Burning a hole in her pocket

Emma had some money that has been burning a hole in her pocket. She had $20 from her Grandpa Alan and Grandpa Stephens and she was determined to spend it today. We went to Walmart (and just so you know Emily, Walmart is a bad place to be on Sunday too!) today to look around at DVD players. The kids have broken all 3 of our machines and we wanted to see what is available. Emma brought her money with her and she wanted to buy a Littlest Pet Shop set. She found that, then also found a 2-n-1 Habitat/Backyard Safari. She had enough money for both, so we let her spend it so she won't be worried about it any longer. She is very excited about her new backyard safari. This container can be used for bugs or even frogs. The package said that there was a coupon for free tadpoles included!! Emma was sold. She found a little baby toad when we were in Iowa over the 4th of July and decided she was going to keep it as a pet. Well, that is until it escaped the ice cream bucket and got lost in my parents' basement. Did you ever find that toad Mom and Dad? After we got home and got the package opened and found the coupon for the free tadpole, I noticed it said that the tadpole was free, but it was $7.99 for shipping and handling. No wonder this backyard safari was clearanced at Walmart! I think I am going to go check them out at PetSmart before I order it, as I'm sure we'll have better luck getting one there, rather than having one mailed to us!? Gage was excited about Emma's purchase as well, because he was sure she would let him have one of the tadpoles she would get. We didn't realize at the time you would only get ONE in the shipment! It also says in the directions that you shouldn't have more than one frog in this thing because it isn't big enough for more than that. I think we'll have to go with 2 anyway, to prevent the fighting. We didn't have much luck with fish, so I don't know how we'll do with frogs. Hopefully we won't have any escape this time!

The kids had a nice time at church this morning. They had a scavenger hunt planned for the kids and they had a good time showing their friends, Jadyn and Kya, around the church. They were also very excited to hear they would be going to Sunday School with them!! Gage said, "You mean they are going to come for good?" I told him I hoped that was what they decided, but yes, for now they were planning to try it out at our church. They are thrilled to death!

This morning before we left for church I put a roast in the crockpot. I had gotten a very simple recipe off of another blog I enjoy reading "Motherhood for Dummies" that was for Shredded BBQ. It was really good AND very easy, which is always a bonus for me! When we got home from church it smelled so good we were all disappointed that we had to wait until supper time to eat it! We put it over brown rice instead of having sandwiches and it was really good. We'll have the leftovers on sandwiches tomorrow for another yummy meal! I will definitely be making it again. We have tons of roasts in the freezer from when we bought 1/4 beef. I'm not very good at cooking roasts, so they have just sat in the freezer..........until now!

Looking forward to Monday! I don't know that I've ever looked forward to Mondays? Have I mentioned that I LOVE SCHOOL? :-)

A beautiful day

Gage had his first soccer game of the season this morning. It turned out to be a beautiful day for it too! We were very proud of the way he hustled. He still wasn't the most aggressive kicker out there, but I'm just overjoyed that he tried his hardest. I didn't realize how rough of a sport soccer can be!? At one point, early on in the game, Gage went to kick the ball and one of his opponents (who happens to be a kid we know from church) fell in front of him and he kicked him in the head. I don't think it was that hard, but it was hard enough to send the little guy to the sidelines with his parents. Then, not long after that, Gage took a ball right in the face. It kind of stunned him at first, but then he started crying while he was holding his face and nose. The coach picked him up and carried him off the field to me and I had him sit in my lap awhile while I rubbed his back. While I had him there I said, "Gage, did you accidentally kick Seth in the head?" He replies, "No, I didn't, but my cleat did." Ooops. I could tell when Seth started crying that Gage felt really bad and was very concerned about him.

Before the game started the coach had the kids doing warm-ups. Jumping jacks are always quite amusing. Gage has a hard time with the jumping jacks and timing them appropriately.

Warm-up kicks into the goal.

More warming up.

Coach Keith giving the kids a pep talk before the game starts.

The Stephens were listed as parent monitors. I made Scott go out and do it because I don't know the first thing about soccer. Neither does Scott, but I figured he could fake it a little better than I could?

Gage gives the ball a nice kick during the game.

Even though they don't keep score, it's alot easier to know what the score is in soccer than in baseball. We had about 4 goals to the opponents' 2.

