lame excuse

it's thursday, so that means a faculty meeting at 8:00 a.m.....ugh.  our principal always tells us to be there on time because she starts the meeting right at 8:00.  this morning one teacher had the nerve to come waltzing in to the meeting at 8:05, and do you know what her excuse was?  "they were catching a guinea pig!"  what a lame excuse!!!  and guess who that teacher was....ME!!!!!!!

i walked into my living room at 7:40, ready to go.  we were even going to be there 5 minutes early because it only takes about 15 minutes to get to our school.  when i stepped into the living room i expected to see the two varmints taking care of last minute business---stuffing backpacks, tying shoes, etc.  but, OH NO..............

colby had a laundry basket in his hands, dangling it upside down, and spencer was armed with my swiffer broom.  i'm not really sure which one said it, but i heard, "he went that way!!!!"  if i was a cartoon character right at that moment, my face would have been blood red and steam would have been pouring from my ears and nostrils!  it was only the 2nd day that squirt was allowed out of his cage, and he was already loose!

i stood there a moment watching the 3 of them running around in circles around my chair and daryl's recliner.  i remember thinking, "of course this is happening.  why should i be surprised? this is my life.  this is what they do!!!!"  the varmints didn't find this whole situation nearly as stressful as i did.  they were laughing every time squirt outsmarted them and ran away.

i was getting madder by the second.  normally i'm pretty quiet in the mornings because daryl is still asleep when we leave for school.  but i'm fairly certain i was yelling this morning!  i remember shouting about being late for my meeting and that squirt was NEVER allowed out of his cage in the mornings before school.  

it took us nearly 15 minutes to catch squirt!  we almost had him right at the beginning of the chase.  spencer and i managed to corner him underneath daryl's chair, and we told colby to reach under and grab him.  so what did colby do?  he raised the footrest on the chair and squirt ran right out!!!!  ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!

i don't really think we were the victorious ones in the end.  i think squirt just decided that he had messed with us long enough and stopped running.  what a morning!  and i hadn't even gotten to school yet!  {let's just say school was just as dramatic as my morning at home...}

this afternoon after school was much better, though.  i finally got my hair cut!  i have been resisting the urge to cut my bangs for the past two weeks.  they were driving me nuts, but i knew that if i trimmed them, i'd just jack them up like i've done every other time i cut them!

after the haircut, daryl and i went to dinner at copeland's.  it was nice just to be with him.  then we went to see the movie slumdog millionaire.  thanks to sammy smor and her man!!! they rented an entire theater and invited 100 or so of their friends/family to come watch the movie. i had never seen it.  it was a very intense movie, but i really liked it.  {thanks for coming to babysit, grandma!  you rock!}

photo of the day #119

movie night

that's earline waving at the camera!  everyone else just groaned when i took the picture!

quote of the day:  "Hey Mrs. Hayes!  Did you know cavemen discovered Venus?" ~one of my darling students "discovered" this little-known fact today as we were doing research on the planets....

48 hours

that's how long colby had to wait before he could take squirt out of his cage.  the guy at petco said that squirt had to spend 48 hours in his cage so he could get used to his new home.  so finally today, colby got to take squirt out and play with him!

photo of the day #117

48 hours

quote of the day:  "Good things come to those who wait." ~unknown

nothing exciting...

today was just a day.  nothing exciting and nothing terrible, so that's a good thing.  tonight i went to bible study at gina's house which was... refreshing. 

 it is now 10:14 p.m.  i didn't have a photo of the day until a couple of minutes ago.  i didn't know what to take a picture of so i started thinking about what i photograph that represents my life right now.  then it dawned on me...why not take a picture of your blog?

blogging has become part of evening routine.  i cannot go to sleep if i have not blogged, so i usually blog just before i go to bed.  tonight is no exception.  so maybe this picture is lame, but it's my right now.

photo of the day #117

my right now

quote of the day: “What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.” ~unknown

and squirt makes seven....

tonight we added another member to our family.  meet squirt:

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squirt

this weekend colby got it in his head that he needed a pet.  he didn't want one that bites or eats things he didn't want to touch.  i vetoed tarantulas {not that he'd get one, but i wanted to be sure!}  and daryl vetoed puppies.  so that left hamsters, mice and guinea pigs.  

the boys begged and pleaded with us all day yesterday to go get a guinea pig tonight.  they even made a list of things they would do for us to get us to agree. one of their concessions was haircuts!  woo hoo!  now i'll have my two handsome boys back instead of two little chia pets!

colby picked this little guy out all by himself.  it was love at first sight...colby walked up to the big cage, and squirt came right up to the glass in front of him. 

colby thought up a name before we ever got here.  he was convinced that his new guinea pig should be named chubby.  that name only worked for about 5 minutes, and then he got his new name...squirt.

quote of the day:  "Pets are not our whole lives, but they make our lives whole." ~unknown

spring cleaning

so today's creative project was cleaning!  colby and i attacked his room!  we rearranged, purged, and threw lots of junk in the trash.  we were so busy working that we didn't even notice that it was time to leave for evening worship! 

colby was having fun creating a pile of stuff for saturday's neighborhood garage sale.  once he learned that he could earn some money from the stuff that he sold, he was all about selling his things!  the little nerd even prayed for a good garage sale saturday so he could make some money!!!

