"I Lost My Tooth!"

I got a phone call from Michael yesterday afternoon while I was driving my friend's daughter to the airport (it was 97 degrees!). Michael said, "Mom, I lost my tooth!" I said, "Wow, that's great! It finally came out." It was pretty exciting because this is the first tooth Michael has lost. It seems like everyone else in the world has lost teeth, but Michael's are firmly rooted in his mouth. So, I was excited he lost it. But then he says, "No, Mom. I lost my tooth. I was jumping on Ryan's trampoline and my tooth came out and I lost it in the grass somewhere." OH!

Michael is not the first child in our family to have lost his tooth. I think all of them have at least once. We're pretty sure Collin swallowed his first one because he lost it while drinking a glass of milk. And then he lost the next one in a castle in Spain.

So, I told Michael he needed to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy explaining what happened. He did a very nice job:

The Tooth Fairy was very understanding and gave him a whole dollar.

Very cool!

Spring or Summer?

I love when spring finally comes and color is back in my life. Seeing the rhododendron outside my laundry room window is practically the highlight of my year.

And just today I noticed the trees outside my bedroom window beginning to bloom. I love it!

But is it really spring? It's like we skipped from winter straight to summer. We had a record high on Saturday, something like 87 degrees. It's so hot today, there is a fire warning:

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... RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 2 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 8 PM EDT THIS EVENING...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON HAS ISSUED A RED FLAG WARNING... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 2 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 8 PM EDT THIS EVENING.
WINDS GUSTING TO 25 MPH... TEMPERATURES APPROACHING 90 DEGREES AND RELATIVE HUMIDITY READINGS OF 25 PERCENT WILL COMBINE TO PROVIDE THE INGREDIENTS FOR THE RAPID SPREAD OF BUSH FIRES... IF ONE WERE TO OCCUR.

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Wacky! The air conditioner has been running all day and the house is just barely starting to feel cool at 2:45pm. The sad thing though is that while it is 73 degrees in my room . . .

It is 79 degrees just down the hall in Collin's room.

I don't know what it is about that room, but it will not cool down. I think Collin is going to sleep in the basement tonight. It's practically freezing in there!

Spring will return tomorrow though. 66 degrees and rainy. Thank goodness!

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Mike and I have been married for 18 years now. Holy cow. 

And we haven't changed a bit. ;-)

We're going out for dinner and movie tonight. And a quick stop at Home Depot. That's a sure sign of a mature relationship. Gosh, I love him!

Matthew's Amazing Birthday

I am exhausted! Matthew's birthday has been such a whirlwind of activity. Maybe if I planned a little further in advance it wouldn't be so much, but then I wouldn't be me. :-) I started out Friday morning making brownies for Matthew's class at school. I completely forgot about bringing a treat. The brownies were totally underdone and I only discovered it right before I had to leave, so I ended up stopping by the store and buying some pre-made brownies. They were better anyways.

I then proceeded to rush around town buying Matthew's birthday presents and a few things for the party. When Matthew came home from school, he opened his presents.

(Matthew said the hat represented his awesomeness)

That night Matthew went on his first boy scout campout. He had so much fun! But didn't sleep too much of course. He then came home and went to his soccer game. And then we got ready for the party.

It was a lot of work preparing the clues and working out the details, but it was so much fun. As I was shopping and typing up everything, I was practically giddy. It was especially fun to find these "Amazing Dannas" to identify the teams:

Lauren was a HUGE help the day of the party. I never would have been ready without her. The group finally arrived and we were ready to begin.

(great camerawork)

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After running down the street to pick up a present, they came back to the deck to assemble their puzzles of the United States. It was harder than I thought it would be, which was good!

The next clue was a road block, a task only one team member can accomplish.

They had to dunk a sponge in a bucket at the top of the hill, run down the hill, and squeeze out the water into a bowl. It took about 8 runs up and down the hill to fill it up to the line. It was awesome!

The next task was a math problem at the deck. "How many pizzas?" It was a long word problem about boys and girls invited, who couldn't come, how many slices in a large pizza, 2 slices each, remember to include Matthew and his parents and his two brothers, and his sister . . . Once they got the answer and added 10 to it, they had to do that many jumping jacks.

The next stop was a detour - blow or throw. Mostly everyone chose blow: eat 5 saltines and then whistle the Happy Birthday song.

Next clue:

Tucker & Matthew came in 3rd this leg of the race.

We had pizza at the pit stop and opened presents. Eevry time Matthew opened a card that had money in it, Gerard would convert the dollar amount to how many $5 foot longs Matthew could buy. He was so funny. Here he is singing "2 $5 foot longs . . . " We were all laughing. What a comedian.

And the next leg begins! They had to run down the street again to pick up a present. This time it was play-doh. They had to choose a card and sculpt something for their teammate. Gerard had a hard time guessing.

Next clue:

That task was too easy and boring.



