Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts

Thursday, January 15, 2009

funny kid quote

"If I had a house made out of cheddar cheese, I'd be homeless -especially if I had a shed made out of crackers." ~Matt McBride

...is it any wonder I love this kid?!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

my girl's gonna be a brace face

my girl has been counting down the days till she finally gets braces -literally counting the days... yeah, she's THAT big of a goober! now, I don't want her to be completely disillusioned because 1) I've BTDT b) she's got a fair amount of work to be done, and 3) the word HEADGEAR has been mentioned -so I tried telling her, it might *seem* like fun but, they're really kind of a pain (pun intended)... not just because of the sore teeth after an adjustment or the raw spots from the brackets rubbing, etc... but because of all the stuff you can't (well, aren't supposed to) eat, and constantly having to worry that you have icky stuff smooshed in the brackets. *sigh* she just won't hear it - it's gonna be "so cool" and she "can't wait to pick out the rubber band colors"... whatever -just don't say I never warned ya, mmm-kay?

so, I took Kendall to the orthodontist yesterday for her preliminary visit; lots of pics, x-rays, all kinds of molds and casts of her teef -holy moses, I don't remember having to do more than bite down and grind my teef on a piece of carbon paper when I got braces -course that was 100 years ago and I've done my best to block out most of those awful memories. the staff at this office is really awesome, they do ortho work on adults but they're totally geared for working with kids and I gotta say, whoever does the hiring must do one heckuva screening job because the folks have such great temperments and bedside (chairside?) manners. they explain EVERYTHING in such a way that the kids, and even dorks like me, can clearly understand.

in between procedures, we were checking things out (ie: snooping) and found a little ring with different colored rubber strips -which, we surmised, must be the different colors for the rubber bands. Kendall's eyes lit up and she started telling me how she's already got it all figured out what her first colors are going to be (blue and pink or maybe blue and purple) and that she's definitely going to stay away from the white rubber bands because they turn yellow and then black (looovely). I asked how she knows that and she says that so and so told her... she's got a few friends who already have braces and apparently, they're her go to people. ugh, anyway, I got the royal eyeroll when I suggested that perhaps those were the bands that the doc puts on to see who actually brushes their teef and who is into growing science experiments in their moufs. *shrug* I'm just sayin... that would be a kick ass idea.

after all the fun and shenanigans, a gal from the office popped in and handed me a booklet with FAQ's, smiled warmly and said, "oh and there's a form tucked inside with the financial breakdown for PHASE I." and then beat a hasty retreat. holy crap! it's a good thing I was sitting down. I actually looked over at K and had a brief moment where I thought, 'you know, she's cute enough that a few crooked teef aren't going to matter ...much'. lol -kidding, kidding... but, thank goodness for the payment plan.

my girl was more than a little disappointed to be walking out of the office yesterday minus a mouthful of metal... I told her it wouldn't happen that fast, but eh, she's a little hardheaded -and really, what do I know (insert my own royal eye roll here)?! her next appointment will be Dec. 16, from there on out, all we'll need is a good metal detector to keep tabs on her. :D

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

many thanks for our veterans

Seeing as it's Veteran's Day, I want to send out a huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the brave men and women who fight or have fought for our feedom and safety. I admit there are times I'm guilty of taking for granted the security I have from day to day, but I do know, if not for our veterans, we would have an entirely different existence -so I say it today, but I hold it in my heart always, thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do on behalf of our country.



The flower of rememberance in honor of those who have given thier lives for the nation's freedom.

On a separate, but not entirely unrelated, note; last night my oldest son Andrew, who turned 17 a couple of weeks ago, casually informed me that he and a friend had gone to see a Marine recruiter yesterday afternoon. When he told me, I'm not gonna lie, my first reaction was complete and utter fear -the idea that my boy might ever be in harms way leaves me nauseous, with deep, sharp pains in my heart. Next, I was shocked and then pretty bent that he would do this without talking to his dad and I first. He went on to explain that he had only gone along for the ride with his best friend (who turns 18 tomorrow) to see the recruiter who had been "bugging him" to come in. Since he was there, the recruiter asked Andrew to take some sort of placement test, which apparently he scored well on, and then, as Andrew tells it, the guy says he can pretty much do anything he wants. *sigh* My boy is all about doing whatever he wants, so that must have been music to his ears.

I must say that, while I was irritated to hear about this "appointment" after the fact and that my mommy radar kept screaming that my kid was being taken advantage of, today, I realized that ultimately, when the time comes, the choice will be Andrew's. I love him beyond measure and have a profound pride that this tall gangly kid, who's smart as a whip (maybe too smart for his own good) is growing into an amazing young man. Yes, he's given his dad and I a pretty good run for our money these past few years and continues to present us with challenges as parents but he is a good boy and I am just going to pray that he makes well informed choices and keep the faith that God will be watching over him.

