First Place Cutie

Last weekend there was a small dog show here. They say everything is bigger in Texas, but they obviously don't live in the same city we live in. There were two rings and the entire thing lasted about an hour. Kenny showed PJ in a costume contest and Chase took a junior handler class to learn some techniques for showing dogs.


PJ won first prize for the cutest costume.


And Chase worked on his showing techniques so that he is prepared in the spring when he shows my mom's bulldogs again.

It was a pretty fun morning. Well, unless you ask the little 8 pound dog that had to wear 5 lb of fake grapes for a costume. She might not tell you the same thing!

Use it or Lose it

My TExES exam is coming up soon. It is one of the three teacher certification exams I will be taking between now and March '09. One of three $120 tests that I need to pass to be able to teach in Texas. Well, technically only two of them are necessary, but I would really like to take & pass the third test so that I can teach K-8th grade instead of K-4th grade. As I mentioned here, there is a program that will pay for my exams. I am very happy about that. Especially because I can spend up to $600 on exams. That means if I have to take one of them twice, it won't cost me an extra $120. Anyway, my first exam covers the ECH-grade 4 content areas. 40% of my exam is language arts/reading, 15% is math, 15% is science, 15% is social studies, and the remaining 15% covers art, music, physical education, and health. I have been studying a little bit here and there. Last night I studied the music section of my study guide. I used to be in band. I played the flute from 4th to 12th grade. I played the piano the first time I went to college (back in the dark ages). I can't sing, but I was musically inclined. As I was studying last night I realized I was not in a good place for that part of my test. I have forgotten SO MUCH! Another big worry: the social studies area. It is almost all Texas history. Go figure. One page of my study guide is dedicated to WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War. 17 pages are dedicated to Texas' history and the Alamo. In this case, I haven't forgotten anything ... I never knew it in the first place. Let's move on the math. I would have called myself a math whiz in high school. Now I can't do Chase's homework. I took all except one of my college math classes in the early 90's. I took one last summer. While I was on vacation. With my laptop open on the side of the desk while I was taking the tests on the desktop. Yup, I am in trouble. Good thing I have $600 to spend. I might need every single dollar of it!

Before & After

Oh No! Not Again ...

My friend sent me this tag and I feel obligated to pass it on, mostly because it is fun to make you participate too! (but also because I secretly like these kinds of things even though it is much more cool to say that I don't)

The rules: Remove 1 question from the list below, and add your own personal question to make it a total of 20 questions. Tag 8 people, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged.

1. At what age do/did you (wish to) marry? 23.
2. What color do you like most? pink, because I have two boys and nothing in my house is pink unless it is mine.
3. If you can have a superpower, what would it be? When I was little I wanted to be able to fly.
4. If you can travel anywhere in the world, where would you want to go? China. And I'd come back home with a baby girl.
5. Which part of you do you hate the most? I guess I am pretty ok with most of me.
6. When you get sad, what do you do? Wonder why I am not happy.
7. What book are you reading now? Preparing for the Texas PreK-4 Teacher Certification: A Guide to the Comprehensive TExES Content Areas Exam (aren't you glad you asked?!?)
8. If you win $1 million, what would you do with the money? Pay off all of my debt and stop going to college
9. What did you love the most about last year (2007)? Being thinner than I am now.
10. How did you get your name? My parents gave it to me.
11. What is the moment you regret most? At this moment I regret not buying that house w/6 acres in Christoval that just sold for $35K less than asking price!
12. What type of person do you hate the most? Dishonest people.
13. What is your greatest asset? My family.
14. If you had one wish, what would you wish for? See #8.
15. How did you celebrate the New Year? Asleep.
16. What tv show do you watch that you are embarrassed to tell people about? I watch Oprah, Grey's Anatomy, and Private Practice. Are any of them embarrassing?
17. It’s 2008. What are you looking forward to this year? Getting my TExES exam over with.
18. Anything in your life that you wish weren’t so awful? I can handle it.
19. What’s the shallowest thing you intend to do this year? Change question #20 from "20. What’s the meaning of life?" to ...
20. McDreamy or McSteamy? (my answer is McDreamy, BTW)

I am not going to spend time going around and notifying people that I have tagged them, but I will do it here. I only have 8 blogs that I read that are written by actual people that I know and one of them is Julie (who tagged me) so here is my list of seven: Lisa, Lisa, Jennifer, Samantha, Cherie, Amber, Robin.

