Mom's Birthday

Happy Birthday last week, Mom! :)

Getting presents for parents is always a bit hard. You can't possibly buy them anything, because they have to be the ones to take you to the store. After several years, though, the same old handmade presents (drawings, cards, handprints) get old.

This year I made Mom some "coupons". One of them is for a "spa night" when I take care of everyone and she gets to take a pampering bath. :) Another was meal I cook (I make alot of lunches, but those are generally just sandwhiches-- this is for a full dinner).

You can see Will's present in the picture here. It is a balloon with a drawing of our house-- with a sold sign.

I forgot what Nick and Ben did... Adelynn made a card and sang a song.

A couple of days before Mom's birthday, I babysat while she went shopping. Marcus, of course, was a pain.

"Do you want to make a present for Mommy?" I asked?

"Yes! Mommy wrist!" (He loves to make bracelets for Mom and Dad).

Marcus picked out all the beads ("Wed, so wed Mommy couwer," which translates to, "Red, because its Mom's favorite color.") Then then made a necklace with a red string and a teddy bear bead. Everyone knows that Mom loves teddy bears. :)

And he drew a picture!

The sweetest thing Marcus did, though, was to give Mom a "Pize" (Surprise). While Mom was opening her presents from everyone else, Marcus started shouting and then suddenly disapeared. He came back with his "special box."

His special box is a shoebox full of his favorite things: a hat I crocheted him, a birthday card, a dice (?), a pencil, and a few other random objects.

It was so touching to see him give his box to Mom! "You share me," he said. "You my pecil tuff." (You get my special suff.)

And then, when he saw how happy Mom was, he ran off and got Daddy Bear-- his teddy bear. "Pize! Pize! Mommy, you me Daddy Bear!"

Here is Will with his first balloon-drawing (it popped)

Mom's cake! My first time doing a double-decker. And the last time I will try to do individual petals for icing roses. Big blobs of red work just as well, and they don't cramp your hand. :)

April Fools!

I love April Fool's day. A whole day, in which you may do as many practical jokes as you like!

Except for this year. My brother was having a sleepover on the last day of March, and we were showing the house on April Fools. That meant... no loud and hyper jokes and no mess. Mom was particularly frazzled, so I realized I'd have to keep the jokes nice and calm.

I had this list of "possible jokes" in my notebook:

Cabinet Day   [My brothers and I name furniture-- Fred and George were two cabinets in the living room. Fred and George are the troublemakers in HP, and their birthday conveniently falls on April First. Thus the name Cabinet Day instead of April Fools']
Switch the clothes between the boys' closets 
Fake a spill of paint on the carpet  
Salt on my brothers' toothbrushes
Food color the milk so it looks spoiled
Buckle a gazillion stuffed animals in the van
Tape the ends of all the toilet paper/paper towel rolls
Move the showerheads so they spray the person turning the water on
Set all alarm clocks two hours early
Take a picture of the bathroom, and tape it over Mom's bathroom moving-mirror. She'd try to put on her makeup and wonder why she couldn't see her face! For a moment, at least.
Write on all the mirrors  (The Chamber of Secrets has Been Opened!)
...And LOTS more

But I couldn't be mean. I just couldn't. So I toned it down... and surprised everyone at breakfast.

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." G.K. Chesterton

Nick was smart enough to KEEP the food coloring in the bowl, and enjoy blue cereal.

I also did the classic "tape the sink sprayer down". Last year I tricked myself THREE separate times. This year I caught Ben's friend Andy. Lets see...

William and Nick were reading LotR. I switched the covers between Two Towers and Return of the King-- they started reading the wrong book!

I also did fake makeup on Nick so it looked like he had a cut. He scared Grandma. :)

Here is something I did a year or two ago for April Fools. We were having pizza... I decided to make an extra one.
I rolled out pie dough for the crust, used the juice from cherry pie filling for the sause, used food-colored coconut for the cheese, fruit snacks for the peppers, grape slices for the onions, and fruit roll ups cut into circles for pepperoni.

While we are on the topic... check out these April Fools jokes by Google!

A Snowman and a Dragon

A few posts ago I mentioned Sir Herbert the snowman.

We now have two more creations covering our lawn. All done out of two inches of slushy snow ontop of 1 inch of old snow.

I am pleased to announce the presence of Mr. George Snowman.

