Happy Happy Belated Blog Birthday Post you old man!!!

So during all our evacuation hoopla my darling husband turned 40!!! We have harrassed him mercilessly of course, it's practically our jobs. It was a very happy birthday in spite of the circumstances. We did all his favorite things. First we went to the chinese restaurant he loves, China Bear (which I think is supposed to be Panda Bear?...) where he got to eat his favorite chicken curry. You have to forgive the picture, I was a mad happy snapping pictures fool and I think I surprised him and caught him midsentence for this picture. If only I knew how to use photoshop.



















This kiddos cheeks were dyed red after the sauce for the sweet and sour chicken. We clearly took a night off the no artificial ingredients idea. They are all hunched over the little baby octopus in the center of the table they got off my plate. Here is a better picture of it down below. What was going to be my dinner became Biology 101 at the table, complete with full dissection. However, Black Bean paste is much easier on the nose than formaldehyde.























Then we went to 3 nerdtacuilar comic book shops to look for something Cthulhu. Brian is a big SciFi/Lovecraft fan and Cthulhu is one of the main characters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu) So this below is Brians version of cthulhu, followed by my version of hello cthulhu. We did have a good time, although the kids I were bored after about an hour, but we soldiered on for another three. I promise, its like taking the man into a book store, Im going to start being like those moms of teenagers who drop off their charges and then come back 7 hours later for them!





























Sooo what follows could be pretty high on the sappy factor, so avert your eyes if you aren't that type..

To my husband on his birthday (or seven days after....:)

I was thinking of you the other day while I looked at my sock drawer (Im a shameless romantic, right?). I have all these standard hanes socks in my drawer and then I have this crazy, phsychedelic, rainbow toe sock that is really, really comfortable. Like you and I were before we had each other, a little unconventional and hard to match, you just couldn't just throw it together with a standard sock without it looking silly. But see, now we are a pair.... a pair of crazy, slightly unconventional people. I know for sure that I just wouldn't have ever matched up with anyone the way I match up with you. You are the most awesomest husband/father/all around guy ever.

I think people look at us now, and it probably seems like we have always been this way. But I know differently, I remember where I was when we met. I know that you were my knight on a white horse (or that totally chivalrous guy who owned a white cat? same thing right?). I know that you as good as rescued me from where I was headed and that you loved me when I had nothing but me to offer to you. Which is nice, because I know that you love me for me, not for any other reason. And hey, guess what? I love you for you too.

We definately have a much different life than we expected (haha), but Im really glad to be sharing it with you. Watching you as a father has been really amazing. Where did that kurmudgeony bachelor go? Okay, so he makes some appareances now and again, but you are SUCH a big softie with me and the kids. You are an amazing father. The kids tell me that you are a superhero, because you go to fight bad guys, and I have to agree with them. Sometimes your job is difficult, but I am so happy that you are doing what you want to be doing, and I guess we get to be superheroes too (or maybe we are superhero support staff?), we get to support you so you can go and do that superhero thing.

I love you Old man,

Your Child Bride.....LOL

Update: Hurricane Ike

So we evactuated as planned with friends of ours to Grapeland, TX about 120 miles inland. It was sooo much fun, we had a good time, played dominoes took in the local color of which there was plenty. I mean I haven't seen playground equipment like that since I was a kid. Don't you love the smell of sizzling flesh on a metal slide in the afternoon??? And those domes you climb on, you just can't find those anymore. All we were missing was my alltime favorite piece, the merry go round of terror. Man, I loved those as a kid.

I love small towns. There is part of me that would love to live in one, and then there is the part of me that doesn't want to live without lots of stores in my town. John found a bestest friend in the son of our friends, and we all got introduced to country life.

By the time the storm hit there, it was only a tropical storm instead of a hurricane. We found out my parents had power (which was amazing, most of the city was without electricity, I think tis because they live near a hospital) So we moved in there.

Overall, we are okay, we had minor shingle damage and thats it. Blogs may be a little sketchy for another week, we will be dogsitting and trying to put everything back together.... Hope everyone faired as well.