Superficial

Regardless of your political affiliation and your feelings about last night, it is going to be refreshing to see a young, fit, happy family in the White House. I feel like the global image of the USA will be affected in a positive way.

Exciting News (in my little world)

I got this email from the college of education today:

Dear Amy,
Your student teaching application has been reviewed and you have been CONDITIONALLY APPROVED to student teach next semester. The current status of your application is not final; a second review will be made when the final grades for all of your current classes have been posted.

Yippee!

New Map

The map that I have been obsessing about for over a week has been changed. It is now a results map. You can watch as the results are tallied and finalized. Check it out HERE (if you are as obsessed as I am!)

Go Vote

Remember my posting from a couple of weeks ago? If not, read it again. Then go vote. It is your duty. Your responsibility. Your right. And if you don't vote and then you don't like our president I will not listen to any of your complaining until four years from now when I tell you again to go vote. *My name is Amy and I approve of this message even if you don't*

North Carolina

is now 47.8% Obama, 47.5% McCain

GO VOTE!!!!!

Halloween Night

Happy Halloween from Texas! Here are my two cool boys just before they went out trick-or-treating. They are out now ... on their own going up and down our street. It's so great having older kids.


Tonight was the fall fest at Kenny's school. They had fun and won a bunch of junk that is more tempting than candy corn and glow-in-the-dark dots.

Another great thing about having older kids is that the costumes get cheaper and less intricate. Maybe that's my fault because when they were small I wanted them to have the perfect costumes. Now I let them choose and they usually throw something easy together.

Our night was quiet, but fun. Not anything like our days in NC when we would hide beer in tupperware cups and walk around with our friends from the neighborhood, but still nice. Hope you all had a fun night too!

Happy Halloween!!!

Wordless Wednesday -- This Year's Masterpieces

Getting Closer

Now it is Obama 48.3%, McCain 47%. I know that trying to read polls can drive a person (me!) crazy, but this is so important. We don't need NC to turn into 2000's version of Florida. Check for updates here.

Listen Up North Carolina

To my friends in North Carolina,

Obama is leading in your polls 48.8% to 47.2%. I don't need to know which way you are voting, but you need to know that your vote will make a difference.

And Florida ... yours is close too.

Get out there and vote!

Fundraiser

This posting is for my local friends: Chase is selling pointsetta plants for a band fundraiser. They are $12 each. You can choose between red, pink, and white. I won't let him come around knocking on your door because I know your kids are all selling stuff too. But if you want one, call us. Thanks!

Kenny's Big Night

Kenny had a birthday party on Friday night with some of his friends from school. Everyone we invited showed up and the boys all had a really fun time. We started out at Mr. Gatti's, which is a Chuck-E-Cheese wannabe. The party hostess girl was absolutely perfect and made our 2 hours there actually easy and relaxing for me.


This is a picture of the seven third graders in attendance. Chase and Zach were too cool to participate in the silly picture.


After we were done at Mr. Gatti's we walked next door to the movie theater to watch High School Musical 3: Senior Year. It was quite a coordinated event to get 9 boys into the theater with popcorn and drinks. Chase and Zach happily abandoned us to sit with a huge group of preteen girls that thought they were almost as cute as Zac Efron. I don't have a good picture of my seven third graders because by the time all of the work was done the movie was about to start and I couldn't see! So I snapped two quick pictures (much to the dismay of everyone around us) and sat down fast before anyone could throw popcorn at me.

After the movie we continued our little walk to go to Marble Slab Creamery. I walked in the door and said to the lady behind the counter: I have nine boys with me. I would like to get them each one scoop with one mix-in. Good luck and I'll see you at the cash register! Then I went zen for ten minutes while she did all of the work. By the time the boys all had their ice cream the parents were showing up to pick up their kids. It was a perfect night and we all had a lot of fun :)

A Child's Perspective

Chase told me this morning about an in-class assignment he did in his Social Studies/History class yesterday. The teacher gave them a long checklist with current issues that are being addressed in the presidential campaign. The issues were not paired up with a candidate's name. The students had to make decisions based solely on their opinions regarding the issues. Chase told me that McCain won by a landslide. Once the students had turned in their voting cards the teacher told them who "won". Then, he said, several students asked if they could change their votes. They wanted to vote for Obama even though they did not agree with his position on the issues. I think it is very interesting and it makes me wonder if we would have a different president if all of the grown ups had to vote that way too.

