The Braces are Off!

Well, Monday was a big day in our house. Myles finally got his braces off! Woo-hoo! I'm still not used to looking at him and seeing teeth instead of braces. We had big plans to get him something special for dinner Monday night. He had specially requested corn on the cob. He hasn't been able to eat corn on the cob for the past 2 summers, and living in Nebraska, corn on the cob is a staple of our summer dinners. Mmmmmm farm fresh corn on the cob. But, unfortunately it's November not July, so farm fresh corn on the cob isn't available. So, we thought we buy some frozen ears of corn (something I'd never done before). Well, looking at those sad bags of very expensive freezer burned corn at the grocery store forced us to forgo our plan for dinner. Such a pity. All this time waiting and he's still going to have to wait until next summer. Anything less than fresh just isn't going to cut it.

Those teeth look nice and straight, don't they? I wish the sun would have been out so my pictures didn't look so gloomy.

Count Down to New Moon and the mini Edward

I am anxiously awaiting my chance to see New Moon. My sister and I have tickets to see the Saturday matinee. We weren't hard core enough to make it to the midnight showing tonight. We have been planning to see this movie for months, though. Then, my son, Myles, gets invited to a birthday party friday night (New Moon opening night) and he and his friends will be going to see the movie before me. And I'm the big Twilight fan. But Jen Lancaster may have me beat. I haven't gotten the action figures. Only because of the ridicule I know I'd have to endure.

Anyway, since Myles has been happily rubbing my face in the fact that he's going to see the movie before me I thought I needed to turn him into a vampire. Here is my Edward. And in case you were unsure, we are a Team Edward household.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Hot or Not?

Today I am wearing a sweater that I had bought myself over the weekend. I was out doing a little Christmas shopping and found myself a sweater on clearance and had to buy it. (I like to reward myself while shopping for gifts). It is a very cute sweater with purple and gray stripes and a cowl neck. And it's lightweight and very comfortable. And, I thought I looked quite good in it.

This morning while in the kitchen getting ready to leave, Savannah walks in and laughs at me. "Your sweater's on backwards," she says. "What?" I asked her. She was all giggly and I thought she was just being goofy, so I disregarded her comment. Then Myles comes into the kitchen. He, too, laughs at me and tells me my sweater is on backwards. Now, I'm a little concerned. I glance down at myself and see nothing amiss.

"What are you talking about?" I asked them. They are both still hysterically laughing and pointing at me.

"Mom," Myles says, trying to catch his breath, "your hoodie is in the front instead of the back." He means that my cute cowl neck sweater looks more like a backwards hoodie sweater. So, in 5 minutes time I went from feeling hot in my new sweater, to feeling self conscious wondering how many other people today will be looking at me wondering if I realize I have my hoodie sweater on backwards. Thanks kids!

Procrastination Payback.

Well, my mom did it to me again. As a child she cursed me. And that curse has been lying in wait. Just hanging out waiting to rear it's evil little head. Last week, it got in it's first punch.

When I was a kid, I was the supreme master of procrastination (I still hold the title). I think I was under the delusion that I worked better under pressure. Actually, my panic in meeting an unmeetable deadline probably just resulted in many people having to chip in to make things work out for me. I can recall many last minute school projects being worked on the night before they were due and my mother telling me that someday I would have a child who would put things off until the last minute and I would be left feeling as frustrated as she did.

Well, last week was payback time.

I had come home after picking up the kids from school and was completely exhausted. I immediately changed into comfy clothes (none of which matched, but all of which was super comfy and perfect for laying on the couch in). After enjoying about 30 minutes of couch time, Myles informed me that he had a social studies project due tomorrow and he needed to bring in homemade pretzels.

He is learning about immigration to the US in the early 1900s and is playing the part of a German immigrant. "Can't we take in some gummy bears?" I asked him. "No! It has to be homemade or I'll get a bad grade," he informed me. This is perfect because not only do pretzels take about 5 hours to make, I don't have any yeast in the house. So, I have to run to Walmart to pick some up. And, I'm currently wearing an outfit that would guarantee me a place on the PeopleOfWalmart.com. Damn! So, I have to change my clothes and Myles and I run to Walmart.

