Good Golly Miss Molly!!!!

Good grief it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I updated this blog. It looks like another epic mega post is in order to get you all up to speed in my life.

It has been an insane several months with a lot of twists and turns.

Here's where you left off.......

February......Sunshine's 6th birthday.

She decided that she wanted to do a cupcake decorating party. So we had all her besties over for some sugar fueled sticky fun.

We decorated cupcakes....

Then came the pinata. Which let me just say right now that little girls wielding a bat hopped up on a sugar rush was a sort of ill thought out plan, but we made it work.When it broke ,the girls all screeched and descended on this poor thing like a pack of vultures. It happened so fast I forgot that I was no longer watching dainty little girls but sugared up fiends delighting in the prospect of candy that was surely waiting for them if only they could strike down this paper mache animal on a rope.
Then just to drive fear into the hearts of her enemies, she felt she needed to wear her victim around for a while. Have I mentioned lately how awesomely weird my kids are ? :)Through it all they all had a great time.

Next we move on to Bug's 9th birthday party in April.

He wanted to have a small party at home but take some friends over to the aquatic park for the day. I like a man with a plan. Simple and defined. I can do that.We opened presents. Then off to the water park we went.It's hard to see, but that streak of lightning coming down the slide there is Bug.
Him hitting the water.Then we came on back and had some root beer float cake. By his request of course.
Moving right along, also in April my friend Erin and I trained for and did a half marathon. It was sort of to round out our Biggest loser challenge we were doing for our gym. We walked it, but still that's a 13.1 mile walk. It was tough to say the least. But because we are who we are we felt compelled to not only do it , but do it in a tu-tu. Because really, why wouldn't you?To read more about my race and see more pictures go here to my other blog. Just so as I am not repeating myself.

Ok....so moving right along we are now into May.

My awesome Rockstar husband took on a huge project through his school. On top of being a straight A student he felt he needed to push himself even more and take on a project for NASA. Yes, that NASA. I'd give you the whole story, but he wrote it all out so nicely in his blog that I'll let him give you the whole back story of it. Go check it out over here. It's ok....I'll wait.

What he didn't mention on his blog is that he was interviewed by a couple different publications and made all kinds of news here at home. Here are a couple pictures from his photo shoot.


We are ridiculously proud of what he has done.

Ok now that you are up to speed as to why he was there, I'll just throw out there that I went with him for (a mini vacation) moral support. So while you got to see the inside of the space center in his blog, I'll show you what I saw that weekend.
This is the outside of the space center where Jason spent the majority of his weekend. I just got to drive past it and get some pictures. In fact, I spent a lot of time just driving around and taking in Texas. I had never been and wanted to see what all it had.
I went through downtown Houston. Nice, but about the same as any downtown of any given city.
I drove down to Galveston and played in the warm 82 degree gulf of Mexico. It was almost too warm. Don't get me wrong here, I am in no way complaining, I loved the warm ocean, it was just so odd seeing that I am so used to the frigid Oregon ocean. It was awfully nice though to get in and play.I saw a whole bunch of oil refineries driving around. That's something you don't get to see here.
But here is where I spent the majority of my time away from my life......Either in my hotel room reading a grown up book uninterrupted with no pictures.
Or here..... choking in the crazy Texas humidity.I spent most of my time alternating between the two. It was a fun 4 days away, but I was more than ready to come home when the time came.

Once we got home, we dove head long into baseball season. Bug was playing on the farm division of little league. He had to try out and was placed on a team where he was one of the best players to sort of stack the team. It did wonders for his self esteem. He had a really good year.Moving along to the year end of Sunshine's ballet and her spring recital. They did a big production of the story of Esther. She was an angel. She had a lot of fun and did a great job. She also loved the backstage environment of getting ready with hair and make-up. It was almost alarming to see these little girls (some 3 and 4 years old) tarted up in full stage make up. Here are a few pictures from that.
So here we are almost ready to wrap up our school year (and this incredibly long blog post) but before we do, we need to properly Graduate Sunshine from her kindergarten class. It has been a fun year but the time has come to move up to all day "big kid" classes.
So that pretty much brings you up to speed. I now see the need to keep on top of updating this as I have spent the better part of my day getting this post up and ready to go.
Also, I did notice that this post is very Bug and Sunshine heavy. Peanut was feeling a little left out so here is a cute picture of him just to level the field.

What the snot?

Ok look I enjoy beer as much as the next Oregonian. We love in the land of the micro brew and I am a big believer in a slice of lemon with my Hefeweizen or even a little lime. But what i discovered the other day at my local grocery store shocked am repulsed me and I felt I needed to share with the class.

I have only 3 words. "Barf me out"

In other news, I have been keeping busy over at another blog that I have been working on for quite a while but have kept under wraps. I figured it is probably time to go public. It is a basic weight loss blog that tracks my progress and frustrations. You may see a side of me that you really didn't care to see and I won't be offended if you don't follow it. I just thought I would let you know what is occupying my time and brain at this very moment. I am on a weight loss war path and just thought that this blog was not the best place to document it. So check it out if you are interested.
http://whosthatfatgirl.blogspot.com/

So until next time peace out.

