Flat Stanley

Thanks to everyone who helped Sarah complete her excellent Flat Stanley project!  Her Stanley might not have travelled the farthest, but he certainly visited the most places!  

Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You

Ahh...Thanks...I Think

This is why I am Mother of the Year......

I'm the BEST!

In case any of you doubted my awesomeness ...

Click this link NOW!  Read all about me .....

(Thanks, Beth!!)

Happy Early Mother's Day!

My Boy

My boy wears these boots.  

Last year's boots.  

Too-small boots.  

Cook-your-feet-in-the-heat boots.  

Because he thinks they look like Indiana Jones' boots.  

He wants to be Indiana Jones.

Our Sad Horse Show

Sarah had another horse show last weekend.  She was all geared up to ride Sport and have a great time.  She had her eye on the gold ... but, instead, she got 4th place.  She was devastated.  So very sad.  

We tried to tell her that 4th is still good and as-long-as-you-had-fun-and-tried-your-best and blahbiddy blah.  She was not interested.  She wanted to know what she did wrong but no one could tell her.  She was sad.  Sad and mad.  

When we got home she was very quiet and then, finally, she asked me if she could just tell people that this was her first ribbon.  Poor girl.  

I still think she did a great job.

Sarah and her friend Sara -- before the show.

Paige ... ignoring the show.

Sarah on Sport.

Nate crossing his fingers ... hoping for a good result.

Fourth!  Even Nate felt sad.

Look at how sad she looked!  Breaks my heart.

And YOU Said Gambling was Bad!

I took the girls to a Girl Scout mother/daughter dinner on Friday.  It had a groovy flower child theme and lots of pizza ... because, apparently, that's what hippies like to eat.

I remembered that there was a dance while I was sleeping on Thursday night.  We were very NOT prepared.  The kids needed hippie clothes and they also needed to make "SWAPS".  SWAPS are little crafts attached to safety pins that the kids trade (just like the pins at Disney but way less sophisticated).  So, I grabbed some beads and pins and we used the few minutes we had between breakfast and the bus to whip up some dandy SWAPS.  It worked just fine.  

After we finished the SWAPS, I stuck one kid on the bus, one left with a friend for school, and Paige stayed with me.  We went to Target and the party store and found everything we needed to pull off two perfect hippie outfits.  

We had a good time at the party.  The kids got to play and make lots of groovy crafts and I got to chat with my friends.  As an evening wrap-up, they had a raffle.  We bought five tickets and waited to see if they'd call our numbers.  After several wrong-numbers and two almost-in-tears girls, they called one of our tickets!  Oh, joy!  Oh, rapture!  Oh ... the sadness of having two girls wishing for a prize and only ONE ticket called.  Oh ... oh ... oh.  What to do?

Well, for us, 'what to do' was to just wait a minute and find out that we actually had TWO winning tickets!  Oh, joy!  Oh, rapture!  Oh, double happiness!  Oh, whew.

Sarah walked away with a new Webkinz and Paige walked away with a $25 gift certificate.  When we got home, they ran in to show Frank their loot and Sarah said, "And you told us that gambling is bad!  You were WRONG!"

Two Wheels!

Sarah finally learned how to ride a two wheeler earlier this summer.  I already wrote about this ... read below if you are interested.

Now it was Paige's turn.....

Here's Sarah on her new bike....

Last weekend, Frank took paige to the high school parking lot and taught her how to ride, too!  It was very exciting.  Now, we just have to work on Nate and we'll be all set.

This is the parking lot.  Lot's of room, right?

But Paige still found a way to crash into Sarah's bike!

This is Nate entertaining himself with his own shadow.

Here are my little bikers.  So happy.