Another Big Basketball Weekend

The gradeschool basketball tournaments were at the high school this weekend, so I had to work Friday, Saturday, and today. I am so glad they're done!

We actually weren't as busy as in years past, but the time there gets so long, and 3 days in a row really shoots the weekend.

Now I only have 3 more nights of basketball that I'm scheduled to work concessions ... 2 next week, and 1 on the 11th.

J had his last C team basketball game at MS on Saturday morning. I couldn't go, but Josh and the rest of the kids went. J even made a free throw!

A Valentine Message

We're CRAZY for you!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Basketball Weekend

Friday J and G had their yearly checkups at the dr's. Josh took them. Apparently the 2 boys were quite the comedic duo for the dr while they were there.

E had a basketball game in N. E, F, S, and I went to that E could be at the school 30 min before her game while Josh and the other 2 drove separately from the dr's office.

The other team had some 6th graders who also had to play A team basketball later in the night, so they had to take them out for part of the game. At halftime, we were down 12-2. The other team didn't play their 6th graders during the 3rd quarter, and in those 6 min, we scored 20 pts, and the score at the end of the 3rd quarter was 22-12! Then their 6th graders came back in for the 4th quarter, and we lost 29-24. It was an interesting game!

E had a basketball tournament in H today. Her first game was at 9:00 am. We lost. G was invited to go with his friend in the interim time between the girls' games, so we let him.

When E's game was done, we drove 30 min back to the kids' school for J's C team basketball game. They lost, but J scored his second basket of the season.

Then it was a 30 min drive back to H for E's second game. We ate a lunch of sandwiches in the van on the way.

Our girls won their second game, and E made her first basket during a game for the season! The look on her face was great, and it was neat because all of our fans really cheered loudly for her when she made it. In addition to that, E really played a good game, sticking to the person she was guarding, shooting alot, and not just standing in one place.

Since it was the end of E's season, the coach treated the girls to custard at Culver's. We all went along and had some, too. Yum!

Then we had to go to a ballroom in H. Josh's work's charity auction is going to be held there again this year, but the ballroom has gotten a new sound system since the last time we had an auction there. Since Josh is in charge of the sound stuff for the auction, he wanted to check out the new system, so we stopped there for about 15 min before.

We still needed to go grocery shopping for the week, so we stopped at Wal-mart in H, and did our shopping there before heading back home.

Rethinking Remodeling Plans

Josh and I have been planning to finish our basement this summer, adding 2 additional bedrooms down there. Before getting our building permit, Josh had to contact someone with our county's planning dept and get their approval first because we have a septic system. In doing so, he found that the number of bedrooms our house has determines the size of septic system we are required to have. Due to the size of our septic system, we can only have 3 bedrooms in our house. If we want to add more, we have to put in a bigger septic system. Ironically, we can add more bathrooms with our current septic system. (How much sense does that make?!)

We need the bedroom room. The boys are okay in their room now, but it's tight, and as they grow older, we will definitely need more room for them.

Even though the plan was for E and J to each have their own room in the basement, G and S to share upstairs, and F to have her own room upstairs, it looks like we will have to stay with a boys' room and a girls' room.

So now, the plan we're considering is to remodel the whole upstairs so that the 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom up there are turned into 2 larger bedrooms with 1 regular bathroom and 1 master bathroom. Then, the 2 bedrooms we were planning to put in the basement will turn into 1 large bedroom for the boys.

We were all disappointed in learning that we couldn't do what we'd been planning for quite a while, but we can't put in a new septic system and add the bedrooms. It's one or the other. Although the revisions we're considering will still cost more than our initial plans, they're still more feasible than dealing with the septic system.

Last night Josh and I played around with layouts and plans, measuring things, etc., and trying to come up with a way that we could get things to work. I think we've got about half of it worked out, but Josh needs to play around with some kind of program they have at his work that can draw up accurate building plans.

Basketball, Basketball, and More Basketball

Thursday night I worked concessions again. Even though it was dead on Tuesday, we were really busy that night.

