...is an apt name for us today. Yes, all here at the N...... household are saddened to announce the demise of Bionicle Boy the Fish. I smelled something wicked-rank emanating from somewhere in the kitchen and I was halfway through cleaning all of my dirty pots and pans that I have been saving up for a special occasion, when I glanced over at the fishbowl on the counter. Matty had asked me two days ago to clean it out because, "It's not MY fault that it's so dirty! Bocker put a whole ton of fish food in there and YOU LET HIM!". Ahem. That part might be true. I was looking at my email and right next to me Bocker was sneakily digging through Matty's desk drawers. I saw him with the fish food but I told him ONLY ONE and I guess he thought he knew more about fish nutrition than me.
Mama: (while the kids were working on the art project of the day...making dough figurines of Halloween stuff that they can paint later and I won't feel bad about throwing away because they are made of flour and salt instead of expensive play-doh.): Ahhhhh, kids, I have some good news and some bad news.
Kids: Give us the bad news first.
Mama: Matty's fish is officially dead (I had to specify the officiality because of mistaken states of deadness in the past)...but the good news is we don't have to clean out the fish bowl anymore!
Matty was NOT amused.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
That Smart Girl...
...has a new, inspired post that I really enjoyed. I like things that make me think. Check it out.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
5 Little Known Things
I was tagged by my pal Amy Caroline to post 5 little known things about me so...
1. I was a cheerleader in high school for wrestling. I HATED CHEERLEADING and I think that cheerleading is stupid and a waste of time. The ONLY reason I signed up for the thing was because the position of stat taker and video cam operator was already taken and I wanted to ride the bus to the wrestling matches and go to the wrestling parties. I even got certified as a referee so I could keep score at freestyle tournaments and go to more wrestling events. It's a little known fact that if you are a teenage girl and you go to national tournaments for freestyle wrestling, there is a good chance that you will be the ONLY girl at the tournament in a huge civic center full of REALLY HUNKY GUYS and therefore have absolutely NO competition and ALL the attention of all the guys. Especially if your parents are too busy watching your brothers wrestle and don't pay any attention to you flirting like crazy in the bleachers. IT....WAS.....AWESOME!
2. One of my favorite things to do as a child-teenager was pick rocks in the fields for my uncles in the summer. We also LOVED to kick corn down in the fall and sell sweet corn in the summer. We had a lot of cousins so we didn't get the privilege very often, but once in a while we got to go on the tractor with Grandpa and I will never forget that honor! He smelled like sweet pipe tobacco and Mentholatum.
3. When I was sixteen, I was HUGE into heavy metal and I knew all the words to "Fade to Black" by Metallica. I also read every thing I could about Led Zeppelin but I was totally a poser because I went to a Poison concert and bought a t-shirt that I wore all the time until it wore out.
4. I wanted to be a nun and work for the poor in Guatemala. I had pretty much made that decision after I graduated...buuuuuut, I met Butch on June 15th the summer after I graduated and, well, my plans changed a bit. I did go to Guatemala once, though. It wasn't for anything as noble as helping the poor. I went to my friend's wedding there in an old monastery that had been converted into a lovely hotel, saw my first volcano, went swimming in the ocean for the first time, and sang a song in front of a lot of people I didn't know who didn't speak English. I also felt REALLY tall the whole time we were there and I'm only 5' 4". We brought Analise because she was only 10 months old and was still nursing and she was the hit of the whole city. Nearly everyone who saw her wanted to touch her or hold her and it made me so proud. The moms and dads would coo at her and the little kids would reach out to touch her and call her "linda". It was so sweet. I don't think she made a peep the entire time we were there.
5. I used to bite my toenails when I was sitting in front of the TV. I can still do that...but I don't.
1. I was a cheerleader in high school for wrestling. I HATED CHEERLEADING and I think that cheerleading is stupid and a waste of time. The ONLY reason I signed up for the thing was because the position of stat taker and video cam operator was already taken and I wanted to ride the bus to the wrestling matches and go to the wrestling parties. I even got certified as a referee so I could keep score at freestyle tournaments and go to more wrestling events. It's a little known fact that if you are a teenage girl and you go to national tournaments for freestyle wrestling, there is a good chance that you will be the ONLY girl at the tournament in a huge civic center full of REALLY HUNKY GUYS and therefore have absolutely NO competition and ALL the attention of all the guys. Especially if your parents are too busy watching your brothers wrestle and don't pay any attention to you flirting like crazy in the bleachers. IT....WAS.....AWESOME!
2. One of my favorite things to do as a child-teenager was pick rocks in the fields for my uncles in the summer. We also LOVED to kick corn down in the fall and sell sweet corn in the summer. We had a lot of cousins so we didn't get the privilege very often, but once in a while we got to go on the tractor with Grandpa and I will never forget that honor! He smelled like sweet pipe tobacco and Mentholatum.
3. When I was sixteen, I was HUGE into heavy metal and I knew all the words to "Fade to Black" by Metallica. I also read every thing I could about Led Zeppelin but I was totally a poser because I went to a Poison concert and bought a t-shirt that I wore all the time until it wore out.
