Sunday, November 30, 2008

i did it!!!

i finally learned how to knit!  i thought it would be fun to learn {don't ask me why} so i bought some yarn and a couple of needles, and asked lisa to teach me.  she gave me a quick lesson, and i just couldn't get it.  so i took another quick lesson from my intern, gina, and she was way too fast for me.  then i looked on the internet and found some step by step instructions.  that was a little more helpful.  i even bought a book that promised i could learn to knit in one day!!!  daryl just keeps laughing at me because it took me 6 days.  what can i say?  i'm a slow knitting-learner!  

but i think i've finally gotten the hang of knitting straight rows of stitches....sort of.  for some reason, i keep ending up with more stitches than i start with.  the first "scarf" i made started with 24 stitches and ended with 30!  it's got lots of holes where i dropped stitches, and somehow i even purled a row and didn't know i was doing it!  colby thinks it's awesome so i gave it to him to use as a blanket for his webkinz!  at least someone admires my work!

Friday, November 28, 2008

some things never change...

poor, mom.  after all these years, she still gets picked on.  you'd think that since her children are all grown up that some of their childish behaviors would go away, wouldn't you?  WRONG!!!

today my first family (mom, dad, marcy, andy and me)  went to breakfast at hometown buffet.  we had a nice time looking through some old pictures marcy had and laughing at memories.  we even got one of the workers there to take our picture.  isn't this a great looking family?



one of the memories we were laughing about was how andy, my brother, and i would put things in mom's hair when we were riding behind her in the car.  she used so much hairspray that she would NEVER feel all the decorations!!!  andy also found it fun to get a handful of toothpicks when we'd leave a restaurant and hurl them at her head to see if he could penetrate the hairspray force shield!  so funny!!!

today was no different, except this time we were going to catch it all on camera.  so andy collected his weapons and waited for mom to step outside...


as soon as she was in front of him, the attack began!  he started launching the toothpicks at her head, and she started screaming at him {as usual}!  i had a hard time getting pictures because i was laughing so hard!

he followed her all the way to the car pelting her with toothpicks!  dad picked up the ones that bounced off and helped andy with his mission!  poor, mom!  some things never change...

but the funniest part of all this is that after we left the restaurant, mom, marcy and i went shopping.  they wanted to go to some shoe store down the street, so we did.  mom was standing at the counter at this fancy shoe store {where the people actually wait on you and their shoes are expensive} and this prim and proper lady who worked there said, "ma'am if you'll bend over a little, i'll get that fuzz out of your hair."  so mom bent her head and guess what the lady pulled out....A TOOTHPICK!!!  {i am sitting here chuckling as i type this!}

SO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!! 

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

christmastime is here....


we put up our christmas decorations today!!!!  our tree is lit, and it's so pretty.  i love christmas.

guess what else i did today....i got the plastic snowman!!!!!!!!  he looks so cute in my living room!  colby helped me haul him to the car!



i tried to put the snowman in the trunk, but colby wanted him in the backseat with him!  it was so awesome to look in my rearview mirror and see these happy faces looking back at me.


Tuesday, November 25, 2008

you should have been a cheerleader!




can you believe someone actually said that to me today?  i just laughed!  

anyway......the comment was made because i basically acted like a fool today in front of the entire school and i had a BLAST!  we had a Bedlam fundraiser, and i was one of the OU team captains.  the kids had a competition to see who could sell the most Bedlam t-shirts and exercise the most minutes.  the losing team captains had to wear the other team's colors today. OU totally destroyed OSU, so the other team captain and i got to decorate the OSU captains who also happened to be our bosses!!  that's right.  it's not often you can humiliate your boss in public and not get in trouble for it!