E had a basketball game last night. Her team lost.

G was at a classmate's birthday party all yesterday evening.

J had a basketball game this morning. I finally got some pics of him playing.

His team lost, too.

After J's game, we hurried home for lunch before taking E back to school for an extended cheerleading practice. Their cheer competition is coming up next week Saturday, so they had a special 3 hr practice this afternoon.

While E was at practice, the rest of us went to the library and grocery shopping. We also picked up Josh's college diploma from Hobby Lobby. (Josh has been talking about getting it framed for years. It's an odd size, so we knew it wouldn't be cheap. At Christmastime, I'd told him that part of his present this year was to get his diploma framed.)

We got home just in time for me to drive back to school to get E from cheer practice.

I cut Josh's and all 3 boys' hair tonight.

Boys and Guns

First off, let me say that Josh has never been hunting. We don't own a gun. I don't have anything against those who own guns or hunt as long as they are responsible with the guns and ammo; I just want to let you know where I'm coming from. That said ...

What is it that makes boys drool over Nerf guns? Run around the house shooting each other? Set up targets in the basement to shoot at? Build a gun mount out of K'nex?

(This is the same boy who has rigged up a gun rack with hangers at the foot of his bed for his Nerf gun.)

And, just in case you think I'm being sexist by only asking about boys doing these things, how many girls do you know will take a bite out of their sandwich quarters and then shoot them like a gun without outside influence from a person of the male gender?

Honestly, I'm not worried about the boys and their Nerf guns and what it might mean for them in the future. Their heads are usually screwed on right.

It's just that there are interesting differences between boys and girls.

Movies, A Party, and Good Deals

Josh and the kids watched Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs last night. I peeked in here and there while working on the computer. From the bits I saw, I wasn't real impressed.

Then, after the kids were in bed, Josh and I watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We both liked it, but, as with most books-turned-into-movies, the book was better. There's just so much more to a book that doesn't lend itself to screenplay and/or would make a movie extremely long.

Church this morning, then back home to eat lunch.

E was invited to classmate SP's birthday party at the roller rink in C this afternoon. I took her, and, instead of going back home and picking her up when the party was done, I went shopping at some stores nearby. There wasn't really anything in particular that I was looking for other than a valentine card for Josh which I ended up not getting because I couldn't find one I liked. However, I came away with some good deals from Kohl's.

I'd gotten a $15 Kohl's gift card for Christmas that I hadn't spent yet. I'd been thinking about getting some dark brown dress pants for work, and I found some on the clearance rack for $14.40 (70% off the original price). I also found a church dress for next winter for E on the girls' clearance rack (60-70% off) and some long sleeved t-shrits with Lego Star Wars on them for J for next winter (about 50% off). I even had a coupon in my purse for 15% off the whole purchase which I'd forgotten about, and yesterday was the last day it was good for. I came away only spending $22 of our money. Good deals!

I picked E up at 3:30. It was only her second time at the roller rink, but she had fun!

In Which I Earn the Bad Mom Award

E had basketball games at her school last night. It was also our night for our "compulsory volunteerism" in which we had to supervise at the games for 2 hrs (make sure there are no problems with fans or students from our school or the other team's and help as needed).

E's team lost, and when her game was done, I handed over the blaze orange supervisor's vest to Josh to wear while I went and finished proofing and printing the bulletins for Sunday since they weren't ready for me yet while I was working there earlier.

After putting the kids to bed, Josh and I watched The Soloist. I wouldn't recommend it. It wasn't horrible or anything, but it was R.E.A.L.L.Y. slow. I think it could have been a good movie, but it just seemed so drawn out when it didn't need to be. I watched the whole thing, but Josh fell asleep during it.

J had a basketball game this morning at P, H. Josh took J and S to the game while I took E, G, and F grocery shopping with me. E and G wanted to come with me and pick out presents for their friends whose birthday parties they will be attending soon, and F wanted to spend the remainder of her $10 money from Christmas. E was scheduled to have a 3 hr cheerleading practice this afternoon (or so I thought), so we had to get the errands run in the morning which meant we couldn't all go to J's game.

