Brownie Meeting

Last night was Brownies. One of the activities was making a "Dream Journal". The girls made drawings and entries about dreams they've had.

Abbie announced that she doesn't have dreams, she has visions. She is going to call hers a "Vision Journal".

When it was time to share her Dream...I mean Vision Journal, she yet again shocked me. I nearly fell out when she said this in front of 15 girls and most of their moms and even a few dads: (I know about Nicholas, but I'm not even allowed to speak his name)

Abbie: I love a boy named Nicholas and I had a dream that we kissed and got married. Oh and I also dreamed about some squirrels hibernating.

WHAAAAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I was still in shock that she was saying this in front of all these people and then she thows out the squirrel thing. I nearly burst out laughing, I had to bite my tongue.

She drew a picture of them kissing. She's in a wedding dress and he's in a tux. She has a lady bug sticker, and he has a spider sticker.

Later, on the ride home she explained to me that she was glad that God gave her visions. That way she would know what was going to happen later in the day.

Oh, now I understand :)

Halloween

We had fun Trick-or-Treating. Abbie wanted to be a movie star so we used her dress-ups as her costume. I decided I'd take her to Spa-La-Di-Da for her hair, make-up, and mani-pedi. $40 later and I won't be doing that again. Now I can at least say that I've taken her and she'll (hopefully) stop bugging me about it.

Cooper wanted to be Thomas-Again! Up until a few days ago it was the Race Car Driver that I bought last year that has yet to be worn outside the house. Oh well.

Poor Cam is stuck with the Dog costume that I got for Cooper 2 years ago that he wouldn't wear and ended up as Bob the Builder. Cam wore the dog costume around the house several times, he seemed to like it. He LOVES dogs.

Gram & Pap came by and it's a good thing because Cam opted out of the festivities. He ran from the house ready to go, but when we got him in the wagon and headed out he freaked and wanted out. He ran back to the house and ended up staying with the Grands and handing out candy.

Abbie and her friend Meredith had lots of fun. It wasn't too hot or too cold. Other than our neighbors giving out really great candy that I am far too tempted to pig out on, I have no complaints!!

More from Cooper...

Wendy's Chicken Nuggets VS. McDonald's Chicken Nuggets...

"Hey, there's Chicken in there!"


Cooper needed a tissue so I directed him towards the toilet paper but the roll was empty (imagine that). So I told him just to grab a Kandoo wipe. He started to cry.

"Honey just grab a Kandoo, it's okay. All the toilet paper is downstairs."

"But mommy, (picking up the tub and "reading" the back) it says these are only for wiping your butt."

I had to look at the tub. Sure enough, the cartoon frog was indeed wiping his butt!

Tagged!

I blog in my head every day. Just recently it has been hard to get it on the "page". By the time I end the day (does it ever really end???) I'm just too tired. And the new shows have started so now I'm getting hooked on mindless stuff.

I've been tagged to reveal 7 random things 'bout myself, thanks cous.

1. Since I was just talking about my TV shows, I figured I'd admit a guilty pleasure. The show that I feel most embarrassed about watching is America's Next Top Model. It comes on at 8:00 so Abbie is supposed to be in bed, but if she happens to get out of bed I immediately change the channel. Trying to raise a daughter in this Photoshopped beauty-obsessed culture I don't think I need to explain any further.

2. I wish I was a little more Type A. I would rather be a neat freak than the I-don't-give-a-crap-It-will-still-be-there-tomorrow type that I am most of the time.

3. Once in a while I'll let the kids eat snacks for dinner. Goldfish, cookies, yogurt, pudding...whatever. Especially if Tim is going to be late and I don't want to cook. I've tried to start buying the organic stuff. Doesn't that make it better???

4. I'm going to join a neighborhood Bunko group. We're starting in January. Have no idea how to play, nor do I know anyone in the group very well. But I'm really excited about a regularly scheduled girls' night out on the 3rd Friday of the month!

5. Tim and I want to renew our vows in October 2009. Totally random date. August 24th, 2008 will be our 15th, but he won't be completely done with MBA school until Jan or Feb of 2009. Then can't do anything until Tax Season is over. I'm sorry, but August is just too freakin' hot. (We only picked August because he was home on leave for 2 weeks) So that takes us in to the Fall. Late October, on the terrace at one of the local Yadkin Valley wineries sounds just right to me. Surely much better that the first time at Wedding Chapel By the Sea with no friends or family there. I also don't see a problem with having 2 Anniversary dates :)

6. I need to go work out. Sadly, I've only AVERAGED once a week since the beginning of August.

7. I've been reading one of Dr. Christine Northrop's books. I saw her on Oprah. An M.D. that believes in the mind-body-spirit holistic approach. Interesting. I'm trying to do what I can to make us a healthier family (remember the organic cookies I serve for dinner). At 850+ pages, I haven't done the cover-to-cover thing, I just go to the index and find what I'm looking for. Plus, I can skip over the chapters on fertility and chidbearing, woo-hoo!


