HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIERSTIN AND LAURA!!

Whew! What a busy weekend it was. Made it thru Kierstin's sleepover Friday night for her 14th birthday.

The lighted number 14 in the yard came from our neighbors next door. They didn't have a number 3 made, so Laura missed out. She'll get hers next year!!

Yikes! I have two teenagers in the house now. Watch out! The parties were both a lot of fun, but now we have a rule in our house: NO TEXTING ALLOWED! If you need to text your parents, that's okay. There were a few kiddos at Kierstin's party that did nothing else but text their friends for a couple of hours straight- totally ignoring everyone else. I was amazed. I asked Kierstin if she wanted me to say anything and of course, she said no. I know, I know. Some things they have to work out on their own. Anyway- the rule still stands. We ended up going to the mall and eating at Dairy Queen both nights. A church close by rented out a couple of store fronts at the mall and they have an air hockey game, some pool tables, ping pong tables, tables with chess/checker sets, tables with cards, etc. It's all FREE! We did that for a couple of hours Friday night with Kierstin's bunch. It was a great time-killer. It was nice to let them get out all their energy somewhere other than my house!

Laura wasn't too keen on me taking a bunch of pics at her party (don't know why), so there aren't that many of hers. I know, I know. I should have done it anyway. Well, when her group went to the mall, that game place was too crowded. So, we just walked around and shopped for a couple of hours. Very tiring!!

Laura's sleepover on Saturday night for her 13th birthday.

Well, the girls got digital cameras for their birthdays and have been loving them. They've taken a whole slew of pics already and gone thru a couple sets of disposable batteries. I'm hoping Santa will bring some rechargeable ones for them. This could get pricey if he doesn't!! The girls did end up having a small birthday celebration with their 1st cousin (once removed- if I'm right about that). They all share a birthday. It was sweet. I always manage to not get Mike/Trish called and wish them Happy Anniversary. It's not on purpose. If you guys are reading this: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! I'm just giving you your card this weekend. Here's a picture of the girls with Jake and the cake they had.

Here is one of my favorite parts of their birthday: John makes them pancakes for breakfast every year in the shape of numbers according to how old they are now. It's a great tradition and I know the girls look forward to it.

I think we are caught up now- more later....

stay tuned...

I won't be able to blog as easily for the next few days. We lost our wireless connection at the house and I have to wait for a new router to arrive in the mail. Probably won't be posting till after this weekend. We have 2 slumber parties to get through. I'm sure there will be plenty to share with you all after that!! See you soon...

Gone all day

Today I was gone (literally) all day. From 7am to 8pm. I'm participating in a clinical trial for an ashtma drug (that's already on the market) that they are wanting to pair with another drug. Kinda confusing. Anyway, I had to do these breathing tests 14 different times. Basically, you put your mouth around this tube and then take a huge breath and blow it out as fast and hard as you can and keep blowing out for 6 full seconds. Sounds easy. It's not. It gives me a headache just about every time I do it. But the money they pay to do it is worth it. I watched 4 dvd's today that I hadn't see yet. The Ultimate Gift (awesome movie), The Pursuit of Happyness (also awesome), some poker movie with Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall (it was just okay) and the Chronicles of Narnia. I thought that Chronicles was a great movie. We've owned it for awhile but I've just never watched it.

I just happened to walk into the girls room and see the dogs laying on each other. Cracks me up when they do that. Here are some pics we've taken before of them doing that. Too funny!

Basketball and halloween

Okay, so I had typed this really long post and then went to add a picture and then clicked something wrong and it all disappeared. Sucks to be me right now. Wow. That really was not good. Anyway- to make a long story short, Laura had a basketball scrimmage against another 7th grade team from another school district. You could tell this team had played together for several years. They were pretty good. Laura didn't get to play much and was pretty disappointed. We told her to just suck it up and get better and that might catch the coach's eye. Maybe, maybe not. This isn't our usual coach this year. It's a different one with a different team. We'll see how this season goes...

Okay, since I haven't blogged much lately, here are some pics from Halloween. The first one is of me. My boss had mentioned a few weeks before Halloween that he'd pay me a hundred bucks if I would dress up as a witch and stand out in the front of our office by the street with a sign trying to get people to come in for insurance quotes. Do you think I did it? Heck yes I did it!!
No one came in for quotes, but I still got the money and I had fun dancing around out there.

The girls went with their friends trick or treating, so no pics of them together this year. sniff sniff. It's the first year in forever I don't have them goofing off on the front steps together. I guess that's what happens when they get older.... sigh. Kierstin went with her friend Katie. Katie was obviously the dude from Scream and Kierstin was a dizzy/slow cowgirl. Don't ask.

Here's Laura. She was supposed to be Daisy Duke.

Kierstin also got picked to play in the flag football game that the 8th grade girls play against the freshman girls. The 8th graders won! It was fun to go watch. The guys dressed up as the cheerleaders and kept the crowd entertained.

That's enough for today. More tomorrow...

I'm Back!!!

Hi there! So, I've been gone for awhile and now have internet again upstairs where I can do my blogging updates more easily. Let's see... where to begin. We have the lights on the house outside, but that's it. Since we rearranged the furniture for the fish tanks, there is no room at the inn for the tree now. Here's a picture of the tanks:

My guess is that we will move out my recliner to make room for the tree. I think. Not sure yet. We have had a tree every year, so I'm hoping this won't be the first year we don't.

It's a busy week for us this week. Pretty much something every night. I'm really proud of how well the girls are keeping up on schoolwork with being so busy during the week. Am closing this post now- have to get both girls showered and in bed. It's 10:00pm and they should have been in bed already! More tomorrow- that's my goal! : )

After the sale...

Well, we didn't do too bad at the sale. We had a large cabinet we used to store food in that we got rid of, but mostly just clothes and misc items. It's just amazing to me how much stuff we have in our house. I did reserve a container full of clothes (rather than take them to Goodwill) and will take them to the girls old elementary school. The nurses office can use the clothes there. Sometimes the kids don't have jackets when the weather is cold or something happens to the ones they are wearing and the need a change of clothes during the day. All in all, a good day.

And so it begins...

I've come to the conclusion that, despite my best intentions, I'm just not good at keeping friends and family updated with our life. Okay- so here goes nothing! Let's see, what's new with us? I'm very much looking forward to this Saturday when we have a garage sale. There are so many "piles" in our house in various places and I just need them to be gone. I've come to realize that I'm trying to hold on to too many thing from when the girls were younger. I don't have very many things saved from when I was a kid and so I think I'm overcompensating. A lot. I'm okay with keeping papers/artwork from school. That's not the problem. The problem lies in the amount of books, games, etc. I really need to thin it out. Oh, did I mention the t-shirts? I had this hairbrained idea to make t-shirt quilts for the girls from all their shirts over the years from sports, school, summer camps, church, etc. Only I don't know how to begin the quilting process. I know that having someone make them is very expensive and so I will have to try to do something myself with them. Hmm.. will have to think on that one a bit.