4. I wanted to be a nun and work for the poor in Guatemala. I had pretty much made that decision after I graduated...buuuuuut, I met Butch on June 15th the summer after I graduated and, well, my plans changed a bit. I did go to Guatemala once, though. It wasn't for anything as noble as helping the poor. I went to my friend's wedding there in an old monastery that had been converted into a lovely hotel, saw my first volcano, went swimming in the ocean for the first time, and sang a song in front of a lot of people I didn't know who didn't speak English. I also felt REALLY tall the whole time we were there and I'm only 5' 4". We brought Analise because she was only 10 months old and was still nursing and she was the hit of the whole city. Nearly everyone who saw her wanted to touch her or hold her and it made me so proud. The moms and dads would coo at her and the little kids would reach out to touch her and call her "linda". It was so sweet. I don't think she made a peep the entire time we were there.
5. I used to bite my toenails when I was sitting in front of the TV. I can still do that...but I don't.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
My Hunky Hubbs, Movies, and Nuns
We went to a wedding last weekend and it was one of the few times we have actually gone out in a loooooong time. Anna had come home for the weekend and watched the rug rats and Trina watched Nellie and Pete's kiddos. We had a nice time but one thing I'd like to observe is that we didn't have communion at church. I assumed that the bride wasn't Catholic but it made the service seem...weird. I know that it is still valid but it was so SHORT. I mean, what's a Catholic wedding if it doesn't last at LEAST one and a half hours???? Then the bride and groom walked out of church only to walk back in and go up to the altar again and begin dismissing/greeting (a la the ushers) people pew by pew. Hmmm. It was a cold day and this was actually a good way to NOT end up freezing our butts off in the entryway but it was a bit awkward. Anyhoo, here is a picture of Butch and I at our table at the reception and I thought he looked cute with his new glasses:
I don't have very many pictures of Butch and I because I am usually the one with the camera but seeing this picture makes me think that maybe we need to make more time together and go out on more dates. It sure is hard to find the time when we have all these kids to be concerned with! We are falling in to a bad habit of just staying home and thinking we'll have time to watch a movie when the kids go to bed and then we just fall asleep after about 10 minutes. Okay, I fell asleep when we tried to watch X-men III the other night. It was a good movie but I was just SO DARN TIRED!!!! I never used to fall asleep for movies, even if they were super boring. I must be getting old. Dangit. Only old people say "dangit". Oh well, we watched the Larry The Cable Guy movie last night and it was truly horrible, but I think that Larry guy is a darn good actor. Hey, don't laugh...he really is! Okay, I didn't mean to make this post into a movie review but I'm trying to type to stay awake for adoration at midnight so bear with me. Niklaus has now watched Over the Hedge so many times that he's quoting movie lines and he still asks to watch it again and again. He went over to Auntie Nellie's today with Matthew while us girls went to our first Little Flowers meeting (for Analise) and they watched it over there, too! At the meeting, we had some visiting sisters from the Dominican order who were teachers at a Catholic school in Stillwater and they had a little slide show and presentation for the girls. It was so nice to hear them talk about their vocation. I wish we had sisters like them more visible in our town. I thought it was particularly funny how they referred to each other as "Sister" most times instead of their names and even though they didn't look at the sister they were referring to, they somehow knew which one they were talking about. That is a funny habit (pardon the pun!) of sisters who live in community or work closely together. They were lovely, very young women and it was an honor to have them visit. They also gave a little, impromptu performance of a song/prayer in Latin that was riveting and very impressive (they claimed not to be "singers" but they did a beautiful job, any kind of Latin chant sounds pretty to me even if sung by unpracticed voices) to the girls. I have been thinking lately about how God works in my life and how I am recognizing so many "God moments". For instance, today I visited the Angry Twins blog that I haven't been to in a long time. He had a post about the "Singing Nun" from the sixties and how she came to a bizzare end having left the convent and getting into some pretty sinful, nasty stuff until she and her lesbian lover committed suicide...THEN I got to see an example of Dominican sisters that was beautiful, faithful and reverent. I think God must have been counter-acting the negative thing that I had read earlier by giving me a sign of hope. Now, I'm a naturally optimistic person and I don't normally need these signs, but it's nice when I get them! Pray for those sisters and all of our young people discerning vocations!
