Brin Brin

Brin Brin is my favorite cousin! Now, you all know that ALL of my cousins are my favorite in some way or other, so don't get your feelings hurt!! I am not being partial to one or the other! Brin was born when I was in 4th grade, and I remember making her a jewelry box before she was even born. I was so excited that Aunt Renee was going to have a baby, and I know she was too! I should have been jealous that she had a baby girl, because up until Brin was born I was pretty much Aunt Renee's baby girl! She spoiled me in every way that she would her own daughter (she didn't punish me too often so I enjoyed being at her house!!!). I can remember rocking Brin when she was tiny! She was always funny---and still is! I can always count on a good story and a good laugh from Brin. Even though she has been through some tough times in the past few years, she has always had something to smile about, and she has always kept her head held high. Now, she has graduated from college with a teaching degree, and is engaged to be married to a great guy! I can't believe how time has flown by!! Even though she is 9 years younger than I am, she always passed on her clothes to me!! She is a bit taller than I am! One of my favorite memories of Brin is when I went on vacation with them and we were at a drive-thru zoo. Uncle Rowland wanted Brin to look at one of the animals and she absolutely refused to look out the window. She kept telling Uncle Rowland she was reading her book. (She was only about 2 or 3 years old at the time and couldn't read!) Uncle Rowland got very irritated with her over that!! I was trying to coax her into looking out the window also. She was not going for it!! It is still funny to me! I know that Brin will be a GREAT teacher and a wonderful wife, and I can't wait until she has a beautiful baby of her own (I'm not rushing you on that though, Brin!) Windy and I (and whoever else wants to help!) are planning on having a wonderfully fun wedding shower for Brin when it gets closer to her wedding!!!

Whose Kid Is This?

Jacob has gotten in trouble several times before at school. Usually his teacher just takes care of it at school, and I never hear anything about it except for some weird story from Jacob. If it is bad enough though, his teacher sends a note home to be signed by either me or Ben. Jacob is usually pretty good about giving us the note, especially if his teacher has pinned it to his shirt! The hard part comes when we ask Jacob to tell us what happened. He never can quite tell us the truth...he only tells us what he views as "truth". It is hard to know what to do when it is "your baby" and you keep telling yourself "he is only 6 years old." But, when you find out that "your baby" has in all ways lived up to the biblical meaning of his name---conman, deceiver---then it puts you in a much tougher spot. Take for example yesterday. Jacob came home. I asked him if he got in trouble...he innocently said, "No, ma'am" and then proceeded to ask me if he could play the x-box. Since he didn't have a note and he said he didn't get in trouble, I trusted him and let him play for a few minutes. Today however when Ben picked him up from school, Jacob's teacher met him at the car with a note. Take a look:

Now, I know that everyone reading this blog notices something very interesting....Ben Newton written at the bottom in Jacob's very 6 year old handwriting. Also, please notice the date as 5-24-06 which, by the way, was yesterday! I was confused at first, not thinking my son to be into forgery at such a young age, and I asked Ben why Mrs. Anderson made Jacob write his (Ben's) name at the bottom of the letter. It was then that he told me that she had not made him do that....Jacob had signed it and turned it in believing that she would believe that Ben had signed it. I am laughing as I type this! Where in the world did he get the idea to do this?? What in the world made him think it even looked like his daddy's signature??? I am amazed at his higher level thinking skills in solving this "problem" that he had...but don't get me wrong, I am also disappointed that he lied and did something very wrong. It gets even better because when I asked Jacob where he was when he wrote his dad's name on the letter, he told me it was when we were at Wal-Mart. Well, when we had gone to Wal-Mart I picked Cole to go in with me and be my "helper" leaving Jacob and Annalisa in the car with Dad. Jacob informed me that if I had picked him to be my helper he wouldn't have been able to sign the letter because he wouldn't have been in the car! Well, that just earned him a couple of more spankings!

Swimming Fun!

On Mother's Day weekend we went to Riverside to see Ben's mom and dad and his sisters Jamee and Susan. The kids were sooo excited about swimming in Nana and Poppa's swimming pool. Annalisa got a new pink and green swimsuit with pink and green flip-flops, a pink towel with her name embroidered in green, a pink and green umbrella, green sunglasses, and a pink and green bow for her hair. Nana said she had a lot of fun shopping for pink and green things for her. Jacob got orange swimtrunks, orange goggles, an orange fan, and an orange towel with fish on it because we all say he is a fish--he loves to swim so much! Cole racked up with blue swim trunks, a blue fan, blue goggles, and a blue towel. I think they swam from about 10:30 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. Their lips turned blue a couple of times and I made them get out and sit in the sun, but that didn't last for long because they wanted to deal with the chills! Aunt Jamee and Aunt Susan swam with them, as well as Nana and Mom. I don't think you would have been able to get their dad in the pool even if you had offered him money....they know how he feels about swimming. He doesn't like it! Ben did help his dad put up a roof over their patio and it looks very nice. It was nice to see father and son working together so diligently on a project. Ben put the shingles up for his dad and worked until 10:30 that night, by spotlight. Cole and Jacob went on the roof to help dad out and give mom a heart attack! They did a great job! I have posted some pics from the swimming fun. I hope you enjoy them.

