How Much Can we Fit...

....into one fall break? I'd say not much!! We started off by going to Jayke's parent teacher conference. The Boy got a stellar report, as usual. He is being recommended for the challenge program and he is above average in reading. He has straight A's. The only thing she could come up with to say is that he could stand to slow down a little when doing his math papers and tests. I've talked to him about this before. Then she gave me math sheats for him to do at home that I am supposed to time. Huh? Slow down...speed up. Confusing.

After the conference we were off to lunch with Ang, Bob, and Mason. Bob ended up taking the boys home while Ang and I ran some errands. We are getting ready for our 31 party this week. Jayke was supposed to be spending the night with Matthew (A BIG BIG deal) that night while Ang and I took Maci to the midnight showing of Paranormal Activity 3. Instead, it turned into a sleep over at Bob's with Mason, Matt, Alec, Mo, and Jayke. Bob was busy making nachos for the "fellas" when we headed out to the movie. I was preparing myself all day for the beating I was going to take at the movie. Ang doesn't do well with scary. Last time at Paranormal 2 she beat the crap out of me and tried to sit on my lap. I considered taking a helmet and a taser. I made it out with only one bruise. Seriously...she bruised my arm!! She is no longer allowed to sit next to me in scary movies.

Friday was another jam packed day for the kiddo. After picking him up from the sleep over we went to Oma's to see Aunt Dona. Jayke took a brief nap then he was off to Escapades (indoor playground) for a birthday party. As I was heading back to pick him up from the party, I got a text from Bob...he was taking the "fellas" bowling. Did Jayke want to go? Silly question. Of course he did! I picked him up from the party and took him bowling. Bob had picked up an extra boy since the night before so now there were 6 of them. Jayke did pretty well bowling but by the second game he was exhausted. He actually asked to go home.

Good thing The Boy went home and got a good night's sleep because Saturday Bob was calling again. This time they were going to the Ball State football game. Bob lives to haul the "fellas" around! After the game they went back to his house and I joined them later for dinner. We hung out there for several hours until we went home to bed.

On Sunday Jayke and I went to see the movie Real Steal. He loved it!! It was a pretty cute movie. I think we are going to start going to movies more often using my coke rewards points and stubs card. Can't beat free movies especially when you have to take a loan out to get the popcorn and coke!

Monday we did nothing. And it was great!!

After all that running around I was ready to just lay around. We did carve our pumpkin in there some where but I can't remember what day that was. We still have 3 more pumpkins to carve. I was just too tired to mess with the others after our busy weekend. I am glad fall break was only 5 days...one more might have killed me!

Instagram Profile

This is a screen print of my Instagram profile. There are many many more pictures but you can only print what fits on the screen of your phone. I may start posting these regularly as I get more pics taken and edited. Just my latest obsession...er hobby.

Making Progress...

The Boy may have a future as a painter...at least as my new painter. We fired the old painter, Oma. Got half of the room painted today before we pooped out. The color looks blue here but it is really a VERY teal color. The color name is "Day at the Jewelers" and it is fab!! With a name like that it has to be!

We did have some assistance from Oma. She is permitted to paint at my house as long as she is supervised. If she isn't things tend to go horribly wrong! We also had some help from the cats. Luna was particularly interested in what was going on. She thought the ladder was placed there for her personal use and tried to sit on it the entire time. When I took it away she leaped up into the window, putting her hind paws in the paint then tracking kitty prints on the window sill. When I finally removed her from the room for good she left with a teal tail. Jayke wrote a story about it tonight...The Cat With the Teal Tail. It was a short story.

I can't wait for the room to be completely painted and get the furniture in there. It's going to look really good! I may have a hard time letting Jayke and his friends play in it!

Another Park Another Walk

Jayke is confused with my new found obsession with taking pictures. He doesn't remember living in South Carolina when I used to do this every day. Today when I wheeled into Minnestrista on the way to soccer he was a little miffed. Just sure we were going to be late for practice! He wanted to know why I was taking so many pictures of things other than him. When I handed him my phone and showed him my camera roll he got it. I had to pry it out of his hands to be able to take these shots of Oakhurst Gardens and Children's Garden. I've put pictures of this garden on here before but not pics taken in the fall so here are a few I took on our walk.