Thanks Melynie that was fun. I think over all I must be pretty boring though. It took far too long for me to think of 7 things to say about myself.


Just one more thing...

Abbie is going to do a Flat Stanley project in the next few weeks. We got the info today. They want the kids to mail Stanley on an adventure to friends or family. Even before I found out that I'd been tagged, I was thinking that it would be fun for us to send Flat Stanley to Aunt Melynie's house to visit "Balie, Mkina, and Brook" (as spelled by Abbie on her What I did this Summer paper). Get ready for some company!!

Family Fun Night

Family Fun Night is the Fall Festival at Abbie's school. It's tomorrow night. Every class has a carnival style game in their room. The 4th and 5th graders have group games, one is a Mad Scientist Lab this year. Tim will be in class so I'm taking Abbie and Coop while G'parents watch Crazy Man. Grammy asked why I'm not taking him. "Because I want to have fun," I responded. Pretty sure Grammy is going to come with us, maybe Pappy, too.

Here's the pumpkin Abbie made for the pumpkin decorating contest. No carved pumpkins allowed. After we took this picture Abbie decided she didn't like the eyes. I wiped off the eyes (God bless Baby Wipes) and grabbed one of my older coats out of the closest and we used real buttons for the eyes. Much better!! I'll have to get another picture.

Since I couldn't volunteer on-site as much this year with Tim's school schedule I decided to send things in instead: drinks, 2 cakes (bake sale and cake walk), and a CD for the High School Musical Chairs game Abbie's class is doing. I spent nearly all day so far making a Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze, see sample recipe #3 (I split the recipe into 2 8x8 pans). I've never tried it before. But if the pieces I had to trim away to get the lids on are any indication of the rest of the cake, I will be making it again very soon. Only thing I will do differently is the glaze. Calls for 3 cups of powdered sugar. I'd stop at 2 cups and adjust from there to desired consistency and taste. 3 cups made it too dry/crumbly and too sweet instead of more buttery/caramelly. I even downloaded some recipe card templates and attached the recipe and a festive bow.

Who do I think I am, Martha Stewart?? I wish! Mostly because she has some poor schlump to clean up after her. Sorry, no pictures of that!

Here is the finished result alongside Cooper's painted pumpkin.

Thanks for the birthday messages. We didn't go to the football game. 80 dgrees is just NOT football weather. That just left extra Magarita time!!!

Love, Cooper

Cooper has been saying some cute things lately. Here are some of my favorites.



...when something doesn't go quite right:

"That always happens sometimes!"


... on eating too much:

"Cooper, you can't have 9 chicken nuggets, that's too much. Your belly will get too big and full."

(while looking at my stomach) "So momma, did you eat too much?"

...on quantitative analysis:

"Momma, who's gonna be at Family Fun Night?"

"Everybody, honey!"

"Who else?"

Just one more

...on finances:

"Momma, Abbie just gots 59 (webkinz) monies!!"

"She got 59 (webkinz) Dollars?"

"No, not dollars, just 59 monies."

I'm 35 today...

It's my birthday. I haven't posted in a while and I thought it would be bad if I let my birthday go by without some kind of acknowledgement. 35, hmmm. Not sure what to say about that. I don't feel 35, yet I FEEL 35, especially getting out of bed in the morning. Tim gave me a card last night. I may have mentioned it before but he picks out good cards. I giggled about this one though. To paraphrase, it talked about how "hubby" wanted to buy fancy, expensive gifts for "wife" but knew that what would make "wife" happy was Love, Quality Time, and "The Little Things". I said to him, "So this means I'm not getting a real present from you, right?" Ha-Ha :) I buy my own presents anyways. Cuts down on the returns.

This morning I heard Abbie get up so I treated myself to an extra Snooze. She came in a few minutes later and wished me Happy Birthday. She microwaved me some pancakes and wanted to surprise me. She's such a sweet girl when she wants to be.

We're celebrating my b-day with friends tomorrow night. We all went to High School together so we decided to go to the Homecoming game. I think it will be a lot of fun, even if it does make us feel ancient. We're planning to go get dinner and drinks after the game, I may need a double!!