Playing With ColorSplash

Did You Want This?

Miss Luna...always in the way of whatever I'm trying to do.  

Gone to the Dogs

Bark for Life was a success!  As of the last I checked we had raised over $12,000 with our BBQ sales at Relay still to come.  We should be able to give them a check for at least $13,000 this year.  There were lots of dogs and even a goat and a pig! Jayke loved seeing all the dogs and even had his own job holding leashes of dogs while their owners registered.  Looking forward to next year!

Bark! Bark!

It's Bark time!  I spent the entire day working on the above swag bags for the Bark For Life participants this Saturday.  Midwest Homes for Pets hosts this sister event to Relay for Life.  We host Bark then participate in Relay and present our check.  Last year we gave over $12,000 that we raised and this year we are on track to achieve well over that!  I volunteered to put the swag bags together thinking, oh that will be fun!  It was at first but after a while I was sore, sweating, and overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to put together 150 of these bags.  We have a lot of stuff this year, way more donations than last.  It literally took the entire day of two of us working pretty much non stop (they did give us lunch).  Hopefully my job on Saturday will be a little easier.  I am taking pictures for the day.  I think I can handle that!  

I also put all the signs together for the even...about 100 or so signs... here they are before I put the stands on them.

Below is a picture of our boss, Brad's, office where we put the bags together.  Tara took this picture and sent it to him in Europe where he is on business this week.  This is when we were just getting going...it got way worse!

Mom's Day!

Time to bring back these gems!  The above picture causes a lot of groaning from the older lady in the picture.  I told her to relax, it's a great picture of me!  (discoloration aside)

I like to call the below picture, which my sister plastered on Facebook for all the world to enjoy, my awkward stage.  Not sure I grew out of that yet.

No pics of The Boy and me.  We had a traumatic day of soccer.  2 hour drive one way for a guaranteed loss.  We didn't even have enough players to field a full team!  The other team, however, had 14 players!  14!!  That meant they could almost sub out their entire team.  Then, just to give us an extra dose of misery, it rained.  I don't mean it was a nice light sprinkle that kept us cool on a hot summer day.  It POURED SIDEWAYS!!!!  THE ENTIRE GAME!!  My child is blind in the rain on a soccer field.  Goggles just don't work in the rain.  Man was it a terrible day.  My intentions had been to snap a couple pics of the two of us but we were over it by the time we left.  He went straight to sleep and I had steam coming out of my ears the whole way home.  No pictures, please.

His Practice Partner Brings His Own Equipment

#Boogeymanpatrol

I feel so safe with these three on guard duty!

Wretched With a Side of Wretchedness!

Is how I feel about this project.  Mini Economy, Market Day...whatever you call this.  I call it Wretched!!!  Jayke's class had to come up with a product to sell and open a store in the gym in which to sell his wares.  Jayke and Oma made book marks and rubber stamps.  We didn't have a lot of time for this project so I feel we could have made a few improvements.  The book marks, although cute, would not stand up to use from a kid.  The stamps might have been a good idea if we had provided some sort of ink.  Over all, he sold most of the book marks, very few of the stamps, and learned a valuable lesson in business.  He came home and said, "They made me pay $30 to open my store and I didn't even make $30!  I lost money!"  Welcome to the real world, son.  

All I do is Win, Win, Win...

No matter what!  Another win today.  Season is going really well!

I Deserve a Lil Appreciation

Apparently the school thinks showing appreciation means letting me buy books at their book fair.  They did have some donuts, coffee, and juice in thanks.  I figured since this was going to be the last one I ever get a chance to go to, I better go.  Jayke was happy I did.  He got to show my the mural the kids painted this year in the cafeteria.  He pointed out the square that his group of three did.  The back pack in the last picture.  He is quite proud of the mural and he should be, it was really nice.  Brightened up the cafeteria.