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garage sale pile

random quote of the day: I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you're having a good idea but it's just eggs hatching. ~Jack Handey

a rather blustery day....

the wind was definitely sweeping across oklahoma today!  dang, it was windy!  

i had a great day....soccer at 9:00 this morning, chicken nachos at q'doba and hanging out with geeg and nellie rae this afternoon {junking and creating}.  i found these little 'weeds' growing right in the middle of this rusted junk outside of the hitching post.  i loved this picture more than all of the pictures of old stuff that i took!

photo of the day #114

beauty is in the eye of the beholder

i was not the only one fascinated with my button bonanza...joey decided he likes buttons, too. he was so funny!  he kept stealing my buttons in my 'happy' pile even though i gave him his own pile to play with!  then the little nerd bird hopped up on my jar and started taking them out after i put them in!  so i put an empty jar beside the one he was on to see if he'd put them in there, and he did!  it was probably just a fluke, but he actually did it twice!  i think we scared him when we cheered after he dropped the buttons in the jar.

joey was hilarious to watch until he pooped in my jar of buttons!  {i know.  you saw that coming, didn't you?}  i kept reposition his hiney so that it wasn't directly over the buttons, but somehow he managed to sneak a poo in!  nerd bird!

quote of the day:  "Can I fly Piglet next, Pooh?" ~Roo from the movie Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

button bonanza!

it's very late, actually it's very early on saturday morning, so i'm not going to say much.  i went to wagoner today and scored BIG time in the button department!  each of these jars was only one dollar!  i couldn't believe it.  so of course i bought all of them because they were so cheap!

photo of the day #113

button bonanza

quote of the day:“Not the buttons! Not my gumdrop buttons!” ~Gingy from the movie Shrek

for all of my fans out there....

i told you this would only really work on the skinny girls!!!

another day off!

is it wrong for me to be a little bit happy that colby was sick again today so i had to miss another day of school?  that does sound terrible, doesn't it?  what's even worse is that the doctor said he has strep throat so he can't go to school tomorrow, either.  so i get to, i mean have to, stay home again.  bummer. {i'm suppressing a smile right now!}

since i was stuck at home again today i decided to be creative.  it was a beautiful, sunny 80-degree day, so guess what i did....i sat inside the house with a/c going and knitted a happy scarf!!!!  i'm calling this one skittles because the colors are happy like skittles.  it looks like it could be worn at the circus!

photo of the day #112

skittles scarf

not only is it a colorful, happy scarf, it's also versatile....

you can wear it around your neck

you could actually wear it to the circus as a clown wig!

or if Survivor ever goes somewhere cold, this skittles scarf could be used as the survivor buff!!!  the scarf is so long that those skinny little girls who wear their buffs around their boobs, could actually use this scarf as a dress!

i was watching Survivor when i was finishing the scarf.  can you tell?  i was so thrilled that the survivors blind-sided tyson and voted his hateful little self off!  now if they can just get rid of coach....

random quote of the day:  "Hey, Mom.  Wanna know how to share your head with the world?"  ~Colby  {the answer to that question is "stick your head out the window while you're driving, but only if it's safe."}

a day off...

well, i've been wanting a day off from work for a long time and today it happened.  only i was home with 2 sick little boys.  not exactly the kind of day off i wanted, but it wasn't bad.  spencer had a bad allergy attack in the middle of the night, and colby developed a sore throat and fever. spencer is much better and will be returning to school tomorrow.  poor colby is still sick and will be going to the doctor tomorrow.  

photo of the day #111

poor baby

colby's throat hurts so bad, that he won't eat or drink.  i finally got him to drink a vanilla shake, but i don't think he finished it.  i know he's sick when he's not excited about a shake for dinner!

quote of the day:  "Thank you, Mom." ~said by both boys many times today.  that just makes this mom's heart {SMILE}.

distracted....

a little while ago, colby decided it was time to learn to ride his bike without training wheels.  so daryl said he would help him thursday night when he got home.  well that wasn't soon enough for mr. colby.  he wanted to learn tonight!

photo of the day #110

learning to ride

so while i was walking across the street to take pictures from another angle, i noticed this amazing sunset! before i knew it, i was completely distracted and nearly to the end of our street taking pictures of this:

and then i noticed how beautiful the colors of the sunset looked behind the silhouette of this lone pine tree in an empty lot.  next thing i knew i was walking in this empty lot, barefoot, just so i could get pictures!  all the while colby was still trying to learn to ride his bike, which was the original reason i was outside with my camera!

as i was walking back home on the sidewalk i realized that i really like the way the smooth sidewalk feels on my bare feet.  so, of course, i had to stop and take a picture of my feet on the sidewalk!

