Tag, I'm it!

Thanks for the tag, now it's my turn. I got tagged by the "middle name game". You take the letters of your middle name and use a word to describe yourself. At least my middle name is short. Here we go!

S - Surprise! You can never really be sure what I'm going to be up to next. I'm usually doing silly things and people are constantly surprised.

U - Uttermost - when I do somthing, I usually go all the way. Uttermost describes the attitute I have about doing my school work, my classes, keeping up with my kids, etc.

E - Endearing - eventually people like me. Maybe it's more like a fungus, and I grow on people, but whatever the case, I'm usually on the list of "not so bad"...

Ok, at this point, I'm supposed to tag three people, but nobody else I know keeps up their blogs! I guess at this point I'll tag Mary, Karen, and ....I guess that's it. Now I have to e-mail Mary and Karen and tell them to read this and get busy!

Master Bathroom Phase 3

Yep, Phase 3 is complete, Phase 4 is underway, and Phase 5 is planned. I know, it seems excessive, but I want to do it the way I like it, and then move on to another room instead of a little here and and little there and nothing ever really finished! Anyway, the color is "Colonial Green" and it's the Kilz paint from Wal-Mart. I actually like that paint very much.

Look for Phase 4 coming soon....

Field Trip!

Ok, so the twins are in band, and the band travels with the football team as anyone in TEXAS knows. However, my husband is still baffled by this phenonemon. Anyway, the football team made the playoffs - yeah! So, instead of marching season ending, it's kinda like the energizer bunny. It keeps going, and going, and going, and going. Not that I really mind, it just seems like it is lasting a long time. It started in August for pete's sake!

Anyway, each week is a new team, in a new location. Single elimination of course. This week we are supposed to play Hebron (?) at.....drum roll please....NO! Really! drum roll!


TEXAS STADIUM. Yep, home of the cowboys. (The football team - just in case you're football challenged...)

Needless to say, Taylor is excited to go "support" his girls this week. Not that he balked too much before, but this is a big deal. Especially since this stadium won't be around too much longer. Construction on the new one has begun (yes, in Arlington of course). Anyway, our game starts at 4:00 today, so we're pretty excited!

Turkey Day minus the turkey...

Ok, so I decided to have a couple of people over for Thanksgiving...but I don't like to cook turkey, so we had ham. The couple of people turned into three people. Very cool, because I like them all. Then, the day before Thanksgiving, the three turned into six. My parents came back into town JUST in time! So, with the 5 we already had, and we added 6 to it - we had quite the little gathering. Everything went as planned (very unusual in this house - well I guess I couldn't make the tollhouse cookies because we didn't have baking soda, but we had 3 other desserts, so it was no big deal). Taylor used his brand new cookbook to make fudge - it turned out GREAT! The twins didn't help cook, but they did spend time cleaning on Wednesday - good job too! It was bigger than we expected, but a lot more fun too!

Master Bathroom Phase 2

Ok, the basic changes to the bathroom in phase 2 was that we moved our stuff in, and got new tile put down... Can't see it here though...
Ok, I can see your head cocked to the side while you view this...Haven't learned how to tilt the pic yet. But see how clean the bottom of the tub is?
Yeah, not real exciting, but that's how it goes, as stuff gets better, it will look cooler...
Now you can see the new tile. It's 20x20 if I remember corectly, and was put in by a friend of ours who has his own construction business. He did all the bathrooms, the kitchen, and put some laminate floor in the entryway all the way up the formal living and dining room to the entrace of the kitchen. It's a strip about 5 1/2 feet wide and about 25 feet long. It looks great too, but we're here right now about the bathroom! So back to it. The next phase is paint, then more paint, and then cool (hopefully) decorations. We're going for a jungle/african type theme with a redneck twist. (The redneck twist means I can do anything I want and call it what I want if someone doesn't like it - I shoot them...)

Master Bathroom Phase 1

Ok, this pic is before the new tile, and begore the new paint. TRULY the very begining of the bathroom.
The plastic protection was still on the sinks at this time. That came off pretty quick, they had to put the faucets in after all!
No, my bathtub no longer looks like the jolly green giant took a bath and didn't rinse it out! (Remember, we hadn't even moved in yet when this was taken!

