Happy Brithday!

Today is the Rev's birthday. I wont' tell you how old he is, just know he's older than me. Heh.

I tried my hand at homemade spaghetti sauce. It turned out ok, if Wiggle Man's second helping is any indication. The meatballs I made to go with it were pretty yummy, too.

I also tried a great recipe I found online for a birthday cake for the Rev. It turned out not so ok. Apparently the pan, which I thought was deep enough, was nowhere near deep enough. Cake batter adorned the inside of my oven. On the bright side, I finally cleaned my oven.

Wiggle Man was adamant that we needed party hats for Daddy's birthday. Since we didn't have paper big enough for the cone-shaped hats he had in mind, we made party crowns, instead.

Don't we look lovely?

Purple

I have no pictures to prove it, but I survived a weekend with 8 teenagers. Give or take 8 thousand other people.

We spent the weekend with a group of teens from church at a crazy, loud weekend-long rock concert.

I have no eardrums left. I got a combined 12 hours of sleep the whole weekend. (That equals not nearly enough, in case you were wondering.)

I ate a ridiculous amount of junk food.

On the plus side, I got to indulge in one of my favourite things: fried oreos. I haven't had fried oreos since the last time I braved the music festival. Imagine: oreos, dipped in funnel cake batter, then deep fried. It's heavenly, trust me.

I also got a cute scarf. Oh, and I got to spend the weekend with 8 great kids. You know, and that.

I'm gonna leave with a shout-out to ztf.

Peace,

Still Here

Still here, I am. Enjoying summer, I am. Talking like Yoda, I am.

Ok, typing like that is creeping me out. So I'll stop.

But seriously, summer's been good to us. There's playing, and spending time with friends, and having company, and all sorts of wonderful fun things.

I also thought I'd try something different. So, I cut and highlighted my own hair. Because I'm crazy like that. I did a little research online, picked out a colour at the drugstore, turned on the t.v. for Wiggle Man, and went to town.

And here's the result:



The highlights aren't super visible in the picture--I went with red, so the absence of most of my blonde highlights is more noticeable than anything else.

Other than that, since I blogged last I've had a birthday (complete with cake and presents!) and an anniversary, which was celebrated by a fabulously yummy dinner. The memory of that fabulously yummy dinner was in no way ruined by the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night with my tummy all a rumble. It was so worth it.

So there you have it--you're all caught up!

Kisses,

Scenes From My Day

Wiggle Man woke up shrieking at 6:45. AM. (I know, I know--some of you suffer from actual early risers, but in our household, this is early. We're night owls.) This is the second morning in a row; I suspect one of our neighbours is leaving early for work, and Wiggle Man hears the truck leaving, but I can't be sure. (Imagine my dramatic sigh here.)

I managed 20 minutes on the elliptical before I gave in and stopped, for fear of fainting in the cardio room at the Y.

Feeling better, we headed to the library. If you were there, you would have heard a crazed woman scream-whispering the following:

"Wiggle Man! WIGGLE MAN! (Insert child's full name here.) Get OFF the stool. No, put that book back on the shelf. No, no, no, no, NOOOOO! Do you want to leave right now?" Etc.

I decided a mother-son bonding time was needed. We baked cookies. Butter, shortening and sugar in the mixer. ("Mommy, need more sugar." "No, son, we certainly don't. At least, you don't. Mommy actually may need more sugar. Or chocolate. Or wine.") Imagine my surprise to find that my eggs had actually frozen. They were sitting towards the back of the fridge, and apparently, it's cold back there.

Off to the "Food Line" (evidence of Wiggle Man's developing southern drawl?) for eggs.

Me chasing Wiggles around the store. The phrase "Watch where you're going!" was repeated frequently, followed by, "I'm sorry, ma'am."

Then I tried to lie down on the couch. Wiggle Man decided I made a perfect trampoline. Headache ensues.

Now? Dinner's on the stove, and the little cherub is passed out on the chair, fast asleep.

Sweet, sweet silence.

Kisses,

My Hair, Yo

"Where does Wiggle Man get his curly hair?"

I got this question at church last month by more than one person. It threw me for a loop the first time. And then I realised: unless someone ran into me at Food Lion before my hair was done for the day, or if I was having a lazy hair day, most people at church had no idea I had curly hair. It's always nice and straight for Sunday morning service.

So, I decided to go curly for church. This brought different questions. Questions like, "Why in the world don't you leave your hair curly all the time?"

Well, it's simply more practical to straighten my hair. I know that seems weird, so I took some pictures as proof.

Here's me, with my hair all nice and curly:







Here's me, after Wiggle Man has gotten ahold of my hair to play with it, or wrestle with me, or climb up my back, or basically in any way comes in contact with my hair:







And that picture doesn't do the frizz factor justice.

Here's a picture of me with my hair freshly straightened:

And here's me again, after a run-in with Wiggle Man:

See what I mean?

This is why I straighten my hair, friends. At least, that's one reason. Also, I like it better straight, it doesn't feel weird around my face when it's straight, and you can see my highlights better.

The End.

Kisses,

Wiggle-isms

This morning, as we were getting ready to head out to the Y:

The Missus: "Wiggle Man, should we wash the car today?"
Wiggle Man: "No way! That's CRAZY." (Someone is afraid of those drive through car washes.)

At the Starbucks in Target, for our post-Y treat:

WM: "Please can I have coffee drink?"
TM: "No, Wiggles, you need to be bigger before you can have coffee."
Wiggle Man stretches himself to his full height, shows me his "muscles" then says:
WM: "Me big boy now? Coffee drink?"

Ummm...no. Not quite, child. :)

Kisses,


PS--Shameless self-promotion alert--don't forget to check out www.cyberflutelessons.com!

Proof of My Awesomeness

So this first picture isn't so much proof of my awesomeness, besides the awesomeness of my family. This is the first family picture that I really like enough to consider framing. Also, you can see how much Wiggle Man needs a hair cut.

Ok, here's where we get to the awesomeness:

Gorgeous views, aren't they? So worth making it to the top.

Yeah, so I look a little sweaty glisten-y, and maybe a little winded, but c'mon. It was my first hike.

Here's me and my sister-in-law, celebrating our awesomeness. It's an odd angle, because, well, we're on top of a rock. Which doesn't exactly provide for level ground for picture taking. So I'm squashing my vanity, and posting it anyway, because you can see how awesome we are, up on that rock.

So there you have it. Proof of my mad hiking skillz and all that.

Don't forget to check out http://www.cyberflutelessons.com/ if you haven't already, and feel free to, you know, tell all your friends and stuff. And if you want to tell random strangers, that's ok, too.

Kisses,