I thought I told you about that!

Sometimes during the day, I have random thoughts and I think "I should put that on the blog ~ it's good blogging material."  Then I don't and most of those perfect blog posts go out the window (or my ear or wherever your thoughts escape to).  The only thing that somewhat rescues some of the things I want to share with you is my camera.  Usually, if I took a picture of it I probably wanted to share it with you.  One good thing about this method of remembering is that I don't share with you all the frustrating moments I have with 2 boys who only listen to 1/2 of what you say. . .

Anyway, as I was saying, when I loaded my memory card onto my computer, I was shocked to see the pictures of Chris getting Taite in his suit and tie for his final choir concert at school. He had to have a suit because the theme of the concert was movie theme songs and they wanted everyone to look like they'd stepped off the red carpet. Yea. . . I went on a quest to find a suit and lucked out! I got him a suit AND shoes to wear for under $10 at used stores (Goodwill and Salvation Army). His blue shirt from the Living Museum presentation still fit him and we grabbed a tie out of Chris' stash. He looked so handsome and there were plenty of others who did not have suits, so I needn't have killed myself trying to find one. Oh well.

 I forgot to get a picture of him with his suit jacket on! 

 A few weeks ago, Brayton caught a punt or kick-off, I don't know the difference.  In this league, they could catch it or just touch it to "down" the kick/punt, whatever.  Well, Bray happened to be on the return team and when he caught the ball I didn't even know it was him!  I was talking to another mom at the time and assumed the play ended as soon as the ball was caught because the other team had guys there almost immediately.  While I was chatting away, I happened to notice how the pile of players was still moving so whoever caught the ball really wanted to gain yardage ~ it was BRAY!!!  hehe  Here's a picture I happened to snap of him catching the ball!

 After the play, they were headed back to the sidelines with Bray getting a lot of "Great Job"s and congratulations!  He was in heaven.

 Yesterday Taite and I were able to get away a little bit for some indulgence on my part.  We hit some garage sales and a Vets donation place (think Goodwill, but benefits local veterans).  Here are a couple of my favorite finds!  I still don't know how good my drink will taste out of these, but I intend to find out really soon!

 At the Vet benefit place, they always have really good glass stuff.  I am drawing a blank on what bloggers call them when using them to decorate, but this is a sample.  I LOVED the color and it will go well in my sewing room with the colors I am using.

 This is the only problem. . . . I think I'll make a little vinyl cutout and will cover it up, but I don't know what to say on the cover-up sign yet.  Suggestions?  I don't know what I'm going to put into it yet either.  The other clear glass, smaller versions of this that I got are now holding my buttons which are sorted by colors.  I can't WAIT to get them displayed on a shelf in my sewing room!  I am going to not post anymore pictures of the basement until we can have a final reveal type of pictures :)  Even then I probably won't be able to wait until we have all the furniture and decorations done, but that comes with time.

 These are some of the things going in my sewing room.  I'm using the colors from the piece of fabric for my accents ~ covering the seat of my desk chair with that fabric and am going to make a lamp shade cover to match, a thread/scrap catcher bag, etc.  It will look so darn cute when I'm done that I can't wait!!!

 I'll end with a funny story.  One garage sale Taite and I hit had a bunch of shorts and pants that would fit Brayton PLUS she said anything we could fit in the bag was $1 (I just remembered the reason we were able to go garage saling on Saturday morning was because Bray had a cold and didn't want to go to his football games he felt so lousy ~ so, Taite and I took off while Chris worked on trim in the basement ~ hehe).  Anywho, I grabbed about 4 pairs of shorts and there was one pair of wind pants I added to my bag.  After washing the pants, I was folding them and trying to figure out what in the heck was in the leg. . . One pocket will a hole in it will let these things slip through which must be kind of important to an 8/9 year old. . .
One domino
One chunk of pink eraser
One very small, well used pencil
. . . . I wonder if he was using these all together and if he was, what for?????