So here's how it looked before we even moved in.... I've decided to re-do the bathroom, and thought maybe I'd share the process.

The Begining

Lydia is the second one, and Melody is the fourth one here...
Once again, Lydia 2nd, and Melody 4th... See those smiles? They're embarrased mom has a camera!
Here you can see Lydia, but Melody is hiding behind her friend Gabby... this is the look of bordom.......

Ok, it's a little late, but I wanted to show the girls when they began learning their marches and whatnot for band. This August and into September they were very busy, and here are some pics of them at a "parent social" doing their marching thing! They tried to teach me to march, but they are better at taking instruction than giving it! :)

Crayons and Wine

You would think that crayons and wine have nothing to do with one another.

You're wrong. Just ask my daughter Melody. In a rare event, I bought wine at the store while she was with me. How does this connect crayons and wine? Here we go...

1. If you eat green crayons, it will affect your system. You could, potentially, excrete green pee. Yuck.

2. There is a wine that is called Pinot Grigio.

3. Melody talks like a goober.

So here we go...

I am looking at the wines, trying to decide if I'll buy one, and if I do which one it will be. Melody, being the helpful girl that she is chimes in. "Look mom, just get this pee-no-green-no." Since I hadn't eaten any green crayons this was pretty funny to me. I'm not sure where the pronunciation came in at, but I had a glass of wine last night, and this morning I peed-no-green-no. I guess maybe wine and crayons don't have much in common after all....

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Ok, kudos to one of my very good friends (that I hardly ever get to talk to, but maybe with the invention of the blog and myspace we can connect more...). She's always been beautiful, funny, smart, and for some reason, my friend too! (Crazy huh?) I wish I could say she was the pretty one and I was the ...something, but she really was the pretty one, the smart one, the clever one, and the funny one. I might have been more athletic, but she was much more talented. We grew up together in West Texas, and really were very close. She knew me better than anyone else did when we were younger. Anyway, she just won Mrs. Montana... How cool is that? Pretty much the coolest thing ever! Anyway, for those of you who check my site (yeah, YOU Melissa!) here's the link - it's really cool!

http://mrsmontanaamerica.com/

Leah, if you check this blog, YOU don't have to look at the link - you lived it. But you can scroll down to see the silliness that is my life! Love you, and am very proud of you. Tell your mother hello and I'd love to hear from her too.

At it again...

Well, a new Saturday, a new marching band competition. This week we were in the huge metropolis that is Little Elm. Hmmm. Yeah, it really is a town, and it really has people that live there, and it really is growing quite quickly... Go ahead and giggle, I'll wait - I have all day actually...

Ok, now that you finished gfawing about Little Elm, let me tell you about the competition. First of all, Taylor came to this one, and it was an ALL DAY event. He did great. We left our house at 9:00, and got home at 9:10. Not 10 minutes, but 12 hours and 10 minutes. We got to the competition late, and left early... Believe it.

The girls band was in 7th after all 30 bands played in the preliminary round. After the preliminary round they moved from 7th to 3RD! Second week in a row to move up, but this was a huge move! We were really proud of them. They've work so hard. Two down, 3 to go in this season. Wow!

On another related note, their football game won on Friday Vs. Grandbury. Yeah! That was a good bus ride home...nice change...

Really?

My new favorite word. Really. You can say so much with one word, your tone of voice, and a look. I have discovered that I can say whole sentences with that one word. It's amazing...Really!

Here are a few examples.

Tone: disbelieving
Look: One raised eyebrow
Word: Really?
Meaning: Have you lost your mind? You truly plan on shoving 1/2 a burrito into your mouth and then trying to talk around it and tell me about your day? REALLY?

Tone: laughing
Look: smile
Word: Really?
Meaning: I heard that pickup line in second grade. Not only is your line older than your mother, but I'M older than your mother! Get a grip, and a girlfriend that is in 5th grade! (By the way, I teach sixth grade...)

Tone: flat
Look: bored
Word: Really?
Meaning: Just in case you can't tell, I don't care what you're taking about. Not only do I not care, I'm not going to start caring. I can't believe I'm wasting my time sitting here listening to you when I could be searching the building for chocolate...REALLY!