Is She A Genius???

The other day I was telling my kids a knock-knock joke. It went something like this...."Cole, will you remember me in 2 years?" "Yes" "Five years?" "Yes, ma'am" "Twenty years?" (groan) "Yes Ma'am!" "Cole, knock knock." "Who's there?" "You already forgot me!" The kids thought this was hilarious and were laughing. Jacob immediately asked me to do it to him, so we went through the whole dialogue again with the same results and same laughter. Annalisa has always loved knock-knock jokes...just ask her Pee-Paw....so she then asked me to do it to her. I went through the same dialogue and got to the "knock knock" part when she answered me with "Hi, mom!" instead of "Who's there?" I was cracking up laughing at her genius mind at work. She was determined to not have the same answer as her boys, and I was amazed that she figured it out all on her own!

Our Graduate!

This year my middle child, Jacob Aaron, will graduate from kindergarten. He is very excited about this event in his life. The ceremony will take place on May 30 at 6:00 p.m. at his school. I just can't believe it has been 6 years since he was born! He is so smart and has learned alot this past year at the Montessori campus. The main concern for me about next year is that he will actually have to sit at a desk! They don't sit at desks in the Montessori classroom. Jacob was so excited about this picture of him in his gown (no cap though), so I am posting it for all to see. We are very proud of him!

Funny Money?

Ok....so today I was sitting in my classroom having read aloud time with my students. They were all strategically placed "on the carpet". They are strategically placed so they won't kill each other when they are in such close proximity of each other! I alternate boys and girls because this works the best. Let's chase a rabbit for a minute..... do any of you remember the story of when me and my friend Kirsten were at Maw-Maw and Papa's house? We were going to go outside to look through the telescope. When Kirsten put her shoe on, she thought it felt weird like there was some dirt in the toe of her shoe so she reached in and pulled out......a roach!!!! YUCK! We were laughing and screaming at the same time! It was the kind of thing that gives you the chills and makes you wipe your hand a million times because you just can't get that "feeling" off of your hand---the feeling of a live roach! So, back to my kids being strategically placed on the carpet. One of my boy students wanted to show me some money--our current unit is on currency. They all think I have NEVER seen a quarter with the year 1982 on it...or a nickel that has Jefferson on it...their mom's are the only people who have those! SO, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the coin to show....AND a roach!!! A live one!!! It started running onto one of the girls I had strategically placed in front of him!! She was screaming and yelling...others just kept talking about how "it came out of his pocket!" He was looking at everyong like they had lost their mind, and then he just stepped on it like it was no big deal...he does that everyday! It was definitely gross, but also funny! This is just one of the things I deal with at school!

The Things Boys Do!

Usually the first thing my boys ask me to do when we get home from school is play the X-Box. I am not a big fan of them sitting in front of the TV playing video games for hours on end---believe me it would last hours if I didn't time them--so, if I let them play it is timed. Today they played for 20 minutes, then I threw them out of the house! My mom used to lock us out of the house even though she swears she was locking Jeffrey INSIDE the house! Whatever, all I know is that we couldn't get back in for hours. If we were thirsty, we drank out of the water hose on the side of the house. Oh, we weren't deprived or anything, Mom just didn't want us going IN and OUT, IN and OUT! I can still hear her yelling, "Shut that door!" "Get in or get out, one or the other!" And all those things mom's yell at their kids about paying the electricity bill and what not. So, today after I threw my kids in the backyard so I could get a little peace and quiet while I was blogging! hehehe.....I heard this awful noise that sounded like they were beating the fire out of the tetherball...then high pitched squeals of laughter followed. Naturally, I was curious as to what was going on, so I first got my camera....always ready for a blog photo...(my Aunt Patti taught me today to always be ready!) and found my boys playing tetherball, and loving it. They were loving it because they had modified it to fit their liking....they were not hitting the tetherball with their hands, as it should be done....they were hitting it with golf clubs. Oh! The sheer joy of hitting the tetherball as hard as you can with a golf club made Annalisa jealous. She told me, "MOM, my boys won't let me play yif them!" So, next thing I know she is walking up "yif" a golf club to play with "her boys"! It was a rather dangerous moment...can you tell from the picture? But, I am always pleased when my kids find a way to entertain themselves and it doesn't involve sitting in front of the TV like a vegetable! Kids can still be imaginative and creative and it does them a world of good!

Where Is Windy Hiding?

Windy, I miss your posts! Where have you been? I hope it isn't because you are having bad days at work or with your boys. Usually after the weekend you have something funny to post, but not after this past weekend. I am hoping to see something phenomenal when you do come back!