$3.99

Yeah, that's what gas is going for in Michigan today.

A Little Bit of Everything

First of all, Happy Mother's Day! I hope everybody out there got what they wanted for their special day. I, personally, had a pretty great day! The boys made a genuine effort to get along and behave, and even made an attempt at cleaning. Shannon drew me another wonderful card while Riley made me a card with my scrapbook supplies, pictures, and lots of glue. Corey picked up the living room with a lot of help from Shannon while Riley cleaned up the dishes and got Corey dressed for the day. Riley even presented me with a great coupon book he'd made, promising such things as cleaning his room without being asked, behaving so I could take a bubble bath, and changing a diaper for me. (Corey is still not pooing on the potty, so this works!)

Ken made my day extra special by getting me an 80 GB IPod, (I've been wanting one ever since I bought my Dad an IPod Shuffle for Christmas.) I would have been happy with the Shuffle or the Nano, but Ken thought this one was the best deal for the price, and I'd have to agree. I love the dang thing, I've already loaded 512 songs onto it and 1248 pictures! Tomorrow I'll be running to the library to grab a bunch more CD's to transfer. I want to load the heck out of it, even if I could never possibly listen to the 20,000 songs it can potentially hold!

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Oh, yeah, I dyed my hair back to brown the other day, and had it chopped back into some pretty serious layers. It's similar to the original style I had when I first whacked off all of my hair three years ago. I like it and my girlfriend Heather noticed the change right away. Ken, however, took over 24 hours to notice it, and that was after I brought it to his attention. "Looks the same to me," he said. Maybe it does? You be the judge:

Current: Hair shorter, brown, layered, IPod. Old: Blonde, one length, no IPod.

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Today we dug into our spaghetti and meatball dinner and then Shannon reminded us to say grace. We stopped, did our 'Father, Son, Holy Spirit,' said grace, and 'Father, Son, Holy Spirit' to finish the prayer. After we'd resumed eating, Shannon asked if I could sing On Top of Spaghetti for him since it's one of his favorite songs. I said, "Okay, let's sing it... On top of Spa...." I looked over at Corey as I began and he was wanting to sing along but he had to finish making the sign of the cross for this 'prayer' too.

It was really cute, but even more impressive than the fact that we had a new dinner time prayer was the fact that Corey made the sign of the cross correctly, touching forehead, heart, right and left in order. Until now it's been forehead, chest, forehead, left, left, right or something along those lines. My baby is growing up!

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Finally, I have some pictures from the boys messing around yesterday. Shannon and Corey were getting along great in the backyard as I was finishing up with mowing the lawn. Shannon would straddle the slide and Corey would slide through underneath his legs. It was great seeing them having fun together, and I only cringed a little whenever they collided and both went flying down the slide instead.

Vindication ...or "I'm not going crazy!"

Blogger, the service that I use to write this on, just made an announcement:


Blogger Status

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Some users may be seeing star ratings on their posts without having opted in to this new feature. This is an experimental feature that was accidentally enabled on some users' blogs. We're currently working to remove star ratings on all affected blogs. In the future, you'll be able to choose to opt-in to this feature; it won't appear automatically.Update: The Star Rating feature has been disabled for the moment.

Posted by Siobhan at 18:35 PDT

They really did exist, and I really didn't put them there! Thanks again to Steve for your help, and Sister Donata, I did not bump my head!

Surprises

It's that time of the year again, when Hallmark ran out of things to produce, so they made up some holidays. This week, in case you didn't know, (and our PTO knows, thank you very much,) is Teacher Appreciation Week. Throughout the week students could bring in flowers for their teachers and insert them into a beautiful PTO-purchased vase, resulting in a beautiful bouquet at the end of the week. Now, although I am the PTO Secretary, I usually forget about these type of things but this time I remembered. Last night at midnight.

I was out of nearly everything else from milk to razor blades, anyway, so off to the store I went. I found a lot of crazy hand-dyed flowers and took home the brightest little bunch. Then being the cheap person that I am, I split them in two so the boys each had their little bouquet. Hey, if my flower beds had been coming along a little quicker, I wouldn't have had to buy any at all. (Hallmark, move this holiday to the end of May, would you?) I can't help but wonder just how many teachers ended up with vases full of dandelions, myself.

Then, of course, there's Mother's Day this weekend, my favorite arts-and-crafts holiday ever! The school-orchastrated surprises are starting to roll in and Mommy gets to be special for a few minutes each day as the kids come home. Yesterday Shannon surprised me first.