Well, we are evacuating..... wish us luck and we will update as soon as we can.

Veternarian's Hospital Tuesday/Pony dress

"And now, the continuing stoooory of a quack who's gone to the dogs,"



















It was a pretty slow and lazy day. We have been worried about hurricane Ike, and I am pretty sure that and our nice lazy day have taken all the witty out of me. We did all our normal school work, and we went to american heritage girls, but then we had a fun bonus. Today was our "veternarian/animal center" day. When I came up with that title, all I could think of was that Muppets skit. All of the kids have decided that they want to abandon the unit we should be on according to the curriculum and they want to study animals. Emma says she wants to be a vet. So of course now they all want to!






















So here we are with the hamster, after feeding and caring for it, cleaning her cage, now its time to play. The kids fed her about five almonds! She stuffs them all in her pouch, by the time she was done playing with us, her pouch was humongous. Then we broke out the catnip for BeBe. THAT was funny, the kids haven't ever seen her being so silly.
























Chloe's impersonation of a hamster.......



























And here is the 2nd dress I have completed! I am kinda psyched that I am able to get them out so quickly. Emma and Chloe both LOVE ponies, so they have been swirling around me all day trying to get me to finish them. This one that I did for Emma I found a dress like this one on a little girl when we were at the Museum of Fine artand I thought it would look awesome on her. The apron dress just didn't quite fit right... So I whipped up this pattern when we got home. I think it looks really nice on her. I should finish Chloe's dress this evening.




























Announcer: tune in next week when you'll hear Zoot say...
Zoot: nothing. i ain't saying nothing.

First Apron Dress done

Yay!!!! I finished my first sewing project for fall!!!! Im so excited. I made af ew changes but here is how it came out. chloe picked train fabric because its John's favorite thing!

Weeked Recap: Museum of Fine art

We took all three kiddos to the Museum of fine art this weekend. They were having a special family day event, so they advertised how child friendly they were. Frankly, I felt sorry for the poor docents, several of them looked like they might have been on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Someone turned a bunch of kids loose in a museum filled with priceless works of art that aren't really hung all that high up on the wall.... really not very high at all. We sat all the kids down and explained why we can't touch the art work. Which of COURSE made it impossible for them to just walk around and not touch anything! Overall it was a good time. I was starting to feel as shaky as the poor docents at the end.
























The Museum had the Zoomobile out so the kids got to pet some african animals. Those are my kids petting a hissing madagascar cockroach... this is something I can honestly say they must get from their father, because I just don't have it in me to pet a cockroach.

Thank goodness we hit the funstuff from the zoo first before it got crowded.























Oh and the python, and Grandma if you are reading this, the kids insisted I put this picture in here...






























Then we went inside the actual museum, and clearly the kids were a little, um, bored. Maybe if I want them to sleep easily at night I should hang art in their room.

It was kinda funny to see the museum from the kids point of view though. When we went passed a famous Monet painting Chloe says "look Mom, its Inspector Clousseau from the pink panther"... sigh, I tried.

























Emma staked out some bamboo in the scupture garden and started pretending to be a panda.

Okay NOW its really Friday

Actually its fifteen minutes to Saturday...... so I am in just under the wire. I have been a bit distracted lately, I have just gotten very involved in sewing. I really do love it, and I have had the time lately. Here is my current project I got from

.... I got the inspiration from one of the tutuorials found here http://bridgetbaxter.blogspot.com/

Here is where I am at in the process...


























My next attempt will be this one, I think this is the MOST adorable little cupcake shaped purse EVAH....






















Beyond all that we had our daddy home early today which was awesome, it just doesn't happen often enough. I was telling him about a new site I found. Well, its an old site, just new to me http://www.etsy.com/ where youc an go and buy one of a kind items people have made, and they have this whole category for "geekage". Of course I loved everything in it, Im SUCH a nerd. So I asked Brian if he had always known I was a nerd, and he said he sensed it when we met, "the force was strong in that one". See, bad star wars jokes.... way geeky fun.

