Tag Archives: life

My daughter, the cheerleader…

Last week was difficult.  We had smiles, conflicts, tears, and drama.  Brooke and her friend A had cheer practice twice and then try outs on Friday.  The conflicts were with dance, which I had feared wouldn’t go well.  I’m still a bit upset about how things were handled, but praying about how to respond. 

The tryouts went well, except she committed the one cardinal sin of a cheerleader.  Apparently you’re not supposed to say WOOOO.  And she did… 

I want you to try it yourself.  Do a little cheer and try to finish it with something other than Woooo.  It’s hard isn’t it? 

The results were supposed to be posted at 8:00 p.m.  We went and waited in the rain for an hour before they actually posted the results.  The wait was grueling and nerve racking to say the least.  It’s not something we are accustomed to at all.  My baby girl has been dancing since she was two years old, so that’s all we know.  This is a whole different crowd we’re dealing with. 

The results were in, and she made it.  She made it, and she was upset and crying.  Terribly sad and stricken.  How does a mom respond to that and make it better?  Well, prayer and chocolate of course!  See, there’s fall cheerleaders and winter cheerleaders.  Brooke wanted fall, and was chosen for winter.  Her friend A was chosen for fall.  I think it’s great because I really don’t understand football all that much, and it’s played outside in the cold and rain.  We’ll be inside a warm gym watching basketball, and she’ll have a floor to do her stuff on.  Daddy told her Indiana is known for their hoops anyway.  She has some friends on the same squad, and her friend who is a boy  told her all the kids go to the basketball games.  Now she’s excited!  We’re really proud of her too.  Out of 24 girls, only 16 were chosen and she was one of them.  Go Brooke!!!!!

Quotations

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The second best time is today.  Chinese Proverb

If you are planning for a year, sow rice.  If you are planning for a decade, plant trees.  If you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.  Chinese Proverb

If you can talk, you can sing; If you can walk, you can dance.  African Proverb

Tell me who’s your friend, and I’ll tell you who you are.  Russian Proverb

A joy that’s shared is a joy made double.  John Ray, English Proverbs

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.  Swedish Proverb

Man plans; God laughs.  Yiddish saying

When elephants fight, the grass always is the one that suffers.  Swahili saying

Wherever the heart is, the feet don’t hesitate to go.  Togo saying

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.  Live your life in such a way so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.  Indian proverb.

Visitor’s footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick.  Bantu proverb

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.  Zen saying

The death of an old person is like the loss of a library.  African proverb

Danger and delight grow on one stalk.  English proverb

When “Do no evil” has been understood, then learn the harder, braver rule, “Do good.”  Arthur Guiterman,A Poet’s Proverbs

The beginning of health is to know the disease.  Spanish proverb

It is part of the cure to wish to be cured.  Latin proverb

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.  Irish proverb

Dance Update

Yesterday was Brooke’s last dance competition of the season.  It’s kind of sad, but kind of a relief too.  It went really well.  Hip Hop had some changes made, and they were missing M, who recently had surgery.  Get better soon M!!  We miss you.  It looked good, and scored a gold, with overall ranking placed 3rd out of 5.  Tap and Jazz were the best I’ve seen ever.  The judges thought so too, because they both scored a Platinum.  Both of them placed in the top 10 as well.  It was a very good outcome for them, and I’m very proud of them.  Most of them have worked so hard.  My Boo bear certainly has! 

Tomorrow she’s gonna try out for cheerleading.  My baby, entering the 7th grade, and she wants to be a cheerleader.  One of her friends from dance is trying out as well, and her mom is having a hip replacement tomorrow.  Please keep Kim in your prayers.  She’s been suffering in pain for a while now. 

 

Matthew-isms

Sometimes I’ll tell Matthew, I love you so, so much, bigger than the earth, moon, stars, and grains of sand.  He says to me, I love you bigger than a pepperoni pizza!  (That’s big in his world!)

Today he was holding a cup behind his back and he wanted me to guess what it was.  I guessed it was an elephant.  He looked at me with his dimple showing and said, that is in curtain.  I said, do you mean incorrect?  He says, no, in C-U-R-T-A-I-N, enunciating it very clearly. 

Daddy came home today with a new bike for him.  Matthew greeted him at the door and informed me that Daddy got him a new bike, if you don’t mind.  Where does he come up with this stuff?  If you don’t mind….

Earthquake

Stop the presses and go outside to check for damage.  Indiana was rocked by an EARTHQUAKE this morning that centered in Illinois.  This is being rated a moderate EARTHQUAKE at 5.4 on the richter scale. 

We awoke at 5:37 a.m. to what sounded like a tremendous wind and the bed was shaking.  I thought an airplane was flying really close to our house, like right above the roof!  Brian actually said “that was an earthquake”.  We then went back to sleep. 

Now I’m up and seeing all of the information rolling in on the morning news.  They’re saying this is the largest recorded earthquake for Indiana.  Reports are coming in from Louisville Kentucky about some structural damage to some buildings.  Everything’s fine here.  An exciting way to start the day though.  Now I’m gonna go re-read the book of Revelation! 

 

Rambling

Sometimes I just can’t think of a title. 

