hairbrained schemes

When you were young...

Three things:

One:

We are having Jake's 10th birthday party today.

Sigh.

It's the cut off for big birthday parties and I'm not sure who is more regretful about this, him or me...

I love planning parties. 

Figuring out the menu (pizza and ice cream cake - hey, what can I say, they are 10 year old boys)

Setting up the activities (paintball - hey, see above)

Trying to think of a cool "goody bag" worthy of their 10 year oldness but not loading up a sack of crap from the dollar store for their mother's to chuck in the garbage when they get home. 

After much thought and collaboration, Jacob and I came up with this:

We burned a bunch of the must have tunes for the pre-teen set (mostly comprised of Weird Al Yankovic with a couple of rock songs thrown in for balance) onto cd's and made these covers in photoshop. We threw in a pack of gum and a small pack of Pokemon cards (he's mature, but he's still only 10) and called it a day.

TWO:

My pretty fly friend (PSA: with the event of downloading probably too much of the Offspring onto my IPOD, I've been feeling quite compelled to work the phrase "pretty fly" into my conversation and even though this may seem like a gratuitous use of the phrase, she is indeed, pretty fly), Michele, tagged me with this:

 

This is how it works:

(1) The winner can put the logo on their blog.

(2) Link the person you received your award from.

(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

(4) Put links of those on yours.

(5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated

And the nominations are....

1.  Dianne - whose enthusiasm, kindness and most excellent digital skills make me smile on a daily basis

2.  Jen Sizemore - this lady oozes pure talent, everytime I see one of her projects I wish she lived closer so I could soak up some of her awesomeness. Oh! And she also introduced me to the term "Ink Thumping" (which I still think sounds kind of naughty)

3. Libby - more mad digital skills and now she is an amazing digital designer as well, and she is always there to answer any photoshop or teeth question I might have (she has mad teeth information skills too)

4. Karen - is super sweet, super talented and the teacher I wish my boys had the good fortune to learn from

5.  Ramona - has a simple style I totally dig and I love her passion

6. Jennifer - whose sarcastic wit keeps me laughing daily (as does the exploits of her boys - three of them, which I totally am in awe of)

7. Candice - who I am so happy to have had the good fortune to meet on the interwebs through scrapbooking and Simple Scrapbooks and whose photography prowess makes my jaw drop regularly (and check out that banner she has up - fun stuff people!)

THREE:

This is my 10 year old and his new hat.

We went school clothes shopping and all he wanted was a hoodie, a t-shirt and this hat.

I had to bite my tongue before I spit out the fact that my Grandpa's both used to sport fedoras not unlike his new lid. 

He thinks he's utterly cool.

I kind of think so, too.

Kumbaya

I'm back.

They say 3 time's the charm (I'm sure I heard somebody say that...), so this is my last attempt to stay current.

I'm going to pretend I haven't not posted since April do a quick recap on the boys' first summer camp experience, also known as, "this one time, at Bible Camp"...

• Jacob now knows what "camel toe" means (inappropriate female wedgie - which is an apt description, but still one that I would rather my 10 year old didn't know)
• Both boys have new nicknames, Jacob is known as "Sticks"  (check out the pipes on that boy)

• Lucas goes by Werewolf (because he is hairy, has fangs and runs and jumps really fast). 
  Who knew?
• The correct name is actually "The Book of Genesis", not to be confused with "The Book of Genitals" which is an entirely different thing.
• When your mom is not around to nag, one shower in an entire week is perfectly acceptable.  Particularly if you are sleeping in a cabin with 9 other similarly stanky boys. 
• Brushing your teeth is also optional (see above)
• Lucas would be happy to pack up his belongings and move to Bible Camp for the entire summer.  He did not miss us and informed me upon my arrival to pick him up that he wanted to stay.  AND there was no reason that he couldn't stay, because he already asked the camp leader and they said it was A-OK with them (at $200 a week, yah, I guess it would be okay with them)
• Jacob missed us terribly and when I jokingly told him that we missed them so much I just about came 3 days early to pick them up, he hugged me tighter and whispered in my ear, "I would have come home with you, mom"

So on the whole, it was a positive experience for all involved.

Well, maybe we could have done without the camel toe thing, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to come up with such a concise and to the point definition, so, in retrospect maybe that worked out pretty well, too.