There really isn't that much to photograph in there and we didn't have as much time as I would have like. The lighting was bad too...cloudy overcast day. At least I got a couple of shots to play with on the iPhone later and post to Instagram.

I Say "WE" Like I had Something to do With This...

Here is the table Jim built for my mom! I must say I was impressed. I mean I know he can build houses... but tables??? LOL I just wanna know why we aren't in the furniture building business? We could totally sell these...and I know this because I posted it on Facebook and got approval from my minions.

I hope my mom is happy with it! Having a kitchen that is too big is such a PROBLEM!!

Luv

This picture and the edit I did on it...

Did You Hear That?

Jayke's Halloween costume was delivered by the UPS guy today. I am very happy with it and so is he, all though he wasn't for a moment. I decided a demonstration was in order so I waited to open it when he wasn't around. He went to take a shower so this was the perfect opportunity for me to open it and take a look. I then decided to try it on (just the hood and gloves part). I thought it looked pretty good so I crept into the bathroom with it on and flung the shower door open. If you heard a strange noise this evening it was probably him screaming. :) Costume is approved.

Now before you go reaching for the phone to call me up and yell at me (Mother) he was only scared for a second then thought it was hilarious and slammed the shower door shut. He was more concerned with me seeing him naked than the creature I had become slaughtering him. As soon as he got out of the shower he had to try it on and thinks it is the best costume he has had so far! Finally something scary!!

The above picture is a close up of my favorite Halloween candy jar with a quick edit and crop I put on it. Love it!!! Love how I can edit my photos now. My phone is always in my hand and I'm always trying out different filters. I think my Halloween decorations are my favorite subject to photograph. More to come, of course!

Second Grade

Trying a post from the new Blogger app for iPhone...

Oma's Final Resting Place

I guess we are going to keep her close...as you can see we have placed her headstone in our front flower bed cemetery. We also put graves for Jayke's friends, Hunter, Bea, and Nolan (I spelled his name wrong on his stone) My friends, Bob and Angi (aka Skinny Jeans) also will be eternally resting out front. The above picture is my favorite. I edited it to look like this...very creepy! Below is an unedited version but doesn't have all the graves pictured...you get the idea though. We are going to carve all the pumpkins...about 5, closer to Halloween and light them up. Hopefully it will give our cemetery a creepy glow at night!!!

On another Halloween related note. I finally found and ordered The Boy's costume. You know this is an ordeal every year. He always picks a costume I know he won't wear because of the mask. I think I have found the perfect solution this year. Something that fits his criteria of being scary but without a face mask and fits my criteria of making a good picture. My criteria also limits us and prevents covering of the face. We are both satisfied with this year's selection and I can't wait to see it on him! Such an ordeal...which I'm sure is mostly my fault.

The inside of the house is fully decorated for the holiday as well as the outside. I was apparently feeling ambitious this year. That or my meds are kicking in...either way I've been on a roll. I even made Halloween cupcakes for The Boy and his friends. Jayke was very upset with his friend, Nolan, who didn't appreciate my baked wares. He took one lick and threw his away. Jayke has been going on about it for two days now and even told Nolan he could never have another cupcake. We finally resolved the issue when Nolan told him he didn't like chocolate that much. This reasoning for disposing of my culinary creation must have been satsifactory to The Boy because he has sense dropped the subject and forgiven Nolan his offense. I, on the other hand, am a little miffed with Jayke for his critique of my decorating skills. He informed me that our living room was, "Not very Halloweeny"! I told him to go stand in the kitchen. The kitchen looks like Halloween barfed all over it. It's my favorite time of the year!

More Pics From Our Walk

Here's a few more pics from out walk the other day...

His 9th Season

Wow! I counted and it has been 9 seasons of soccer for The Boy now! This one is coming to an end soon so I took a couple of pictures at our last game. Finally had some sunshine to be able to take some.

