My little Picasso

Little Dude is quite the budding artist.

Last week I cleaned out an rearranged our dining room. It took me a few days to get the room how I wanted it. During the process, I had stuff piled up around the art drawers. That was the last section of the room I had to go through and it would take the most work. I tend to do the easy stuff first!

Little Dude was not a happy camper. I think he made more of a mess trying to get to his beloved art supplies! Lovely - more work for moi!


Anypicasso, the Dude loves him some art! He bought, with his own money from raking Grandma and Pap's leaves, a new Curious George coloring book. He sat in his bed for 45 minutes last night coloring picture after picture. And instead of sleeping in the car whole we took the husband to work this morning, he colored. I'm sure he will be in a lovely mood after school today!

He gets so into his work. He is oblivious to the world around him when he is creating.


Picasso
Sometimes I worry that he'll bite his tongue off.
That's how hard he concentrates!


Thankfully the paint he used in the pic above washed right off. Paint is in fact, washable! Crayola markers? Not so much!

See...


Washable markers
I did manage to get most of the black and green off his hands, face, and legs. But he did go to school the next morning with a black ring around his wrist. Apparently someone, ahem the husband, left their Sharpies out!



For more Worldful Wednesday, head on over to Parenting by Dummies!





Until next time....

Soccer drama continues

The other day I blogged about my feelings on soccer, should GG continue to play after this season. Neither I nor the husband are thrilled with her playing on the 9-13 year old team, but we'll see how it plays out in a few months.

I was reading my comments from that post and Oka suggested I look into joining the board with the hopes of making improvements. I think that's an awesome idea. Complaining from the sidelines rarely gets anything done. I'm active in the PTA and try to help keep our school stay awesome for many years.

After GG's soccer practice Friday night, joining the board is completely off the table!

At least 2 weeks ago (forgive me~ all the practices run together anymore), Little Dude's coach mentioned youth athlete recognition night. Each fall during one of the high school football games, young athletes are recognized on the field before the football game. His coach told us the night this season is going to be October 1.

GG has her practice Friday nights and with recognition night being the Friday coming up, I wanted to ask her coach how we were doing things. Would practice be cancelled or rescheduled? When and where should we meet at the stadium? He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language! No one had mentioned anything about this to him. We walked over to ask the other coach there if she knew anything about it. This other coach is one of the people who is charge of the league.

She had no clue what we were talking about either!!!

For the life of me I can't figure out how Little Dude's coach knows all this information before everyone else. He was the first to know when the games started, what color Little Dude's team would be, and now the recognition night. But how is it that one of the head honchos of the league is clueless about all of this?!


Drama and confusion

I'm all for jumping in and lending a hand to improve the situation, but I'm definitely not sticking my hand in this mess!



Until next time....

It's funny how the world works.

I wasn't voted into office for the PTA, but I might as well have been. My friend, J, is the secretary. She is also in charge of the memberships. She's pregnant and was due Friday. For her sake, she better have that baby over the weekend!

This PTA membership stuff makes me kinda glad I wasn't voted into office. Number crunching and paperwork does not suit me pre-coffee. I could take the stuff home to work on it, but apparently that side of my brain doesn't function that early in the day!

Really I don't mind the work. It keeps me up to date on the going on's inside the school and helps curb my addiction to Bejeweled Blitz! But that's not the point of this. My point is that I feel included.

I am almost always the one on the outside looking in. It's not always fun, but there are perks. Sometimes it's better to watch things unfold from a distance than to be smack dab in the middle of it all.

This feeling like I'm a part of something is foreign to me, but I must say I like it!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to work on the Brownie meeting stuff. The group may be small, but they are far from quiet. Our plans don't always go accordingly!



Until next time....

Not a guarantee


I am a soccer mom. With that title comes many responsibilities. It is my job to make sure each kid gets to their respective practice on time. Or relatively close, in my case! I also need to make sure they have all their gear on correctly, have a ball, and something to drink.

Our games in the fall are on Sunday mornings. I need to make sure they each get to their games, which is not always easy since the times of Little Dude's games vary week to week. I again need to make sure they are appropriately dressed and have something to drink. I also need to pay attention to who has snack. Remembering such things is about as easy for me as getting somewhere on time. But I still manage to get it done. It doesn't matter that my trip to the grocery store for said snack was the night before the game. And by night before I mean well after the kids went to bed.


So far each kid has only had 2 games apiece and only a few practices. Positions are something new for Little Dude this year. Up until today, his coach would tell him to play defense and he would wander around clueless. The husband and I had to take over the job of coach for a few nights to work with him and today it finally clicked! Little Dude was getting right in there, helping his team mates and kicking the ball. In the right direction I might add!