So funny!

Thank goodness Mike took pictures . . .

That's priceless!

Noah & Cadyn were the winners:

Matthew & Tucker were 2nd, Gerard & Morgan were 3rd, and Jerl & Simon were fourth. We finished the party with some oreo worms-in-the-dirt ice cream cake:

It was a great day!

Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Matthew is 11 today! So many things to love . . .

He is an awesome big brother

A fun and silly friend

A super athlete

An experienced outdoorsman

A wonderful son

Matthew is just an all-around great kid.

Happy Birthday!

Checks, Skins & Paint

Decisions, decisions! They are so hard to make. Won't you please help me?

First one is new checks. I don't write checks very often, so I only need to order new ones maybe every 5 years. I am VERY picky about the design. There are three I am choosing from:

#1 - I already ordered these checks, but they printed the name part wrong and I have to return them. Now I am thinking they are a little boring.

#2 - These are the checks I currently have, and I still really like them. Maybe I should just reorder?

#3 - These are the ones I am leaning toward. The checks are blue, pink, brown and green.

If I do decide on #3, I want to get this checkbook cover:

Isn't it fun?

The second decision is a new skin for my phone. The one I currently have is recycled from the phone I dropped in the washing machine. It isn't as sticky since I reapplied it to the new phone, and part of it has actually fallen off. Here are the choices:

A . . . . . . . . B . . . . . . . . C

A is my first choice...B is just silly...C is my current skin.

(the phones pictured are not my phone)

Third decision is paint for our bathroom. (do you know that I have typed the word decision 4 times now and i still can't get it right? i keep thinking it's desicion. dur! ) Our master bathroom is just about complete. I love it. For the shower, I chose to do one shelf on the right and two shelves on the left. No regrets!

The tile looks incredible. The paint we chose though looks terrible. Too pastel. What would you do? Maybe a dark beige? I'm thinking sage green towels would look nice. Maybe beige mats on the floor. (darker than the ones shown) Help!!!

The second paint chip from the left on the bottom row might be nice. It's called Pita Bread. :-) Or maybe something with a little more gold in it?

Ok, so my choices for everything are #3, A and goldish paint with darker beige mats and colored towels. What do you think??? Help!!!

Girls Rockin' Weekend 2009

This last weekend was my big trip to Dallas, Texas with the girls. My sister Jennifer lives there. My sister Marianne came from Utah, my sister-in-law Carrie came from Ohio, and I came from Connecticut. We call it Rockin' Girls Weekend because of a silly soundtrack by the same name that I made for the first time we did this last year. Carrie did the CD this time. I love it! Here is the first song:

Our tradition has always been for the girls to go
to Benihana for lunch.

So yummy!

Jennifer and I went back through the years to figure out when this tradition began. We think it must have been around 1984, which is 25 years ago. Holy cow. Here is a funny picture from a girls trip to Benihana in 1989 to celebrate my graduation from high school. Scary glasses! Or maybe it was Jennifer's graduation from junior high since it looks like she was wearing a dress with poofy sleeves. We were with my friend Jaimie Green, which is a whole story in itself . . .

Back to the weekend, we also went to see 17 Again with Zac Effron. Who knew he's such a hottie? I haven't seen any of the High School Musical movies, so I didn't know. He was really good in this movie. But it was Ned who stole show. He was hilarious!

Now, here is another one of my favorite songs from the Rockin' Weekend soundtrack:

That's how I should have felt all day Sunday - "Shut up and let me go!" I missed my flight home Sunday morning, and could not get home! They put me on standby for the 12:55pm flight which was overbooked. They pretty much said that there was no chance I would get on. Jennifer brought me back to her house to hang out for a bit before Carrie had to go to the airport. We went together, and I did not get on - "Shut up and let me go!" They then put me on standby for the 7pm flight. Carrie volunteered to give up her seat for a $300 voucher, and fly direct at 4pm. Lucky! Since both of us had some time, Jennifer came back for us and took us to the mall to walk around. What a funny day. Carrie took off at 4:00, and I tried the 7:00 flight. No luck. "Shut up and let me go!" They sent me away . . . my next standby flight would be Monday morning at 8:15. "Shut up and let me go!" (lol) Well, I finally got on that one. Thank goodness.

It was nice to be greeted by my forsythia in full bloom:

And pretty little daffodils:

Ok now, my husband is really wonderful to let me go away for the weekend. He did a lot to cover all of the bases while I was gone. He really is a great guy, but . . . could he have dressed Michael a little warmer on this 40 degree stormy day???

He was SO cold that he got INSIDE of his blanket! Silly boy.

And then there was the kitchen. What a disaster! I couldn't take a picture of the whole thing because it was so awful, I just got started on the dishes right away.

A few hours later, the kitchen was restored!

Life is beautiful! I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend, standby flights and all, and my kitchen is clean. ;-)