Friday, August 1, 2008

today's blog post is brought to you by...

the letter B.

B is for BFF. My homegrill Shayna Lou and her stud-muffin Doyle brought their motley crew up to visit us earlier this week. It's always great to see them and I love love love that our kids are BUDS and have no problemo picking up where they left off the last time they got together.
B is also for BEACH. We went to a couple of local beaches while the crew was here and the kids had a blast playing in the freezing-ass surf. I'm pretty sure they each smuggled enough sand home in their pockets (not to mention their nether regions -helleeeew??...chaffing anyone?!) to create their own personal little beaches here at home! Good times. :)




We've had absolutely BEAUTIFUL weather the past few days. I got raccoon eyes from getting BURNT at the beach while I was wearing my big ol' glasses and then yesterday, I managed to flambée myself to a complete friggin' crisp whilst I was finishing up yet another BOOK out on the front patio. *gaaah* I seem to have knack for looking like a complete dork whenever we go out in public and last night was no exception, I was practically glowing neon red when we went out to dinner to celebrate Jack's BIRTHDAY. We celebrated with some of our family who are in town early for our niece's wedding next week. Jack opened all kinds of fun gifts and cards, but the kids and I gave him his big prezzie a couple of weeks ago. We got him a new stainless BBQ -and I think we've used it almost every night since then -it's a real step up from what we had, lemme tell ya!


B is for BIRDS -the kids and I have started keeping a list of the ones we see around here. We saw BROWN Pelicans at the beach the other day so we've added them to the list and then the day before yesterday, we saw some Quail in the backyard -ordinarilly that wouldn't really be that big of a deal except that they had a whole bunch of BABIES with them -they were so stinkin cute running all over the place!
A couple of weeks ago, we went to this awesome little BIRDING shop down in Old Town Eureka and bought some new hummingbird feeders. We've had lots of different kinds but these are by far the best yet because they're so easy to clean. I'm so excited that the hummers have started to visit them pretty regularly. I got a couple of decent pics of a Rufous Hummingbird at the feeder in the BACKYARD but I really wish I could manage to take a pic of the little hummers that I've been catching in my garage window lately. For some reason they come into the garage when the big door is up and they fly to the back window and hover there trying to get out. Eventually, they exhaust themselves enough that all I have to do is go put my hand underneath them and they'll land on my fingers and I can scoop them up. The funny thing, (funny -duh! not funny haha!) is that not only is there a full size roll-up garage door wide open behind them, but there's also a regular door about 3 feet away, that's wide open too! Derrr!


And finally, B is for BLABBERMOUTH... 'nuff said.



Saturday, May 17, 2008

1-2-3...smile!

hey, no dumb faces. oops! your eyes were closed. okay, thats it -I'm gonna beat the next person who does 'bunny ears'! GAAAH! I must have repeated these things about 40 times while trying to take prom pics tonight -lol! but I think I finally got some good ones of Andrew with his giiiiirlfriend Casey and his buddy Kevin with his date Bree.




and one of my favorites of the night (bwwwahahaha! I totally dig this girl!)

Photobucket

Sunday, April 6, 2008

some things never change

I can't count the multitude of times I've shopped for *the* perfect birthday or Christmas gift, usually spending way too much money in an effort to please -and then, as if that weren't bad enough, my OCD kicks into overdrive as I start the process of coordinating the giftwrap, ribbons and bows, and I wind up spending nearly as much on that stuff as I did on the gift -lol.

Picture me, camera poised, hardly able to contain my excitement as my kid is overcome with joy and moved beyond words when he sees what's inside the magnificent package. Then hellloooo... flash back to reality as said kid rips into the magnificent package, and with nary a blink at my efforts to impress, chucks the 'perfect' gift aside and then adds insult to injury as he goes on to spend hours, maybe even days, playing with the freakin' cardboard box it came in! What is it about kids and boxes??!

I guess some things never change...

A couple of weeks ago, Jack went out and bought a GIANT new tv -the kids had been jonsin for us to bring it home and get it all set up so late that night we dragged this ginormous box into the livingroom, carefully unpack the tv, and as Jack and I are muttering under our breath about the trials and tribulations that come along with trying to decipher which cords get plugged into what component and WHY is there an extra cord leftover, etc... we suddenly realize that the box has come alive and is making it's way across the hardwood floor -LOL! Matt has crawled inside and is using the box as a quasi shell. Bedtime finally rolls around and as I step into the boys' room, I notice the box has ended up in there and it is now stuffed to overflowing with Matt and all his bedding -the big goof slept in the box!
Oh well, I guess as long as it's not a fridge box under a bridge, we're doing ok.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

pffftt! who needs daytona beach??

Things are finally winding down and getting back to "normal" here at Rancho McBirdie. We had a kick ass spring break -totally different than any of our other 'vacations', because the family went in different directions (which may be the secret of our success!? lol), but we were busy and it was fun.