See what I mean? There is just no limit to what I can communicate using tone, a look, and one word. The sky is the limit - Really!

Marching Band Competition #1

Well, the twins had their very first competition yesterday, and they did pretty well. They placed 5th after the initial march, and during the finals managed to move that up to 3rd. It seemed that the final rank was based on a combined score from the first and second march, so moving up 2 places was pretty good.

They got #1 for color guard, effects, and drum line. (None of which the twins are in, but they were still really excited)

Their day was really hectic, and tough. (10:30 am to 11:30 pm) They got to the first competition, marched, and loaded the bus and drove 1 1/2 hours to a second competition to march again! There had been a delay in the second competition though, so they had to leave before they got to compete to march in the finals of the first competition. Their bus pulled in with 20 minutes to spare before they were on the field. I'm sure all 20 minutes were spent unloading the bus and running to the field! It must have been difficult to juggle all of that in their brains and still pull out a great performance. There were about 25 bands in the competition, so 3rd was awesome.

Way to go girls!

Mighty Hunter...

To understand why this is so funny for me, you have to understand a couple of things.

1) My husband is from New York, and is not really comfortable with killing small game.

2) When a snake was in the yard a couple of years ago, I was the one that went out with a shovel and had to kill the silly thing. He wouldn't have anything to do with it, and in fact, a day after it was dead and covered in ants he swore it was blinking. Nevermind that the head was seperated from the body...

3) We live in a new house, in a new development, and have mice in the area...

Ok, now that the preliminaries are covered, let me continue by informing you of the "glue traps". Inside the garage, there are glue traps that little critters get stuck on. Yea! That means they aren't in my house. However, since it's glue, they can live for days. and days. and days. Yuck.

So, I don't like it, and have told Doug to take care of it. His glue traps, his mice. So, the mighty hunter emerges...

He stalks his prey with a hockey stick...(No, I'm not kidding) He sneaks around it, takes careful aim, and WHACKS it on the head. Now the mouse is dead, and the mighty hunter does the victory dance. (the dance consists of putting the dead mouse in a wal-mart sack and putting it on the porch until trash day)

The mighty hunter has gotten to practice his skills and hone his craft lately, and has even had help in his hunt - Addison has become involved. She will go out and sniff the fresh kill, and although I'm sure she would like to lick it at this point, she's not allowed to...by me. Yuck! Eventually, Doug would like to train the dog to go out, pull the mouse off the glue trap, eat the mouse, and reset the glue trap. Wish him luck.

Pics from the FWMSH

Taylor with a Destroyer Droid. Very scarry stuff!

Blocking Princess Leia is the only way to go when you're saving your "man card"

Love us some Tarfurr!

Wow! These guys make me look tall!

Karen and JD work on the Electro Magnetic cars in one of the exhibits

Star Wars Exhibit

The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History has a summer-long program on Star Wars. It's an "imagination meets reality" kind of thing. Taylor an I went to see it today while the girls were in Band Clinic. There were some really cool things, and some lame things. However, we got to meet up with a couple of his friends there, and look at exhibits, and make magnetic cars, R2D2 robots that had to manuver a course, make a robot walk using hand controls, ride in an air propelled semi-hovercraft, and more. The Special Effects IMAX movie was really cool, and the popcorn and diet coke hit the spot! We were there from 9:15 to 2:15. The (of course they had one) gift shop was overflowing with Star Wars stuff. We got buttons for the girls that have Darth Vader on them and say "Who's your daddy?" and Taylor got a button that says "judge me by my size do you?" with Yoda in the background. He also got a poster that has "Everything in Life I Need to Know I Learned From Star Wars". It's pretty funny. Now, exhausted, I have to figure out how to download pics to the computer so I can post them here. It was really a lot of fun...

Melissa will get the therapy bill...

Ok, no pictures yet, no cute happenings in our house, etc. Just a notice to YOU MELISSA! When the therapy bills start rolling in, I think Doug will be forwarding them to you. First MySpace, then E-bay, now Blogspot... You are my addiction master! I promise to get more stuff done for this soon, but maybe not this morning... lol! Miss you guys!