I nearly had a no coffee breakdown. I really wanted it, even though I shouldn't, I have allergies, it makes me crazy itchy and irritable. Brian was coming home off a travel leg and really needed the caffiene so I told him to brew some, it wouldn't bother me. WRONG! It WAY bothered me, the smell was .... delicious.....intoxicating.... Chloe took up for me (you can read that as she agreed to be my drug mule). Now Chloe and i are not subtle, so Daddy knew what we were up to.... She whispered to me that she would get some for me, and then went and told her daddy that coffee was good for her asthma, can she have some please with cream and sugar? And we would have gotten by with our evil plan, but then she shouted across the room to me, "two sugars right mom, thats how you want it?" LOL That girl just cracks me up. Thankfully I didn't cave!! Yay!

Make up Blog, Thursday September 4th

Okay so we are doing speech exercises at home, and I have these limericks that are sent to me that have difficult parts of speech in them, this was the one for today....

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
'cause the pheasant plucker's running late.

Am I the only one who can see where this might go horribly, horribly wrong? Try keeping a straight face through that one! I wisely decided maybe we would skip the limerick for today.



























Its beginning to feel fallish.... okay, I live in texas so that means its beginning to seem as though im drenching with sweat after taking two steps past my front door. The kids and I decided to take advantage of the blessedly low humidity for once and head to the neighborhood park on our block. Everyone had a good time, the dragonflies were out in force so the kids spent alot of time chasing dragonflies. We discovered that dragonflies are cagey and alot faster than human kids.

























John has suddenly discovered his inner boy, he does these very manly things like bugwatching, or digging, or making silly jokes that usually involve body noises.





Emma is amazingly strong. I was hemming a skirt for her and I realized the child has abs of steel! She claims its all the monkey bar runs. Oh and it was leotard Thursday (which is odd because our gymnastic class is wednesday... but whatever). The girls have been obsessed with having "special days". Like TuTu Tuesday, or Wacky facepaint day....
























Look at that John sleeping we just wore him out, Shhh, I think he is faking it.....

Captain's Log Stardate 90308

Starfleet Command has ordered us into the Looney Tunes galaxy.......

We had art class today and learned about positive and negative shapes and space. These are pictures of the girls works of art. Oh and Chloe has added her flyswatter. She is "Chloe Coppock, Mosquito Hunter". The mosquitos have been SOO bad, she has decided that it is her job to hunt them down and swat them all. Trust me, she takes the VERY seriously, if a piece of lint drifts down on the breeze she freezes, then runs off to get her swatter, and hunts them down till they are no more! She will randomly do scouting patrols into the backyard. She is very proud of herself, and we have been telling her what nice thing she is doing for her family. Mosquitos beware!!!





















Emma has really been doing so well with reading and with all the subjects, I have just noticed this big jump in "big girl"-ness lately. Today she was telling me that she would help to keep John out of trouble. Okay now THAT is a fulltime job!

On a completely different topic, I am not sleeping lately. I go through these funky jags and this one hasnt been so great. I have momneasia. Its my favorite new word, its the fancy term for mommy oatmeal brain. I can't remember anything, I start sentences I can't finish........ wait, what was I saying?

So I looked down at my hand this afternoon and I realized I didnt' have my wedding ring on. Which is really unusual, I almost never take it off and the creepy thing was, I couldn't remember where or why I might have taken it off! So we started tearing the house apart. As you can see from the picture, we found it..... well, John found it. Apparently when he ran across it earlier in the day, he had hidden it (for safe keeping im sure) Down in the center of the spare toilet paper rolls. Which I suppose was good thinking, I certainly never would have thought to look there!

TuTu Teaparty Tuesdays

Today started off pretty well, we got up had our breakfast and started our schoolwork. We have decided to incorporate some special days into our school, so Tuesdays are TuTu and Teaparty days, and its also Doctor/Veternarian Center day. Clearly the good start to this day was just an attempt to lull me into complacency so that the real fun could begin.