Jack had to work (work, Jack, work) and Andrew was busy building fence with his cousin Nate out at the ranch so Matt, Kendall and I left Friday after they got out of school and made the trek down to the clov-i to hang with Shayna and her gang. It's always SO good to see her and I love how the kids seem to pick up right where they left off ... it didn't take them long to figure out that they were on their own as far as entertaining themselves. They swam, played video games, and did a pretty good job of staying under the radar, freeing up the adults to drink margi's, tip back some beeyahs, and play a few cut-throat rounds of dominos (because, according to Bennett, that's what old peeps do), oh yeah... we're wild like that.

Saturday the kids colored eggs and the Easter bunny, along with her trusty sidekick, did a smashing (literally) job of hiding them. The next morning, the little grills pranced around the yard, hunting down the mangled eggs that the dogs hadn't already managed to liberate. After a delicious Easter dinner, we all hastened on down to the local bowling alley where a) we were entirely too high maintenance when it comes to renting shoes 2) were a little challenged by the automatic scoring machine, and c) Shayna kicked me arse in a bowling throwdown. I must say though, I was one proud mama when my girl managed to loft her ball onto the lane NEXT to us and then later, had an apparent 'early release' and sort of erm, threw the ball behind her... can't even imagine what might have happened if we hadn't been using bumpers! No doubt the PBA scouts would have our phone ringing off the hook ...if only our number weren't unlisted. *sigh*

As usual, I hated to leave so we stuck around for an extra day and got to see some other friends who came to visit (pffftt! go figure -they live within 10 minutes of me but I travel 8 freaking hours and see them!). I'm wondering if Shayna's fully recovered yet... at one point there were 5 adults and 9 kids bunking in her house. Crazy as it sounds, the kids were great and it was loads of fun! I laughed me arse off with Shayna over our retarded inside jokes, Doyle's goofy faces, Renee and her velcro pajamas and omg her 'my mom only has one eye' story will be a classic I'm sure. ...gooood times.

After a long drive home Tuesday night, I saw Andrew for about 20 min. before he headed over to Nate's house for the night, so they could get an early start over to Redding/Mt. Shasta to snowboard and stay with our friend Michelle (my kids' godmother). Thursday night Jack hooked up the boat and he, Matt and Kendall headed over to Shasta Lake to fish ...and to stay with Michelle. I had a few things to do so I stayed home and ran some errands with Pop, and then drove over on Friday night. We haven't seen these guys since last July/August so we had lots of catching up to do and we stayed up way too late.

Durring the days some of the guys went fishing and some went snowboarding, the girls just hung out and in the evenings all the kids played video games. Michelle and Jim took me around to show me some of the houses they've been looking at -kinda cool to see what's out there, totally can't believe how much the Redding area has grown.

Saturday night we took everyone out to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner to celebrate Tatum's 11th birthday. I'd never been there but it had a fun atomsphere and what's not to love about a place where you can throw peanut shells on the floor?! On a personal note, I learned it's not wise to start a peanut fight while wearing a low cut blouse -the upside here, is that with all that I brought home in my bra, I will be set once winter rolls back around.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Highlights from yesterday...


*eta -not sure what's up with the formatting here... maybe I'll fix it later. But then again...
Yesterday was Matt's birthday -the big one-four...
























He opened presents early, then spent the better part of the morning dorking around with his new moving target system -this thing is pretty cool. When the rain started back up, he headed down to the shop with his new motorcycle stand/lift -it'll come in handy while he's tinkering on the BIG new Yamaha his Uncle Joseph handed down to him earlier this month -gaaah, he's a lucky (spoiled) kid!


Here's the birthday card we got him -anyone who knows him understands just how perfect it is:












inside it says:


There's one in every crowd...and you're ours!

Pffftt! perfect, I tell ya!


Mid-afternoon Jack and I took the boys to see Meet the Spartans (Matt's choice) -a spoof of the movie 300 - I like some pretty off beat movies but this was *so* incredibly lame... It'd be a safe bet that this one won't be showing up in my Blockbuster queue anytime soon. Surprisingly, I heard that it beat out Rambo for the top box office spot this weekend... crazy.

We had some of the weirdest weather yesterday -at least for those of us at, or near, sea level it's weird ...but SO MUCH fun...

















































yep -it SNOWED! We had lots of the white stuff coming down but it didn't really stick here at our house so we hopped in the family truckster to take a look around. About 5 miles up the road, when I stopped to snap a couple of pics of the scenery, the boys bailed out and had a blast bombing eachother in an impromptu snowball fight. There was lots of talk about 'yellow snow' but I think it was so darned cold, neither one of them was willing to, erm... brave the elements.