Last week was spring break here, and it was cool and rainy.  While the boys were at the grandparents house, Brooke and I hung out.  The next day was her turn to sleep over at Grammie’s, so the boys and I watched The Game Plan and played games.  We had two days with dental appointments, and on Friday Zach and I went to the eye doctor to see about him getting contacts.  I was really surprised that his vision had gotten worse in 10 months, and with his glasses he was 20/40.  He did really well with the contacts, and in fact got them in on the third and second try.  Then he had to take one out, and put it back in, and his vision was tested again.  The new prescription made him 20/20.  It’s all pretty amazing to me to watch, but anyone who knows me understands what a weenie I am when it comes to eye drops.  It just gweebs me out!!  Now I’m watching my 9 year old son put these in his eyes like it’s nothing.  Something I didn’t expect was the samples that they had in the office.  They sent us home with them that day!  After that we came home and researched “mens” haircuts.  He decided on an Ashton Kutcher look and it turned out really nice.  I’m just so glad I can see his ears and forehead now!  Matthew got a buzz cut, not intentionally on my part.  I said a typical boys cut, and before I knew what was going on the clippers were on and a stripe of hair was gone.  Hopefully it will warm up soon so his head doesn’t freeze! 

That doesn’t seem likely though, as the first race is scheduled for Saturday, and snow flurries are being predicted.  We went out to the track tonight to practice, and the 160 motor is junk.  I don’t even want to run it if we’re not going to be competitive, so we need to figure something out before Saturday.  We’ll see.

I have so much on my To Do list this week, and I know it’s not going to get checked off.  That really bugs me, but I still don’t see a way to get it all done.  So this post was pretty boring, but my life.  And I’m happy.  God Bless You!

 

Gift day

My Matthew keeps us laughing and on our toes!  My mom calls and asks for “Matthewisms” to share with her co-workers, so I thought I’d share this one.  My boys share a room, and this morning I went in to wake Zach up for school.  Matthew sat up in bed, pulled the covers over his head and proclaimed, “it’s gift day mommy, that means you give a gift to someone you think is special and that you love ’em.”  OOOHHH, that was my gift!  How sweet and precious he can be!  He also told me it meant you didn’t have to go anywhere, but that doesn’t work well with the siblings.  They don’t want to be stranded at school, so we had to break that rule.  He was OK with it since his gift from me was a piece of candy and some cool sidewalk chalk. 

Mark it down on your calendars people, It’s sure to be a national holiday.  I think we could use it! 

New Do’

I guess you could call me a hip and happenin’ mom.  I took Brooke to the salon today and she got highlites.  She has beautiful blonde hair, but she wanted red highlights.  Strawberry blonde as she called them.  The stylist was like, Oh, are you sure, because your hair is blonde and pretty.  I said if it were up to me, we’d lighten it up a bit, but do what Brooke wants.  I was in the back of the salon and couldn’t really see what was going on, and then she came back and chatted with me while our hair was in foil, and she was so, so excited.  When she came back, she was beautiful of course.  Jackie, the stylist, said the red will tone down after a few shampoos.  She also tried to accomodate both of us and put in some blonde streaks too.  It’s cute, and bright, and funky, and bright, and pink in spots, and bright red.  Trying to put a photo up for you to check it out. img_0470.jpg

Ok, this only took me more than an hour to put up.  I learned that I needed to optimize the photo to make it fit.  HAH!!!  I feel good now.  So with all that work, please comment for me?! 

Scrap Fest

So, yesterday was the big day.  Scrapbooking with the girls!!!  We got off to a little bit of a late start, as none of us can seem to be on time.  I had packed way too much stuff, again.  And I bought way too much stuff, again. 

I had a little bit of a setback when all of my creativity left me, but I just looked at a couple of magazines and came up with a really cool layout.  Not much like any of my usual pages, but I LOVE IT!  It took me way too long to do, and only features two pictures.  But did I say how much I LOVE IT?  Yeah, if I told you I’d take a picture and post it, I know you wouldn’t believe me, so I won’t.  Trust me though, it’s good. 

Page totals-

K-?
Ki-12
S-19
me-21
Kr-27

We got some serious scrappin’ done!   For lunch they provided ham or turkey sandwiches, with chips, cookies and snacks.  Olive Garden soup, salad and breadsticks were brought in for dinner, then strawberries,cookies, hot fudge, two different kinds of cake, and angel food or dessert.  I was surrounded by chocolate and diet cokes, the two things I’ve totally given up for this 40 day fast.  It was hard, but I didn’t cave.  We scrapped, ate and laughed until 10 p.m.  and boy was I tired!  I love you girls, and we have to do it again very soon.  The future of our childrens’ heritage being documented depends on it. 

I came home to a house that was a wreck!  Obviously everyone had a great time while I was gone, so I’ve spent most of the afternoon after church picking up and tackling the laundry pile.  Boring!  Brooke went with a friend to the mall, and then sleep over at her house.  The boys went with Brian to Grammie and Grandpa’s to work on race cars.  I’ve been flying solo doing this cleaning thing, and finally took a break to fill all my loyal readers in on the excitement of my life.  (Hey Mom and Dad, Love You!) 

Well, my kitchen’s still a disaster, the dishwasher needs unloaded and then loaded again with what is in the sink.  Counters and floors need cleaned.  My work is never done….

I’m up

I just finished watching The Bee Movie with Brooke.  It was a very cute show!  I also finished packing up my scrapbooking stuff for my all day crop tomorrow.  I am so excited!  Twelve hours scrappin’ with my friends…..aaaahhh! 

Today was the first day of Spring Break.  We slept in, though none of us enjoyed that more than Brooke.  She rolled out of bed at 12:17 p.m.  Yeah, I think she was tired!  I really did a lot of nothing today until around 2 p.m., then I decided to work out for an hour.  I felt pretty good about that.  Zach is sleeping over at a friends house, and I took him over right after the work out.  His friends L and S are really great.  They’re like the 3 Musketeers! 

I have laundry piled up to be done, and clean laundry piled up to be folded and I sit here blogging about it.  I’m messed up!  But I’m too excited about scrapping tomorrow.  I’ll be sure to let you know how many pages I get done.  Oh, and I’m almost done with reading the Bible in 90 days.  My official finish date was to be April 1st, and I’m right on target.  I don’t know what I’ll do when I finish it.