So once we get home I have to make dinner and clean up the kitchen so that there is a usable surface free of dirty dishes that we can roll pretzels out on. This is much more work than I'm up for. None of this added stress is bothering Myles in the least. "You are going to do most of the work making these pretzels," I told Myles. Only, that didn't work out since his teachers also assigned about 3 hours of other homework to do on top of this procrastinated project.

I was elbow deep in pretzel dough, when Myles strode into the room telling me that he can put his "3 German things" in a pillow case or bag. "What 3 German things?" I ask. "We have to bring 3 German things that our immigrant would have brought with him from their country," he explained. "What are you taking?" I ask. He shrugs. So I order him to go seek out his 3 things and report back. I continued kneading pretzel dough quite angrily.

"Are their snakes in Germany?" he asks me a few minutes later. "Why?" I ask. Well, my boy spent 30 whole seconds coming up with a rock, a leaf, and a snake as his 3 things to take in his sack. "I'm pretty sure they have all these things in Germany," he tells me proudly. "Really? Do you really think that an immigrant would choose to bring a rock, a leaf, and a SNAKE along on the long long journey across the ocean to the United States. Those are the 3 things he'd want in his bag?" His face fell as he realized that I wasn't impressed at his tiny little effort on this project. He stalked out of the room to hunt down some better "German things".

I was now ready to hide sauerkraut inside of these pretzels as punishment for dumping all of this on me so last minute.

So, while the pretzel dough was rising, we found 3 better "German things". He took an old book of mine that is written in German (the book was published in 1925 and his immigrant came over in 1905, but close enough), he drew a German flag, and out of desperation, we threw in a recipe for German potato salad (that's still better than a snake). If I were coming to the US from Germany, I know I wouldn't want to leave behind my German potato salad recipe. Then we had about 5 minutes to spare in which we crafted some lederhosen out of colored paper and staples. (He had asked me if I had any lederhosen that he could just borrow for his costume, but unfortunately I had already worn my to work that week and they were in the laundry.)

I have yet to see the grade on our last minute project, but I'm hoping we did alright. Really, the pretzels alone should have earned him an A+. But, in fairness, I have passed along the curse. He, too, will have procrastinating offspring.

Halloween 2009

How did Halloween come and go so quickly this year? I always look forward to this time of year because it's my favorite season to decorate for. And, I usually do it very very early to get maximum enjoyment out of my decorations. This year I just couldn't keep up. We finally got our cute porch things out the week before Halloween and we didn't even carve our pumpkins until the afternoon of Halloween. Anyway, this is how awesome our pumpkins turned out.

Here is a fun video of what happened to the one pumpkin that hadn't ripened completely and was not able to be carved. The kids found another purpose for that pumpkin.

After all of that mess, I am predicting that we have pumpkins sprouting up under that tree in our front yard and next to our porch where most of the carving and seed spilling took place. Pumpkin vines everywhere might be our landscaping theme next year. Won't the neighbors be excited?

Here are the kids in their costumes.

Myles and Savannah both went trick or treating with friends this year, leaving me at home to deal with all the neighborhood trick or treaters. I was usually able to weasel out of this duty because I was the one taking the kids around. It was a nice night out, though, and B and I sat out on our porch and handed out candy and scared kids with our skeleton guy.

B also brought out his red laser pointer and we discovered that it will shine a laser light all the way across the street, across the neighbor's yard, up their siding, through their open front door, and onto their living room wall. This will result in the neighbors coming to the door to look out in confusion as to where that red dot of light dancing all over their living room wall is coming from. Once, they sat back down, we did it again. And they came to investigate again. It was a great way to entertain ourselves between groups of trick or treaters.

All in all, it was a sort of strange Halloween for me. The kids came home with their sacks full of delicious candy (and I haven't even stole much of it yet). But, they are getting older and Myles says that next year he probably won't go trick or treating since he'll be too old. (He was a bit glum about it, though) So, we are planning a Halloween party for his friends next year complete with scary movies that I'll refuse to watch. (I get nightmares). But for now, Halloween is over and I get to begin stressing about Christmas. Black Friday ads are already taunting me. EEEEKKK!!!