I was waiting in the driveway for him to get off the bus and it was taking him forever. The bus driver rolled his eyes and said, "He's got a surprise, you're not allowed to see." I figured it must be a flower similar to the ones all the other kids on the bus were holding, but I didn't say a word. Shannon made his way down the aisle of the bus and the reason for his lack of speed became clear. He was walking backwards, dragging his jacket and backpack, while cautiously carrying the littlest vase of Shannon-raised marigolds. When he got to the bus steps he continued to walk backwards and tried to go down them, never mind the 18 inch rise. Luckily I convinced him that he could turn around and disembark from the bus safely as I would close my eyes and not peek.

He then ran to the house, making sure I wasn't looking and when I followed him through the door he jumped up, turned around and yelled, "Surprise, I made them for YOU!" He then thrust the flowers toward me and told me all about them. He even painted the vase in colors I would like, he explained. "See, BLUE, your favorite color! And a little yellow too, and now there's green." I smiled and hugged the heck out of him, what a sweet little boy! And he'll never know that I really can't stand the color blue.

Soon Corey arrived home and I went through my routine of scouring his backpack. Inside was a note attached to a cute little tissue-paper butterfly, explaining that Corey made it in therapy today. No mention of Mommy, but I claimed it for myself. I showed it to Corey and asked where it came from. He explained that he made it in school and it was his. So, being the good Mommy that I am, I quickly distracted Corey and took the butterfly away and hid it before he had a chance to ruin it while playing. He may think it's his, but as far as I'm concerned, it's mine!

Magic Stars

Okay........

I'm really not sure what the heck these star ratings are doing on my blog, they just magically appeared. I've hit every Blogger Blog I know of, and nobody else has this annoying addition. I've searched Blogger Help, and there's no mention of this type of thing. I've scanned my layout looking for some kind of widget or other piece of work that might be doing this, but to no avail.

My trusty cousin Steve took a quick look and decided that Blogger must have inserted this widget and that it was safe to use. The rankings weren't my idea, just so you know, as I'd hate for people to think I was all self-important or something.

Scratch

Ken purchases new car: April 30, 2008

Ken finds first scratch courtesy of the boys: May 6, 2008

Wheels

You know, I have been hounding Ken all winter to clean up the garage and make some sense out of it. Well, he finally did something about it, he sold the over-sized van and bought this:

The garage may be messy, but Ken did find a way to make more room in there. About 2 1/2 more feet, with even more room when the bikes aren't parked in front of the car. See how much space is left?

Actually, Ken commutes over 40 miles a day, and with gas sitting at $3.73 per gallon and our previous vehicle only getting 12 - 14 mpg, this purchase was a good decision on many levels. The best part? This is Ken's very first brand new car and it's all his! It's a very small silver Nissan Versa. Ken loves it, and he loves that fact that it is his. I always get the new cars around here, and this time I am more than willing to let him have it.

I need my minivan, I like more than four cylinders, and I'm not a big fan of the back of this particular car. I find that it looks like a Dodge Neon after being rear-ended. See?

Anyhow, we should save money, Ken is happy, and we can stuff more junk in the garage, so this has been a very good thing. Also, no more leaking oil on the garage floor from the Stink-Mobile, my pet name for the van Ken traded-in. You don't want to know where that name came from, but rest assured, I'm glad it's no longer ours.

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Riley also got a new set of wheels; a 20" bicycle. Since it had hand brakes and Riley was a little unsure of this new feature, he decided to finally wear the new bicycle helmet he had received for Christmas. (Bad Mommy, not enforcing the usage of helmets!) What a surprise, along with the helmet there was a brand new pair of knee and elbow pads, too! Riley loved them so much that he wore them even when he was done riding his bike. Riley will be safe in all of his protective gear, sure, but can you say Urkel?

I Forgot...

Oh, yeah, I forgot all about May Day! (This is twice now, I forgot about the entire holiday, and then I forgot to post about it.) It has been just a little hectic around here so I guess I'll forgive myself...

Anyhow, I was reminded of the holiday at about 2:30 in the afternoon and up until that moment, I was hurriedly cleaning the house as guests were due to arrive in less than three hours. I glanced around at the house and determined, "...good enough!" and ran to the store to get supplies for May Day Baskets. They included:

*a 40-count package of cups (it only had 39, what a rip-off!)
*pipe cleaners
*one large bag of popcorn
*one large bag of flavored marshmallows
*one large bag of suckers
*one bag of bubble gum
*one bag of Jelly Belly's

The finished baskets:

I assembled the baskets myself because Riley was still at school and Corey and Shannon were not interested in doing any 'work,' although they did make themselves available to sample the wares. I put together 39 baskets in a little over an hour and we dispersed them after dinner.

