serious girl time today

today i spent some serious time with my girl friends! it was so nice.......

first it started with a baby shower for trish! it was weird being back at 29th, but not weird at the same time. does that make sense? some people acted surprised to see me there {which kind of hurt a little}. but why wouldn't i be there? trish is my friend, and i want to celebrate this with her!

after the shower, geeg and i met nellie rae for lunch at panera {yum-o broccoli soup!} and then we had some more girl time at scraphappy's and michaels! i don't know why i didn't take any pictures then! especially when we saw this really cool old ford van.....nellie got a picture, though.

we dropped nellie off at her car, and geeg and i ran around some more. we went to barnes & noble, joanns and another michaels before we met trish and rhonda to celebrate geeg's birthday. we had dinner at q'doba {delicious chicken nachos} and then we had our traditional ice cream after dinner!

geeg had to play with her present right then! {great gift idea, rhonda!}

this was the first time i'd been to maggie moo's! i got peanut butter ice cream with hot fudge....

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geeg loves her chocolate ice cream!

quote of the day: A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back

to you when you have forgotten the words. ~unknown

Elvis is in the building!

on the way to school this morning, spencer and i performed a rescue mission. i saw a little turtle on the side of the road, and i just kept going. i would have stopped, but that would have made spencer late for safety patrol. when i told spencer that i saw the turtle, he said, "oh, can we get it?" i told him if we turned around, he might be late for safety patrol.

he said he didn't care, so i turned the car around! spencer rescued him from being squished by a car!

he rode on the dashboard to school just like this. we thought he was dead!

we took him to school, and one of the teachers who used to work in an aquarium said he was just a common ghetto turtle. immediately the song in the ghetto started playing in my head, so i named the turtle elvis. he was very popular in my class today...quite distracting, actually. it's just because he's so stinkin' cute!

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elvis

quote of the day: "I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

Elvis Presley (1935 - 1977) US singer, actor

literally, right now

right now {well, at 8:31} this is what's happening in my house:

spencer is supposed to be working on his solar oven,

but instead the dork is painting his hands black!

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black velvet {spencer's words, not mine}

colby is coloring with his new color switchers markers.

{i love crayola.}

rocky is under the table either hoping to get a snack or thinking he's hiding from us so he doesn't have to go outside!

and i'm at the computer enjoying a little snack while i blog.

quote of the day: "It's impossible to stop a smile." ~Spencer

cute fungus

with all this rain we've gotten lately, mushrooms have been popping up everywhere.......except in my yard! so on the way home from school today, i just had to pull over and take a picture of some growing in someone else's yard!

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mushroom

quote of the day: "The Smurfs are little blue people who live in magic mushrooms." ~unknown

special gift

today one of my students brought me the most unusual gift i've ever gotten. but, let's rewind several years, though, so you understand why he brought me this gift.

when i taught 4th grade in texas i had a student who brought strange things to eat for snack. one day i looked up from my desk, and i thought i saw a chicken's foot dangling from his mouth. surely not. so i asked him, "what are you eating?"

he said, "chicken feet. want one?"

i replied, "eww. no!"

it was bad enough that he was eating chicken feet for snack, but they were gray! they were boiled, and i guess that's what color they turn when they're cooked that way. also, they were pretty tough so he was yanking on them to get the meat off with his teeth!

i used this story at the beginning of this school year to illustrate my point about what was NOT appropriate for snack time. apparently one of my students listened very well that day and thought it was pretty funny.

today he walked in and handed me something wrapped in foil. he was grinning from ear to ear when he handed it to me. i've taught long enough to know to be leery of kids bearing foil-wrapped gifts with huge grins plastered across their faces! i slowly unfolded the foil revealing a pair of feet.

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dove feet

i asked, "what are these?"

he said, "chicken feet!"

i said, "no they're not! they're too small to be chicken feet!"

he said, "ok. they're not chicken feet. they're dove feet! i saved these for you from the dove that i shot this weekend!"

i couldn't help but laugh!

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tonight i was enjoying the silence and finishing up my latest scarf {my tribute to sock monkeys!}...

when spencer came running in the living room giggling! he handed me my camera and said, "mom, get ready!"

then he said, "presenting... the next......tarzan!!!!!" then colby came running out of the laundry room wearing nothing but a loin cloth made out of paper, string and tape!

{i'd show you the front view, but the paper on the front was a lot smaller than the back!}

spencer convinced colby to let him dress him up as a jungle man. when i asked spencer what had possessed him to do this, he said he remembered reading my blog a few weeks ago when colby asked me for some string, paper and tape because he wanted to be a jungle man! he was just helping him out!

quote of the day: "It's the merry-hearted boys that make the best men." ~Irish proverb

labor day

today was actually a very restful, happy day. the boys played with friends, and i was driving colby's friend home this afternoon tonight's blog idea just came to me.

10 things that made me smile today: {in no particular order}

1. getting completely caught up on grading papers.