Jayke is by far the best player on the team. The coach pays special attention to him, always playing him the most and talking to him after the games. Sometimes not a good thing. The other night he played the entire game. Didn't rest a minute and he paid for it afterwards. I had to pull over on the way home for him to get sick. During the game the coach was even telling all the kids in time out that they weren't helping Jayke at all and he was the only one out there trying. I know this is why he plays him the most but I'm going to tell him I want him to sit at least 1 full quarter a game from now on. I'm also telling Jayke to slow up a bit while playing. Confusing for him since we always talk about playing hard and never letting up...now I'm telling him the opposite. Hopefully he will figure it out and pace himself to last the whole game without puking!

Hanging With Jack

Just a couple of pics from the day Mason came home on the bus with Jayke. Took them to my mom's to give them something to do for a while. They hung out with Jack in the back yard.

Undefeated...so far...

Jayke's football team is undefeated so far this season. We may be the only team that is too. Jayke has improved a bunch. He plays running back and has gotten really close to scoring a couple of times. Two more games this season. Hoping for at least one touchdown. He loves it and says he wants to play tackle next year. I was afraid he wouldn't want to play tackle once he actually got hit but he took a hard hit in practice the other day and got right back up and kept on playing. I guess we will be padding up next fall!

Aqua Park Outing

Jayke and I have been really busy...hence the lack of posts. Tonight I finally took some time to sit down and do some editing and uploading. I have many more pictures to put on here but for tonight I'm just going to post our pics from our Aqua Park walk.

There is a park in Anderson, on the way to my Dad's house that I have driven by for years and years but never stopped. Today we stopped. I can't believe I've never explored this park before now! It has the best walking trail around the lake through wooded areas and some open area too. There are several bridges you cross as you are walking along the lake with the river to the other side. On the pond there were lots of geese and ducks and one big beautiful swan. We weren't supposed to feed them but we snuck a package of crackers in for them. The swan came right up to us to eat.

On one side of the park there was a huge sculpture and a playground area. We stopped briefly for Jayke to play on the slides and to climb on the sculpture a bit.

After we left the park, Jayke kept telling me how much he liked taking that walk and how shocked he was that I did that. He forgets how I used to do these things with him every day in South Carolina and even when we first came back. It has been a while since we have gone exploring though. I guess because I have always lived here it doesn't seem like there is anything to discover but we did today. I promised to take him to Mounds State Park one day soon. Hopefully the weather will stay nice and we can have another day of exploration soon!

The Fam

My sister, Kim. My other mom, me, and AJ celebrating AJ's birthday last month.

Green Again

I don't understand how we keep ending up being on the green soccer team!! I think we have been green at least 4 or 5 times. Can't we get a teal or light blue shirt...just once??? All my soccer pics look the same. Well, here are a couple more green team soccer pics...

Above he is waiting next to Olivia to get his individual picture taken and below is the team. This may be our last season with the rec league. He needs to move up to travel. Will depend on time and money though. We want to try baseball in the spring so that may prevent us from doing it right away.

Jayke is having a good week. Undefeated in soccer, leading scorer on the team, undefeated in football, (almost scored a touchdown last game. Got pushed out of bounds right at the cone) straight As on the mid term report, AND lost another tooth! This time he didn't swallow it either. Lost it in the lunch line at school. Now he is missing both front bottom teeth. Think the top will be the next to go. Hope the bottom come in first though!!

1-0...Good Way to Start!!

We won our first football game...4 to 2. We only count by ones since there are no field goals or extra points. Jayke had fun but has a long way to go to figure out what he is doing and feel comfortable with it. Before the game he told me he has no idea what he is doing. That was evident when I was watching him take his turn at running back. Before the play began I could see him talking to himself and trying to figure out which way to hold his arms to receive the ball. Then he was supposed to run left and he ran right. No big deal though...he will get it after a few more practices I'm sure.

The picture above was taken by a photographer for the newspaper. Her daughter is in Jayke's class and plays on his team. She made sure she had me add her on Facebook so she could share the pictures with me. He was in the huddle getting instructions when she took this. He looks slightly terrified to me.