Gage is hustling down the field on the right of the ball. He did a very good job of passing the ball to his teammates. The whole team actually did a pretty good job of passing the ball. Gage was trying really hard to score a goal and almost had one.

The team takes a little water break while coach Keith lays out the game plan.

It was such a nice day out that we had to do something outdoors. We loaded up the bicycles and drove down by the river to ride our bikes along the path. We rode from the DU office to the zoo. I'm not exactly sure how far that is, but it is probably 3-4 miles round trip? The kids did really well. We walked around the zoo for a little while and checked out the new big cat exhibit that was built this summer. The snow leopard part of it is still under construction, but we got to see the bengal tiger, white bengal tiger and I think it's a yellow tabby bengal tiger? These are rare tigers that are on loan to our zoo. The exhibit is really cool, as there is a tunnel you can go through to get to this viewing area. The area is topped with glass and has glass sides so that you can get "up close" to the tigers. All 3 of them actually hopped up onto the glass area that we were standing in so we were able to really see them up close! Their paws were just huge! I'm such a cat lover and I really enjoyed it. Even though they are wild, I always think it would be fun to pet them. I'm sure it wouldn't be so much fun being lunch, however. While we were in the enclosure it started to downpour. Thank goodness we timed that right. Our bikes were wet when we left, but thankfully we didn't get rained on.

On our ride back to the car I was quite a ways in the lead. I wasn't intending to be and I wasn't going very fast, but everyone else was just lagging behind. At one point I turned my head to see where everyone was and I couldn't see any of them! I waited awhile and Gage finally caught up to me. He was apparently trying to tell me that Emma wrecked her bike but I was off in la-la land and unintentionally had him tuned out. When we stopped at the grocery store on our way home Emma was showing me her knee. I'm like, "Emma, what happened to your knee?" She said, "I wrecked my bike!" Scott replies, "You didn't even know she wrecked her bike?" Well, no, I guess not! Gage says, "Mom, I told you that when I caught up to you." Hmmm.........I certainly didn't hear him say that, so I must have had some good thoughts going through my head to have all of that conversation tuned out? I guess I'm getting pretty good at that! LOL!

There was a really good taco dip that they had out for sampling in the store. Gage wanted me to go and try it, but it was nearly gone when I got to it. I had to scrape the side to get any, but what I got was really good. I saw a sign that said the taco dip was $6.99/lb. I didn't realize it said per pound. Or, if I did realize it, I assumed it was probably around one pound. Then, I couldn't find the dip. I had to go ask a guy at the deli counter and he said it was right by the dip. He walked over there with me and said, "It's right there!" as he pointed at it. Hmmm, it looked quite a bit different before it was completely devoured! LOL! After we checked out Scott says, "Stacy, did you see how much that dip was?" I told him I didn't, but that the sign said, $6.99. I guess I should have weighed the darn thing because it was $15!!!! It was in a pie plate-like plastic container, so it wasn't HUGE. I about died when Scott said it was $15! It was sure delicious when we got it home though! (It should have been for that price!) I'll know next time about their sneaky marketing style! We saw our friend Juanita there. She was there with her sister and nephew from Minneapolis. It was nice meeting them. (I hope we didn't tempt you, Juanita, to go back and get a container of that spendy dip, or, if we did, that you were actually smarter than I was and looked at the price on the bottom of the pan!)

Tomorrow starts the fall church season and we go back to 2 church services each Sunday. The early service is at 9am and the later one is at 11am. We typically go to the early one because it seems like half of our day is over when we get home at lunchtime after the later service. Our friends, Kara, Guy, Jadyn and Kya Guidinger are meeting us there. The Sunday School season kick-off is tomorrow with a breakfast in Ramstad Hall between services. This will be Emma's first year to not be in the preschool room for Sunday School, so I'm sure she'll be excited about the different rotations/stations they will have each week. She's finally part of the "big kid" group. It's kind of sad when I think about how big she's getting. She was only about 6 months old or so when we started going to church. They just grow up way too fast!

I'm losing it.