*By the way this posting does not in any way imply that you should vote for one candidate or the other. However, you should vote. And you should vote for the candidate whose policies you agree with!*

Dress in Layers!

The current temperture: 37 degrees
The high today: 80

That is just crazy!

Wordless Wednesday -- New House Guest

Happy Birthday Kenny Parker!!!

Forgot One

I forgot this picture yesterday when I was writing about our weekend. This was taken when we were about 1/3 of the way up Mount Scott in the car. The rocks you can see at the top are the rocks we were climbing around in the photos where Brian is sitting in the "recliner" with the boys and I am jumping like Mario.

Our Weekend

We went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma over the weekend so that we could spend some time with Brian. In the 40-something hours that we were together we tried to do a few things that we thought would be fun. On post there is a large military museum which includes lots of Army stuff that I can't really tell you about (because it all just seems the same to me!) I do know that this particular tank is the tank Brian worked on the first time he was in the Army. When he was a cute 18-19 year old boy in Desert Storm. Before he went into the MI field. Before he learned a language (or four). And before he met me. So basically we'll call this time period BA for Before Amy.


One of the places we took the boys was the Wichita Wildlife Refuge. Brian and I went here the week before we got married. This weekend we thought it would be a fun place to take the boys. It's a great way to spend a day ... especially a nice warm fall day. The weather was perfect!


The first thing we saw when we drove in was a couple of longhorn cattle crossing the road.


Then we climbed Mount Scott. As we were driving up in the car we stopped for a couple of snapshots.




Then we got to the top and got out to explore a little. Here are the boys with Brian on their "recliner" in the rocks.


This is me being silly and jumping like Super Mario.


On the way back down the mountain we stopped to take pictures of some buffalo. This is a picture of me taking a picture of a buffalo (Chase had his camera with him too).


Here is a picture of Chase trying to MOO to the buffalo. He was hoping to get him to chase me around a little. What a nice kid.


Here's my picture:


We stopped at Lake Quanah Parker to check out some geese.


Then we went hiking at Cache Creek Canyon to find the Forty Foot Hole where Brian and I went skinny dipping swimming when we were here over a decade ago. We found it. Being there with our kids was a lot different! But not in a bad way :)




Here are the boys crossing the French Lake Dam on our way out of Cache Creek Canyon.


And our last stop (probably everyone's favorite) was to Prairie Dog Village.


We brought some Ritz crackers and spent a long time feeding the Prairie Dogs. It was fun for all of us, but especially so for Brian because his parents used to bring him here a lot when he was a boy. It seems like we are constantly going places and doing things that I did when I was little so it was really special to share something with the boys that Brian did when he was a kid.




And of course ... on the way out we saw more cattle. They were crossing the road and we had to pull over to wait for them. I thought I'd get a few snapshots before we headed out.


The entire weekend was a lot of fun and a good way to spend some time with Brian.

Helper

Just trying to get a little homework done around here!

Boy Time

This was Saturday night. They played Galaga in Chase's pigpen of a room for hours and hours and hours! It seems I would have enjoyed the break, but I actually ended up pretty bored. I think I watched something boring on the history channel before passing out alone in bed. This is why I need a daughter!

Wordless Wednesday -- School Spirit Day

My New Toy

This is my new toy. It is a Film and Slide Digital Converter. We didn't join the digital camera world until Christmas 2003 so I have about 8 years worth of pictures/negatives from 1995 - 2003 that I plan to convert this winter. Unfortunately I wasn't very organized with my negatives. They are all mixed up in a big shoe box! I guess that means that every time I grab a strip of negatives I will be surprised at what I get. At least it will give me something to do while Brian is gone. And I am sure I'll get some new blogging material out of it too. Fun!

80 Days Left

There are 80 days left until Christmas. 11 people voted on my little poll and only 4 of you have started your shopping. You better get going people! I have two things to tell you ... amazon.com and free shipping on orders over $25.