J's team won his game.

After lunch I took E to school for her practice. We were about 5 minutes early. Pastor's car was the only one there, but that didn't really faze me since the other cheerleaders usually get dropped off, and the coach gets there right when practice is supposed to start. I watched E open the door and go into the building.

On the way home, I had to stop at Piggly Wiggly to pick up a couple of things that they had really good deals on.

When I pulled into the garage, Josh came out with the phone in his hand and said that E was waiting at school and didn't have practice. Oh, no!

I drove back and picked her up, but I went into the office and checked on my computer there. Practice was scheduled for 1:00-4:00 NEXT Saturday afternoon!

I felt so incredibly horrible! Bad mom award for the day? Yep, that would be mine. :(

At home once again I spent over 2 hrs cleaning the house and folding laundry. Not fun, but productive, and now the house looks much better.

With our permission, J has started reading the Harry Potter books. Someone at school is reading the first one. Because it wasn't in the school library, J started with book 2. When we were at the community library this morning, I checked for book 1, but all the copies there were checked out there, too. Guess I'll have to put it on hold for him.

J just started reading the Harry Potter book this past Wednesday and is already almost done. Pretty good for a boy who mainly enjoys non-fiction!

And Now It's Just Winter

After church, Sunday School, and Bible class this morning, we drove out to the site where some of our friends are having their new house built. We'd been out there before anything was done, but now the outside walls are up and the stud walls are in place. It was fun to see and imagine what the final product will look like.

Later in the afternoon we took down the Christmas tree ...


... and Christmas decorations ...

... and put the "regular" decor back up.

It's kind of nice to have things back to normal and not have Christmas tree needles all over the floor, but now we still have the longest part of the winter ahead of us.

After the Snowstorm

Our town ended up getting hit the worst in the area with the snow totalling 12". Thankfully for those shovelling and snowblowing, it was a light, powdery snow instead of heavy and wet.

Because the roads still weren't in great shape on Friday morning, school was delayed 2 hrs. I was able to work it out with S's sitter that, since I went in 2 hrs later, he could stay til the end of the school day when I would bring her son home from school when I picked S up. I took our kids to and from school Friday, too.

Josh had the second day of his conference on Friday.

Friday evening E's basketball team played in G. Her team lost 24-20. It was a pretty good game against a good team.

When we got home after E's game, I headed over to the high school to work concessions for Thursday's make-up game. We weren't very busy. I got home a bit after 9:00.

This morning E had group band practice at the high school again. When she finished, we all left for J's basketball scrimmage. It was supposed to be a game, but the team they were supposed to play didn't have enough boys at that level to field a team, so J's team scrimmaged against itself. They played 5 quarters because there was time before the C girls' game. J's team lost after 4 quarters 10-8 but won 12-10 after 5 quarters. J did a good job of getting into the action, getting the ball, dribbling. He even got off a shot or two (which unfortunately didn't go in).

From there we went to WB to go to the library and grocery shopping. We'd gotten some Applebee's giftcards for Christmas from Josh's parents, so between Aldi and Wal-mart, we all went to Applebee's for lunch. Thank you, Mom and Dad! :)

Josh is gone tonight at something for work, so I'm home with the kiddos, overseeing bathtime. Josh won't be back til late, and I'm debating whether I should cozy up with a book or watch another episode of the Love Comes Softly DVD's I've been getting from the library. I've watched the first 6 so far, and Josh has been watching them with me, so maybe I'll just wait.

The Beauty of Falling Snow

Did you ever notice how it can be so quiet when it snows, so peaceful? And there's just something beautiful in falling snow that makes your heart swell with the gorgeosity of it. (Yep, I made that word up, but it seemed the most appropriate) :)

I took this video clip of it snowing yesterday when the kids left to walk out to the bus stop. You can see F at first and then the other kids way off on the left before I panned over to the right.