Kids playing soccerLittle Dude is on the left
getting ready to go after the ball


At the end of almost every season he doesn't want to play anymore. His feet hurt. He doesn't like running. He hates having me wake him up (me, too!). Come time for sign-ups, he's already asking what color we think he will be for the season.


As much as Little Dude can complain (he may or may not get that from moi), GG is the complete opposite. She loves soccer! She has an awesome coach this year and when he lights the fire under her ass, she kicks ass! She is also on the team that wears bandannas each game. That's pretty cool. Or at least her and I think it is!


Kids playing soccerGG is on the left
with pink shorts & a black bandanna


She has talked in the past of playing soccer in high school and maybe someday being the next Mia Hamm. She definitely has the potential to be great with this sport, especially if she puts her mind to it and does the work. As awesome as I think this would be because she could pay for us when we're old, we have hit a road block.

The fall season ends in the beginning of November, right before GG turns 9. When we sign her up to play in the Spring, she will be bumped up to the next age bracket. I am definitely not comfortable with this bracket, and neither is the husband.

She has been playing soccer for a few years so she has obviously had to move up to new age groups. For example, she started playing with 5/6, then she moved to 7/8. Because of when her birthday falls, she is always one of the older kids. I do get worried that my 8, almost 9 year old is playing with newly 7 year olds, but it's really not a huge issue. This next age bracket, should she continue, is 9-13.

Yes, I said 9-13. There is a huge difference between a 9 year old girl and a 13 year old girl. The size, the weight, and the aggressiveness. But not only this, the teams are still mixed. She could potentially play on the same team with 13 year old boys. My fear is that GG will be intimidated by the bigger kids, become withdrawn, and end up hating the sport. But at the same time, she could see how the older kids play and it could really light the fire under her ass.

We still have quite a few months to figure out what we're going to do. Maybe I can talk to her current coach with the hopes that he is also moving up with his son. Maybe with a little brown nosing, GG can get on his special pick list! But that's not a guarantee. Not many things in life are.


If you were in this situation, what would you do?

All advice and comments, good, bad, and ugly, are welcome.



Until next time....

Nursery Rhymes

I was running late to get the kids from school. Kindergarten gets out a few minutes before the rest of the kids so they don't get trampled. That and the teachers like to see the parents before they release a student from the building.

I really expected to get to the school to see Little Dude waiting for me after all of his friends had left for the day. Thankfully that was not the case. Instead I was greeted with the cutest thing I think I have ever seen.

Little Dude's teachers was walking out the door with the class as I arrived. She had all the students line up on the steps and announced to the parents that today was what she calls "performance day".

The kids sang this...

Nursery rhymes
followed by a cute shake your booty dance

Nursery rhymesfollowed by another round of shake your booty dance

Nursery rhymes
and ended with a final shake your booty dance


Everyone clapped and cheered when they were done. The smiles on those kids' faces was worth the price of admission. In other words, priceless!


I do have a video of the class singing and dancing, but that rule about not posting pictures without permission - I follow that one to a tee! Just trust me when I say it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. I absolutely love this teacher!!


Until next time...
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Planes, trains, and automobiles. Or just planes!

As we all know Saturday was 9-11. The memories of that day still haunt as if it were yesterday. Instead of wallowing in that sorrow and watching the stories of that horrible time, I went out this year. To an Air Force base.

My sister from another mister wanted to see the air show. GG was at a friend's house, but I knew Little Dude would go nuts over those planes. And the soldiers, too!

Here's a recap of our day. Post-it style!



No restrooms

Traffic

Roughly 30 minutes to get to this point,
but another 2.5 hours to go the last 3 miles!
Thankfully it only took us 1 hour to get home.
Gorgeous day, 9/11 - I guess that was THE place to be!


Navy pilot


Navy pilot


Wings over Pittsburgh


Wings over Pittsburgh


Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds


OCC bike

OCC bike

Check out the detail on that beauty!



And because I couldn't pass it up, I had to get a picture representing black 'n' gold pride! The guy with the 2 Crosby jerseys is just icing on the cake!


Steeler nation



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That One Mom



Until next time....

These boots were made for walking

Today was a good day.

Today was shopping day. Shopping always makes for a good day.

It would have been even more special if I was shopping for myself. Perhaps next time. But the deals I got made up for it!

I know I've blogged about the resale event I participate in before, but here's a recap in case you're new.

Twice a year there's a HUGE resale event in my area. It's all kids stuff and you name it, you can probably find it there. I consign so I make money and get rid of stuff. I also volunteer which increases my payout by 10%.