After lunch I went to go and give the kids their vitamins before we headed out the door to Emma's American Heritage Girls meeting and I couldn't find them. I went looking, and I found them in John's room, open!!!!! There were only thirty vitamins left out of a 75 count bottle. I freaked out and tried to call brian because I had no idea how many we had already given out. I couldn't reach him, so we started for the emergency room with me balling and sobbing, I was so freaked out.... and here is how the conversation from the backseat went.....

Chloe: Mom, is John going to die?
Me: (choking down a sob)No Chloe, he isn't thats why we need to get him to the hospital.
Chloe: But Mom, you said if we had to many of those vitamins it would kill us. Is John going to get killed?
Me: NO chloe, NO
Chloe: (leaning over to John and trying to whisper) Hey John, if you get killed, can I have your toys?
John: NO!!
Me: Chloe, stop it, we will not be discussing this anymore, no one is dying!!! John honey, you are going to be fine, but if you ever do this again to your mommy.........

Meanwhile, Emma was of course being such a trooper, she had missed her meeting, and she was so disappointed, but she is the most compassionate girl on the planet. (which is not to unfairly compare her and Chloe, Chloe's strengths are just in different, funnier places).

Anyway, I FINIALLY got ahold of Brian and we were able to avoid the emergency room by adding up what he could remember giving them. He hadn't taken enough to cause a problem. So I pulled over, cried and shook alot, and then we had a group hug.

We realized we had pulled over in the Kroger parking lot, and they were taking down their "Ariel's Beginning" Display so the lady gave the kids little mermaid balloons, which is cool, ......













But this was my view through the whole store.... had to bat three balloons away from my face to get a look at the store shelves.... the little stinkers.

Then we came home for our tea party. We used My Grandmothers china... Yeah, I know, my heart was pounding a couple of times.. And those are REAL crumpets on their plates. Don't you just like to say "crumpets"? Its one of those really fun words. It HAS to be a fancy nancy word.

















Here is Johns Tea, he had to put three icecubes in, and you don't EVEN want to know how much sugar is in there!! It was hysterical to watch him try not to spill it. Since it was a tea party, we all had to talk in really high squeaky old lady voices. Okay, really I am the only one who did it, and the kids all just looked at me like I had lost my mind. Frankly, after a day like today, that might explain it! I think I am going to go lay down and put cool compress on my head for the stress. This is when I wish I had a fainting couch.

Brief Update.

So clearly we were caught up in all the "will we need to evacuate drama?", well I was anyways. Im pretty sure I am a premature evacuater, Im willing to call it for a few deep puddles and a stiff breeze! That and sewing project didn't leave me enough time to blog, BOO!

I toyed around today with a stunning personal realization, I am ernie.... I found the quiz at http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-your-sesame-street-persona-test. They also offer a Which smurf are you test? but really??? come on, there is only one smurfette all the rest are boys.... which brings up interesting questions.... where did the smurflings come from?





You are Ernie

You are more sloppy, more abstract, and both introverted and extroverted.

Here is why are you Ernie.

You are both sloppy. You might not always know where everything you need is. Perhaps you don't even care. Ernie sure doesn't. Hey, when you got a best friend that is anal about cleaning you can afford to not worry about it. Sure Ernie likes taking baths, but that's just to spend time with his ducky.

You both can be abstract thinkers. Ernie is a dreamer by nature, always making up songs while he plays. He comes up with fanciful adventures. You definitely are not afraid to take chances in life. You only live once. You may notice others around you playing it safe, but you are more concerned with not compromising your desires, and getting everything you can out of life. This is a very romantic approach to life, but hopefully you are also grounded enough to get by.

You are both somewhat introverted. Ernie enjoys spending time with others, but he is also quite content to be in his own fantasy world with his duckies. Unlike Bert, he has other friends to spend time with. Like Ernie, you probably like to have some time to yourself, but you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren't scared of social situations.


The other possible characters are
Cookie Monster
Big Bird
Snuffleupagus
Oscar the Grouch
Elmo
Kermit the Frog
Grover
The Count
Guy Smiley
Bert