If procrastination were a crime...

I'd likely have multiple life sentences.  However, if it were an Olympic sport, they'd let me compete until I died of old age.  If I could manage to show up, that is.

Ai yai yai...

I have no real excuse.  My hands haven't been too horribly bad, but I do have days here and there when things flare up (because I actually DID something! Cha!  Like clean the rugs!)  I haven't biked in forever, my neck seems to be rather angry with me and my one leg keeps tingling and I have power surges in my foot.  Who does that?  Me, I guess.  I will be seeing the neurosurgeon again soon, my latest MRI shows some very unhappy discs in my neck that are, shall I say, redirecting their anger on some nerves which are in turn being very cranky.  Tsk, tsk.

But now summer vacation is setting in and I just know that before I blink twice it will be gone.  Last summer Granny died.  The summer before that was Boom-pa.   This summer we are driving up to WV but there will be no stop at that house in Huntington, which makes me sad, although I think it will hit harder when we just drive by those exits without veering off...

However, we are looking forward to some fun times with family and new friends as well as old... stopping by places I have never even been, looking at my childhood home through new eyes.

Speaking of new things, Owen just finished up his first session/semester/whatever of dance and performed in his first recital!  I suck and did not take pics that evening (eh, the neck didn't want me carrying 50 lbs of stuff) but here he is the morning after, he was soooo stoked that he actually DID it (although he will never admit that!) and the post-show adrenaline was still running.  He did awesome <3 p="">

And of course some fun photo play, my main man Zach guarding our little bitty Key Limes from that ferocious Katydid.

Good-bye, elementary school

Can't believe Zach has graduated 6th grade.  I only hope I haven't screwed him up too much along the way. He sure is handsome, though!

Meet one of the graduating class of 2013, Ocean Breeze Elementary 6th grade, Zachary Hall!

Owen completed Kindergarten, but due to his age and his emotional maturity, we decided to send him to Tk-1 rather than first grade.  I get to keep my baby around another year, and he gets to spend time honing his charm (beware!).  Little fart got a 10 for his instructional reading level, I think for the end of Kg they want them at a 4--no worries there!  It's tough having a smarty pants who thinks he gets all the perks of being the baby in the family ;)  But at least he and Zach got to have one year of school together, it was never going to happen again, no matter what grade he enters next year.  I'm glad they got the chance, no matter how fraught with dissent it may have been, they will look back on it fondly some day.  Some day.  Maybe.  Crossing my fingers.

My little Munchkin

I'm very tired, so I'm just going to post a few cute pics I took of Owen the other day.  BE WARNED!!!  A FLASH was used.  He's not very patient and doesn't allow his slow moving mama to make camera adjustments.  By the time I've moved ONE dial, he's off building half a Lego mall or something.


But srsly, isn't he just too cute?
In fact, he's so cute I almost forgot this cute thing he said the other day.  He says a million kazillion cute things, I admit I let them blur in my head from time to time.  But from now on, in our home, this song says 'Come alooooonnnng with meeee, I will eeeeeat your braaaaiiin...."

go ahead, find it :)


And then check out the cutie who heard the REAL lyrics.

Ok, I give. Uncle.  Whatever.  The link is below, my attempts at making cute arrows pointing to it have been proven futile.  Or skip it and just look at my sweet munchkin.

Come Along  

It's been one week...

...since you looked at me... Yes, I know it's been more than one week but now you hopefully have a fun little #earworm.

I have been legitimately busy!  I swear!  I was emailed by Zach's teacher about a potential opportunity for him/other students.  The county fair is apparently having a youth cooking competition and maybe some of them would be interested?  It wouldn't be a school event, just an extra and I would be in charge of deciding whether or not to go forward.  Of COURSE Zach wanted to do it, anything to cram more stuff into MY life. One of the girls from last year's solar cooking competition (OMG that was crazy) was also mentioned as being interested and she agreed that she'd love to do it.  The catch?  I had about 1 1/2 weeks to prepare because the fair event is on Sunday the 24th.  Eeek.

So I'm still scrambling.  Zach hasn't done a lot of cooking lately and he tends to be a bit scattered, and S, his friend, hasn't done much cooking other than noodles (her words).  I've had 2 cooking days in the past week where I walk them through a meat and veg. with lots of garlic mincing along the way and it's been a big exhausting mess.  The catch to the competition, as I've been told, is that the kids in groups of 2 will have a box of a surprise beef and veg ingredients. They will then have to prepare an entree but will be able to bring 'spices' from home.  It's all up in the air, however, because I can't get the lady to call me back and I don't know if the two are actually registered or not, or if I need a waiver/liability form for S's parents to sign, what 'spices' actually means, etc.  So maybe we'll be cooking and maybe we won't.  Or they, not we.  Whatever.  At least I got dinner cooked for me last night and we made my first ever homemade chimichurri sauce.  Yummy!  No pics, though.  Too many dishes to wash for me to have the energy for the camera.