Unfortunately, May Day is apparently unheard of in Michigan, but since this is our third year doing them here, we assumed there wouldn't be any glitches or confusion. The concept is simple, you set a basket on a door step, ring the doorbell and run. If the recipient sees you, they may chase you and kiss you. (Sadly, the kiss part has never happened to my boys.) What did happen was...

A lot of explaining to our newer neighbors about just what the heck the baskets were for! We did have a new family from Minnesota who seemed to know exactly what they were, when spotted. Finally we made our way to one of Riley's buddies the next neighborhood over. We were driving slow as one of the side doors on the van was open, and as we approached the house, all eight kids playing in the yard noticed us and started running into the house. (Slow moving unfamiliar vehicle with door open coming to a stop in front of a yard full of kids... either we were an Ice Cream truck or kidnappers, I guess!) Anyhow, I had Riley ring the doorbell and wait for a parent to answer and then explain what we were doing. The mom appeared relieved when she saw Riley (and not the boogie-man) on her doorstep. Very awkward.

However, the deliveries that went off without a hitch looked like this:

Riley. Shannon.

First Communion

Riley

First Communion class. Celebrating with cousins.

Ed and Joanne with Grandchildren. Riley with Godparents.

All done!

Riley made his First Communion today! He was a little nervous, but after a three hour warm-up yesterday I think he was glad for the real thing. The Church did a drawing to determine which family sat in each pew, and we lucked out and were seated three rows behind the children. I managed to hold back my tears numerous times as the Mass went on.

Riley was the second child to enter the church, and he held his candle as far in front of him as he possibly could while slowly making his way down the aisle. Once he got near the front of the Church he started zig-zagging a little as he began scanning the pews for his family. Once he saw us he smiled and made his way up to take his seat. As he later told us, "I had the best seat of all!" (Was this because he was in the very front middle, closest to the Priest? No.) "I was right next to all of the candles!"

He did a great job of sitting still and only had to receive a couple of prompts from the diligent girl that sat beside him. She had to remind him to kneel once, and then had to viciously shake his arm to get him to let go of her hand after the "Our Father." He often turned around to wave or wink at us or his extended family, and only appeared nervous when it was time for him to actually receive the Eucharist.

He was about the eighth (out of 32) to go up and take his communion. They paused in front of their pew as the child before them went, and Riley held his pause a little longer than most. Finally, he approached Father, but stopped about two feet away from him. Father finally encouraged him to come a little closer, and Riley took the communion wafer. Then he paused again, thought about it, and made a dramatic exaggerated sign of the cross before he went back to his seat.

More confident after having survived the Eucharist, Riley bravely went up again as they offered the wine. I was so proud that Riley simply swallowed it and made his way back to his seat without the "Yuck!" grimace that so many of the other children had made. He told us later that the drink didn't taste as good as it did in practice (it was wine this time, not juice,) and mentioned that he would be passing on receiving it in the future. "Besides, that's a good way to get germs," he explained. Good thing it's optional, I guess!

Toward the end of the Mass, after being preoccupied by his cousins, his aunt and his Papa, Corey made his way down the pew to me. Suddenly he realized Riley was missing, and a little whining ensued. I pointed out where Riley was and Corey said a little too loudly, "Riley, you're supposed to be with US in Church." A little explaining and a few distractive measures later, Corey calmed down and found something else to concern himself with.

After Mass we took some family pictures and had some cake and fruit in the Church Hall. Shannon made sure to ruin his fresh white shirt by smooshing raspberries all over the front of it, but now we know he doesn't really like raspberries! Corey, however, ate an entire piece of cake, so I think he is finally on the mend.

While snacking, one of Riley's CCD teachers pointed to an extremely large paper chain that extended all the way across the hall and asked if Riley had told me about it. I replied that I knew all about the chain, completed throughout the school year, in which each link was an item the children in his class were thankful for. The teacher then said, "Yes, but do you realize that Riley completed half of them by himself? He really is such a sweet, good natured kid!" I must say, I am very proud of my boy!

Double Ear Infection

Corey came into my room screaming at about 3:00 this morning, holding his ear. After a little medicine and water, he determined that "it's too cramped in here," and went back to his own bed and slept the rest of the night. He woke up this morning cranky and demanded to be cuddled. After a stretch on Papa's lap, he climbed onto his Dad and started nodding off with him. Soon both were rudely awakened by a rather large amount of vomit, courtesy of Corey. Impressive considering he's been refusing food for over a day. Once the commotion died down, Corey asked if he could go take a nap in his room. Time to call the doctor, Corey is requesting a nap.

It appears he has a double ear infection, but after a little Motrin and a dose of Amoxicillin, he's already back to his old self. Perfect timing because in a little bit we'll be heading out with the cousins for a little bumper-car driving, laser tag and whatever else they have the energy for.