I am totally losing it, and it's starting to frighten me a little. I wonder what the earliest age Alzheimer's has struck an individual? Today after school the kids wanted to play with the neighbors, so I told them they could play for just a little while because we had swimming lessons. We got to the YMCA and the kids changed into their suits in the family locker room and then we headed for the pool. I thought I saw a couple of people look at me funny, but I just ignored it and went along my merry way. When we got into the pool area, one of the employees came up to me and asked if we were there for swimming lessons? I told him that we were. He replies, "Uh, the swimming lessons don't start until next week." CRAP! Are you kidding me?!? I told him that last week we missed gymnastics because I thought it started this week, and now we're a week early for swimming lessons!! I guess it's better to be a week early than a week late!? You've got to be kidding me! What in the heck is my problem? He told me that the kids could stay and swim if they wanted to. So that's what we did. They had the pool pretty much to themselves and I just sat along the wall and enjoyed the fact that they were getting along and not fighting. It was good exercise for them anyway.

Scott called my cell phone from work while we were at the Y. He forgot to tell me that he was supposed to give a talk to some birding club at the zoo. So, I thought it would be a good idea to meet him somewhere for supper. Of course the kids wanted to go to McDonalds because they discovered at the neighbors' house that they have Clone Wars toys in the Happy Meals. Great. Just what I wanted for supper. I told them the only way we would go is if I had complete angelic behavior out of them for the entire weekend. They said, "No problem!" Once we got to McDonalds Emma realized she didn't have socks on and you aren't allowed to play in the play area without socks. Gage didn't have his on either, but his were out in the car in the swimming bag. He went to go get them and went out the emergency exit and set off the alarms. I didn't realize he was even headed that direction and I felt so bad for him. He didn't even know what happened, as to why the alarms went off. I told him to read the sign on the door. Well, he felt really bad then and said he didn't see the sign. He was a little embarrassed, but the gal who came to reset the alarm was nice about it and said it only happens twice on a good day. :-)

Gage has a soccer game tomorrow.........................I better double check that to make sure it's actually tomorrow before we head out to the soccer field! Not too much else is planned for the weekend, but since the kids have promised to be angels, it should be a good one!

Rain

It was raining this morning on our walk to school. Emma has a raincoat, but Gage does not. I told him on Tuesday, when it was raining on our walk to school, that I would get him one. I thought I was pretty safe in not getting it for a few days, because it doesn't rain that often in ND! I was wrong. I felt horrible this morning. He does have a windbreaker-type jacket, but I don't think it's waterproof and it doesn't have a hood. I tried gearing him up this morning for rain and asked him if I could cut a hole in a garbage bag and he could wear that to school. He looked at me like I was talking greek and said, "A garbage bag?" After I explained what I was talking about, he assured me he would be fine. We weren't too awfully wet when we got to school, but I made it a point to make sure Gage saw that I TOO was getting wet! I didn't get anywhere today to get him a raincoat, so I'm quite sure it will rain again tomorrow morning!

I love dreary, rainy days. After I got home from dropping the kids off, I was checking on the blogs I read daily for any updates and one of the gals is a scrapbooker and had a picture of a layout that she did. She inspired me to get upstairs and start working on my stuff. Well, okay, I can't yet work on my stuff because it is still too disorganized! I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon trying like crazy to get all of my pictures organized so I can actually start scrapbooking! I made a pretty big dent in the pictures, but I still have from March of this year to present to get sorted. The stack of pictures I have sitting on my table is over a foot tall! Scott told me he would get me some sort of back up system set up for my pictures because I'm paranoid I'll lose all of my pictures on the computer, so I end up printing nearly every picture I take. The digital camera is supposed to prevent that. Hopefully whatever he has in mind will work so that I can just print off what I want to scrapbook. I'm slowly, but surely getting to the point where I can start working on my albums.

Gage had soccer practice tonight. It was a chilly one. He will play in his first soccer match on Saturday morning. Scott and I are listed to be parent monitors. Neither one of us knew what that meant, so we asked the coach and he said we would just stand along the edge of the field and help the kids and be a line judge. Neither one of us has a clue about soccer and the rules. It ought to be quite entertaining having us out there, supposedly "helping".

I'm getting pretty tired of all the political stuff on television. We did watch Sarah Palin's speech last night. I'd never seen her before so it was interesting listening to her. I thought it was funny when she commented on all of the "Hockey Mom" posters in the audience and said, "Do you know the difference between a hockey Mom and a pit bull? Lipstick!" That was pretty good. It will be very interesting to see who finally wins the election in November, and it will be a relief to get all of this campaigning over with!

Not much else to report here. Emma reported that the little "trouble maker" wasn't at school today and she wasn't bothered by the bully. Maybe everyone is getting used to the school routine and are settling into their new environment? That would be nice if that's the case.