I did take pics of Zach over the weekend, though.  A few glasses of wine seems to help numb the burning in my hands and arms (woohoo!) so on Sat I indulged and set up my flash remotely so go off at an angle in the garage, hung some black muslin and made Zach grab his newest cloak.  I like what we ended up with.  The problem I had was that in backing up out of the garage to get a wider shot, I'd end up in the sun which was somehow affecting my ability to focus or skewed my light sensing or something, I'm not sure what.  So most of the shots had me too close to really get it all, but hey, it was an experiment and it was fun and that's what counts, right?

And how can I leave without posting one of my smaller spawn? ♥  He can't NOT make a face when I try to take a photo of him.  So rotten.  So lovable.

See Spot Run.

School sure has changed a lot since I was a wee one.

Yesterday I was asked by Owen's teacher to help her with a project...the kids have 40 sight words that they need to have memorized by the end of the year and thanks to Pinterest, she found something that she thinks will be helpful in making it more fun, which for a kid (well, for anyone really) equals 'more likely to be accomplished'.  Each child held up a large printed word which I took photos of, then she will turn the digital files into a PowerPoint presentation. Seeing their classmates faces with the words is certainly more entertaining than the typical flash card system, no?

Here is my hooligan with two of the words.  He's such a little stinker.  But his teacher is pretty awesome.  I really should have found a less distracting background space, but I was focused on making sure I had a good bounce/light source and with me, one thought tends to take over, sneering back over its shoulder at all the other valid ideas pounding and screaming on the soundproof glass of my mind. And since my hands are all effed up, I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. /end excuses. C'est la vie.

What a lovely day.

I heard someone refer to another person or conversation or SOMEthing as 'lovely' and it dawned on me, I don't hear or use that word often at all.  In fact, my writing and speaking vocabulary is pretty limited.  Maybe I should start a word-a-day.  I bet that would go over about as well as my photo-a-day.

But yesterday WAS lovely.  I got in some biking with Kevin, then biked again to Publix for the second time this week, and after school the boys and I made the small trek (via car!) to the farmer's market.  I like to buy eggs from the Funky Chicken Farm and browse and drool at all the other yummy things there.  I'd spend a fortune on the goat milk soaps and serrano/prosciutto and garlic sauce and fresh squeezed orange juice and on and on.  I did loosen up a little and get myself the boys some kettle corn, freshly made and smelling oooohh sooo delicious, as well as some fresh brussels sprouts to roast in a day or so, and some radishes.  We don't often eat radishes, but they were just so PRETTY.

I took my camera along and was sort of hemming and hawing mentally about using it, I'm just not that assertive person who likes to get in your space with a lens.  I need to work on that.  But the gentleman at the Fratello Sole stand spoke up and volunteered to be a model for me :)

I will vouch for the drooliciousness of his products, that serrano ham/prosciutto is uber tasty and Zach had several sandwiches in his lunch made with the asiago cheese we bought there a few weeks back.  Lucky boy.

We stowed our eggs and veggies in the car and then ran off to the small field on the other side, where I told the boys to run around and let me get some fun pics of them.  I've been feeling so achy and cranky lately, I figured we all needed some sunshine filled merriment.  And then I decided I REALLY need to get photos of myself with them, I have so few because I'm always taking the pictures and of course I'm never ready/look good enough/yada yada...thus I handed over my camera to each Zach and Owen, letting them take turns with it and I love what we ended up with.  My favoritest pictures ever ♥

Owen's turn

I have had two posts back to back about Zach, essentially, so to try and be a little bit fair I need to post about Owen.  They'll probably never read this and never care, but one thing I have learned in my life is to be prepared because the last thing you expect is the thing that will be your downfall.

I love you, Owen ♥ you are my awesome little Ozone.  Although after last night's bath and all the soap you dissolved in the water your nickname is now Soapzone.  I love that you squeeze my neck in the mornings when I wake you up and you threaten to never let me go.  You are an amazing reader and artist and thinker and dancer and singer and I can't wait to see what else you will be as you continue to grow.

For the readers, Owen has recently given up on our karate plans and taken his freedom to choose and landed in dance class.  I think this will be a perfect fit, but as always, only time will tell.

And in case you are Kevin #2 reading this, I reiterate, I did NOT pose this photo.  If I had, he wouldn't be sitting square in the middle, I'd probably try for a creative seating and fail miserably.  He actually did sit still on his own, playing his LeapPad.  This kid loves puzzles of all sorts.  I should video him playing with the Perplexus.

