Brenna's guitar final - Blackbird

http://youtu.be/6YMZjcoKw0k

Sorry! You'll have to copy and paste the link in your browser to see it...

I have been trying all afternoon to upload this video to facebook, but I haven't been successful. Apparently 720p HD is too much for their server and apparently the file was just to big for Blogger as well, so I finally uploaded it to You Tube. I will have to remember to tone down the settings on my camera so that I am not pulling out so much hair the next time!


I am so incredibly proud of this young woman. She is incredibly talented and at such a young age! It is an honor to be her mother, even when she is an ornery teenager! Love you sweet girl!

I Can't Believe He's Four!

Quentin Joel Fox turned four today! When did that happen? It's almost as if he went from baby to big boy overnight, kind of sobering.

We started the day with the traditional birthday pancake. Quentin wasn't all too thrilled with this at first. He covered up his face when we started to sing to him and wanted us to stop. But after he blew out his candle, he was just fine, and happily plowed his way through two of them. After breakfast, his older siblings went off to school, and Quentin was ready to go to the toy store - NOW. He slapped on a pair of sandals and headed outside to get in the car. We were able to lure him back in the house, where Rob read him a Seuss Birthday Book, then he took a bath, and then we were ready to go! I had a puppet show to go do, so he came with me, and he actually watched it! After that, we hit Toys r Us, and he was in heaven. He of course wanted just about everything in the store that was transportation related. He found the battery powered ride on toys and decided that the kiddie Cadillac Escalade was the ride for him. He kept telling me, "but I wuv it mommy, I wuv it!" I then told him he already had something similar at home, to which he replied, "I pwomise, but I pwomise!" Not sure exactly what he was promising, but we eventually left with a nice wooden train set. He fell asleep on the way home, and I woke him up trying to get him into the house (that kid is heavy!) He wasn't ready to wake up and was pretty ornery for about 15 minutes, until we opened his new train set. Then he was once again his jolly little self. We then took him out for a late lunch at
Wendy's, where he downed an entire kids meal, then we went to the local library where he checked out an entire pile of Bob the Builder DVD's. Then we returned home again, where he continued to play with his train set for hours, and was still going strong when I left for work. We will be having a party for him this Saturday, where we will do the cake and ice cream thing - the kids were rather disappointed about the no cake thing tonight stating that it was his birthday today, and he just HAD to have a cake! But there was no cake tonight, and Quentin really didn't seem to mind. He knows he is having a birthday party in a couple of days and he is excited for all his friends to come and celebrate with him.
Love you birthday boy! Thanks for choosing our family! I hope you had fun today!

In Quentin's World...

My son, Quentin, is at that age when just about everything that comes out of his cute little cherub mouth is belly - laugh worthy. Take, for example, this past Monday. Shauna, my sister-in-law, was over at my house visiting. She had a really snazzy looking top on (Shauna, if you ever want to 'donate' it...well, you know...) It had lots of randomly placed sequins on it, and Quentin was, well...intrigued. He innocently pointed at a group of sequins, and said in his cute little three year old voice, "Waas dat?" Shauna replied, "That's a sequin." "Is Quentin's?" queried my toddler. Shauna chuckled..."No...it's a sequin.." "SeaQuentin's?" came the reply. It was all over then...sides splitting, eyes watering... Quentin just stood there..he giggled a little because we were all laughing, he didn't understand what on earth was so funny, just that he had once again done something devastatingly cute. He gave an ever so charming, dimpled grin, and scampered downstairs to play with his ever growing horde of cars.
None of us will ever be able to say or hear the word 'sequin' without giggling...ever again.

Life's Been Busy....

Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long....but as this post title states, it's been a little nutso around here! My new job is going well, I didn't run across one 'evil step-mother' floor like I feared. Everyone was really nice and made sure that I had plenty of opportunities to reinforce old skills and learn plenty of new ones! I have decided that I will stick it out for my 3 months, and at the EARLIEST opportunity, I will ask to be cross trained into Maternity and then transfer into the Women's Float Pool from there. I have worked a variety of different floors already, and none of them have really grabbed my interest as somewhere I would want to stay. I really like the float pool and can't really see any reason as to why I would ever want to be on a fixed unit.