Tired

Man, I am so tired today! I went to Biolife this morning and I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not? While I was waiting to go pick the kids up from school, I nearly fell asleep. Thank goodness for the "STRIKE" on Family Feud, or I might have missed getting the kids picked up? It also saved me that Emily called just before I left. (Thanks Emily!)

The kids had a good day at school. Emma reports that she was not bullied today, so that was good. She did talk a little about the little girl who is a "trouble maker". Apparently she got her head caught in a door that she was not supposed to use. Hmmm.............I guess maybe she'll listen next time? Or not?

I spent the afternoon labeling pictures. I am NEVER going to be able to scrapbook all of these pictures I have taken this summer. It will probably take at least 2 albums to get them all included. I put the dates on the back of the pictures that I got in the mail yesterday from snapfish.com and I think I had somewhere around 400 photos to label? I'm sure they like having me as a customer! Maybe since school has started, I can slow down in the picture department? If I don't slow down, I'll never get caught up!

Scott is out of town for the day but will be back later tonight. Last night he asked me to play some Wii tennis with him. I guess he likes getting his butt kicked! HA! He didn't want to quit until he beat me, so we played several games, then after he won we switched to bowling. We are pathetic. I tried taking some video of us playing tennis the last time we played, but I looked so stupid I just deleted it. Plus, I'd hate to cause all of you to pee your pants from laughing so hard, like I nearly do every time Scott and I play. Man, he's funny to watch. Especially when I serve a burner! LOL! I've been pretty religious doing the body test with the Wii Fit each morning. So far I've lost around 5 lbs. Not because of playing the Wii, but because it's just making me more aware of what I'm doing in terms of eating and exercising. Hopefully I can keep it up! If I could get that thing to stop telling me I'm fat, I'd be happy! LOL!

Quiet!

Boy have I enjoyed my peace and quiet today!! Have I mentioned that I LOVE SCHOOL?? LOL! I've nearly completed the laundry, have the basement fairly organized and have an hour left of solitude.

The weather sure has changed! It was pretty chilly this morning. My favorite kind of weather! I've heard people say that if you don't like the weather in North Dakota, just wait a day. That's for sure. Saturday we had a record high of 100 degrees, and tonight it's supposed to get down to 39!! Fall is in the air.

Emma has her first gymnastics class (well, okay, it's not the first class, but it's HER first class of the session!) We're looking forward to that. Gage and Emma have swimming lessons that start this week on Friday as well. We're going to start into our busy lives again. It was a nice little break while it lasted!

I don't have much to say. It's been a very QUIET and uneventful day so far. I'm sure that will change come 3:05!! :-)

A laborious Labor Day!

For quite some time now, our basement has been neglected. So badly, in fact, that I have threatened the kids that if they take ANYONE down to the basement, they are in BIG TROUBLE! I have allowed a couple of my friends down because they wanted to check out my new washer and dryer. I did give them big warnings, however, that the basement is a TOTAL WRECK! They assured me that they didn't care. I'm sure they didn't, but I did!

Scott and I tackled the basement today! Of course when you're doing something stressful like messing with people's "stuff" it can get a little hairy, but we both survived (barely!) I decided this time I would take a "before" AND "after" picture.

If you know me, then you know that this mess has been a nightmare for me. Normally I am an organized person and I like things to be in their place. Since having kids, things have changed. However, I still can't stand a HUGE mess like this!

Each year Bismarck has a messiest garage contest. I seriously think we could have won a messiest basement contest, hands down. I would have been too embarrassed to enter though.

This is the room you walk into when you enter the basement, where the washer and dryer are. You can barely make your way back there to even wash the clothes!

Scott and Emma taking a little break.

Here's the after picture!!!! An amazing transformation! We have had this big piece of carpet out in the garage for several months. A friend who was redoing her basement was getting new carpet and asked if we would be interested in this piece they were removing. We will be using it only temporarily, until we can get to the point of really redoing the basement. This will do for now.

Okay, so I can't YET take a picture of the room where the washer and dryer are for the "after" shot because we're not quite finished with it. Sometimes to clean one room means to make a disaster of another one. However, it couldn't be much worse than it already was!

The kids are quite excited about the basement transformation. They are having a blast playing with toys they haven't seen in months. They have both asked me, "Mom, does this mean our friends can come down here?" YES! YES! Your friends can now come down to the basement!