Who can make the sun shine? Sprinkle it with dew.....

So among some of the responsibilities I have with PTA this year is I am taking care of class parties that involve PTA. I have done a couple of them and what we do is give the kids the choice between snow cones, popcorn or cotton candy. Guess what they usually choose? Cotton candy.
We have a machine at the school, but it is really loud and causes quite a stir amongst the kids that aren't getting a class party. It can get ugly real quick. So this time I opted to bring the machine home and make it all up ahead of time and then just hand out bags of cotton candy. Sounds simple right?
So I bring the machine home get all my stuff together and fire it up in my family room thinking if it makes a mess I can mop it off the hard wood floors. Mind you I have only ever done this outside and never really paid too close attention to the insane mess it stirs up.It seemed like such a great idea in my head. It usually does. I fire it up and instantly sugar chunks and cotton fuzz goes flying in every direction. I immediately turn it off but the damage is done. It is on the walls, ceiling and floor.
We quickly moved the whole works outside and away we went. I got the cotton candy made up and delivered to Sunshine's AM Kindergarten class and everybody was happy.

Of course I spent the next couple of days picking blue sugar chunks out of the drapery.
Just another day in paradise.

The Holidays are over!!

So finally I have had a second to get my act together and put up our holiday pictures. I have been putting them together when I thought I may as well just do it after the New year's eve pictures could go into the mix.

To those of you that were playing the home game, we went to my in-laws for Christmas eve and had a great time as usual. It was just our family pounding down beer dogs and fondue as is our traditional Christmas eve meal in our family.

We then spent Christmas day here at home playing with our new toys. The kids got webkins and spent the day playing online with their new friends as this is a world we have managed to avoid until now. It seems to have quickly turned into an addiction with them.

Then the day after Christmas, we packed it up and went down to the southern Oregon coast to spend Christmas with my mom who is working as a state park camp host down there. So we braved it and went camping in a yurt on the coast in late December. It was something that we could honestly say that we have never done :) It was actually a lot of fun and the yurts were nice and heated. The weather was nice (nice for the coast anyway) and my Mom, Peanut and I were even able to go out for a walk on the beach. It was chilly, but bearable. Rockstar took the older kids over to a skate park in Reedsport which was the closest town. We really did have a great time.

New Year's eve sort of crept up on us. We aren't really big party folk anymore and finding babysitting on a night like New years is near impossible. Luckily most of our friends are in the same boat so we all just got together and let the kids run wild together. We had 3 families and a total of 11 kids running wild. We all had a lot of fun playing video games and just hanging out.

So there you have it. I compiled all of our Holiday adventures into one slide show and threw in my favorite version of my favorite Christmas song of all time and voila, the Holidays are finally over!!

So let me bring you up to speed.

Alright I am aware that the past several months I have gotten behind on all my blogs. I am a bad blogger. My life the past couple months has been crazy to say the least. I know a lot of you follow me on Facebook so you are aware of the drama, but for those of you that don't, I will give you a play by play of the past several months and get you up to speed.

September....

I realize I have blogged since then, but I know I left out a lot of things that we did.

Such as...fruit harvest. This fall we harvested a ton of apples that were juiced and made into applesauce. Sunshine loved climbing up the tree to pick the apples out of Grandma's tree.

We also ended up with lots of plums that ended up as plum sauce, jam , dried plums and fruit leather (which I documented here) . Then I had a friend of mine get hold of 3 boxes of concord grapes that were made into juice and now reside in my freezer. Also we got a hold of a box of figs from a friend's tree and made several things.
Also with fall comes all sorts of activities starting up. Bug has been busy with twice a week swimming lessons and Sunshine started ballet. They both love doing these and have really been thriving.
Then in October we had Halloween. I had every intention to post pictures of the kids carving pumpkins and in their costumes, but time just got away from me. So better late than never.They were not nearly as enthusiastic about pumpkin guts as we were.Then came the costumes. Bug was Batman, Peanut was the boy wonder sidekick Robin and Sunshine was a cat. NOT CAT WOMAN!!! She yelled at more than one person on Halloween for making that mistake. We went over to my in laws house to go trick or treating but not before stopping off at my aunt Donna's house. Also my mom was able to go with us this year so that was cool.


Then believe it or not, the majority of the month of November was mostly quiet. Hard to imagine I know. But the weekend before Thanksgiving is when my side of the family does Thanksgiving. So we all met the Saturday before and had a nice Thanksgiving with family and also celebrated my Grandma's 90th birthday.
As soon as we got done with our Thanksgiving dinner we came home to find that Bug was not feeling so chipper. He started running a fever and had an upset stomach that soon came to be known in our family as "flupocalypse '09" in our house. After 5 days of fever I took him in to be seen and he was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus or the swine flu. He sort of got better, but then Sunshine got it. She had it worse with more unpleasant symptoms. She soon got over it after about a week, then Peanut got it. his was the worse of all. Just when it seemed that Peanut was getting over it, Bug got it again.....then Sunshine got it again.....then Peanut got it again. It cycled through our house relentlessly keeping us quarantined for a full month. It was horrible. We were advised to stay home at all costs and if we did leave we had to wear these dumb masks by request from the health department. We were like social lepers. So we just stayed home. For a long , long month.
But once it passed, we were able to get back out in the real world.

