Ummm... Excuse me?!... What did you just say?

My dear friend H. has often used her blog as a political forum; I have generally tried to steer clear of this. H. often found tidbits of information about our current Mr. President that the media tried really hard to hide/ignore/underplay during the election, like the fact that Obama is vehemently (not moderately) Pro-Abortion. In a speech to a Planned Parenthood gathering in Illinois, Mr. Obama said that if one of his daughters got in trouble/made a mistake... he wouldn't "punish them with a baby."

So pardon my gagging/dry-heaves/eye-rolling-disgust when I see in my Father's Day Sunday newspaper a big picture of him with his daughters on the front page of the "Parade" magazine in it... with the big caption

'If I Could Be Anything, I'd Be A Good Father' by President Barack Obama

Ummm... What!? Why is it when you want a child it is a gift or a blessing but otherwise a punishment? And how does promoting the death and destruction of unborn babies make you the poster child for fatherhood?

Gotta Love Google

Now and then I get nostalgic... I know, no one is shocked by that... but lately I have been thinking about my friend Kim from years back. We were really close and then life just got crazy for both of us. I was going through a divorce, working full time, and then I had baby #4. She also had a baby... I think #5... her husband got his Ph.D, and then they moved. That was about 7 years ago I think..... then *POOF* she was gone.

So anyway... I was thinking about her... tried to find her on Facebook without success... so I Googled her husband, Mr. Ph.D., because he wanted to teach college and usually college professors have to do research and publish stuff, so I thought I would be able to find him.

On about page 3 of the Google listings, I clicked on one that looked promising and there was his big toothy grin from the faculty page of a university in their home state where he has taught for 6 of the last 7 years. With am email address. So I sent him this "I'm an old friend of your wife's" type email .... and we'll see.... Sometimes I wonder why I am such a sap... but you gotta love Google!

Multitasking 101

For the record, books on CD from the library are an awesomely good thing. I love to read, but I often find myself so enthralled by a good novel that I neglect everything else in my house... little things like laundry and dishes, and big things like my kids and fixing meals. Now... I MULTITASK! I "read" my books on CD while I fold laundry and do dishes and bake birthday cakes (yes, the Cake-Lady strikes again). And the CDs are broken up into 3-minute tracks, so it's pretty easy to find my place again if the boys need something. Reading indulgence without the guilt! Ahhhh!! How cool is that!!

Sticker Shock

I ran to the store for a few items the other day. While I was there I had the realization that school was getting out and I have to feed my kids lunch everyday from here on out. $300 later....Goodbye grocery budget.

My heart goes out to my homeschooling friends who do that year-round.... I really like the fact that mine eat lunch at school and it's one less meal to cook and one less set of dishes to do. How spoiled I am!

Wedding Cake

Decorating cakes is a little hobby I have. Recently it came in very handy. One of the boys needed a little reading tutoring; one of our friends from church is an awesome tutor. Her daughter was getting married. We swapped a semester of tutoring for a wedding cake. We improved our reading comprehension by 2 1/2 grade levels in a semester and they got just the cake the bride wanted. Her cake was my 5th wedding cake; it was set up on the covered back of a grand piano.

Blogging angst....

I think the previous post took me an hour and 3 years off the end of my life. Just a few rants... I mean questions...

Why is it that the formatting/spacing looks one way when you are putting the post together and completely different when it actually posts so you have to change it 3 times to get the spacing and stuff to not look like blindfolded monkeys actually did it?

And why is it that when you upload a picture... it always puts the picture at the top and puts like 5 extra lines at random places all over the post... so that everytime you put in a picture you have to move it... and double check and redo all the spacing in the whole post or it would be 20 pages long??

Anyone have any tips?

A Fun Tradition & Updates

A Fun Tradition...

Because I have all boys, I save a lot of money on haircuts with some very basic "buzzing" skills and a decent set of clippers. They all get buzzed every summer and sometimes in between. Something that has become a tradition is the "Last-Day-Of-School Mohawk." Today, being the last day of school, 3 of them got designer mohawks.

As my cute boys....

And as "My Homeboys"

Rob, at 14, is aparently too old for this nonsense. Translates to: Some girl told him he should let his hair get a little longer cuz it would be cuter... UGH! Oh, and Jake doesn't really have his ear pierced. It's magnetic; a flashing duck mascot from the baseball game they went to last night.






Update #1: Treehouse



View from the outside, the floor is 9' off the ground. They climb up to the top of that ladder and heft themselves up inside. We have become one of the most popular places in the neighborhood for boys... and we have alotta boys around here.

Views from the inside,

complete with carpet and quite a nice roof.
and ... Yes, Alex & Jake have already slept out in it.



Update #2: "Happy Wife, Happy Life"

And Round #1 of the Paint Wars goes to Cassie, because (as my wise husband says) "Happy Wife, Happy Life." So my living room is becoming blue. That is Blue... not another shade of not-quite-white that maybe kinda looks a little blue-ish in the right light... but blue... that looks BLUE! It took a year of patience, non-nagging patience by-the-way... but I got my way.


Maybe patience really is a virtue...
hmmm... who knew!?