Sunday, November 23, 2008

rat pack

tonight was another first for me...i went to broadway-type show at the tulsa performing arts center!  it was so cool!  i love  any kind of music, so this was right up my alley!

sammy smor had 2 extra tickets to "the rat pack" so lisa smor and i got to go!  it was like being at the vegas show where frank sinatra, dean martin and sammy davis, jr. performed.  it was amazing how much these guys sounded like the real rat pack.  and the guy playing sammy looked A LOT like him, too!

unfortunately taking pictures with or without a flash was prohibited.  it was killing me not to take a picture because i love photographing my adventures and my everyday life!  i struggled through the entire first half of the performance with not sneaking my camera out and snapping just a quick little picture even if it was blurry.  i didn't care.  

i gave in to temptation and took out my camera.  i turned the flash off, put my finger over the little orange light that comes on the front of my camera, and covered the screen on the backside of the camera with my purse so i wouldn't get caught taking the picture.  it took a long time for me to muster up the courage (and the stupidity) to break the rules!   i situated my purse just right on my lap and casually raised my knee to get the camera up a little higher, then i pushed the button!  i did it!  i broke the rule and took a picture!  i had to wait until intermission when it was "ok" to take pictures to see my awesome, illegal photo.... and here it is.............

the stinkin' lights and top of the curtain!!!!

i couldn't believe it!  all of that work just to sneak a picture and this is all i got!  i guess that was god's way of telling me i shouldn't have been deliberately breaking the rules.  shame on me, i know.


Saturday, November 22, 2008

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...




driving home this evening i saw several houses with christmas lights on, and it makes my heart {smile}.  

i also found these really cool vintage christmas goodies.  i really want this snowman...the preacher said he's not really into plastic yard decorations, so he wouldn't use it in our outdoor decorations.  i may have to go back and get it just for me.  i'll use it in our indoor decorations!!!
this tree is made from old buttons and gaudy old jewelry and old christmas lights.
so cool!

happy birthday little man!

1st birthday

i can't believe my little baby is already six!  this time is going by way too fast.   i want him to stay my little boy, not grow up into a big man.  i still want to snuggle early in the mornings and hear him giggle at whoopie cushions.  


we celebrated his 6th birthday at incredible pizza.  the four of us had a great time!  colby said this was his best birthday ever even if he didn't get to invite any friends. 


 happy birthday, little man!
i love you!!!


Wednesday, November 19, 2008

my boyfriend's back...

finally!  daryl is home from India!  he's a little tired and his voice is completely worn out, but he's HOME!  they actually got in 15 minutes earlier than their schedule had said.  so that was nice! here are a few pics from the airport.


Sunday, November 16, 2008

SMOR on route 66


we had the best time on our road trip yesterday!  five very different,  yet very much the same, women trekked from catoosa, oklahoma to arcadia, oklahoma on the historic mother road.  there were so many amazing things to see that it took us 12 hours!  it would have only taken an hour and a half on the turnpike, but you miss so much history...

here are just a few pics from our trip:  ( i took 276 pictures!)













Friday, November 14, 2008

my new hero...

do you know who this woman is?

her name is miss frizzle, and today, she was my savior!

for some reason there was a shortage of substitutes at school today.  so i was snatched from my  cozy, sometimes hectic, trailer and thrown into the lions' den!  no kidding!

here's how the day went down:

around 9:00 a.m. my phone rang.  it was the secretary calling to say that one of the classes didn't have a sub and that either my intern or me would need to go cover the class.  at first i was okay with that because usually it's just for a little while until another sub can come in.  

so i asked, "which class?"

"kindergarten."

that one word has more power than most words i know.  my heart started racing, my palms started sweating and i'm pretty sure all the color drained from my face!  

i reluctantly agreed to this insanity on one condition.  since this was technically my conference time, i had already made plans to run to walgreens to get my prescription.  i HAD to get that medicine!  i was out of crazy pills and i was about to be sent to one of the scariest places on earth!  there was no way i could step foot in that kindergarten classroom unmedicated!

so at 9:45 i cautiously crossed the thresh hold  into kindergarten.  the aide who had been covering their class was stunned and relieved to see me walk in the door.  she was just as surprised to see me there as i was.  she handed me this operator's manual for the class and said, "have fun."

