I really am blonde...

I had a very blonde thing happen to me last night and since I'm secure in my blondeness I'll share....

Yesterday was a busy soccer tournament day. Ethan had three games...9:20, 1:20 and 4:50. All far enough apart to make it a long day to stay and far enough away to make coming home only for an hour. No big deal. I forgot to mention that although we had a record breaking 93 degree Friday, Saturday morning was a windy, chilly 45 degrees!! Again, no problem. In fact the story doesn't have much to do with soccer. But it does give you the background material for why I ordered pizze online when we were home between the 1:20 game and the 4:50 game. So I ordered 3 medium pizza's ($5 each!!) from Pizza Hut online. I had them be ready to pick up at 6:10pm after the game and the short drive to get them. Good plan, eh? I thought so. Ethan's third game was awesome!! It was warmer, the kids played great and Ethan even scored his first ever goal!! That's pretty good since he is the sweeper, or last defender, and doesn't get much offense. He was booting the ball out of the mid-field area and caught the wind just right to hit the left corner of the goal above the goalies head!! It was impressive. But I digress...so the game ended and I had to stop to get gas and wash the car before heading toward home and picking up the pizza. I go in to get my pizza and guess what...no order for Nina. They look in their magic computer and no online order for Nina. They are very nice and offer to make it up "really fast" and even honor my online order for 3 pizza's at $5 each. Nice place. I wait 6 minutes for my pizza and head home. On the way home Ethan asked what kind of pizza I got. "Pizza Hut, deep dish, pepperoni". Great he says. "Where is it?" "It's on the seat" "Mom, it says Dominos". Do you know that for 3 seconds my brain still didn't get it and I thought "I wonder why Pizza Hut is using boxes from Dominos...that seems stupid". Dominos isn't stupid....but maybe I am!!

Off and On Again

So today was the big day for Evan's cast to come off. We were not sure what exactly was going to be the next step, but he knew it was going to come off and the pin was coming out!! We were very excited to see the foot and the limpy leg. Both david and I had talked to him about what our leg/foot looked like after we'd had a cast on for a long time. The green, flaky skin, the sore muscles, the smallness of it. So he was ready. Here is the big moment:

And after a few x-rays, it was determined that not enough "new bone growth" had occurred and for an active 7 year old it was best to put on another cast to protect the break for a few more weeks. Evan asked if he could pull his own pin out and the nurse was quite impressed that he did so. Apparantley he's only seen 5 kids pull out their own pins and none as young as Evan. He was pretty proud of himself too!! We did have enough time to wash Evan's foot (nasty smell!!) and cut his toenails before he chose a neon green cast. So he's now sporting a nice clean, very bright neon green cast for a couple more weeks. He seems ok with it...the rest of us are ready for it to be gone. Here it is:

Girls Night In

Last night went from a Girls Night Out to a Girls Night In and it was nice. My two remaining children went over to my girlfriend's house (thanks Bryan and Spencer) and my girlfriend came to my house. We did go out and get some ice-cream, $1 movies, and cheap Chinese dinner for two ($8.95). Then we came back to my house and watched the movie, ate the ice cream and popcorn and talked. It was so quiet with just the dog here and we were able to unwind from a busy week and a crazy day. It's good to have good friends. Love ya Kim. Thanks for the cheap date!!

Valentines week and more...

Well, Valentine's day was a busy one here in Texas. Austin had a UIL competition (still not sure what it stands for, but it's an "intellectual sporting event") where he squashed all the competition and came home with 5 medals from his individual events (2 first, 2 second, and 1 third place) His coach was very impressed as were we. Of course, we knew how smart he is, and he still says it isn't challenging enough. What are we going to do with him??

That afternoon David was busy clanking around the kitchen while I worked on a talk for church. Yes, for those of you who are counting, that's 2 talks in 2 months. I don't know why...but I don't like it. But it was ok. When I was done with my talk preparation (for that night at least) David and I got dressed up and headed to the condo's here at Canyon Lake. We were given a free weekend and had stayed there as a family for Friday. David cooked me a wonderful dinner and finished it off with truffles (what he was making at the house). It was incredible. We had red bell pepper soup, steak and baked potatoes, with spinach salad. That's us taking a picture of ourselves and this is the salad and soup. It was a wonderful evening.

Earlier, back at the homefront, McKinley had prepared her Pixi Stick valentines for her preschool class. She was very excited to give them out and to get one for herself...she even put her name on one, "To: McKinley, From: McKinley". Here she is:

And on the camera was this picture from a girly date day we had with our friend Haven. We went to see Pippi Longstocking at the children's theater. It was crazy, but the girls loved it. A little dramatic, but perfect for kids. They felt like such big girls and they were perfectly behaved. We met David for lunch afterwards at a big people Mexican restaurant. Then we conquered Costco and Walmart...all in one day. It was exhausting, but fun!!

Fiddling and Financing

The only similarity with those two words is the letter F. But they are on my mind today as I sit here to post. Random isn't it.

Ethan has started at a new music Acadmey for his violin playing. He is ready to branch out and try some new genre's and what better place to start than to fiddle. Especially here in Texas. It's some rockin' fiddling. He is enjoying it. He has a private lesson once a week and group lessons twice a month. It's much closer to our house (still 20 minutes, but not 40) and he is back to wanting to practice and play again. So it's a much more friendly topic to approach each afternoon. I'll have to record him and post it up here....but he's pretty camera shy. Maybe with his violin he'll be better....and I won't ask him to smile.

And the other F....financing. We refinanced our house yesterday. We were able to get 4.5% for 30 years and lower our payment over $400, which is nice. Of course, we have to pay ourselves back the cost of refinancing first, but after that....well...I've thought of approximately 20 or 30 ways to spend that money each month. Hopefully I'll stick to my guns and stick it into a ROTH IRA or something practical, but it's fun to dream about other ideas....like staining my back concrete porch, extending the grass in our yard, faux painting our entry, putting a door upstairs on the "too open" toy room, traveling to Portugal, making my dream girls room for McKinley, and on and on. We'll get there. My mother always said "you can go broke saving money!!" At least it's only in my head. Right now I'm just saving the money, sort of.

A fish out of water

Last night we took Ethan, Austin and a friend to the big fancy movie theater by the big fancy outdoor mall in San Antonio. When we pulled up and saw the masses of people who were attending this 16 screen mega-plex, I knew we were different. When we walked over to the mall to stroll around and window shop I really knew we were different. I am just not a shopper. I browsed around the stores, went into the "hip" stores of Abercombie and American Eagle and quickly retreated. Wow...it's been a really long time. I started to feel old and very uncool. Maybe it would be different if I had older girls. Or if my boys had any fashion sense at all. Maybe it will change in a few years...I've learned to never say never. But last night, at the mall, I felt like a fish out of water. I'm much more at home at Target.

Can't keep a good boy down

Since Evan's surgery I have found him in a tree, on the trampoline, and doing the monkeybars. Arghh!! How are you supposed to keep an energetic 7 year old from doing these things just because he has a broken foot with pins in it? He doesn't get it. As long as he can move (aka run) he thinks it's fine. So I hope that fiberglass cast is as tough as Evan!!