{yes, i know, some of my toenails aren't painted!  they were, and then they just suddenly weren't!  i don't know where the paint went!}

as i was photographing my feet, i heard the clomp, clomp, clomp of little feet coming towards me.  i looked up and noticed colby was running to meet me.  apparently while i was busy being distracted, his riding lesson ended.  oh, well.

what's really funny (to me, anyway) is that this picture was originally going to be my picture of the day.  it's a windmill that i drive by many times a week.  i really love the way it looks, and since i didn't have a photo of the day at that point, i thought this would be as good a day as any to make this my photo of the day!  

quote of the day:  "The sunrise is God's greeting - the sunset, his signature."~unknown

it's time for war

photo of the day #109

ants

ants as a species are not bad.  they are industrious little fellas.  but when they invade my house, especially my kitchen, that's a whole different story.  i guess the rain must have brought them in because they just showed up a few days ago.  i have scrubbed the counters at least 3 times since saturday thinking there is something sticky on them.  i even sprayed the ants with the cleaner!  but they just keep coming back!

it's time to go to the garage and bring out the big guns....ant killer!

quote of the day:  "Ants never sleep." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

socks

how is it possible that we have 25 missing socks?  

photo of the day #108

socks....m.i.a.

quote of the day: Although she has no proof, she wonders if socks are made specifically to disappear, or whether there's a conspiracy between the weavers of socks and appliance manufacturers. "It's all about buying new socks," ~unknown

today

i just sat down to blog tonight, and it started thundering.  do you know what that means?  it's time for the troops to relocate to headquarters. even rocky moves in!  i think the varmints secretly enjoy nighttime storms because they know i'll let them move into my room and sleep on the floor.  they claim to be scared....  

i don't question it because when i was their age i was definitely afraid of storms!  i remember standing in my doorway in the middle of the night waiting for the lightning to flash and then i would sprint down the hallway to my parents' room trying to get there before the next flash of lightning.  i was afraid it would get me.

today started off way too early for a saturday.  colby had soccer pictures at 8:20 this morning. what is wrong with people scheduling pictures that stinkin' early???  then colby had a game at 9:00 and spencer had one at 11:30.  when it wasn't colby's turn to play he came up in the bleachers and sat in our laps.  i love that he still likes to snuggle with us.

after lunch at cici's, daryl went to the church to work on his sermon.  i convinced the varmints to go with me to the flea at the fairgrounds.  the last time we went,  a man was selling rubber ducks, so that's why they were so eager to go today.  unfortunately, the rubber-duck man wasn't there today.  bummer.  so they each got a rock instead.  colby got his from this man who is all about the power of rocks, and told colby that his rock helps fight fear, anger and jealousy.  yay! we got a multi-purpose rock!!!  spencer decided to go with a less-powerful rock and got one that had been carved into a turtle.  it's very cute and spencer noticed "it has green eyes, like you, mom!"

i took the long way back home because i really wanted to go to the admiral flea market, but when we drove in front of it the varmints started protesting!  i don't blame them!  they were still in their soccer uniforms, and we'd been gone all day.  i guess i'll go back some other time!  

on the way home i decided to go down route 66 where i found this really cool brick at an abandoned schoolhouse.  when the smors went on our road trip back in november, i found this brick down in the cellar, and i carried it all the way back up and out to the street.  i really thought about taking it with me, but i just couldn't do it.  that would be stealing.  so i propped it up by the fence near the street.  i've thought about going back many times to see if it was still there, but today was the first time i actually did.  and guess what....it's still there!

photo of the day #108

the brick

{photo by colby hayes}

quote of the day:  "Mom, it's thundering.  Can we sleep with you?" ~the varmints

it's over

today was the last day of oklahoma core curriculum test.  thank goodness!  5th grade took tests for 4 days, their easily-distracted brains were fried!  one of my kids was griping about having to test today while the 3rd graders next door weren't.  so another girl said, "we're still testing because we're older and smarter."  a boy heard her comment and replied, "well, i don't know about older, but we're definitely smarter!"  wow.  {and this was before we started the last test!}

i knew they couldn't handle anything too difficult today, so i made my students part of my creativity project today!  i was planning on showing them a movie this afternoon while we had our popcorn and dr. pepper {that was our reward for having the cleanest classroom last quarter!} i didn't want to be showing a movie just to be babysitting, so we added some art and writing objectives.  i had the students draw a picture of themselves as monsters.  they had to give themselves a new monster name and write a description of themselves as a monster.  some of the monsters were really awesome while some were just gross {imagine that with 5th graders!}  

so now i'm going to take all the pages and put them together into a book and call it mrs. hayes' little monsters!  of course i made a monster, too.  i am a bright yellow, shaggy monster named pluffy.  i have an extra set of arms because i like to give lots and lots of hugs.  i'm a happy monster, not a scary one.