the regular teacher in that class is superb.  she is very thorough, so her sub note was quite detailed and long, so it was like reading an operator's manual.  it was written in one long paragraph, and i kept losing my place!  i finally found a marker and had to draw a line through each line of text after i had read it and completed it!

of course no matter how many times i read those great instructions, i still had no clue what i was doing!  and boy, were those little darlings quick to let me know when i screwed up!  and to make things worse, the "student of the day" was, to put it nicely, less than helpful!  wow! 

after fumbling through group time, another kindergarten class came in the room with another substitute in tow!  we were having a special guest to talk to us about dental health.  she was wonderful!  the kids really paid attention to her.  unfortunately though, she was so good that she just kept going and going and i finally had to tell her that we needed to leave for lunch!

if this were my normal 5th grade class, this little change in schedule wouldn't have been that big a deal.  but in kindergarten, it was not good!  they didn't like it that we had to leave for lunch without washing our hands!!!  so i looked all over that well-stocked  room for some hand sanitizer and couldn't find it anywhere!  finally i got them all lined up with unwashed hands (wow!) and as we were walking down the hall an announcement came on saying it had started to rain so it would be an inside day at recess.

oh......my......goodness........could it get any worse?  do you know what happens when kids can't go outside for recess?  THEY COME BACK TO THE CLASSROOM EARLY!!!!!!!!  that's right!  your few moments of silent bliss get cut short!  

thank goodness for miss frizzle!  she's the star of the children's educational video series the magic school bus (which i kept calling the magic school house and i got corrected on EVERYTIME).  that was recess...watching miss frizzle and her students take a ride on that bus and experience a chemical reaction.

once the video ended i checked the manual to see where we were supposed to be.  holy cow!!  we hadn't done vocabulary or phonics yet and that was supposed to be done BEFORE lunch.  my mind flashed back to the no-hand -washing- before- lunch trauma, and i was suddenly feeling woozy afraid of how this MAJOR change in schedule would affect them this time.  so i took a deep breath and said, "it's time for phonics," and then waited.................

whew, no breakdowns.  do you know how hard it is to teach a phonics lesson when you are used to teaching children who already know how to read????  i had to pronounce the words very carefully so the kids could hear the final sound and then they repeated it back to me.  the strangest thing happened...they repeated the sound 3 times and made these little hand motions for the sounds!  of course it took me a little while to catch on, but i decided to give the little motions a try.  and of course i did the sound the letter 'n' makes completely WRONG.  i was just touching the side of my n...n...n...nose and i was supposed to be running my finger across my n...n...n...nose.  it took FOREVER to get through the phonics lesson!  vocabulary was much easier, thank goodness!

then it was time for them to go to music!  hallelujah!  hallelujah!  do you know how many strange looks i got when i was walking these children down the hall?  you would have thought i was standing there in my underwear!  lots of people giggled and stared when they saw me at the front of the line "hippin' and lippin'. "  (that's when you walk with one hand on your mouth and the other hand on your hip.  it supposed to keep you from talking and/or touching things.  apparently i wasn't doing that right either because kids were still talking and touching each other!)  at one point in this short trek to music, i turned around and there were only 5 kids in the line!  how could i lose 14 children that fast?  thankfully they were just walking slower than a herd of turtles and they were all still together.

so i now had 40 minutes of ALONE time.  i thought this would be a good time to just relax a little while, but i thought i'd better check the manual to see what was coming next.  holy cow!  we still had centers, folder stuffing and snacks!  i thought the centers would be nice because the kids got to do their own thing and it would be okay for them to make a little noise.  WRONG!

utter chaos is what center time is!  i had to chase one little boy out of 3 different centers because in each one he either turned the items into weapons or pretended it was some sort of wrestling arena!  another little boy who wasn't finished with his work and wasn't supposed to be at centers until he was finished kept disappearing into centers!  he was driving me nuts!  (this was the 'student of the day'!)  