In December we had ballet recitals.....

My perfect ballerina was the one closest to the teacher that actually followed her. She is the oldest in the class and you can really tell by her attention span and the fact that she is so much taller than everyone else. Did did great though.Then we were desperately trying to get into the Christmas spirit. We put a tree up for the kids and decorated the house.
And I did my usual holiday bake-a-thon. This year Sunshine helped as much as she could.
Then we rounded out the holiday season with the magnificent zoo lights. For those of you that are not in the Portland area and have no idea what the zoo lights are, it is the Oregon Zoo, but much like the Disneyland's electrical light parade but not moving. It is hard to explain so Rockstar made a cool video to give you a glimpse. You do see some of the animals at the zoo, but it is mostly about the thousands of twinkling lights.


I am still trying to compile our pictures from Christmas eve and our day after Christmas camping trip. But this about brings you up to speed from the past couple months.

So there you go.

And knowing is half the battle

So things have been sort of nuts around here with the Holidays and general craziness. Of course by holiday I mean the New Moon release in theaters. I will have more on that in another post.

But today I want to talk about something I don't normally talk about nearly enough.

Jews.

Now I have no beef to our kosher brethren, in fact I love the culture. I have talked about that on here even. I make latkes on Hanukkah, I watch fiddler on the roof at least once a year and I love Barbara Streisand. Does this qualify me for anything great? I doubt it. But , I just thought I would lay a little bit of ground work here.

I was driving the other day and passed this sign a couple times that day. It struck me as odd and got me thinking.
I am not sure what is going on there. I mean generally speaking isn't Mexico a predominately Catholic country? I mean it is the national religion. (yes I looked it up)

Are there a lot of Jews in Mexico?

So much so that they need a place to worship? And advertise?

I mean I have heard of Messianic Jews (Jews that were born and raised Jewish but converted to Christianity) but this was something I hadn't yet seen.

And so I dub this the Mexianic Jew.

Hey what do I care? Last I checked we have freedom of religion. Worship Elvis for all I care (and yes we do have a church of Elvis in this fine city of roses in which I live).

I just felt I needed to share with the class.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Oh don't act like you've never done this!!!

So last week I got a new purse because the one that I had been using was just too big and I suspected I was toting around far more stuff than I really needed.

So I emptied it out. Normally this isn't really cause for a write up and pictures. (I have a boring life, but not THAT boring) But this I thought spoke volumes of the silly happenings in my life.

This is what I found.....

• 11 tubes of lipstick (because you just never know)
• 4 cosmetic bags with misc. things like lotion and perfume samples
• 3 books (when 1 is never enough)
• 2 contact cases
• 1 package of Kleenex
• 1 checkbook
• 1 wallet
• 2 emery boards
• 4 packs of Tylenol
• 1 Tupperware container of medicated lotion
• 6 pens
• 4 packets of Hydroxycut
• 1 mini video camera (you never know when someone goes all Rodney King and you need a video camera)
• 1 package of Tums
• 2 pair of plastic potty training pants
• 1 mini Edward doll

I know that everyone has done this but the combination of all this stuff made me laugh.
Seriously I have the most bizarre life :)

Good Night Summer

Good night Summer.


Good night pool


















Good night turtle that floated in the pool


















Good night hanging basket


















Good night roses


















Good night line for hang-drying clotheses (deal with it)


















Good night to the lady washing the chairs


















And good night Gazebo



















Good night summer, we'll be seeing you.

Stop the madness!!

I know I have dropped the ball with this blog. Let me give you a quick rundown of what we have been up to.....

School started for both Sunshine and Bug. With it I started working for a friend of mine at a daycare doing transportation for her kids to and from school. My work schedule has pockets of spare time, but I have to drop off my own kids in the morning and then go and grab 5 other kids to take to school. Then I have 2 different kindergartners at noon to pick up and drop off. Then I have kids I pick up when normal school time gets out and drop off. It is a relatively easy job, just a lot of time in the car.

Then there is my new business. My friend Erin and I have started a new business. It is cooking and freezing home cooked meals for families that don't have time or know how to cook. You can read all about it (or order) here.

But it doesn't stop there. Oh no.

My mom has been having some trouble with the place she was living and so we decided it would be a good idea for her to move in with us for a while. So we have spent the past week or so moving her stuff over here and also a storage unit. We are all learning to make it work. It is not as bad as it might seem. My mom and I actually have a great relationship and so it is nice having a second mom on site to be the eyes and ears when I can't be everywhere at all times. Right now it is just finding a new normal routine to slip into.

Then last but not least, the kids started up with their extra curricular activities. Bug starts swimming next week (pictures to come) and Sunshine started ballet a couple days ago. She was so excited and so cute with all the other little girls doing their leaps and things. She really loves it. Plus I got a super cute picture I feel I must share with the class.
So in short I haven't had a night to sit and give my blog some love. But tonight is apparently the night that I catch up.

So there you have it.