My new favorite picture of most of the kids

I should have taken Sam out of the stroller :-(

Count Your Many Blessings

So, the weekend started out kinda crappy. I was a bit bummed because I was missing all my old friends for various reasons - one of which was that I had to dye my own hair Friday night. I miss having someone to call and say, "Hey, let's dye my hair tonight." Anyway, I was kind of sad off and on all weekend, but yesterday when we finally got to church, it was time for the intermediate hymn and guess what it was - duh, Count Your Many Blessings. I was kind of glad we were late because I was just bawling my eyes out, but we were in the Young Family Chapel, aka, listening over the speaker system in the Primary room. So, I counted them and I'm counting them here today:

* My sister is coming to visit next weekend. She's moving to Florida, which is sad for a lot of people, but she's passing by here on the way and might actually be closer if she's in Florida.
* We had a great time on Saturday at the Chandler Pow Wow. They asked David to judge the talent contest and the drama boosters had a food booth, but best of all, the Lions asked David to be in the dunking booth. I bought 20 balls and let the kids take their shots. The machine was a little stubborn, so the guys running the booth helped. I have video :-D
* There was a Scentsy booth at the Pow Wow. I now have a bar of White Tea and Cactus, which I will put in my burner as soon as my old Sweet Pea and Vanilla melts enough to dump. They also had the new plug-in variety, but I save my cash for other stuff (food at the fair) and will get one later. I was so excited to see those, because I NEED some smell good in my bathrooms.
* Burger King has Mac and Cheese now. One stop shopping - at least in Tyler. We can do Sonic with their grilled cheese, but it gets old. Now we just need a BK back in Athens. Applebee's also works, but eh, Applebee's.
* Only 5 more Sundays until Sam gets to go to Nursery. Oh how much easier my Sundays will be in 5 weeks.
* New Couch!! David's parents gave us their couch because they are moving. But they are moving onto our lot, so they can come visit it ;-) I actually kind of hate the couch - but it's got 2 recliners built in and that makes David very happy, giddy even, so I compromised. Oooh, I should bargain that against his wanting to get a dog - "hey, I gave in on the couch..."
* Getting rid of 3/5ths of the old couch. I loved that couch (sectional) in theory, but in reality this particular one SUCKED. It's going to go live at the theatre at BHS.
* Under the old couch, I found the extension hose for my vacuum!! Cobwebs beware.
* The girls made the bus again! They all had perfect attendance for last 6 weeks, which I don't think has ever happened. They always get E conduct, but last year Hannah got Saturday school for tardies, which was embarassing and sad.
* INSIDEOUT A CAPPELLA put their stuff on Napster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were on iTunes before, but I have a subscription to Napster. My internet is currently running slow because I'm downloading 5 albums of delicious a cappella music.
* Thanksgiving is around the corner. We're going to Rick and Kristina's, which I think will be a lot of fun.
* Speaking of Thanksgiving, I still have the stuff to make Pumpkin Cheesecake. I should do that today.
* The video posted below, which just makes me giggle every darn time I watch it.
* Coming full circle - I really dig my new hair color. It's dark, somewhere between Hannah's color and David's color. David calls it emo, especially when I straightened it yesterday, but he's a dork like that.

I think that's it - well, you know, besides the obvious delightful kids and awesome husband. They are the ones I actually counted on Sunday, these are all the ones I was thinking of this morning.

The front fell off

Good marketing.

This morning I watched a small part of an informercial for the Cricut. I've never seen a Cricut before - I don't (GASP) scrapbook. At all. EVER. And I don't put vinyl words on things. I don't even want to - well, maybe a sign or two with vinyl letters would be fine, but no scrapbooking. I used to want to scrapbook, just a little, enough to buy a few things, but I got over it before I made any pages. I probably still have that stuff in the box with my wedding pictures. Anyway, in just 3 minutes of infomercial, I wanted a Cricut. I wanted one really bad(ly?). Just in case I ever decide to scrapbook or put vinyl words on things. Or maybe just to watch it work. In reality, I would probably just cut things out and never use them. Just to watch it work. At least I wouldn't be wasting materials, because it can figure out where to cut on your scraps. All by itself. Seriously?!? Duuuude. Sign me up.

I'm going to bed. I've got the plague and I'd like to get over it soon. I hadn't even left the house since Monday afternoon until today when I went to the grocery store with the boys. Brainiac move, but I didn't want to cook dinner and I already exhausted all of the easy dinners in the house except cereal and I needed Diet Coke (shh, I know). It's not the worst plague I've ever had, but it's obviously affecting my cognitive functioning.

Go to bed already, you big whiner. Sheesh.

Shirts I designed for Homecoming

I like these as much or more than the ones I made for the girls last year. I didn't get any really good pictures of the girls' logos - the main logo is the same as the boys' but they have "Hannah Bear" etc. under the logo in different fonts. Josh's is the only one through the wash so far and it's pretty faded, but still visible. Everyone's has to be bleached, but my photo transfer paper is only good on white, so white it is.

Oh, and look at this picture. David singing the National Anthem at Homecoming - his first time ever at a game. He was AWESOME.

Well, flip, the laptop decided it doesn't want to cooperate. I'll try again later. For now, just imagine a picture of David with a microphone on the 50-yard line.

Now it won't let me move the picture where I want it, so since y'all are doing such a good job imagining, I'm just going to leave it.

In honor of our Primary program being DONE for this year!!

His Daddy's boy

Sam is his daddy's boy.

He fell (rolled sideways) down the stairs this morning. He's good with the stairs - until he isn't and then he tumbles. He hasn't fallen down them for MONTHS, but now lately he's decided that he's a big boy and tries to go down standing up instead of feet first on his belly. He IS getting big, but not that big yet. Anyway, I was right here in the living room and I heard him start to tumble and caught him just as he hit the bottom. He was scared, but fine and hadn't hit his head on the bottom. Crying hard - we snuggled and cried together for a minute and then I sat down with him in the office chair to nurse, but as soon as we sat, he reached for the piano and wanted to play, so he played. And immediately the tears were gone. And he's still playing now. Sam LOVES the piano and will suddenly think of it while playing in other parts of the house. He gets mesmerized when he pushes the play button and the preprogrammed songs play - he plays along and seems to think he's making that music - but he loves almost as much to just plink around on it.

Today I'm going to clean up the living room while listening to this. Then homework and work-work and tonight hopefully some family home evening. We had a fun, busy weekend with Homecoming (David sang the National Anthem at the game, his first time ever at a game), playing outside in the water (it's still 90 degrees here people), sunburns, the Primary Program (they were AWESOME), and a retirement party for the previous theatre teacher. Fun, but we were all tired by last night and EVERY ONE was in bed by 8:45.

And Sam is opening toilet paper on the floor next to me. Talented and helpful. I'm outta here.