finally at 3:05 i couldn't take it anymore.  i just couldn't handle free centers anymore.  so i called the ONLY kindergarten teacher who was at school and asked for a video.  i noticed that recess time was the ONLY time they were sort of quiet.  she laughed and said to send a kid to her room for another magic school bus video.  

yay, miss frizzle!  my new hero!

i made it through one of the longest days in history, and i was completely drained.  my mind just doesn't work fast enough to keep up with 24 kindergartners

Thursday, November 13, 2008

yay, grandma!!!



grandma came for a visit today!   she got here in time to have lunch with colby for grandparent's day at school.  she's also going to spend a couple of days hanging out with us and watching the varmints on saturday while i hit the mother road with the gang.  what a great grandma!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

another first!


guess what i (we, actually) got in the mail today......

a postcard all the way from London, baby!!  that's right!  daryl remembered to send us a postcard from there.  i've never gotten a postcard from London.  how cool is that?



Tuesday, November 11, 2008

so much fun!

we just got home from nellie and mike's house.  they were generous and had us over for some delicious taco soup AND Rock Band!!!

we had such a great time!  i stink at drums AND guitar!  i was meant to be the lead singer of the band, i guess.  colby was made to be a lead singer, too!  spencer totally rocked on drums. 
 

Sunday, November 9, 2008

just another day...

nothing exciting today and nothing terrible.  it was just a good day.  the weather was crisp and cool.  i got to worship with the family at 29th and yale and then have lunch with my buddies {the stewart family and the heinen women}.
i just got off the phone with Daryl.  it's so weird talking to him because while we are ending our day, he is starting the next day!  so as i'm typing he is eating breakfast and ready to go do whatever they're doing today!  

i'm making round 2 of pumpkin cookies right now.  i followed a recipe that a family member gave me and i think one of the ingredients might have been a little off.  don't you think 4 teaspoons of baking powder is a little much?  so i found one online and giving that one a try.  i wouldn't be baking cookies at nine 0'clock at night, but i told colby's kindergarten teacher we'd send pumpkin cookies on monday.

here's a random picture for today.  each one of these Melman giraffes {Madagascar movie}belongs to spencer, colby and me.  can you tell which one is colby's?  it was so funny because we put them on the dashboard tonight after we ate our happy meals, and colby's wouldn't follow directions and stay up there!!!  how appropriate is that?


spencer is the photographer.


Saturday, November 8, 2008

cars

we just got home from a fun evening at the Heinen's.  it was our Route 66 Road Trip kick off.  samantha made chili and muffins and we watched the movie Cars.  nellie brought us our very cool shirts that she bought for us {thanks, nellie}.  the evening was almost perfect....we just needed gina there!

i've seen the movie cars several times, but i've never watched it from the perspective of 'the mother road'.  it's a great movie by itself, but it's kind of sad when you think about all the little towns like radiator springs that really did close down when the interstates were built.


it makes me excited about our trip next saturday!  can't wait to see all the little things from catoosa to arcadia that were/are part of historic route 66.

Friday, November 7, 2008

shoe tree


when we first moved to broken arrow, i noticed this tree on the side of the highway as we were driving in to town.  i thought, "hmm...that's weird."  i've wanted to take a picture of it, but i hadn't seen it again until we were on our way back from the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago.  i knew it was coming up, but i was too late to take a picture.

today i went a different way to get on the BA because there is construction on 71st, and i saw the shoe tree again!  this time i was able to pull off and get a picture!!!

does anyone know why it's there?

Thursday, November 6, 2008

i love technology!



we just got finished talking to daryl and seeing him while we talked from all the way across the world in India!  ricky has an internet phone, so the call was free.  and before he left he installed yahoo messenger on this computer so we could use the webcam to see each other while we talked.

the boys were so excited to hear from him!  it makes it seem like he's not so far away when we can see his reactions while we are talking to him.

he sent us this picture of him in london.  if you've ever watched the Friends episode where they all go to london for ross's wedding then you can appreciate this quote and this picture:

"London, baby!"