When we stopped to pick up Kendall at our friends' house, we all decided to head out for some chow at the Oriental Buffet -and seein' as how it was a special occasion and all... we decided to splurge! I tell you, nothing is too good for my family -lol! We ate and we ate and we ate till we couldn't pack away another egg roll, then waddled out to load up for the ride back over the mountain and home... Halfway back, we couldn't resist one last stop for a few more snowballs and a couple more pics of the white stuff before it melted.









































I think the sweetest part of the whole day -for me at least, was when I tucked Matt in and we had our ritual evening chat, he kept going on and on about how fun the snow was... I gave him a smooch and wished him happy birthday again. Then, as I turned out the light he said "Mom, I had a really good day". Gotta luv him!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

happy faces

Last night I finally got around to pulling the 300+ pics off my camera that I've taken since Christmas. Granted, many of them aren't worth keeping due to maniac kids who became nothing but blurs, racing from package to package or taunting me with smooshed up faces and inappropriate poses. *sigh* Just when I thought my Christmas photo cache was going to be all but empty, imagine my surprise when I found this little gem in the mix.

My kids and their little cousins on Christmas Day. :) Andrew, 16; Matt ,14 this month; nephew Nico, 2 next month; Kendall, 9 1/2; and niece Siena, 5 1/2. This was such an impromptu shot, I can't believe how well they're lined up, smiling and BONUS: they all have their eyes open! :D

Monday, March 5, 2007

life could be a dream

sh-boom sh-boom...Ya-da-da Da-da-da Da-da-da Da

So... the weirdest thing happened to me today -it was a deja vu thing and it immediately made me think back to a time just after I'd had my first child, and I was learning to cope with the fact that I was now responsible for another human being. I remember having these crazy dreams where I was running around the house, in a hurry to go somewhere (because I am ALWAYS in a hurry) and in my rush, I'd hop in the car and speed off, only to realize I'd left the baby at home. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, my heart racing, tripping over myself to get to the nursery so I could be sure that it was indeed, just a bad dream and that my precious bundle was safely snuggled in his crib. One time I dreamt that I'd driven off and left the infant seat up on top of the car, with the baby in it -like it was just another one of those forehead thumping, 'gee, I know I'm forgetting something' moments.
As the months rolled by and I got more comfortable in my role as a mom, those 'oops I forgot my baby' dreams became less frequent and I went back to run of the mill dreams like the ones where I showed up at school and then realized I wasn't wearing pants...
So getting back to the point of this story, and yes, there *is* a point here somewhere... The AM routine around Rancho McBirdie can be a leeetle hectic -which is actually a gross understatement when you stop to consider that I have never been a morning person. I finally manage to drag me arse out of bed at about 7am -after no less than 3 warnings from the snooze alarm. I stumble downstairs to check that everyone's had breakfast, brushed their teef, packed a lunch, ...and put on pants. When we're ready to roll, Andrew is the first one out the door. He starts the car and warms it up for the rest of us. Kendall is next out the door and runs -knees and elbows flying every which way- to be sure she gets to the car before Matt, so she doesn't have to walk ALL THE WAY AROUND the car and sit on the {gasp} *OTHER* side. Matt schleps around to the other side with me. I hop in, get the i-pod tuned in, buckle up and once I hear Matt's door close, I proceed to turn the car around and head down the driveway. Ah... we're on our way, we're on time, life is good.

And then...

my phone rings.

Oh, yeah, uh-huh...it's Matt-man -the one who's right behind me in the backseat. He's always clowning around like that. I'm just about ready to ream him for wasting cell phone minutes - I mean c'mon! ...we're sitting in the same car, for pete's sake! But, something seems strange -I hear his voice on the phone, what I don't hear... is any sound coming from his spot in the backseat of the car...

GOODLAAAWD!

I slam on the brakes, sending the car into a pretty impressive skid down our dirt road and scream into the phone "OH. MY. GAWD! MATT?!! WHERE...ARE...YOU?!!" -at the same time, craning my head around to be sure he's not laughing his ass off at me for falling for another one of his pranks. By now the other two kids are looking around trying to figure out what the hell is going on -and: Hey! WHERE is Matt?!!

Ugh ...have I mentioned I'm not a morning person??

Headed downhill on a gravel road, it's nearly impossible to back up so Matt has to run down to the car. When he gets in, he's talking a mile a minute about being freaked that I would just drive off... We finally figure out exactly what happend and we all start to laugh. It seems that when Matt came around the car with me, rather than get in, he threw his stuff in, shut the door and ran off to feed his chickens -just took off, without saying a word. Kendall and Andrew were playing with their i-Pods (read: completely oblivious) and I just assumed, when I heard the door shut, that Matt had climbed inside. NONE of us realized he wasn't in the car until my phone rang!
AAAACK! I'll never get that Mother of the Year award at this rate!

I'm hoping my next deja vu has something to do with those dreams I have of winning the lottery! :D