hairbrained schemes

24-7

Sometimes the boys say things that make me laugh outloud.

For instance, the other day we were in Extra Foods and they were in the toy aisle drooling over some Bionicle-y type toys.  Jacob spotted a transformer car of some kind and excitedly pointed it out to his brother, who arched his eyebrows and said, "Pffft...those are so old school, Jacob."  (clearly not getting that "old school" is usually a good thing).

Then there was the "sahweeeeeeet" era. 

Jacob picked that up at school and brought it home to Lucas who glommed onto it and for about 3 months every thing was "sahweeeeet".

Today, after a grueling lunch hour of Pokemon trading, Jacob was filling me in on all of his "rad" trades and commented that his buddy, Erik, brings his cards to school 24-7 (except, of course, when it's raining or snowing, which clearly establishes the fact that he doesn't entirely "get" the premise of "24-7").

So I was wondering today which one of these will stick? 

Which one will be the "awesome" of their era. 

Which then lead me to wonder if it's sad that as a 36 year old fully growed woman I still use the word "awesome" in everyday conversation?

I don't think so. 

It's not like I'm using the word grodie. 

Very often.

Our house is coming along fairly quickly.  We've hit a couple of bumps with the hydro and are now overbudget due to something called a transponder which we don't have and apparently need for power. 

Nice.

Being overbudget for cabinetry or a swimming pool is I can get on board with, but for something like that? 

Blech.

Seeing as how I need power to run my computer, I guess it's a no brainer.

Here are a couple of pictures Jason took today at the site.

This one is the view from the masterbedroom:

And this is take from up on a hill behind the house:

We were in Edmonton last week visiting Jason's family and we got to meet our sweet new niece Evalyn. 

She is a doll.

Jacob was immediately in love with her and was helping me badger Gorgeous George for a baby sister for him and his brother.

His brother's comment when asked if "wouldn't he like a baby sister like this" was, "Nope. She would take up WAY too much of your time."

Here she is:

Awesome, huh?

Just to Clarify.

In case anyone else was wondering, no, I don't smoke.

I would like to thank Kelli and Dawn for perpetrating such cruel rumours. 

It went down a little something like this:

Set:  Memories and More, inventory night, girls gathered around the food table

Me: In the kitchen, probably doing something selfless for everyone else, you know, the usual.

Kelli: Where's Cheryl?

Dawn: She's probably outside smoking having a smoke or something.

Aaaaaaaand scene.

It's a good thing I like sarcasm. 

So mom, you don't have to call me from Mexico when you read Kelli's comment about smoking.  I promise it's a vicious rumour.

Oh and in case you wondered, I used to smoke.  All I'm going to say about that it was the 80's and I had really big hair.  Which obviously goes hand in hand with hanging out in the pit behind the school and smoking.

So blame it on the 80's. 

Or blame it on the hair.

You pick.

We leave for Edmonton in the morning. 

Going for a quick visit to see some family and meet a new member of our family, our niece who was born in December.  Very exciting.  Jason's Grannie will also be visiting from Ottawa and we adore her so it's going to be fun to spend time with her as well. 

To Do Before We Leave:

• pack
• wrap Valentine presents
• do some Tooth Fairy duties (Lucas managed to rip a 2nd tooth from his jaw this afternoon at school in order to received the coveted tooth box the school provides for those who lose teeth at the school)
• finish cleaning the house
• make a couple of cards
• Febreze the stink out of the truck so Dawn and Joel don't gag all the way home from the airport
• brush the dog
• get the dog stuff organized
• get the cat stuff organized
• have a chat with Kitty and make sure she understands that even though we're sending her to a kennel when we're gone we still love her.  Contrary to what Gorgeous George tells her.

I better get busy.

Conversations Around the Craft Table

I think I may implement a weekly craft night with the boys.

We spent the evening making valentine's after dinner and in addition to gross little boy bodily functions, a Valentine's day rap (including some lyrics about gross bodily functions), I also heard this little tidbit.

Me: So who else do you have a crush on Jacob?

J: (big sigh) Mom, I'm getting too old to have crushes on girls.

L: (eyeroll) Jaaaaaake, you're ONLY 8.

J:  Well, yah, in HUMAN years. (insert implied "sheesh")

We then spent the next 7 or 8 minutes figuring out how old everyone in our family is in dog years. 