Team pictures were before the game. As you can see, we are the Bucs and Jayke is number 4. He has never had a number assigned to him before so this is his first number. We may try to keep it as his permanent number throughout all his future sports.

After the game Alec was helping Jayke and Mason practice a few things. He worked with Jayke for a long time trying to help him learn to catch the ball. They have to get used to it cause it hurts when you catch it sometimes. Alec is the quarterback on the 7th grade team so he has lots of practice throwing and did a great job helping Jayke. He was catching really long passes with ease by the time they quit. Alec was impressed with him and took him to the concession stand and bought him a treat as a reward. Between Matthew and Alec, Jayke has two surrogate big brothers. They both are great with him and he adores them both!

Busy busy weekend! Friday night practice then High School Homecoming game, where Jayke hung with his buds the whole time. Football pics at 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning with a game at 8:30. Extra practice with Alec after the game. Home to change and head to a play date and lunch at Parker's house. Picked him up at 3 from Parker's and as we pulled in Bea and Hunter were sitting on the front porch waiting for him to invite him down for a cookout at Bea's. After the cookout I loaded him in the car for a card party at Angi's! Whew! His social life is a full time job!!

He was so worn out Monday that after school when I took him to get his haircut he fell asleep in the chair and actually fell half way out of it. We caught him before he fell completely. The girl had to hold his head up while she finished cutting his hair. After that he had a snack and was revived for the rest of the evening until we both fell asleep on the couch at around 7p.m. I'm so glad soccer was cancelled for rain so we could rest up. We have to get used to this double sports thing. We are a lot busier than usual. Jayke told me after the hair cut that soccer didn't get cancelled HE got cancelled! LOL

He's a Big Shot Now!

3 yahoos at the High School Football game. Jayke now thinks going to these games is the best thing in the world! He got to hang out with a bunch of his friends from school and was able to run around the entire football arena by himself (with a friend). You could tell by looking at him as he would go by that he thought he was something else. Bob took this picture of Jayke, Levi, and Mason. Levi and Mason are only first graders and weren't permitted to run like Jayke and his SECOND GRADE friends were. I'm shocked he paused long enough to get a picture with these underclassmen! Jayke and his buddy, Ian, were even sent off to the concession stand by themselves to fetch SkinnyJeans (aka: Angi) a drink. He was pretty proud of himself and Ang and I were just as impressed that the drink made it back and was even the right thing...Dr. Pepper.

We had football practice before the football game for Jayke's first flag football game tomorrow. We have to be out there at 7:30 a.m. for pictures before the game. Don't these people realize it's the weekend??? We have to get up earlier tomorrow than we do on a school day!! That is just wrong! Jayke was not thrilled about it...I was even less thrilled. He is big on staying up late and sleeping in some now...wonder where he gets that from.

I'm happy to report that our first week of playing two different sports at the same time has been just fine. Not too worn out and I think we both kinda like it. Gives us something to do. The only think Jayke didn't get to do this week was go to TEPPANYAKI!! For some reason he really likes to have Oma take him to this Chinese buffet. Yesterday he came in, grabbed the phone, and said he was calling Oma to take him to Teppanyaki cause he knows how she loves it! (She hates it) He called and she told him no. He persisted but the answer was still no. Mean Grandma. She then showed up at our house about 30 minutes later to drop off some cream for this hideous sore on my lip (another story). When she left Jayke looked at me and said, "She's nuts...she came over here for YOU and not Me!! Why did she barge out of our house like that? Somethings wrong with her. I hope she isn't on some kind of medication!" I wish you could hear the tone he was using when he said this. HA- LARIOUS!! I had to call her right away to tell her what he said and she laughed so hard she had an asthma attack...while driving...thought I was going to have to go peel her off a telephone pole. The Boy is a funny guy.

Next Year's Project???