Has it really been that long?

During one of our many trips to the box stores, Brayton wanted to play with the camera on my phone.

 Was it really only a week ago??

We had two 90 degree days in a row!  Brayton did have a shortened football practice on Monday night, which was the more humid day, but Taite's was cancelled due to the heat and the boys did this instead.  They were outside from when they got home until they had to get ready for bed.

 They were so wet, they got to eat supper outside. . .

 Which was interrupted by some arachnid control. . .   (I'm not sure why Taite was wearing socks the whole time they had the water fight, but at least they were black ~ the spot on the deck is from his wet feet)

Spider's dead?  Okay, we'll continue eating!

 The Help Around Here

 I know you've all read the joke about the mom who doesn't do anything all day and her house is a disaster.  Well, I've been thinking of expanding on that one. . .   I'd like to go on a cruise for a week!  In fact, some of the blogs I read are getting together for a cruise in October ~ hmmmmm.

Last week Taite helped with the dishes.  Looks good here:

 Two things wrong in this picture.  The green bottle?  That's what he used for dish soap because he couldn't find the correct stuff (it was under a plastic bag tossed under the sink) and those two glasses?  They weren't there when he was washing dishes (the one with the spoon is from dessert after supper).

 Example of wiping things down when the TV is on which completely wipes out Taite's ability to "PAY ATTENTION".  We are having many discussions about paying attention especially since he wants to be able to drive at 14 (I think that is WAY too young and should be changed).

 PAY ATTENTION. . . I asked Taite 3 times to put the napkins in the pantry.  Had he done that, he'd have seen the plate he missed when doing the dishes.  ***sigh***

 I keep thinking that maybe it's just Taite's age.  He'll hopefully change his ways, but what "age" is that??  Here is the blister pack from used up meds that Chris left laying on the counter.  It's about 3 steps to the garbage. . . ***sigh***  :~)

 Last weekend my mom, sister and her 2 kids came over to watch the boys' football games.  It was SOOOO cold!!  We can't hardly get our boys to wear long sleeves when it's cold and I didn't even think to put two long sleeved shirts on Bray and long socks.  He was shivering the whole 2 (yes 2) games that morning!

 Taite's team was supposed to have 2 games too, but the other team didn't have enough players to play 2 games and the coaches said it was cold (um, it had warmed up probably 15-20 degrees from the morning games Bray played).  We were kind of bummed that they didn't play the 2nd game especially after more kids showed up for the other team and I heard one boy apologizing to the coach saying "I lost track of time" hehe  Taite is the center (he's holding the ball)

 He was cold too and Chris had to have a battle with him and demand he put a shirt on before he get out of the car at the field!  Taite was so mad at Chris that Chris was hoping he would play better by taking that aggression out on the other players, but that didn't happen.

 Notice the dad and how bundled up he is (Chris) but I got yelled at for trying to warm up my little player in the morning. 



Just a quick random update

I must confess that sometimes I think of updating our blog and get overwhelmed.  I think it has to be creative, wordy and a piece of art.  Well. . . sometimes I'm just not all that!  (side note ~ I apolgize for the "downness" of my last posting) :)  This one will just be things I've been meaning to share with you in no particular order with little blurps of "stuff"

One night I came across our Scattegories (Scattergories?) game.  The boys had never played it, but were willing to humor me since it used to be one of my favorites!  I beat the pants off of them.

Bray had the hardest time and that surprised me because he's normally so creative, but I think he was trying to think too much. 

 I'd say smiling kids is result enough for me to drag out a game.  :~)

 Basement is coming along.  In fact, these pictures are now "old".  The paper on the floor taped around the edge of the room was in case we were going to stain the concrete for flooring.  We are now not going to do that, so a small waste of money :~)  The boys and my hubby are happy to be getting carpet, we'll be tiling in front of the door, around the bar and in the bathroom.  This is after all the priming was done.  We now have doors hung and trim around those doors, but no baseboard yet.  Maybe Sunday (yipee for Mother's Day LOL). 

