It's hot here. "It's Africa hot; I don't think I'm gonna be able to stay here if it's this hot." (10 points to the person who knows where this quote is from) And I don't want to hear 'but it's a dry heat' either. IT'S HOT!!!!!!!!!!!

BUT last week I was happy to battle the temps and headed to Angels stadium...
found the Halo-cane stand (Hurricane to you regular folks) and proceeded to burn my butt and legs on the 500* seats.
Celebrating Hunter's home-run in the 1st!

WORD!
they think they are so tough!


What's a game without NACHOS.......

Icing on the cake, we won!

As our summer comes to a close we'll finish up shopping for school supplies, get the girls haircuts, get the kids eye checks.....ya know, all the usual stuff. All glamour, all the time.

However, we'll spend a bit more time at the beach just to close out the summer in CA style. Splashing in the white water.....
learning to surf
and wrestling the seaweed.

There is no doubt that raising children is challenging (especially when you have a million; wait, sometimes it feels like a million, it's really only four!). It's like a constant rollercoaster of emotions and I don't get to get off. Unlike my niece when she was 3 on the kid's coaster.....the operator stops it after one time to see if anyone wanted off.........she promptly replied 'just one time b/c I'm just a little girl.' I know that sometimes I wish I could get off this coaster.

BUT, in the meantime, there is much to learn from my children. Sean shows me daily what it means to be brave as he goes up against kids 25 pounds heavier in football; and he pummels them. Just this morning, Amanda taught me a lesson.....in how to be calm and patient. Two things I'm STILL learning. She gets nose bleeds every once in a while mostly associated with dry weather, but sometimes out of the blue. I think her last one was while we were on the ski-lift in the mountains; that was a panic point for me yet she remained calm taking it all in stride. This morning, she got a doozy of a nosebleed........it was bad.....changing the tissue every 15 seconds/all over her cheeks & little hands/dripping on her clothes. I was starting to get mildly freaked out b/c it wasn't stopping after a few minutes and it was flowing!! How did she react? She just sat there asking for help with switching tissues quickly while I held ice on her face. I was trying to wipe her face and saying 'I'm sorry if it's all over; we'll get you cleaned up when it stops. I know it's uncomfortable.' She just chimes in with "it's OK, I'm used to it remember." Wow, she's so amazing. Every child is different and I can promise you Maggie wouldn't have this reaction, lol!

Little Miss Amanda ---my independent, smart, funny, stubborn, beautiful, petite, tom-girl. I love that kid!

The age old question -- what's for dinner? It's a thorn in my side really. I try to serve a variety of things and on nights when I'm attempting to serve something new I always include a side dish I know the kids like so they will at least eat something. I actually would enjoy cooking if I didn't have to listen to the 'blah,blah,blah - whine/whine/whine' about what I'm making. I've tried letting each child pick a night and create the meal; most times he/she doesn't even eat what he/she had even suggested!

So, I've given up. I plan out a monthly meal calendar based on our insane schedule from football to theatre to meetings, etc. I might ask for suggestions or I might not. BUT 1) to have a plan makes my day a lot easier and 2) to have a plan prevents us from eating fast-food 500 times a week. It has nothing to do with whether or not the kids will eat. It's my job to provide you with healthy food; it's your job to eat it!

Now, often times this is what dinner looks like.......

in case you can't read the post-it, it says:
pork chops (oven)
stuffing (stove)
green breans (micro)
applesauce (fridge)
And that answers the question ---'How do you do it?' It's not pretty but it works. I am in love with my delay start on my oven. It's like magic. Porkchops were ready within minutes of arriving home from practice; stuffing was made and just needed to be re-heated; green beans warmed up; pour out applesauce. Ding, ding --- DINNER!

(I love my crock-pot too, but the delay start ROCKS!)

Soon after I posted about the start of football, my world came to a crashing halt. Well, my cyber world that is. My DSL modem got fried in a short power outage last week so I have been without service for a bit. I did pop in to the library to look for urgent emails and trash junk mail, but overall I wasn't online. No blog to post on or others to read. No Facebook. Nothing. But I did organize pictures so it wasn't too bad, I survived.

I thought I would post some ridiculous photos from the Music Man. I'm one of the main Pick-a-Little ladies so I get to do the hilarious 'grecian urn' stuff (if you know the show)...........these should make you laugh.



What a great group of ladies and an amazing show!

FOOTBALL

IS HERE!

So, it's August....where has the summer gone? The kids got out of school in late June. Right away, we had camping and dance recitals and the 4th in Ohio and VBS and more camping and NOW we have football. five. days. a. week. ALL football, ALL the time. (it's all good b/c I love football) Well, and then there's Music Man shows with Seussical rehearsals thrown in for good measure. Now you know where I've been. Therefore I am declaring that our August days will be more relaxing with minimal commitments and a little bit of school work tossed in. We need to be lazy because before I know it we'll be back on a school schedule with no time to be lazy.