As we head into the final weeks of elementary school I'm finding it hard to believe that it's over.  Middle school is just around the corner.  We go for orientation on the 18th!  Jayke is nervous that he will get lost but I think he is excited about middle school.  That makes one of us.  :(

Halloween in April

We FINALLY got our championship trophies for the Halloween Classic we played last October.  This whole trophy business was a mess from start to finish.  First we had to wait 6 months to get them since the tournament organizers weren't prepared and didn't have them in time....apparently they hadn't even ordered them since it took so long.  We got a message a week or so ago that we were going to finally be getting them on picture night.  We would receive our trophies and there would be a team photo taken etc. The whole club would watch us receive them since this was our first win at this age group ever.  We have been looking forward to this for a long time!  This morning when I looked at the weather forecast I wasn't even sure that we would have pictures at all let alone the trophy presentation.  It was cloudy, cold, and windy.  I mean, brutally windy.  Turns out we barely did have the presentation.  After this season's pictures were taken the kids were taken over across the field and each one was handed a box with their name on it.  The trophy was inside.  They told them to stand in front of this trailer because it was blocking the wind, and we all snapped a picture.  So here they are...the champs...looking like a rag-tag bunch of kids just trying to stay warm.

Soggy Bottom Boys

No Oma, no big hat, and we got the win today!  I'm glad it was warm because these kids were drenched.  The first rain drops hit my windshield right as I was pulling into the parking lot and it didn't let up the entire time we were there.  Jayke had a hard time seeing since he wears goggles to play.  At one point he ended up tossing them over to us on the sideline.  The coach told me later he came over and said, "I can't see anything but the ball!"  I guess if you can only see one thing, the ball is the one you want!

At Least There Was no Giant M&M Umbrella

Jayke was so embarrassed that Oma wore this big floppy hat to his soccer game today.  I, oddly, was not phased by it.  I am becoming immune to her old lady ways, I guess.

He will get to enjoy it for an entire week when she takes him to Alabama this summer.

We lost the game, first loss of the season, maybe it was the hat.

Cotton Candy, Jumbotron, and Boomer!

Yes, we have great seats for a change.  Back at another Pacer's game.  Jeff bought 6 tickets for us all to go and made sure we were down on the lower level this time where we could be close to the action!  It's a different experience when you sit this close and the kids loved it.  Jeff and I were pretty happy with it too!  Jayke finally got his $4.00 cotton candy, we made it on the Jumbotron twice.  Apparently we were even on the televised broadcast.  Boomer came up to see us and the game went to double overtime to keep the Pacers' playoff chances alive!!!  It was an exciting night and everyone had a lot of fun.  Definitely the most fun I've had at a game.  This was Jayke's second Pacer's game this season and mine too.  Bob took him to one a couple of months ago as well.  He thinks he is a regular now.  

Reunited...and Rewarded!

These two are teammates once again!  They were both thrilled!  We even brought back the "fancy feet" and got matching cleats again.  This weekend was our first look at the new team.  From what I had been hearing from Jayke after practice I didn't have very high hopes.  He kept telling me how the coach isn't playing anyone in their normal positions and some other crazy stuff.  I quickly changed my mind though once I saw us roll over the competition at our season opening tournament in Brownsburg.  

After day one we had won both of our games and it was looking pretty good for us heading into the final day of play.  We easily won our third game which put us in the championship game.  Great way to start the season.  Coming off of last season's Championship win at our final tournament, this was a great sign for our team this season! 

We ended up going to overtime in the championship game but couldn't quite pull off the win.  We ended up as tourney runner up and got a nice trophy for it!  Finally, getting to bring home some hardware that isn't just for participation.  Runner up right out of the gate isn't too shabby, looking forward to what this team can do the rest of the season and in our next two tournaments!

Those Eggs Have Already Hatched!

Jayke had a busy Easter.  First he went to his Dad's (AKA his grandparent's) and had Easter with his aunt, cousins, and dad.  They went to an Easter egg hunt and got to see the Easter bunny.  They also got to pet some baby chicks and he got a bunch of candy.