I'm ancient.

This year I talked the boys into bypassing the superhero valentine's and we made our own.  The boys did pretty well at gluing all the hearts and writing the names. 

Around Valentine 13 Lucas tried to convince me that if he just signed them "L" everyone would know who they were from. 

But being a mean mom naturally I made him write his name out on every single one.

Parent/teacher interviews were last week.

They went really well. Lucas is flying through the academic stuff and is making better choices about the other stuff (you know, stuff like maybe it's not a good idea to get up on the toilet and make dinosaur noises to make your friends laugh to the point of disturbing the three classes around the bathroom and then subsequently get sent to the principal's office because you didn't seem to realize the gravity of your indiscretion and then when the principal asks you to write apology letters to those three classes and leaves for a few minutes and you see some friends in the hall and decide to pop out for a minute to socialize...choices like that).

Then again, it was just last week that I picked him up from school and found him barefoot and wearing shorts in the class and when questioned he claimed that at lunch he "acthidentally kicked his boot off into a big puddle and then acthidentally splashed around in it and got all wet."

Baby steps.

Jacob did well too.  Upon leaving the interview, he asked how well he did. 

We told him that his teacher had nothing but good things to say.  He nodded and said, "Yah, I ALWAYS do well on things like that". 

We've been crazy busy with the house (that will be my standing excuse for not blogging for the next few months.  Get used to it.) and I'm enjoying it so much more this time. 

The framing crew is working on the joists on the main floor right now (I think that's what J said, I really don't know what that means). And our lovely pile of dirt no longer towers above the neighbouring houses. 

I went to a Pampered Chef party last night.

Anyone that knows me is now gasping and wondering how that happened. 

I know.

Normally, if I can't get out of going to home parties like that, I end up buying some stupid gadget out of guilt.

Last night I spent $150. 

I know.

The PC girl was amazing.  She would pick up something that I would scoff at in my head and by the end of her spiel I knew that I must have that item. 

I seriously had homemade pizza pops, freshly chopped salsa and a bevy of Pillsbury Dough creations dancing in my head.  (stop laughing, mom, it could happen).

Maybe I should have eaten before I went.

I've been extremely lazy in the scrapbooking department lately.  However, here's a picture of what our typical Saturday night looks like, you know, when I'm not jetting off to home shopping parties.

I suck at tag...

Both kinds of tag.

The chasing type of tag has always freaked me out. That and hide and go seek. 

<<shudder>>

Give me the willies just thinking about it.  I was the kid who would jump out before I was found because I couldn't take the anticipation of being found.

Plus, I am a sadly slow runner.

Blog tag is another area of failure for me.

Mostly because I procrastinate. 

But procrastination aside, here we go: 

I was tagged by my friend, Jen Sizemore, (who by the way, has the cutest new banner up), to list 6 weird things about myself.

I know.  Hard to imagine there are 6 weird things about me.

1. I can't bite into peanut butter full on with my front teeth.  The peanut butter must be covered with another piece of bread, bananas or I have to go in from the side.
2. I like to do high kicks.  Like pretend karate kicks, mostly at my husband, while trash talking a little.  I always make sure I do it from a good distance because one time I got too close and he grabbed my foot and held it up there.  That hurt.
3. I make my cat sleep under the covers with me.  Gorgeous George uses the word "stuff" when he teases me about it (as in, I "stuff" Kitty under there).  I'm sure she likes it (note to self: maybe that IS the reason that I'm the only family member Kitty snubs on a regular basis).
4. At this moment, I am watching "House of Carters" on MTV.  Which is actually more of a dirty little secret than "something weird", but it's within the realm of weird.  Most definitely in the realm.
5. I go through stages of OCD about different things.  Last year it was my curling iron.  I left work more than once to run home and double check that I had unplugged my curling iron.  Then, after I bought a curling iron that turns itself off, my obsession moved on to the garage door.
6. I like cleaning the bathroom (ps don't tell Jason, I always play hard done by and talk him into vacuuming like this:   loooong sigh.....I'll clean ALL the bathrooms if you don't mind vacuuming the house)

See?  Not a lot of weird here.  Right?

And with that, I tag some of my local friends.

Kelli, Tara and Audrey