Riley Gets Ready

I had all of the boys tucked into bed and was just going to kick back when Riley sneaks upstairs.

"Mom, it's time for me to do my April Fools trick!" he whispered. Then he tip-toed into the kitchen and put the bag of Life cereal into the box of Pops cereal and vice-versa. "Shannon's going to be FOOLED!"

Yeah... Shannon's going to cry and get mad and refuse to eat breakfast. And that will just be a great start to a wonderful day.

Another Fun Morning...

Please Note: If this entry remains unfinished, it's because my house just blew off the face of the earth.

I had a ball-point pen explode in my clothes dryer this morning, and reliable internet data suggested using either a magic eraser, fingernail polish remover, or hairspray to remove the ink.

I started with the magic eraser and that didn't do a whole lot.

Then I grabbed the hairspray. I sprayed it on, scrubbed with a wet cloth, and sprayed on some more. Left the room to breathe. Came back again, sprayed on more hairspray, scrubbed with a wet cloth, and left the room to breathe. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Naturally I got a bit lightheaded after continuously sticking my head in a dryer full of hairspray. Soon I was having some serious flashbacks to when my mother used to tease her hair six inches high and lock it into place with 1/2 a can of Aqua Net; talk about killer fumes! My sisters will attest to this.

Anyhow, two hours into the cleaning process, I grabbed a new cloth and set to work. I forgot to dampen it, but figured oh well. Wouldn't you know it, with a little (LOT) of hairspray, elbow grease and a dry cloth, that ink popped right up! I'm running a load of damp rags through the dryer right now to see if the remaining ink will bleed or not.

In the meantime, I'm staying as far away from that dryer as possible and wondering just how long would it take for everything to combust once the dryer gets good and hot?

In the Background

It's been a pretty dull week with sick kids on and off and me recovering from a little 'procedure.' To entertain themselves while I was out of commission, the boys have been having fun changing the background on my computers. Here's a couple of my favorites:

The last one is titled, "LISTEN UP, MOM!"

Morbid

Shannon brought this little diddy home from school today. At least he was being realistic.

It says, "If I was 100 years old I wood die and stay dead."

The cemetary is priceless, but what really made me giggle was the teacher drawing the unhappy face and remarking, "So sad." And then topping it off with a big fat star.

Cards

I grabbed the mail today and noticed a card addressed to me from my parents. I started rolling through the calendar in my head, wondering what the special occasion was. (Oh, crap, their anniversary is tomorrow, and I didn't send a card! Bad daughter!) But still, why would they send ME a card for THEIR anniversary?

Well, I opened up the card and laughed my butt off. (Not literally, that would only be too easy.) Anyhow, it was a St. Patrick's Day card that can really only be appreciated by an Irish Catholic. It went like this:

An Irish Lass returns home after 5 years away and her dad is furious! He screams, "Where the heck have you been??!"

"Well Daddy, I became a prostitute."

"What?" he yelled. "Get out of my house! You've shamed your family!!"

She sobs, "OK, Daddy, but before I go, here are keys to a brand new Porsche for you, a diamond necklace for mum, and a check for $250,000."

"What? Where did all this come from?" he asks.

"I told you, I became a prostitute."

"A PROSTITUTE??" he says... "Come here and give yer Daddy a big hug... I thought ye said, 'A PROTESTANT.'"

If you didn't get it, you're just not Irish. Oh, and by the way, Happy Anniversary Dad and Mom. Sorry I didn't get YOU a card.

Signatures

When I was a kid I used to love writing my name over and over. Print, cursive, great big bubble letters, any surface, any writing tool. One surface in particular used to drive my mother crazy, but it's amazing how cool a signature looks scratched out in dust. My kids have this talent, too, it appears...

The words on top of my printer read, "Anna (underlined twice and followed by a smiley face,) Hi Shan, (peace sign,) Riley.

Grandma will be so proud. And utterly embarrassed at how dusty her daughter's house is, after all, she was raised better than that.

Bikers for Babies 2004

I've messed around with my blog layout, and as you can see, I've added a picture to my title bar. This picture was the advertisement for the 2004 Kansas City Bikers for Babies March of Dimes event, and Corey is the boy in the middle with the blue hat.

Corey was the 'poster boy' for this event, and somehow Ken and I, with Corey in tow, were deemed worthy to give a speech to thousands of bikers and tell Corey's story on live TV. Sadly, Ken froze up and I ended up having to do all of the talking. Regardless, the bikers were the REAL stars of the day, raising record amounts of money for the March of Dimes and entertaining fans who lined up along the highways for miles to watch the huge ride.

PS - Thanks, Mom, for getting the picture formatted!

Why I haven't been blogging...

Too busy! Of course you know about my trip to San Antonio and how nice it was. Before that our family and my sister Shannon went to Kalahari for the weekend, and it went something like this:

Shannon swimming.

Riley holding his breath.

Corey in the little kid area.

The family (Aunt Shannon makes this a much better portrait...)

We had a day to recover from Kalahari and hang out with that crazy Aunt Shannon:

Aunt Shannon, Corey, and Shannon.

...and then there was five days in San Antonio:

Lauren, Carol and I again.

...and then returning to Michigan so the boys could get to really know Aunt Shannon up close and personal:

Shannon, Riley and Corey show Aunt Shannon how we do it.

My two favorite Shannons.

Payback for all the times Aunt Shannon used to push me around...

The rest of the week I was generally just trying to keep the boys (and Aunt Shannon) entertained and out of trouble. Aunt Shannon was pretty entertained by Guitar Hero (Medium level in less than a week!) but found some trouble in the neighborhood when a pit bull wanted to play while she was out jogging. She's fine, and I hope animal control took care of the fact that two pit bulls were running loose in my neighborhood.

The boys, well, they were somewhat entertained by Aunt Shannon, but after a few days found the big mud patch in the backyard to be even more fun. I caught them throwing shovels full of mud at my neighbor's fence and another neighbor's shed and Mommy was HOT! I walked them to both houses to make apologies, and we wasted a beautiful 1/2 hour learning how to scrub mud off of a fence.

"It's gonna rain tomorrow, why do we have to clean it?" asked Riley.

Shannon was smart and didn't ask any questions.

I dropped Aunt Shannon off at the Detroit airport at some ridiculous hour this morning and got home two hours later to find my little Shannon home complaining of an earache. Then Aunt Shannon called to say they were having all kinds of issues with her flights (broken, delayed, full, transferred... she's currently stuck in Minneapolis with another delay, and hopes to make it to Lincoln by 2:00 AM via South Sioux City. Ugg!) And now I'm going to bed!

The Rest of the Story

Okay, so the first few days in San Antonio we secured an apartment for Shannon and did all of that crazy relocation stuff and since it was in the 80's and 90's, we laid out and got some sun. Saturday was my day to reunite with my former neighbor and best gal Carol, who left me behind to fend for myself in Michigan almost three years ago. (She will soon be Shannon's neighbor as they will be living less than a mile away from each other come April. Twice the reason to visit!)

Shannon, Me, Lauren and Carol

By the way, on this day, (on a boat on the Riverwalk, no less,) it was freezing. Freezing! It couldn't have been warmer than 65 degrees, which isn't bad for K'zoo but not so good for my mini-vacation in San Antonio.