I have gone and enrolled myself at SLCC and signed up for a Chemistry lecture and lab, and I am now wondering if I really want to get into this. My lecture is online, which is cool, because I don't have to be anywhere at any fixed time, but I am already a week behind and have not yet been able to get the book...this will not bode well for me. My lab is Weds. evenings...that's tomorrow..so we will see if I have a snowball's chance of making this work!

I cannot believe how expensive community colleges have gotten! I thought that maybe things were up around $50 a unit...guess I live in the stone age...try $100 a unit! Here I was, blithely signing up for my Chemistry class, absolutely thrilled that there were openings...5 units..no big deal..I can make this work...until I looked at my account and saw the total *faint* $649.50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least they were nice enough to break it down for me....$25 lab fee, $135.50 Student fees (since I'll just be the life of the campus activities..NOT!), and 499.00 for the classes.....DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG! I immediately turned around and filled out the FAFSA, with some hope that I will get some financial something before the end of the semester, so far the process seems to be moving faster than I was told it would, but I am not getting my hopes up too high in that department!

My kiddos have returned to school! Brenna is in 5th grade, Jaron in 3rd, and Cade in 2nd. They have been in one full week already. Brenna has been placed in Advanced Spelling and Math, and is running for Student Council. I don't know where she gets it from. I was fairly bright in the language arts and was a basically good student, never the top of the class, but somewhere in the upper ranks. I most definitely was not EVER interested in school politics...in fact, I would run as hard and fast as I could (and I don't run) away from those types of opportunities. As far as I know, Rob was never involved with student leadership either. Now, she did mention something about treats, and I have a sneaking suspicion that that is a strong motivating factor, but she does seem really interested and excited - so I will let her have at it. It will really look good on her record if she is chosen and I am sure it will be an awesome learning opportunity for her. Jaron is plugging along and seems to be doing really well so far. He reads like a champ and is able to do most of his homework independently...YAY! I am assuming that Cade is having the same success...I haven't gotten any notes home to tell me otherwise. He is in a class that has no assigned homework..which has been the bane of his existence...I see all sorts of COMPLETED worksheets arriving home daily in his backpack with almost everything correct. He still doesn't like to read or tie his shoes...doesn't mean he can't..he just won't. "I'm just a seven year old! I can't know that yet!" or my all time favorite when I tell him he needs to make better choices and control himself..."Mom, I told you! I'm trying, but my brain won't let me!" Sometimes...I wish I could just pop the top off and do some re-wiring......he is the one kid that just isn't affected by anything...my little behavioral mystery, that one.

Quentin has been stepping up the antics lately. I had just finished a puppet show when my phone rang. It was Rob on the other end. I have told far too many stories that have started in this fashion...so y'all know it can't be good! Sure enough, Mr. Q had decided to make himself some chocolate milk with the brand new bottle of chocolate syrup I had just bought. I came home to a smallish pond of chocolate on my table, and a near lake of the stuff on my kitchen floor. Thank goodness he stuck to the kitchen and also that Rob came upon him within minutes of him starting this. He is an awfully quick little fellow, and within just a couple of minutes time, he made the said pools on the floor AND covered his entire front side with the stuff. He had a cup and everything all ready (it was covered too), he knew what he was doing, he just lacked the particular fine muscle control to have it work for him. He even recognized that he made a HUGE mess, and attempted to clean it up with one of my good kitchen towels, all the while saying, "Uh oh, MESS!" This time I didn't take pictures of it, I have enough of those..thank you very much (or little?) Plus, I just wanted to go to bed, I had just finished an 11p to 7 a.m shift followed by a puppet show at 9 a.m. - I was in no mood for nostalgic documentation.

So...that has been my life of late...busy, busy, busy. And goodness knows it's only going to get worse (or better????(seriously, folks)????) But, that's another post for another bat-time on another bat-channel...TTFN!!!

.Cade-isms

My seven year old is sure one unique little boy. He says the oddest things sometimes, and most of the time they get him out of a lot of hot water because one is usually laughing too hard to be mad at him....

Take yesterday, for instance, he had been outside messing with my hose and squirting himself. He can be rather hard on things in general, and a lot of things get broken while in his hands. My poor spray nozzle was yet another victim...come to think of it, he broke last years nozzle and my wand the year before that! Anyway, I found my busted spray nozzle and questioned him as to why he had broken yet another one. "I don't know! It wasn't strong enough! I'm just one little 7 year old boy with a pink eye!" He replied. I couldn't stop giggling long enough to really be upset, and he does have a mild case of pink eye. Poor little 7 year old with a pink eye....