Monsters need love, too.

Happy Valentine's Day!  I don't have great pics of this but I am going to post anyway and even *gasp* attempt to pin it to pinterest.  We'll see how that goes.  This old dog is finding it harder and harder to learn new tricks.  Or maybe it's just b/c I put them off until I ...oh wait, I need to get that laundry out of the washer before it starts to smell!...

Where was I?  Ahh yes.  VD.  My dear child Owen had to bring a 'mailbox' to school today to collect valentines.  This is his first year of getting the chance to go all out but I have been feeling rather craptastic and I didn't get my usual burst of 'oohh let's get ready for cute Valentine crafty stuff' energy, no photos, no supplies, nada.  Briefly discussed an idea with him and ran to Target, coming back with ONE item to work with, and only b/c I thought they were cute.  Had no idea what to do with them, though.  Paper straws.

Owen tends to think outside the box, so rather than go all 'pink hearts! glitter! red flowers! Valentines!' he decided to make a monster whose mouth would be the opening for valentines to fit into.  Dh said we had plenty of boxes in the garage, but of course come crunch time, there really weren't any.  I spied a box up on top of the freezer that (upon inspection) had been there for over two years (wtf? it was the box that held the bonsai I'd bought my uncle one year for Christmas) and it was a little large but it would work.  I drew a rough set of eyes and a mouth, got the ok from Owen and sawed a u-shape for the mouth.  Then I sawed a door opening in the back for retrieval of items (those old steak knives come in handy).  Then I covered it all up (old dusty box, remember, with packing and shipping info on it) with brown packing paper (hey, it was the only solid/plain type paper I had) and then re-cut the previously sawed places.  FYI, Elmer's glue is better for gluing that paper down, we went through a whole glue stick and THEN some.

In the bottom of my kid-crafts drawer I found some pipe cleaners all bent out of shape, some foam sheets from a bday party (when Zach turned 3 I believe), left over sparklies and glue from our Christmas ornament craft (and I must say that Beacon's Ornament glue is the bomb diggity of glues) and some mini craft sticks.  I asked dh if we had an old drawer pull somewhere, surely we must, we are certifiable pack rats so he went looking.  Owen and I twisted the pipe cleaners around our fingers for curly hair.  A tiny slit on each side of the box to fit a mini craft stick, and two on top, with glue to help hold them in place.  We carefully doused the ends of the curlicues with glue and lined them up on the top of the box (Owen was very particular about the color pattern). It had to sit and dry for a bit so the pipe cleaner hair wouldn't fall off, and during that time Owen glued some blue buttons onto white foam circles for eyes (three of them!) and decided a bit of sparkle in the center of each would be even better.  He sneaked and glued the eyes in place when I wasn't looking, causing one of the curls to fall off.  Oops!  Stay away from the table, Owen!

Anyway, once it was all dried enough to maneuver a little, I got to use my PAPER STRAWS which we globbed with glue and slid over the mini craft sticks.  I got my vday hearts in, though, check out those hands. Two more for antennae on top,complete with scrounged up pom pom balls.  Dh found a wooden drawer pull, Owen turned it red with the help of a Sharpie (thank goodness I let him go shirtless for that one).  We punched a hold in the mouth flap and screwed it in.  Still missing something...jagged teeth!  More white foam cut outs, more glue...voila.

(See?  He really did need those teeth)

But the finishing touch was ALL Owen.

"Mom, you need to write 'Feed me valentines' down here!"

Oh, yeah, that actually is exactly what it needs!  But you write it.

So he did.

I think it's the best Valentine's Day mailbox EVER.

....and now that I have the mouthy monster back in hand, I took a few 'real' photos, as much as you can call them real.  I REALLY need to learn to tilt the camera the other way, while I'm at it.  Everybody lean to the right...

Looks like he got a little scribble love while at school.  I heard he was a huge hit!

I inserted the little craft sticks into slits cut into the side, then generously applied glue to the inside of the paper straw when I was ready to slide it on. Once it was all dry, I use another tiny craft stick and glued it to the back of the heart/hand, and then glued the other end to the inside of the straw.  Viola!  Well, I don't think he could play the viola with only two rather chubby digits like that...

Curly hair!  Crazy easy.  

Back view of antennae and hair.  Same technique to get the straws on top of the head.  Sorry, photo is oof, somebody was antsy to go digging inside for mad vday loot.

Oops!  Who's that sneaking into my frame?

Oh yeah...the opening in the back?  The one to more easily reach in and retrieve valentines?  Well, apparently when you do that, you are making the monster poop.  Best part of the whole creation.