2. this clean, fuzzy little dog

3. little boys

4. this hamburger {created by chef colby}

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happy burger

5. trees growing over the road

6. bales of hay

7. these pens

8. varmints

9. this man...did all the wal-mart shopping today

10. ice-cold milk

quote of the day: "If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive." ~Eleonora Duse

family fun time

friday night we went to edmond for the annual birthday party at carla's house. sadly, jerry and his crew couldn't be there friday night, but we partied anyway! i spent my time rocking a crying baby and playing with pippin. pippin is caitlin's cockatiel. he's so awesome! he's what i had hoped joey would be like. i tried to teach him the song deep in the heart of texas. he obviously liked it because every time i whistled it, he bobbed his head up and down! i told him we'd work on it some more the next time i'm there!

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pippin and me

saturday the rest of the family showed up. there were 30+ people in the jones' house! wow!

colby wanted to swim, so most of the time i was outside "life-guarding" which wasn't bad because it was beautiful weather. i did make him get out while i took the nieces and nephews to pops for a little getaway. it started out with me taking 3 of the nieces, but word quickly spread and soon my sister-in-law dana was taking her truck, too, to hold everyone!

speaking of dana....she taught colby how to make a fart noise in his armpit using a straw! it was so funny!!!!! he was quite impressed with this new talent. {i just hope he doesn't demonstrate at school!}

after the pops break, it was picture time! of course everyone was thrilled about this part of the day! {especially all the little boys!} this picture is of grandma's crew.

this next picture is of the 1st cousins and their spouses.....sort of. since daryl and i were in the picture, we handed our camera off to someone else to take the picture. they in turn handed the camera to grandma. when daryl saw this happen, he jokingly said, "don't give the camera to her! she'll just manage to take pictures of our feet!" later that evening when i was looking at all the pictures we'd taken so far, i found this!

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grandma's feet

the rest of the day was spent watching college football. first it was the OSU game and then it was the disappointing OU game. i must say i didn't watch much of either game because the volume was turned up SO STINKIN' LOUD! and it wasn't like they had to turn it up because people were talking. besides the noise from the tv, it was silent! wow. i must be getting old!

at one point i couldn't take the noise anymore so i went for a stroll outside. carla has beautiful flower beds, and since i like to take pictures of nature....well, you know. i took pictures of her flowers. my favorite flowers were these daisies!

right next to the daisies was a HUGE wasp/hornet/yellow-jacket {i don't really know} nest! for some reason i was fascinated by it. i took LOTS of pictures of it!

and right after dinner, spencer finally got to go on a motorcycle ride with his great-uncle jack. he'd been waiting all day....

then today we had lunch with my side of the family at jason's deli. i was trying to take a picture of my sister, but she wouldn't cooperate! i took one slightly unflattering picture of her, and she didn't trust me to NOT use it on my blog or any other place! so she stole my purse until i deleted the picture! can you believe she wouldn't trust ME?

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say cheese, marcy!

quote of the day: Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts. ~Author Unknown

shopping

tonight daryl asked me if i minded going to hobby lobby to shop for natalie's gift. duh???

i love going to hobby lobby anyway, but the thought of going alone..........bliss.

so i called geeg and she went shopping with me! we spent a long time in hobby lobby just roaming around and looking. when i walked into the store and looked to my right i saw the happiest sight...fall and christmas decorations all in the same aisle! the last 3 months of the year are my absolute favorite time of the year!!!

while we were in hobby lobby, some stupid bird left some runny poop on my windshield! what's really bad is that i ran out of windshield washer fluid!!!! so i am driving around with this green streak right down the middle of my field of vision! so annoying.

after we closed down hobby lobby, we went to the dollar jewelry store and roamed around there for a while. we didn't buy anything, but the rings and purses sure were cute!

then we had some hot chocolate at panera bread. we hadn't been there in a really long time.

when panera closed, we went to target and wasted a long time in there, too! i think we walked up and down the same aisle many times. we were just talking and strolling along, so we weren't really paying attention to where we were going!

we were in the middle of a somewhat serious conversation when i looked up and saw this these t-shirts. i laughed out loud when i saw the egg shirt. it was just so funny to me! {these shirts could easily be worn by my boys!} it cracked me up!

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cracked up

i don't think daryl was too happy with me for staying gone so long. boys just don't get it that girls can spend a lot of time just talking!

quote of the day: "Are you from the dark side?" ~one 3rd grader to another

weird wednesday

sickness and injuries were abundant in my class today! i think i sent more kids to the nurse today than i did ALL last year! 2 kids went home sick before 10 a.m. one kid was running across my room, tripped and whacked his hand on my desk. his knuckles immediately turned red and swelled up! his mom decided to take him to the doctor....just in case. and then as i was passing out graded papers i stabbed some poor kid in the eye with one of the papers! i felt so terrible!

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happy day

colby wrote this on my chalkboard in the kitchen! i think it's cute!

quote of the day: "Can I go to the nurse?"

felting

tonight i felted! it's a magical process of shrinking wool yarn. it didn't exactly turn out like i'd hoped, but i'm just excited that i did it!

before:

after:

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felted

quote of the day:“When the world says, 'Give up,' hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.' ”