Hoping to have this built on the back of the house next summer. The back of my house faces west and in the afternoon it gets so hot in my living room the air conditioner can't keep up. It it always 1o degrees warmer than what the thermostat is set on. I think this pergola would help keep the temp down and save me from hanging quilts on all the back windows in the afternoon. I'm tired of sitting around in the dark sweating!!

From a Dragon to a Smurf!

We went to Kings Island with a group of friends Saturday. This was Jayke's first time. He has been asking to go all summer though so when the opportunity came up to go during a private event and at a reduced price we jumped on it. The park was closed to the public for Honda days. Angi's hubs works for Honda so we were able to go as their guests. Above is the group that was in our car. Matt, Jayke, Kaylee, Maci, and Alec. Ryan, Ang, and I were also in there. The other group that went with us was Melanie, Andy, Katie, and Noah. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the entire group together.

We got there and split up...the big kids went with Ryan to ride the scary roller coasters and Ang and I took Jayke to the kiddie part. We convinced him to get his face painted. I've always wanted him to get his face painted at the zoo or where ever we were that they did it. This may have been my last opportunity so I begged and bribed him to do it. He got a blue dragon mask.

Katie joined us later after she got tired of riding the big rides. We went to the game area and Ang won a hat... The kids were not impressed...I thought she looked Gangsta!!

The Boy saw a game that had Hello Kitty prizes and was sure he could win one for me. He was correct! He shot and made 2 baskets and won me this...

You know how I LOVE the Kitty!! Jayke rode his first roller coaster and although he said he liked it, he did NOT want to ride it again today. He rode a different one though and liked it. We rode several things and he conquered his fears pretty well. Cried on one the first time but got right back on it afterwards for a second ride. I was pretty proud of him. He did great the whole day!!

Ang and I, on the other hand...not so much. First there was an ongoing incident with my shirt. I chose the wrong ensemble for the day's outing. Every ride I went on Ang was shouting at me that my boobs were out!!! And they were!!! I looked down and my shirt was blowing around so much that it was no longer covering what it was supposed to be covering!! This became the ongoing joke of the day. Then it was Ang's turn. On the first hill of the biggest coaster I rode that day she dropped her phone!! Are you kidding me? I was her riding partner of course and lucky for her I was, cause I caught that sucker with my foot!! Yes, I caught her cell phone while being hurtled sideways down a hill at a very high rate of speed and slammed sideways back and forth. I'm just awesome like that!! She couldn't believe I caught it. Her daughter was in the seat behind us screaming at us cause it was her phone. When the ride stopped the guy in front of us asked if it was a black phone. We said yea, and it turned out that he had half of it in his lap. We slapped that sucker back together and got the hell off that ride!

We went up in the Eiffel Tower and I took this shot. I also was reminded of my great fear of heights. I could barely take this picture. Getting close to the edge (which is completely enclosed) was even terrifying to me. I think it gets worse as I get older.

Katie rode a lot of rides with Jayke in the kid section. We were glad she was there. She also played games with him while we waited on the others.

We had a great day. Got there at 11:00 a.m. and I finally took Jayke to the car at 9:30 p.m. He walked the whole day without complaing once. He didn't mind waiting on the others occasionally where most kids would have a fit that they weren't getting to ride something or play a game at all times. The only rough moment we had was at the very end of the night when everyone decided to ride the big water ride. Jayke, of course, wanted to go with Matt. They headed off and when I got him back he was absolutely soaked from head to toe and BLUE all over! He looked like a drowned Smurf. He then had his meltdown. He was cold and miserable and I didn't blame him. Lucky for him he has a mother who anticipated this and planned ahead. I had dry undies, socks, shirt, shorts, pajama bottoms, and a sweatshirt in the car for him so I took him out ahead of everyone else so he could get changed into dry clothes while he had privacy. He wouldn't have changed if the others were there.

No one else brought extra clothes so it was a miserable ride home for them. I could not wait to get home. I was so sore and worn out. Today I can barely move. Every part of me hurts. Not sure if that is from the rides, from being completely out of shape, or from my advanced age. Maybe it is all of the above...all I know is I definitely needed today to recover. If we go back next year I may need to start a workout regimen a month in advance to prepare!!