 My sewing room and closet ~ I was going to take a picture of our kitchen table and state something about NEEDING my sewing room because I have like 3 projects going right now and they are all spread out on our kitchen table in their unfinished states. 

 The nice thing about having white trim is the caulking and covering up of gaps and such.  It really makes it look seamless and perfect!  LOL

 Our under the steps closet and movie room (the step for the "back row" seating really looks small at this angle.

 The inside of our movie room.  The cutouts on the bottom will be covered with mesh covered black doors (the subwoofer sits in one of the holes) and the hole and outlet above the bumped out part will be covered with the movie screen.  We are painting the room a dark chocolate brown ~ EVERYTHING.  Ceiling and walls, same color.

 Looking at the spare bedroom on the left, mini-closet in the middle, bathroom next to that and utility room on the right.

 Spare bedroom.  The sheetrock makes the right side of this picture look like it's been torn or "treated" with a photo editing software ~ kinda cool!

 "The Bar". . .  can't see it?  That's okay!  :)

 EASTER!

The Easter Bunny found our house and I have a video of the treasure hunt, but it took SOOO long that I can't upload it here.

 I'll let you figure out who's stash of goodies is who's.

 Chris was running plays with the boys in the backyard one night.  I love that he'll take some time out from working (at work and on house projects) to spend time with them!  Also outdated picture ~ out lawn is much more greener now . . . FINALLY!!

 DV has a big deal with Track & Field day.  Chris and I did not expect the multitude of cars lined up down the street of parents and grandparents who were there to watch the kids!  We stayed for an hour and only got to see Bray do the football toss and then we had to get back to work (er, blogging too).  hehe

1 hour was long enough for me as some of Bray's friends are not who I would choose and didn't make the best impression on me with their behavior (ex: people were sitting in the bleachers and these boys went under the bleachers and were "poking" the people)

Taite

He saw me waxing my eyebrows one night and was mortified.  Wanted to make sure that guys didn't have to do that!  I said they don't normally, but one time Chris had and regretted it because the stylist took too much off his eyebrows and he looked funny.  When I was done, I too, had had a "oh crap" moment and of course Taite noticed.  He verified that I did not mean to take that much of my eyebrows off ~ nope, I hadn't!!  LOL

He is also on a health kick.  He's been getting up early and sometimes will run a mile on the treadmill before school and sometimes he does it after school, but is watching his food intake so maybe this fall, he can run the football. 

Speaking of football, they had their first two games of the season last Saturday and were back to back AND there were many boys gone at a baseball tournament.  The good:  Taite got a lot of playing time; The bad: they were playing for 2 hours against mostly 6th graders who had all of their players so by the end of the 2nd game, whoever wasn't injured still didn't want to run the ball because of the hits they had taken!

Taite was thrilled the other day that he got Tayler to clean out his desk and mailbox at school!  Taite said both were a disaster, but he threw most of the papers away.  This surprised me that Taite would notice the mailbox being so full since he doesn't seem to notice multiple article of clothing that he has to WALK OVER in his room, bathroom and sometimes the hallway!

Brayton

Bray is struggling to stay "with it" at school.  For AR, he is supposed to read so many books and for those who were behind, they had to forego their recess until they got to a certain point in achieving their goal.  Well, he started getting to go to recess again and then he was "done" except he hadn't reached his goal yet. . . Ironically, he's the one who used to LOVE to read and I'd struggle to get Taite to read.  Now they seemed to switch roles.

He made me laugh the other day.  He said that I HAD to go to the PTO meeting Thursday night or there wasn't going to be a PTO anymore and that was BAD.  I asked him how he knew (we had received an email about it) and he told me they sent home a slip about it.  We looked in his backpack, but there was no slip.  Good thing he has a good memory!