And The Dragon. The dragon was a full family effort. It used up much snow from the backyard, and spans THIRTY FEET. I made the head. :)

You might notice that the little dark spot on the right hand side of the picture is my brother. :)

I am going to figure out a way for you to see all the awesome pictures I took without cluttering up the blog with far too many pictures.

A Post Without A Point

Welcome, 2010!!!

...where are the hover cars? Teleportation? Time travel? I'VE BEEN GYPED!

Well, I do have a a tiny little touch-screen device that is essentially a mini computer (iPod touch), so I guess its okay. :) BluRay players are sharper than movies in the theaters... It is strange to think that in 1950, a computer scientist predicted that in fifty years, computers would be able to fit inside one room. It is also strange to think that when my parents were children, a movie was made in which a guy drove to the future in a DeLorean. They traveled to 2015-- five years from now-- and found flying cars. But the electronic windows were covered with static.

I guess it just goes to show that you can never know what will happen. In 2008, could I have ever predicted that we would move (or, heh, be trying to move) away from our big/tiny town/city? No.

I could do a "Year in Review" post, although by this point, it would be "Last Year in Review." That would be a logical thing to do, since we did not send out Christmas cards. (I believe this is the third year that such an atrocity has occured...) But I haven't the time or the energy at the moment, though I might still do it. :) Besides, even though this is a Shaylynn's blog/FAMILY blog, I think that 3/4 of my followers are friends, not family. So if I do do such a post, it will happen later.

I honestly don't know what the point of this post it. I thought about telling everyone what we did on New Year's Eve... but 1) I haven't even done that for Christmas, and 2) It was rather boring, and would only bore you out of your minds.

So I have decided to be merciful to your poor brains and not detail New Year's Eve.

And, as such, this post really has no point other than to say HAPPY NEW YEAR and May this year be blessed for you and yours!

So... I shall shut up now. 

Oh, and I do have a gazillion pictures to upload-- mostly Thanksgiving and Christmas ones-- but our back computer is being temperamental and the laptop doesn't have the editing software. So that will come later.

Halloween

This Halloween was rather strange... I didn't trick or treat, and we didn't carve pumpkins. However, I did finish my Elf costume! William, Nicholas, and I all were Lord of the Rings characters!

The pictures were taken on Dad's camera, and they wound up with Grandma (since Dad is staying at Grandma and Papa's house during the week while he's commuting until we move), and she edited them and put them on facebook. Of course, these aren't all the pictures, but let's just call it a teaser, shall we? Someday I would like to do a true photoshoot. :)

Frodo, smoking the Longbottom Leaf of Hobbit fame as he stares, ponderously, into the distance. (Note that the Ring of Power is around his neck!)

< Frodo, in a very epic pose. :)Nicholas wore his Easter outfit from last year (I was the one who pointed out that the vest was quite the Hobbit style!), a cloak made by Mom, and the Ring of Power (from Ben's Lord of the Rings Risk game) around a chain.

Strider, a Ranger from the North

Elendil, king of Gondor and Arnor

Aragorn, son of Arathorn

< Aragorn, prepared to charge into battle. William saved up his money to buy a real (albeit unsharpened) sword- a replica's of Aragorn from when he was still known as the Ranger from the North (in other words, not the sword of Narsil). It is a very nice sword. William wore a "chainmaille" shirt found at Goodwill, a fake leather tunic made by Mom, jeans, Mom's boots, and a homemade cloak. He stole my Evenstar for the costume, and I also made him "The Ring of Barahir" (aka Aragorn's ring).

^The only picture of my cotume you'll get to see for awhile! I made the costume (jewelry included!) entirely by myself. Well, Mom helped me figure out the sewing pattern and she sewed the collar on. But other than that!

Okay, so Ben was just too funny. He sat there with the thing of candy, and would randomly start talking or moving. We got several screams!

Three our four people read the "Mean Ogre" sign. They read it aloud, and as they were finishing, Ben cried indignantly, "I'm not mean!"

The funniest incident was probably with a few teen girls. I didn't get to see this one, but from what he said...

The two girls walked forward and read the signs.

"Should I grab some candy?" (in a tone of surpressed horror)

"I don't know, its probably a person tricking us."

"I dunno, it doesn't look real."

"You get the candy."
"I don't want to."

"Is it real?"

"Let's throw a rock at it and see."

As you can imagine, Ben was rather concerned that they would chuck a rock at his head. Instead, they threw a bag of candy at him and then ran away without getting the bag or the candy from Ben. !!!