Once Jayke got home, on Easter morning, we went and had breakfast with Jeff.  He had an Easter basket for The Boy and I had given his kids their baskets from me on Friday.  

After that, we went to Dad's house and he met Kim's new puppy.  The puppy loved Jayke, of course and we had to go through the whole, no you aren't getting another dog thing.  We had the annual Easter Egg hunt there as well.  I lost my title as champion egg hunter.  I think they had a plan to dethrone me after years of winning.  I ended up giving all of my eggs to Jayke because he is not a very stellar egg hunter.  We got the usual haul plus some from Dad.  Lots of candy and this year I asked for some healthy snacks too.  Probably shocked the Easter Bunny greatly, I'm surprised he even knew where to look for the healthy stuff!

Finally, we finished up at Oma's and dinner with Uncle Mark.  Jayke had to try out his new soccer ball with Jackson and Uncle Mark before we finally headed home after a jam packed day.  

What Brings Them all Together?

The laser light does!  Even Laynie chases the little red dot like she is a puppy again.  I make sure not to let her chase it too much so as not to give her a heart attack or cause her to throw out a hip.  Josie and Nemo are the two biggest fans of the dot.  Luna acts like she is above chasing that ridiculous red thing, sitting...holding up her one paw like the little Miss Priss that she is but every once in a while she forgets herself and goes after it intensely for a brief moment.  Then...back to her poised perch off to the side... watching the other idiots attempt the impossible task of catching that irresistible speck of light.

Snowball

Jayke's class has two lab rats this year that they are experimenting on...which I am highly against.  Here is the pic he took of one of them.  I had to sign a permission slip for him to touch them in class and noticed there was a some what tricky question on the slip.  You had to write no if you didn't want your child to bring the rat home for a weekend.  I'm pretty sure Jayke and the school tried to slip that one by me.  He even brought me a pencil to sign with so I made him go get me a red ink pen and I wrote a huge NO on the slip that we were not bringing the little critter home to play with the three cats for a weekend.  I'm sure that would have had a traumatizing out one for us all.  Guess I need to start reading what he brings to me and tells me to sign.

Too Much to Overcome

These two poor kids.  All season this is where they have been.  Sitting and watching.  They get to go in for a few mins then he takes them right back out.  Finally today, the final day of the season, they are getting to play.  We lost two players from the team so now he has to let them play and you know what?  They are doing a good job.   Imagine what they could have done had they been given a chance all season???

Jump ahead two weeks...

Below is how we kill time during a five hour break in Marion for a tournament...

This tournament was even more heart breaking then the rest of the season.  Jayke ended up taking himself out and off the team for good.  When he sat all but 2 mins of a game he finally said he was done that if the coach didn't think he was good enough he wasn't going to sit and watch.  I don't blame him.  Normally I would tell him he has to finish what he starts and not give up but his coach gave up on him a long time ago.  He did more harm to him in this season than you can imagine.  I watched his heart break more and more on the bench every game.  We should all just be happy I kept my composure and just walked out before giving that ass a piece of my mind. We can thank Jeff for that since he jumped in his car and drove an hour up there once he heard what was going on.   At eleven years old there are way more important things than just winning.  The damage that was done to Jayke's self confidence will still remain to be seen but I can tell you he was broken on the way home.

He blamed his dad for not being there to work with him and teach him the game.  A lot of anger came out of him and a lot of things directed at the lack of a father he has been.  He won't speak to his dad now.  He said he can't make up for not being there for the past 9 years.  He is right.  He is starting to see the things he is missing by not having a dad around.  And there will only be more to come.

Thanks, UPS!

Here we are at the Pacer game...UPS gave Jeff free tickets.  Club level tickets.  They were really good seats, not in a suite but right behind and above the camera men.  We had no one in front of us and waitress so we didn't have to keep getting up and leaving the game.  I'm not sure if the great seat, no wait for the bathroom, or the VIP parking pass was the best part of this.  We had dinner at The Hardrock and then the game.  I hope UPS does this more often!  Perks of being the Shipping Guru's girlfriend.