Playing Basketball With Boys

We're back from our vacation in paradise, also known as San Diego. We had a blast and ate way too much good food. We thumbed our noses at the weather: our flight to SD beat out the huge snowstorm that hit Seattle by a mere hour, and on the way back, we changed flights and ended up being on one of the last flights out of SD for a day due to fog.

Sparky and I have spent the last couple of days recovering from exhaustion. We always play hard when we go down there, but this time we outdid ourselves and got up to play basketball at 5:30 in the morning four times. Not just one time. Four times. That was how we chose to spend our vacation. I guess you could say we aren't very smart people.

It was a lot of fun, though. We played with Sparky's dad, brother-in-law, brother, sister-in-law, and cousin, along with close friends. Thanks to Lady Chinchilla X for going easy on me out there. That girl can run circles around me. No thanks to the three guys that totally mauled me one of the few times I attempted to drive to the basket. You know who you are! I ended up with a lightly sprained ankle and some very colorful bruises. I meant to take a picture since they were were way more blog worthy than my last one, but I waited too long and now they're fading and not as impressive. Thank my procrastination skills; you've been spared.

Anyway, I guess that's what I get for playing basketball with boys. It's a lot different than what I was taught in my youth. When I was about 15, my friend and I were in the gym at the church shooting baskets with a bunch of guys from our ward. I'm pretty sure we were ditching making some craft with our young women's group, because we always tried to ditch the crafts. Our leader came in and found us and scolded us. "Don't you know what happens when you play basketball with boys?" Me being the smart alec 15 year old that I was, said, "No, what happens?" She paused for a few seconds and then blurted out, "You get pregnant!" There it is folks. Forget everything they taught you in 8th grade sex ed. My friends and I got a lot of laughs out of that one, let me tell you.

Thing 3 is Thankful

Bah! I meant to post this on Thanksgiving, and I forgot. Thing 3 brought home a paper from his nursery class at church two weeks ago, with the classic painted hand print turned into a turkey. On the side, they had asked him what he was thankful for and wrote down his answers. I think it's a pretty good list for a three year old:

My family
My body
All three blankies
My grandma and grandpa
Jesus
My friends
Grant
All the colors

I love that he's thankful for his friends... and Grant. It makes it sound like Grant isn't his friend, but really what's going on is his relationship with Grant is beyond friendship. Grant is five, and Thing 3 thinks that everything Grant says or does is genius. He worships Grant.

I also love "all three blankies" and "all the colors." I know my son, and those are two things that he really is thankful for.

"When all words fail, she speaks, Her mix tapes are masterpiece" - Ben Folds

I love making mix tapes/CDs/playlists. I've made one for almost every major trip I've taken since college. They're all have names like "Reno 1998" or "San Onofre 2000." I even have a Shingletown 2002. You get bonus points if you know where Shingletown is. I have others that are named after an occasion, like "Viking Fest." Some just have stupid names like "Songs I Really Like" or "Fun Songs."

It all started in 10th grade. My best friend and I made our first mix tape - we called it "Hector and Lee's Hot Picks." ( I was the only one who called her Hector, and it would take way too long to explain why I did.) I found the tape case two days ago when I was going through my music. I thought I would post the playlist here for laughs.

Hector and Lee's Hot Picks:

The Glory of Love - Peter Cetera
In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
Forever Young - Alphaville
Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees
Don't Stop Believin' - Journey
Faithfully - Journey
Just Like Heaven - The Cure
What Have I Done to Deserve this? - Pet Shop Boys
Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You) - Pet Shop Boys
Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Free Fallin' - Tom Petty
Who'll Stop The Rain - CCR
Who Can It Be Now - Men At Work
I Can See It In Your Eyes - Men At Work
Down Under - Men At Work
Never My Love - The Association
Cherish - The Association
Stay - ? I don't even know what song this is.
On Bended Knee - Boyz II Men


Apparently this was made when we were going through a classic rock phase, after my pure 80's days but before I started wearing flannel shirts and cut off jeans to school everyday, listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" about a hundred times with my friends, trying to decifer the words but still proclaiming Kurt Cobain to be a genius. I look at this list and cringe. Boyz II Men? And what was I thinking putting songs by the same group next to each other on the playlist? Rookie mistake. And I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw The Association on there.