I don't have very many pictures of Butch and I because I am usually the one with the camera but seeing this picture makes me think that maybe we need to make more time together and go out on more dates. It sure is hard to find the time when we have all these kids to be concerned with! We are falling in to a bad habit of just staying home and thinking we'll have time to watch a movie when the kids go to bed and then we just fall asleep after about 10 minutes. Okay, I fell asleep when we tried to watch X-men III the other night. It was a good movie but I was just SO DARN TIRED!!!! I never used to fall asleep for movies, even if they were super boring. I must be getting old. Dangit. Only old people say "dangit". Oh well, we watched the Larry The Cable Guy movie last night and it was truly horrible, but I think that Larry guy is a darn good actor. Hey, don't laugh...he really is! Okay, I didn't mean to make this post into a movie review but I'm trying to type to stay awake for adoration at midnight so bear with me. Niklaus has now watched Over the Hedge so many times that he's quoting movie lines and he still asks to watch it again and again. He went over to Auntie Nellie's today with Matthew while us girls went to our first Little Flowers meeting (for Analise) and they watched it over there, too! At the meeting, we had some visiting sisters from the Dominican order who were teachers at a Catholic school in Stillwater and they had a little slide show and presentation for the girls. It was so nice to hear them talk about their vocation. I wish we had sisters like them more visible in our town. I thought it was particularly funny how they referred to each other as "Sister" most times instead of their names and even though they didn't look at the sister they were referring to, they somehow knew which one they were talking about. That is a funny habit (pardon the pun!) of sisters who live in community or work closely together. They were lovely, very young women and it was an honor to have them visit. They also gave a little, impromptu performance of a song/prayer in Latin that was riveting and very impressive (they claimed not to be "singers" but they did a beautiful job, any kind of Latin chant sounds pretty to me even if sung by unpracticed voices) to the girls. I have been thinking lately about how God works in my life and how I am recognizing so many "God moments". For instance, today I visited the Angry Twins blog that I haven't been to in a long time. He had a post about the "Singing Nun" from the sixties and how she came to a bizzare end having left the convent and getting into some pretty sinful, nasty stuff until she and her lesbian lover committed suicide...THEN I got to see an example of Dominican sisters that was beautiful, faithful and reverent. I think God must have been counter-acting the negative thing that I had read earlier by giving me a sign of hope. Now, I'm a naturally optimistic person and I don't normally need these signs, but it's nice when I get them! Pray for those sisters and all of our young people discerning vocations!
Monday, October 23, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Amazing Feets
Bring Back The Mullet!
| Your 80s Heartthrob Is |
 John Stamos |
When I was in JR high my friend Denise and I had these secret notebooks in which we put pictures we had cut out of Teen Beat and Tiger Beat magazines. We wrote "Babe Book" on the outside and we fantasized about how those dudes were our boyfriends and could see us through the magazine pictures. The PERFECT boyfriends. John Stamos was well represented in MY book, I tell you what! It doesn't surprise me that the quiz chose him for me. We were actually together for a while before he started dating that Becky chick and I got interested in Kirk Cameron anyway.
Thank you to Amy, she always finds the funniest quizzes!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Fall Harvest Orchard
This is the best apple orchard I've ever been to! We've already been there several times and the children love it every time. We had my brother Nick's two girls (Ani,Lexi) with us and Mom, Dad, My brother Pete's wife, Nellie (Pete even came after work!), Trine and the kids were there too. Basically, all of my parent's grandchildren were there except baby Johnny and his two big sisters Amber and Amanda.
All of us aunties had cameras and took a LOT of pictures so it was hard to narrow it down to just these few!
I haven't blogged forever because we've been so busy with school. It's hard this year to get the kids to buckle down. I had my 15 year high school reunion which was a lot of fun and the first time Butch and I have gone out in a LONG time. Butch has been really busy with work and out of town a lot. Matty is going to start karate...we'll see how that goes. The girls want to try it too but it gets pretty spendy and we are still trying to finish the basement. Oh yeah, I painted my kitchen finally! I'll have to blog some pics of that. I love painting and would do it for a living if I had the time to paint. It's nice to get that big of a bang for little buck, if you know what I mean!
We thought the kids looked so cute watching these beautifully colored Asian pheasants:
Here is Lexi with a goat, she's so pretty (Lexi, I mean, but the goat was cute, too!):
Analise with the wiggly twinkies:
Mommies with their babies (both have babies on the INSIDE, too!)
Doubledouble strollers:
Niklaus in the infamous corn pit. The sign next to the pit reads, "Any corn you find in your underpants should go home with you!":
Uncle Pete playing tetherball with the kids:
My pretty Trina...twenty-five + something pounds lighter! She worked so hard, she deserves some bigtime KUDOS (as long as they are low-carb...heeheehee):
All of us aunties had cameras and took a LOT of pictures so it was hard to narrow it down to just these few!
I haven't blogged forever because we've been so busy with school. It's hard this year to get the kids to buckle down. I had my 15 year high school reunion which was a lot of fun and the first time Butch and I have gone out in a LONG time. Butch has been really busy with work and out of town a lot. Matty is going to start karate...we'll see how that goes. The girls want to try it too but it gets pretty spendy and we are still trying to finish the basement. Oh yeah, I painted my kitchen finally! I'll have to blog some pics of that. I love painting and would do it for a living if I had the time to paint. It's nice to get that big of a bang for little buck, if you know what I mean!
We thought the kids looked so cute watching these beautifully colored Asian pheasants:
Here is Lexi with a goat, she's so pretty (Lexi, I mean, but the goat was cute, too!):
Analise with the wiggly twinkies:
Mommies with their babies (both have babies on the INSIDE, too!)
Doubledouble strollers:
Niklaus in the infamous corn pit. The sign next to the pit reads, "Any corn you find in your underpants should go home with you!":
Uncle Pete playing tetherball with the kids:
My pretty Trina...twenty-five + something pounds lighter! She worked so hard, she deserves some bigtime KUDOS (as long as they are low-carb...heeheehee):
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