CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Mysterious Beast

There is a mysterious creature that lives in our house. It has 3 head and 3 bodies, yet is one. The beast? The hiney leopard.

The "hiney leopard" is Megan's creation. One day, she and Kevin were watching the Discovery channel and a show about leopards was on. She noted how it stalked its prey and then pounced. She decided to become one, but instead of taking a big bite out of dad, she would try to sit on his head. This morphed into the hiney leopard game, where the girls (and Owen sometimes, too) try to lure Kevin into the living room and onto the floor. Many times they lay down a quilt so that he'll be comfortable before they begin nature's song and dance of attacker and prey.

Megan and Hannah have a script that they follow pretty much every time they want to play. Two days ago, I saw that she actually wrote down the entire script! It is hilarious! In case you can't read it, it goes as follows...

Megan: Come and lay down dad.
Hannah: We will give you a back mushosh (massage, for those not familiar with the writing style of a 6 1/2 year old).
Megan: And a cookie.
Hannah: And some bere to (beer, too)!
Megan: And you have to lay down to git that stuf (get that stuff).

They are genius! There are very few instances where most men would give up the opportunity to be waited on by pretty girls, offering him a place to lay, a massage, cookies and beer! Why didn't I think of this tactic years ago? "Honey, have some cookies and beer, while I rub your back. You really want to take down our Christmas lights, right?"

Since this usually works, the following scenes play out next. They stalk him:They pounce:
...and then there is usually a free-for-all of jumping on Daddy: Thank God they have decided that this is a Daddy-only game!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I'm going to get a big head!

My friend, Johnna, decided to give me another blog award. In order to receive it, I have to answer the following questions with just one word. Here goes nothing!

1. Where is your cell phone? bag
2. Where is your significant other? table
3. Your hair color? highlighted
4. Your mother? caring
5. Your father? strong
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your goal? stability
9. The room you are in? office
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Texas
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you are not? skinny
15. One of your wish list items? Italy
16. Where you grew up? farm
17. The last thing you did? type
18. What you are wearing? jeans
19. Your TV? on
20. Your pet? smelly
21. Your computer? warm
22. Your mood? happy
23. Missing someone? sisters
24. Your car? dirty
25. Something you are not wearing? heels
26. Favorite story? sweet
27. Your Summer? short
28. Love someone? yes
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When was the last time you laughed? morning
31. Last time you cried? yesterday

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I'd like to thank the academy!

My sweet friend, Courtney, just gave me my first blogging "award"! Since I think her blog is pretty fabulous, too, it was a nice surprise to wake up to this morning!
To claim my award, I have to list 5 addictions. They are:
1. Starbucks mochas
2. Reality TV (darn you, Bachelor!)
3. Coca-Cola
4. Chocolate
5. Making my kids smile
In turn, I'm going to pass this award on to 5 other fabulous bloggers and friends. Karen (Life from A to Z), Sara (I Hear Them All), Michelle (Jarmama), Johnna (The Web Pages) and Jayme (Just Jayme).

Monday, January 19, 2009

Short Cuts

As a mom, I'm all for taking shortcuts when I can get them. I just jumped into another one yesterday, by actually giving Hannah a "short cut"!
Hannah has hair. Hannah has LOTS of hair. She has beautiful, long, thick, wavy hair with natural highlights that women pay lots of good money for. However, she hates to let me brush it or put it in ponytails. She thinks that's not "princess like". Generally, I see her like this from Thanksgiving (especially at meal times) with food and things like syrup sticking in that gorgeous hair.We finally convinced her to get a hair cut. I'm just as guilty as she is for not getting it done sooner. When it's clean and tangle free, her hair is so pretty! More often than not, it's a huge rat's nest. She decided that she would get her hair cut as long as it was cut just like Aunt Jen's hair (who knew that you were so influential, Jen?)! She's still not sure if she likes it, but we think that this 4-year-old's version of Aunt Jen's hair is adorable! Let's hope this short cut actually saves me a little time in the mornings!

Friday, January 16, 2009

So what if I'm dorky?

After reading a blog post from my friend, Giselle, at the start of the new year, I have decided to follow in her footsteps. She keeps a list of all of the books she reads each year. I thought that was a genius idea! I read a lot and several of the books that I read have common themes and set-ups. This leads to me looking at books, and not remembering if I've read them or not! My sisters, mom and I share books between us, and we've started initialing inside the front cover of the books we read so that we know if it's passed to us already or not (because I'm obviously not the only one who can't remember things)! I just joined Goodreads.com, which is a book lovers site and where I can update which books I've read and what I'm currently reading (which, right now, is Multiple Blessings and The Starter Wife). I've already got 4 books under my belt for 2009. If you look at the toolbar on the side of my blog, you can keep track of what I've completed throughout the year (including re-reads). Are you a big reader? Do you keep track of what you read? Does this make me a gigantic dork because I'm excited about this? On second thought, don't answer that last one!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Tag, you're it!

My sweet friend, Johnna, tagged me on her blog. The instructions were:
1. Go to your photo folders and open the 4th folder.
2. Choose the 4th photo.
3. Explain the photo.
4. Tag 4 other people!I honestly don't know what exactly this is or why it's on our computer. The folder was titled "implements" and this was listed as "Pelzel's sprayer". Several years ago, our computer died, and all of our photos were lost. Kevin's parents gave us all of the pictures they had so that we could recover our missing ones. We also ended up with random stuff like this, that I can only assume my father-in-law took! Don't you love how some of it is being held together with duct tape?