So anyway, this week I've made four mix CD's to give out as presents. Three of them are mixes of Christmas music for some awesome ladies that I work with at church, and one is for my brother's birthday, just some music that I think he'll like. (My family rarely reads my blog, so no worries about anyone blowing the surprise!) Now we get to the reason for this post. Are these lame gifts? I'm afraid it's too high school. I love getting mixes from people - it's personal, they took time to do it, and sometimes it introduces me to something new. It's how I got hooked on Ben Folds, this generation's piano man. But maybe someone else will think it's dumb. I'm not trying to be cheap - usually I'll just build up a bunch of songs that I think a certain person would like, and when I get enough, I make a CD and give it to them. So, what are your thoughts? Give me some feedback.

Halloween Piano Recital 2008

I got tired of seeing the post about my kid mooning people, so I had to post something else.

This is the second year that I have done a Halloween recital, and I love doing it. It gives the kids an extra chance to wear their Halloween costumes! We do the recital at an assisted living home in the area, and the residents love seeing the kids dressed up and hearing them perform. I even found some spooky Halloween songs for most of them to play.

Here we are, all the kids minus one, plus me and two stowaways:




And of course, we have to have the silly picture. This is how we look at the end of a lesson:





I am really having a lot of fun teaching this year - probably my favorite out of all the years I've taught so far. The kids are great and most of them are doing a good job of practicing, which makes lessons so much more fun. This year I'm teaching not one but two of my own kids - Thing 2 started lessons. You would think that teaching my own kids would be horrendous, but we actually have a good time. Plus, that's two students out of my twelve that I don't have to wonder about how their practicing is going - I'm all for less mystery!

Blue Moon

Um... what do you do when you see your three year old mooning his brothers with glee? I'm pretty sure the proper response is not to laugh, but I just couldn't keep it in. Both big brothers were completely offended. Where the heck did he get the idea to do this? And, more importantly, is this a one time thing, or am I going to get a phone call from the preschool telling me to come pick up my wayward child?

Belated Thing 2 birthday pics, AKA how in the world did I pull this thing off?

A few weeks ago we had Thing 2's birthday party. The guest list kept getting longer and longer as we got closer to the party, but I thought, no big deal. Not everyone will come. Oh, Fireball. So naive. Everyone came but one. We had 16 kids at our house. My friends all told me I was insane, and in the back of my mind I agreed with them. Here is a picture of the whole crew: a pilot, a wizard, Cleopatra, a ghost who didn't want to wear his costume, a cat, a pioneer, a police officer with his arm around a ninja, Boba Fett and Jango Fett, a robot, a 10 year old friend to torment the little kids, a skeleton who didn't want to wear his mask because it was too scratchy, two more ninjas, and Indiana Jones (or as Thing 3 says, India Jones).

We decorated ghost cookies and bat cookies.

There were so many kids that everyone had to stand around the table so all the kids could fit!

Here we are at the start of the treasure hunt. I have a funny look on my face because I'm pretending I lost the party bags. "Help me kids! Here is my only clue to where I put them." After looking in the flower beds, the play house, the basketball court, the truck, the mailbox, and Sparky's shoe, the kids discover that I had them with me in the house all along. Silly mom!






All in all, it wasn't too bad. The kids were good, and I didn't crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head when they left.

Happy Sparky Day

Today is Sparky day. He turned... well, I don't know if he wants me to say. I think he sometimes reads my blog, but who knows. I've mentioned before that he thinks he's old, but I discovered this week that he doesn't like me saying that he's old. Whatever.

Despite his quirkiness, or maybe because of it, I love him. This weekend I got to see him in his element at Thing 1's end of the season soccer party, where as the coach he got to hand out medals and talk about each kid individually - what they did to contribute to the team this year and things he liked about them personally. He loves coaching, and he loves the kids he coaches. We talked in the car about how we didn't realize what we were getting into when he started coaching that first team 5 or 6 years ago, but how we wouldn't change anything. I don't like being apart from him, but I love that he enjoys volunteering in the community. I love that he is a good dad to our boys. I love that he makes me laugh and he still lets me beat him at Dr. Mario. I love that he is fantastically brilliant, but spells like a third grader. And I love that out of all the presents I got him this year, his favorite is the college basketball preview magazine that I got for 5 bucks. I told him it's like babies ignoring their presents and playing with the wrapping paper.

Anyway, happy birthday, Sparky!