Marcus was originally going to be King Theoden (or at least, a king with a sword and all, us Tolkien geeks named him Theoden), but he wouldn't wear the costume. So he was a firefighter instead.

Adelynn was the most darling little pink bunny rabbit EVER!

The Fourth of July in Taos

Rachel and Hailea racing to catch a parachute

Dad and Marcus stole Will's parachute! It helps to be tall.

LtoR: Adelynn, Mary, Rachel, Grandma's neighbor Brooke, Sarah, and Andi.

Mary and Ethan. The "St. Louis Rackers" (soon to be "one of the St. Louis Rackers") do foster care.

Left: Mary, Emily, Andi, and Racel (and I think its Kaleb on the ground) cheer about something.

Bottom: Nathan, Will, and Kaleb chase a parachute.

Guys talking!

The Fourth of July

We went to see fireworks at Lions Club Park on Thursday. I tried taking pictures but it didn't turn out.
We sat on the side of the lake by the Lions' Building- no one else was there! And it was the perfect view. Grandma had given us glow-sticks and we had lots of fun playing catch with them. Marcus was scared of the noise of the firework explosions. Dad had to take him out to the car.
We went to Taos to visit cousins on the third and fourth. I'll post pictures of that in a minute. On Sunday Father Monsingor Cox gave one of the best homilies I have ever heard. It was on freedom and the duties it entails. I wish he had done that homily earlier- I could have quoted Father for my research paper on freedom!

 Glow stick pictures!!!

The Horrible Fate of the Bunny that was Chocolate

It was almost too pretty to eat!!!

... almost, but not quite.

Easter Eggs

Easter Eggs! Since I had play practice all day Saturday and we went to Easter Vigil, we did not dye eggs until Easter Sunday. Here are some pictures!


We had lots of fun deciding what to put on the eggs! We used a clear wax crayon to draw on them.

The dyes.

A bowl of delicious eggs!

While I was cleaning up the dyes, I noticed this headline from the paper used to cover the table. I thought it was a neat coincidence! (It was about NASCAR, but who cares? The headline fits.)

The three eggs I decorated.

Ben's "egghead".

Maria Pomeranke (sp?) made this beautiful hollow egg, which she sold to help her siblings go to their Oddessy of the Mind meeting thing. I thought it was beautiful.

Happy Easter

Hello! Why, you ask, am I on the computer on Easter? We are not going to visit anyone today, Ben, Will, Nick, and Adelynn are in a rousing four player game that seems to require lots of screaming, and Mom and Dad are going to play Ticket to Ride or Carcassone. And Marcus is nearly asleep. Also, I was not on the computer on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, so I am catching up on two whole days of not being on the computer. :-) Of course, I have missed very little. ;-) Here are some pictures from this morning- Mom was our photographer.

Will. There is a story behind that hat and jacket- he wore them all the time (as in all the time all the time) and he gave up wearing them for Lent.

Nick looking at his holy card of the patron saint of Boy Scouts. I forget who it was.

Adelynn holding up her necklace with the Miraculas Medal and little heart charms.

Marcus got a tool! A tape measure that it is OK if he destroys!

Not all of us had gotten dressed yet so I will save you from having to see pictures of me and Ben in PJs. :-)

Easter egg hunting:




I was utterly oblivious while Easter egg hunting- my eggs were blue. The Easter Bunny hid one in a empty blue outlet thingie- and I did not see it at all!!! Ben found an egg hidden behind a row of VHS tapes, and he found it pretty quickly, too! William took a long time finding his eggs- he was more oblivious than I was- and he spent quite awhile searching. When he found his last egg, I began playing "Alleluia" from Handel's Messiah. :-) That was pretty funny.
Adelynn told me today that she gave up playing her dollhouse for Lent. That's a pretty tough thing for a five year old! She decided to do it all by herself, and actually did it. She said she wanted to tell Jesus how much she loved him. Isn't she sweet?
So, of course, this morning I had to play dollhouse with her. Bad guys came and blew up the house, knocking all the furniture over (she has brothers- can you tell?) and the dollhouse people had to save the princess. They caught the bad guys and the princess gave a party and gave new dresses to all the dollhouse girls. I thought it was an interesting way of playing dollhouse.

Last night we went to Easter Vigil Mass. It was beautiful. Benjamin Wegner was baptized and recieved his first Holy Communion.

A rainbow! Very fitting, on Easter.

I'll post pictures from yesterday's dress rehersal later.