Since I didn't know anything about the 4th picture in my 4th folder, I cheated and am also posting the 4th picture from the 5th folder on my computer. It's our dog, Spencer, about a month after we got him. This was listed as being April 2001, and we got him in March. He's about 3 moths old in this picture. Isn't he cute?Okay, now I'm going to tag Karen, Sara, Shay (welcome to the blogging world, girlie!) and Giselle. Can't wait to see what y'all come up with!

She did it!

After 6 hours, 33 minutes & 47 seconds, Lisa finished the 2009 Walt Disney World marathon! She set the goal for herself and did it! There are very few things I can think of doing for over 6 hours straight, and running sure ain't one of them! To her (and all of her friends who ran it with her) I offer a huge congratulations! It really is a big deal!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Run, Lisa, Run!

For those of you who know our family (especially my sisters and me), you know that we are not exercisers. We don't go to the gym. We don't lift weights. We don't try very hard (although we sure seem to complain about our weight a lot). Imagine my surprise a year ago, when my sister Lisa said that she was going to train to run a marathon. Twenty-Six miles. I thought she was insane. Worse, I thought she'd give up and that there was no way she could do it (I think I got her confused with ME for a minute there). I am proud to say that she has done a phenomenal job in getting ready for the 2009 Walt Disney World Marathon. She has trained and run farther than ever. She's completed 2 half marathons and tons of little 5K runs. I couldn't be more proud!

Sunday is the actual marathon. The day that she (and her friends who have been training with her) have been waiting a year for. I'm not there to cheer her on, but I will be there in spirit (and checking her progress on the internet)! I know you haven't run it yet, Lisa, but I'm still amazed by what you're doing! Run, Lisa, Run!!!

Monday, January 5, 2009

2008 Survey

I'm stealing this from my friend, Jayme's BLOG. I thought it was a neat way to look back at the year, so I hope she doesn't mind! Oh, and I have no idea why there is no number 19, but it's not on hers, either!

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? Applied for a passport!
2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't make resolutions, at least not "real" resolutions.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Lots of them! My cousin, Sara, and my friend Jayme (who I stole this list from) among them, as well as a million of my MOPS friends.
4. Did anyone close to you die? My cousin, Rich.
5. What places did you visit? Disney World, Germany and New Jersey/NYC
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? More money and a job for Kevin that moves us back to Texas (not that I don't like it here, but we miss our family).
7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I'm HORRIBLE with dates! I'm not sure that any specific date will!
8. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year? Surviving Disney World with 3 young kids! ;-)
9. What was your biggest failure? housekeeping
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Other than stupidly falling down the stairs (again) and slipping on the ice/snow (again), no.
11. What was the best thing you bought? For myself? Hmmm...my new vacuum, maybe?
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? John McCain, for being so gracious in his defeat.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Ninety percent of Hollywood.
14. Where did most of your money go? Wal-Mart! Seriously, to our mortgage.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? All of our vacations. I've never really had the opportunity to travel, so having 3 big trips so close to each other was exciting!
16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Britney Spears' Womanizer. It seems to be on all the time!
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? About the same. b) thinner or fatter? Thinner by a few pounds. Luckily, even though I fell off the weight-loss wagon several months ago, none of it came back. c) richer or poorer? I would say about the same.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Played with my kids.
20. How did you spend Christmas last year? With our family in Texas.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008? I fall more in love with my husband and my kids every day!
22. How many one-night stands? Oh, dozens! You know me!
23. What was your favorite TV program? Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory
24. What did you do for your birthday in 2008? My in-laws were here, so the girls and my MIL made cupcakes, then Kevin and I went out to dinner and a movie.
25. What was the best book you read? This is a hard one since I read so much! I really loved Nicholas Sparks newest book.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery? I don't listen to much new music.
27. What did you want and get? An eliptical machine.
28. What did you want and not get? A bigger house.
29. What was your favorite film of this year? Mamma Mia!
30. Did you make some new friends this year? Yes! All of the wonderful ladies from my church newcomer's group!
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Being near my sisters, my best friend and my SIL.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Comfort. 100%
33. What kept you sane? Lots of drinking. Just kidding! Reading, having time to myself, even if it was just walking around the bookstore and drinking coffee from Starbucks for an hour or so!
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I have little crushes on lots of celebrities. One of my current favorites is Neil Patrick Harris. I know he's gay, but he's hilarious and so cute! I see him and almost can't believe that it's Doogie!
35. What political issue stirred you the most? The election.
36. Who did you miss? My mom and dad.
37. Who was the best new person you met? Nick. Kate, he's definitely a keeper!
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today. I don't always follow that, but procrastination is my biggest weakness!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Home again, home again, jiggidy dee!

It's so good to finally be home! We had a great time in Texas for Christmas/New Year's, but seeing our neighborhood last night made all of us sigh with relief. Our own beds. Our own schedule. Rest assured, we loved seeing our family and friends back home. It was a long over-due trip.

We intended to drive back to west Texas on Friday, December 19, after Megan got out of school. School ended up being cancelled that day due to bad weather, so we decided to wait it out, too. We ended up leaving on Saturday morning, and got to Rodney and Karen's very late. We stayed there until Christmas Day, when we left for my parent's house. Throw in a trip to see Karen & Chris' new house, and we were exhausted when we left for home on New Year's Day. We broke up the trip this time, and spent the night in Norman, OK. Back in the car on the 2nd, and we got home at a reasonable time to a freezing house. We set the thermastat on 55 before we left, but when we turned the heat back up, it wasn't working. Thank you to the repairman who got here and got our house warm again!

I'll write up a better post soon (when I download all of my Christmas pictures) but wanted to let y'all know that we are alive and well!