Readathon

On Friday Kenny's school had an all day Readathon. He got to go to school with a blanket, pillow, stuffed animal, books, and snacks. I am sure the main reason for the readathon was to give the teachers time to get their grades in the system (it was the last day of the first marking period). I think it's a great idea. Last year I was doing some observation time in a different elementary school in town and the students watched videos all day on the last day of the marking period. I'd much rather the kids read all day than watch tv! Anyway, Kenny had a great time and the teachers got their grades in. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!

A Million Reasons

Here are a million reasons why it is not cool to have two dogs and three cats in one house! I swept yesterday ... and this is what I swept up today. 24 hours later. Gross, I know. Aren't you glad you looked at my blog today?

Kenny's Birthday

Kenny's birthday is coming up. Last year I was really organized and created a list on the side of my blog telling you some things he might be interested in if you planned to give him a gift. Not that I am asking you to send him a gift. Because that would be rude. I don't have the energy to create a list right now, but if you were planning to send him a gift, I do know that he has been wanting this book and this book and this book.

He also loves football right now. His team is the Texas Longhorns. Don't ask me anything about it. I just know that all of the kids around here like either the Longhorns or Texas Tech. I happen to have one kid that likes the Longhorns and another kid that likes Tech. To me that simply means twice the sports junk in my house.

And of course, there's always money. He's saving for a wii. Chase has about $83 saved so far and Kenny has $38 so some birthday cash would definitely help him out. We told the boys that if they saved up enough to buy their wii that we would buy them Rock Band 2. I am hoping they save their money up fast enough that we can all spend our entire holiday break playing wii rock band. Feel free to come visit and we'll make fools of ourselves music all night.

My Medicinal Experiments

I have always been one of those rudely skeptical people when it comes to allergies. See, even now ... I feel the need to put the word allergies in italics. Like they aren't real. Like maybe the people who say they have allergies are just making it up. I think it all started when I was a teenage babysitter and the parents would tell me that the thick green snot their kids were spewing all over the place was just allergies and that there wasn't any reason they needed to send me home and cancel their golf luncheon with their friends from the country club. Then amazingly about 48 hours later I had green snot spewing out of my nose too.

For the last two years I have suspected that maybe Chase suffers from allergies (see, no italics there -- we're talking about my kid now). My stubborn self didn't buy him anything for it the first year, but last year he had nasal sprays and the occassional dose of Claritin. It helped, but I was still pretty set on not medicating him to his eyeballs and making him into a Zyrtec Zombie.

I know that some of you have used Zyrtec successfully. And some of you have given it to your kids successfully. That's great and I am happy for you and your noses. Unfortunately my teenage babysitting experiences were only justified more when I spent time with one particular kid who never seemed to be ill at all, whose mother kept him on Zyrtec 365 days a year, and who took it at 11 pm ever night, therefore not being able to wake up enough to function until about noon the next day.

Last year I was sick a lot. I think it was because I was in the elementary schools weekly and my boys were back in school after a year of homeschooling. The three of us brought home enough germs to go around. I spent all of February and March very sick. I shared with Brian. We both went to the doctor and he prescribed antibiotics, cough meds, decongestants, and pain pills. (that's how bad we were!) He also prescribed Zyrtec, Allegra D, Claritin, and enough bottles of nasal spray to last until I am so old I won't care if I have snot running out of my nose any more. We gobbled up the real medicines and let the allergy medicines sit there, unopened. We were definitely sick and didn't need allergy medicines at the time, but my skepticism was lessening and I was thinking I might want to hold on to those allergy medicines just in case.

Last night I decided to try out my Zyrtec. I have had a stuffy nose and runny/watery/itchy eyes for a few days without any other symptoms (no fever, no aches & pains, etc). I took it at 7:30 last night. It's now almost noon and I feel like I am still asleep! And my nose is still stuffy. And my eyes are still runny/watery/itchy. So I guess I will keep being a skeptic. But if you have any advice for me ... anything that you think might help me, please feel free to comment. Tell me to try the Allegra D. Or tell me it's just another cold and that allergies don't really exist. What's your opinion/experience?!?

PS I can guarantee you that if you are reading this blog I was not talking about your kid earlier. The Zyrtec Zombie's mother doesn't know how to read. ha ha ha Just kidding, but she doesn't read my blog anyway.