where did all of Sweetie's blueberries go? Funny huh?!! Em's mouth was stuffed full! Pretty cute! All in all, we had a great time!

Back to School Blues

It is that time again! I have to tell you that I hate when my kids have to go back to school. I love summer and I love having my kids around and I LOVE being home with them!! Home schooling is looking better and better all the time. I had a wonderful two weeks getting up early and having quiet time with God all to myself and then having the kids come down and join me. Each day they would ask me to read a specific part of the bible and I was happy to oblige! We read about Moses, Esther, Jesus & the Sermon on the Mount and the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians. Quinn also memorized Psalm 23:4 after he had asked me about it. (Love my kids getting into God's word!!) We had such a peaceful morning time! My favorite was reading Proverb 11 (on Aug 11, of course) and that was the same day we read Galatians and putting Proverb 11:30 together with Galatians 5:22-23. Go ahead and check it out for yourself. Cool huh?!?! Well, now it feels like all he** has broken loose trying to get it all together and get them out the door to school on Thurs and Fri. Yipes! Where did all our peace go? I am going to have to figure out how to work that back in to our routine. I am secretly hoping Q's football practice will move up a half hour SOON. The we can get him into bed at a reasonable time. (and he can wake up earlier) We did decide to get dinner on the table by 4:30P for the football/soccer/cross country season so that we can all eat together. That was a good move. (Pat on the hubby's back for that idea!) That is much better than eating at 8:30PM! Oh, and Bubble Gum girl is going to be a cheerleader for Quinn's football team! How cute! They even have uniforms! (Yes, this may kick my Cheermania back into overdrive but I will try to stay out of it.)(For this season at least. All bets are off for next year though!) Hope everyone else has a smooth transition back into school!

Riiiggghhht.

Well,

Casi (my gorgeous, wonderfully funny and highly intelligent teen-aged daughter) has been out of town at the beach with one of her best friends for a while. Since she was gone I, yet again, could not figure out how to get onto my blog. I know, many of you are now switching channels because seriously, how hard can it be to remember how to get into your own blog to post?!!? Like duh momma-san! OK but obviously since you are reading this, I got on right?!! Apparently I need the Cassidy polar opposite of my notorious computer X-Man power in order to even out the universe! (OK. at least the computer universe.) Anywhoo, I call Casi out of her room where she is undoubtedly unpacking and CLEANING AND STRAIGHTENING her room, and our conversation goes like this:

I (Sweetie) say: "Cas, I can't get onto my blog. It won't let me on!"

Casi: " Well, do you remember your password?"

S: "Yeah, it is ......."

C: "Ok, well what's your Google account user name log-in?"

S: Pause. Think to self; my what? did she just speak English?

C: "Your email mom! What is the email you use for your blog account?"

S: "Oh! My email! I just wasn't sure which one you wanted." (As if I could handle more than one email account without spontaneously combusting my computer and myself! Ha ha ha ha! Good come back cover up though, right?)

S: "I just use my regular email for this account." (Like I have another account somewhere other than the Bank! ha!)

C: "OK, let's put that in." ( She puts it in) "Now put in your password." She hits enter.

BLOGGER WELCOME SCREEN POPS UP!

S: "Yeah, but see, it wasn't doing this for me when I was trying to get on it while you were gone."

C: "Uuuhhhh...." She looks at me like I just grew a fourth head. (As opposed to the three that apparently I ALREADY had.)

S: "No REALLY!! I did everything the same only it wasn't letting me in, I swear!"

"Really! Why are you looking at me like that? You saw me sitting here 20 minutes ago trying to mess with this contraption!"

C: "Mom, contraption is a word for 50 or 60 year olds. If you say you are 36 then you want to stay away from the word, 'contraption'." "It is a computer. Plain & simple. A computer."

Actually she didn't say that, I just read it in her eyes as she stared at me in unbelief and walked away. She did say one last thing before she closed the door to her room(to get back to the cleaning I'm sure!):

C: "Riiiggghhht."

Thunder, Lightening and Rain - Oh My!!

The boys are out for the weekend Father - Son camping trip so I had my friend Amy & her daughter spend the night with us. Of course, we had a severe storm warning with the possibility of tornadoes - Yikes!! We had lots of thunder and lightening and HEAVY rain but no tornadoes - Yay!! Us girls had a great time. We played a fun game and watched Dan In Real Life. It was a good movie. Amy is totally Italian so she whipped up a roux and made a yummy creamy mushroom pasta for us! We love to cook - And Eat! And since we like to eat, we had Casi make up a yummy buffalo chicken pizza - Casi is the Pizza Pro now! She was so sweet, she made the little girls a plain cheese pizza too. We devoured it all! Riley and her daughter stayed up until 1AM!! I had to make them stop talking and go to bed so I could! Now by the time I went to bed, I looked at Amy and she was dead asleep, flat on her back - she looked like she was in a morgue! It was so funny! I started giggling so hard I had to hold my mouth so I wouldn't bust out and wake her up. Anyway, there is something to be said for people who live with such a strong sense of Faith that they can sleep on their back completely relaxed. Most people sleep curled up or turned on their sides, like they are shutting out the rest of the world. Not Amy!! When she is done for the day, she is DONE and she puts it all into God's hands and signs OUT!! I have a lot to learn from her in that area.

Pre-Alzheimer's + X-Men Power = Funny Trouble

OK. so I totally forgot to write down any information about my blog. Most importantly, my user name. Second most importantly, my password. Geez- that made it really hard to:

1.) Find my blog this morning
2.) Sign into my blog this morning
3.) Not shut the computer down or "freak it out" in some way.

It seems my powers increase with my frustration level. Had a few screen flickers when I started realizing that when I stay up past 10pm that I don't really remember what I had done the night before!! (Who needs alcohol??!!!) Anyway, I was getting frustrated and leaning too close to the screen and it flickered on my. It was OK though, once I backed away, it stopped. I know, that sounds really weird and I can't really explain it other than to tell you that I can't wear a watch either. Those freak out too. Now, if I could just harness this power...I could rule the world!! (Add Maniacal Laugh here) In all honesty, I would prefer to be able to use the computer without breaking it!
Of course, my sweet hubby who is almost always patient with me and my computer problems was not here for me to call upon but I know he will be proud to find out that I figured it out all by myself!
So now I come to the point of getting on the blog this AM - I wanted to post pictures of our trip to the Sunshine State! My sister's daughter got to have a makeup night and chose blue eye shadow and red lipstick - too bad my beautiful French sister in law couldn't come down for the party, she would have laughed her head off!! My mom would not participate which is hilarious since she lets the grand kids do everything else to her. (She would probably even let them experiment with Super Glue if they asked!!!) Anyway, here are some great pix!