and i wore my happy socks today!  for some reason my day usually seems better when i wear happy socks!

photo of the day #107

more happy socks

quote of the day:  One can never have enough socks. ~Albus Dumbledore

not an exciting day...we took the state science test today.  the kids are getting antsy because they have to sit still and silent all morning.  so i think we're all glad that tomorrow is friday.

i was so wiped out when i got home that i laid down on my bed and fell asleep watching tv.  when i woke up i didn't feel like cooking so colby and i went to sonic while daryl and spencer were at soccer practice.  we shared my fries with this guy.

photo of the day #106

hi bird

today's quote comes from a print hanging in my friend gina's kitchen.  i love it!

quote of the day:  Today I will be happier than a bird with a french fry. ~unknown

missed photo opportunity

ugh.....i was so mad at myself this morning for NOT having my camera ready!!!

as we were driving to school this morning there was a ginormous beaver just strolling along the side of the road!  it was so cool!  i've never seen a beaver outside of the zoo before!  i should have turned around and taken a picture, but i didn't want spencer to be late for safety patrol. 

so here's the only picture i have of the beaver:

photo of the day #105

big beaver

quote of the day: "I was just thinkin' what I'd do if I was a pig eatin' peoples ribs."~Beaver Cleaver, from Leave it to Beaver 

a boy and his grill...

well, daryl passed another torch on to spencer tonight....grilling.  don't worry, he's not going to let spencer anywhere near fire unsupervised!  but spencer grilled his first hot dogs on the grill tonight, and they were yummilicious!  mine were even well-done, just like i like them!  way to go spencer!

photo of the day #104

cookin' dogs

quote of the day:"I'm a man. Men cook outside. That outdoor grilling is a manly pursuit

has long been beyond question. If this wasn't understood, you'd never get grown men to put on those aprons with pictures of dancing weenies on the front, and messages like 'Come 'n' Get It!' 
~ William Geist

bring it

the pencils are sharpened.  the students' brains are loaded.  the desks are aligned.  i say bring it. my class is ready to ace the oklahoma core curriculum test tomorrow.

photo of the day #103

bring on the test

colby quote of the day:  "It's amazing how I'm only 6 years old, but I've been alive for 8 years." {yes, that is pretty amazing.}

happy easter

it was cool and rainy here this easter, but it was still a great day.this man had a wonderful sermon {as always} this morning about god loving us just the way we are.  i noticed i wasn't the only person with leaky eyes during his lesson.then we had lunch with our friends, the howes and the stewarts, at this yummilicious italian restaurant called napolis.  i could have made a meal just on their bread! {our waiter's name was rocky. giggle}

photo of the day #102

easter lunch

after lunch i went shopping for all the food for the dinner after church.  i prepared sloppy joes for 80 people.  i was panicking tonight when i saw how many people actually stayed to eat.  i was afraid there wouldn't be enough, but we had just the right amount...only 1/2 of a bun was left over!

we watched the movie fireproof at church tonight.  i had never seen it before.  we are starting a marriage seminar next sunday night, and the elders thought this movie would be a great kick-off for that.  the acting in the movie isn't that great, but the message is POWERFUL.  i was bawling by the end of it.  if you haven't seen it yet, you should.

quote of the day:  Marriage isn't a contract.  It's a covenant. ~from the movie Fireproof

super saturday

the boys and i just finished watching the movie marley & me about 20 minutes ago, and colby is still crying!  i feel so sorry for him.  this is the first sad movie for him, and it's really bothering him.  he doesn't even want to go to bed alone.  wow.  note to self....no more sad movies for colby.

other than that, we had a great day!  both boys had soccer games this morning.  spencer scored a goal after several close shots.  one even went in the goal, hit the pole on the inside and bounced back out!

this afternoon we colored easter eggs!  easter isn't a major holiday for us, but i absolutely love coloring eggs.  the colors are so amazing and it's just plain FUN!

the boys got all the plastic eggs they could find and dumped them on the trampoline!  who knew oval shaped plastic could be so much fun!

photo of the day #101

eggs everywhere!

for supper we had breakfast!  i put my little sous chefs to work with me in the kitchen and cooked a yummy meal.  spencer was the pancake man and table decorator while colby scrambled the eggs.

it was a nice day.  i even had time for a little nap!  it just doesn't get much better.

quote of the day:  "Mom!  I gave myself a wedgie.  Wanna see it?"  ~Colby