New Year, New Look

Josh and I took separate vehicles to church today so that I could stay after and get a few more hours of work in for the week. I worked til about 1:00 and then went and got a haircut.

My hair was getting too long, so I got about 5" cut off. It's now to about the middle of my shoulders in back and is cut in medium and long layers. I also got it thinned, of course, so that it doesn't stick out like a bush.

Here's my new 'do.



J had basketball practice this afternoon.

Josh finished arranging the basement so that the home weatherization people can get where they need to in it, and the kids had fun playing some kind of Batman game they made up down there and going around and around the newly made aisles in the basement.

I spent the latter part of the afternoon transforming 11 overripe bananas into 4 loaves of banana bread and 1 banana cream pie, completely homemade.

Hosting Christmas

As I mentioned yesterday, today we hosted a Christmas celebration at our house with my brother and his family, my parents, and my sister.

All 5 of the grandsons received remote control cars from Grammy and Grandpa (my parents).

My dad putting batteries into one of the cars

Once the batteries were in the cars, our family room became the open road ... or maybe the demo derby arena!

Since the 4 older boys' cars were all the same except for the color, the controllers would make more than one car move. At one point, there was a car up in the living room that someone had forgotten to turn off, and it was driving around because someone was in the family room driving another car.

Brother J and nephew E putting together E's Lego gift

The whole clan (except for me) just before eating

Grandpa and Grammy with all 9 grandchildren

A pic of the whole crew (including me since we used my camera's timer)

Father and son

Sis R, E, and SIL L playing Bananagrams. E got the game from my parents as a gift.

(It appears I got off on my numbering for Project 365 somewhere along the line since this should be Day 363, but I've only got it as Day 361 in my sequence. However, since I've got plenty of pictures in this post, I'm going to count this as Days 361-363 to get back on track.)

Christmas Eve 2009

(My 3rd entry in the Christmas Journal photo challenge -- I try not to use the flash so much indoors because I don't like the shadows it casts, but then my pics tend to turn out yellow and grainy in the low light. Any helpful ideas?)

We went to DS's Christmas Eve service where Josh did the A/V for them once again. It had just started to rain when we left home, and when we returned, the rain was coming down pretty hard. Temps were about 35 degrees, but the roads weren't too bad.

Once we got home I took our traditional pic of the kids next to the tree on Christmas Eve. It turned out really well (on the 3rd try)!

As our family has grown, it's gotten harder to take a good picture with everyone looking and no one having a goofy look on his/her face. However, I've learned that the trick is to bribe the kids by saying that if I can get a good picture of them, I will take a picture of them in which they can act as crazy as they want.

Here's the bribery pic of the kids hamming it up.

E took a picture of Josh and me.

After we changed clothes, we set out our supper of sausage, crackers and cheese spread, apple slices, and Christmas cookies, milk and wine, which we ate and drank as we opened gifts.

E was very excited about her new digital camcorder.

Buy Josh tools, and he's a happy man! Actually, he asked for this heavy duty ice chopper.

J has decided he doesn't like getting his picture taken anymore, but I got this one of him with his Lego Millenium Falcon.

G really, really wanted Anakin's Y-wing fighter. He got it!

He was pretty happy about his new Lego Star Wars shirt, too!

E's godmother sent her the cloak for her Elizabeth American Girl doll.

S was super excited to find that he'd gotten some Star Wars Galactic Heroes.

(Are you catching this year's pervasive Star Wars theme?)

But almost nothing can beat stomping on and popping bubble wrap!

F wins the prize for the best expression captured on camera!

She's been saying for weeks and weeks that she wanted an iPod (something to play music). We got her an MP3 player, and she was beyond thrilled! F spent much of the night walking around with the earbuds in, dancing and singing. (I'd asked her the other day what some of her favorite songs were, and last night Josh downloaded a bunch from online to her MP3 player.)

After all the gifts were opened

I love this one of the girls together. E is showing F her camcorder.

Hard at work already

(Day 356 of 365)