From the Mouths of Babes

I was bathing my 2 year old this evening, as I seem to be doing every night and sometimes during the day as well. He has just recently acquired an interest in all things dirt. He loves to play in his sandbox, and lay in it...sometimes facedown. He loves to play in our neighbors dirt side yard with his cars and trains..the kid just likes dirt, so he gets lots of baths, which he has decided he definitely does NOT like!

This evening he ended up in the tub because he decided that my compost bucket made a good hat...he might have thought that it made for a fun head covering..but it definitely did not make for a good smell! I guess we should be considering ourselves lucky that a. there wasn't much in there, and b. the scraps were relatively fresh.

So I put him in the tub while I was still trying to carry on a conversation with my sister in law, Shauna. It wasn't very easy because he was protesting loudly..Shauna could probably attest to that! I soon ended my telephone conversation and proceeded to bathe the boy. He got mad at me for soaping him up, and proceeded to throw all his very waterlogged toys on my bathroom floor, creating a small lake in the process. I quickly tossed them all back in and sternly told him "No! Stop that!" then from him.."No! Youstopat!" I then decided that a good rinsing was what he needed so I could get him out of the tub and end his water flinging rampage. So I dumped a huge cup of water over his head, and then I did it again (just trying to get the suds out of his hair) After a few seconds of spluttering, he looks up at me and says, "You Meeniead mommy!"

I was laughing so hard I was almost crying....

Let us hope that that is the worst insult he ever comes up with! It was so dang cute!

Kids say the darndest things...

Conversation in my house this afternoon...

Brenna: Is Tomb Raider a Sunday game?

Rob: uhhhh...not really...

Jaron (in the distant background): Yeah it is! Hello...Nature!!! DUH!!

Shannon: I don't think a 57 Magnum, or Glock..or whatever she's shooting, are exactly a part of nature....

We just had to laugh... I mean, you are running around outside through a jungle and all...killing people and other animals..but you are still outside...in nature...

Worms....only with legs...

When I brought these adorable furballs home for my daughter to enjoy, I was promised that they were sexed..."so you don't end up with more!" I'm such a sucker!!! We ended up with two males and two females, and by the time I figured it out..one of the girls was pregnant!

Brenna is now the proud hamster grandma of three lil' wriggling red worm things..but with legs. That was her description....she is so proud, and I am looking for hamster homes...


Anyone want one??? They are known as Dwarf Campbells.....

Sigh....thought I would throw that one out there just in case anyone was interested....

Peese Muster??

cBrenna is hamster obsessed. She has been begging for months for us to let her get a hamster. Never mind that her mother is violently allergic to most rodents, she wanted one! After listening to her finageling and various promises, we finally caved. Rob did his shopping homework and found a lady doing pet rescue who was giving away some 'adorable dwarf hamsters'....and they were sexed so that you would not end up with more. What a deal!

So, on a lovely spring day in April, I went to go pick up a hamster. When I got to the house, the lady answered the door, and she was in tears, she had just had to put a cat to sleep and was profusely apologizing about her emotional state. I have been accused a time or two of being too soft hearted, and I couldn't resist giving her a hug and telling her it would be alright. She was a very lovely person and an avid animal lover, her house was full of pets of all kinds. After talking with her awhile, she went down to get the hamsters. She came back up with a cage containing 4 hamsters. They were very small, fluffy, and adorable. I couldn't pick just one. I think the pet lady capitalized on my indecision and told me if I took all 4, I could have the cage as a long term loaner. I was sold and toted the furballs home.

Naturally, the kiddos were obsessed and the hamsters got way overindulged. Quentin was the most intrigued and was into them nonstop. Quentin is way adorable for a 2 1/2 year old and he is gaining quite the vocabulary and his own unique way of pronouncing things. Now, he is my fourth child, and you would think that after going through three other toddlers that I would have the 'toddler speak' thing down.......ummmmmmmmm.....nope.

For three solid days, Quentin would come to me and grab my hand..."peese musters mommy? Musters?" What? You want mustard? How odd..... It wasn't until I was toting a load of folded clothes upstairs to the boys room, that I got it. Quentin was in his sisters room, holding a hamster under her supervision, and laughing gleefully. He saw me, held up the hamster and said,"Wook mommy, muster!!!"
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! That's what you meant!!