Back to my deals~ Consignors can shop before the public and volunteers can shop even earlier. Score! Today was my day to shop. I don't go all crazy. I usually buy only what the kids need, and maybe an extra item or 2. GG was the one who lucked out with the extra items today. I found her a pair of black high top shoes with peace signs on them. Not only did they scream her name but they were from Justice. If you have a daughter, you may understand her addiction to that store.

To go along with the high tops, I found something to please my drama shoe queen.


Pink cowgirl boots
O-M-G!!! Pink cowgirl boots! Cute and cheap. How can you go wrong with that?!

They looked like they were barely worn, but there were a few scuff marks on them. For future reference, non-acetone nail polish remover takes those marks off in seconds!

Brand new in a matter of minutes.

She strutted about in those beauties all night!








Maybe I can convince her to be a cowgirl for Halloween? She has her heart on something scary, but maybe we can work out a deal.


Until next time....

Boys will be boys

It never ceases to amaze me what little boys will do when they think no one is watching.


Yesterday Little Dude had a little bit of trouble at school. We talked about it. I gave him a warning that he better shape up. It was nothing huge and I attribute it to adjusting to school and testing the limits. Then we moved on.

But testing the boundaries did not stop there.


I was oblivious to the incident because I was freezing my ass off at the soccer field with GG. The husband was trying to catch up on some work and Little Dude capitalized on this opportunity.

I came home to find a boy who had once again discovered the joys of art. Little Dude loves to draw and color, but sometimes he thinks his own skin in the paper. And quite often black is his favorite marker to use.

I walked in the door, arms full of soccer stuff, to see his belly. On his belly was his name! Thank goodness it wasn't his face and I will say this - I was not happy he used his body for paper, but I will admit I was tempted to find a marker and write "Hi, my name is..." above his creation!

As mad as I was I must say I was rather impressed. From his perspective, his name was written not only backwards but upside-down! The letters were in the correct order and made exactly how they should be if you were intentionally writing backwards.

I really wish I was able to take a picture of it, but he found some wipes and cleaned himself off. And that made me quite thankful that he used a washable marker and not a Sharpie!

Lower case letters are not something we worked on over the past year, so I can at least say that he has now mastered writing his name using lower case letters!



Until next time....

A's and Owls

School is off to a fabulous start!


Except homework. It now takes GG more than 5 minutes and I don't think she is very pleased with that. In fact, she just informed me she is allergic to spelling.


Judging by this...


Aced the test
1st spelling test of 3rd grade


I think she's just trying to get out of spelling homework!



Little Dude is doing awesome, too! He seems to be grasping lower case letters, which I did not realize he needed to know before Kindergarten started or we would have worked on them. My bad!

He was barely out of the building on Tuesday when he pulled his newest art project out of his Star Wars book bag...


Owl










Until next time....

It's a miracle! I'm healed!

A few days ago I blogged about being bruised. It hurt to send my babies to school, especially Little Dude who started Kindergarten. My midgets are characters to say the least. I missed their entertaining conversations.

This 3 day weekend helped to heal my wounds.



How to clean


House and home


Not child friendly


Exhausting the possibilities


Year round school


That One Mom Head over to Only Parent Chronicles to link up your own post-its! It's fun! I promise!



Until next time....

Bruised

School is going really well for the midgets. In case you missed my official back to school post, it's here.

Little Dude is the one we were worried about since he was home with me every day for the past 2 years. School is going so well for him that he informed me this afternoon that "school is more funner than staying home with you all day"'.

I know what he meant, and I am glad that he loves school. His teacher is so awesome that I want to go back to Kindergarten. GG's teacher is awesome, too. Maybe I can alternate between Kindergarten and 3rd grade. An every other week kind of thing or something!


But what he meant and how I took it are 2 totally different things. I know he didn't mean that we didn't have fun at home, but I'm still a little bruised.

Today was my first official day in the house all by my lonesome. I'm not real into daytime tv and it was way too hot to do anything outside, so I did a little work around the house with the radio on. I will admit it was so nice to turn the volume up and not have to censor anything. The morning show I love can be a tad raunchy at times.

But at the same time it was weird. I only had to make lunch for one. I could eat some cookies or fudge without hiding. I had to do some grocery shopping. I just grabbed my purse and went out the door. There was no telling anyone to clean up or make sure they used the bathroom. And when I was done shopping, I think I shed a tear walking by the babysitting room because my babies weren't in there.

Or the tear could have been because I had to leave the luxurious AC, which we do not have at home. And by the time it kicks on in the car, I'm pulling into my driveway.

Either way, it was sad.

I know my babies are doing well and they will continue to succeed, but my bruise isn't completely healed. In time, my wounds will heal. I will find ways to pass the time, other than crocheting. Let's face it, I can't do that all the time. There's only so many projects one can make!



Until next time....