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

color collisions


spencer was playing with my camera tonight on the way to church.  he turned the camera toward me and said, "cool!  look at these color collisions!"  i thought that was such an awesome phrase and description of the pictures he was taking!  he's pretty excited that i'm blogging about him tonight AND posting HIS pictures!

this picture is my favorite be cause you can see the golden arches it!  it's just cool!



Tuesday, November 4, 2008

and, it starts....


man!  the preacher's only been gone for 3 hours and we've already had an issue!  when i checked the boys' backpacks tonight, colby had ANOTHER  bad note from his teacher!  it was attached to 2 papers and it read, "UNFINISHED. It was another off, distracted day for Mr. Colby." 

geez louise!  you have no idea how much this bothers me!  he's a teacher's kid!  he's supposed to act better than other kids, right?  the music teacher said he's a stinker in her class, too, sometimes, but she can "corral" him.  she said she likes kids with "personality" that are also respectful.  she said colby falls into this category.

so back to the bad note....the last time colby got one of these he was grounded from all electronics.  he was also told that if we got another one, he would get a spanking from dad.  so guess who had to follow through with the punishment. yours truly.  you know, despite what kids think, parents really DON'T enjoy spanking their kids.  it really does hurt us, too.

off to india


right now the preacher is on a plane on his way to chicago where he'll get on another flight that will take him to london.  it wasn't as easy as i thought it was going to be.  i thought i'd be able to keep my eyes from leaking, as my friend lisa says.  i had to have two good-byes.  one hug wasn't enough.  the second time is when i started crying, and the preacher said, "we're gonna be ok."  

i wanted to slug him!  i wasn't crying because i was worried about their safety.  i was crying because i'm going to miss him!  he and steve are in God's hands.  He's going to take care of them. it's just going to be weird not having him around.


the varmints have already staked their claims in my bedroom!  i had to lay down some ground rules....3 strikes and you are OUT!  the first time i have to tell them to be quiet, it's a warning.  the second time, it's out of the bed and onto the hard floor.  the third time, it's back to their own beds!

Monday, November 3, 2008

minor trauma in the hayes' house


well, i learned something new just a few minutes ago....trimming a cockatiel's nails is NOT as easy as it says on the internet!  i was researching how to clip their wings when i read that you should also trim their nails with regular nail clippers if their nails are uncomfortable to your skin.  

cool, i thought.  "i can do this."  so i got out my clippers and went snip.  the very first nail i tried to clip i cut too short and there was blood everywhere!  i felt terrible!  joey was trying to get away from me, and i was trying "to apply gentle pressure" to stop the bleeding! 



i was trying NOT to get the preacher involved because he was busy packing, but i couldn't get the bleeding to stop.  so we got back online to see what to do in case you clip their nails a little too short, and it said to put flour on the bleed and apply gentle pressure.  that, too, is not as easy as it sounds!  it took two tries with both of us working on poor joey.  once the bleeding finally stopped, daryl said we needed to clip his wings!

holy cow!  that's like torturing the poor little bird!  i informed the preacher that i was NOT clipping the wings, and he said, "fine.  you can hold him while i cut."  so that was another battle getting those little feathers off of joey, but at least there was no more bloodshed.

but now, joey is mad at me.  when i tried to get him to "step up" on my finger, he hid at the back of daryl's head.

i'm so sorry, joey.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

one



tonight was the tulsa area-wide worship service at the union performing arts center.  at first i was afraid there weren't going to be that many people, but the lower part of the auditorium was nearly filled!

the singing was amazing!  there's just something magical about hundreds of voices blending together in praise to god.  a couple of times i just closed my eyes and listened.

3 of the local preachers spoke on the subject of "one".  one god, one body, one goal.  of course the best was {my preacher}.  he has such a gift for speaking.  i'm constantly impressed by his eloquence.  that's what first attracted me to him.  i heard him speak to a bunch of college kids in an auditorium.  seeing him up there tonight reminded me of the first time i heard him speak.  he looked so handsome up there!  and there's just a presence about him when he's speaking that's so captivating.  god has definitely blessed him with this gift.