Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Friends and Homework

Brock met a new friend this weekend. His name is Josh. I work with his mom. I ran him over on Saturday, While my sister was here painting a really cool mural on the boys bedroom wall, (by the way, I will post a picture if I located my cord for my digital camera).
He doesn't have very many friends that he can just go to. Brock is a bit awkward. He is shy. He can sometimes say the wrong things. He has a learning disability that made the other kids at school label him werid. He has an excellent outlook though. He doesn't care if kids pick on him. He has this wonderful little block in his mind when it came to kids picking on him. When he wa 4-5 we had a neighbor boy,Ben that liked to play with him. His brother Joel didn't care for Brock. I heard the kids picking on him at times and Brock just laughed at them. Didn't really seem to phase him.
This weekend he really hit it off. Brock went over on Saturday and Sunday. He couldn't wait to go over there.
Our perfectinist child Reece came into the car after school yesterday and said "I hate my literacy team group."
Every 6 weeks they measure the kids reading levels and place the accordingly to the levels that they read at. He was peticularly not fond of the summaries he was asked to write after reading the book.
Last night he finished a book and was supposed to write a summary on the last chapter.
You would have thought they asked him to give away all of his toys. His teacher told him his summary was too long.

He sat and cried for 20-30 minutes. That was after I told him I would help him. I sat down with paper and he told me what he would write. After he was done I went through with him and crossed off everything he shouldn't put in it. The entire time he was looking at the clock every 2-3 minutes saying "Oh its only 7:56?, Oh it's only 8:03?, Oh, 8:04?".... and so on. We didn't even have the TV on for a distraction. Needless to say he finish just before bedtime and didn't cry the rest of the night.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Speaking of Lost

A long time ago I had a friend from England named Katie Huckerby. Later she was going by Kate. My senior year of high school, I was able to go visit her over Christmas Break for 2 wks. Her dad was employed by a local company in our area that had plants all over the world. She lived here for about 8 years, after that she was able to fly back for weeks during the summer and stay with friends that she had from the states.
She always bought Levi's jeans when she was here and Doritos. She said over there Levi's were expensive.
Well, I searched for her online yesterday and couldn't find anything on her, but I believe I may have found her brother, Mark Huckerby.
It says he is now a screen writer. And it looks like the brother of Katie. He was quite talented and funny. He was always coming up with things that would make us laugh. I believe he could to very well as a screenwriter.
I sent an email to a blogger who mentioned Mark in his blog. I don't know if he will help me out or if Mark is the right one, but it can't hurt to try and if I am wrong about Mark I will be very Surprised. It sure looked like him... 15 years later...

Friday, January 27, 2006

Picture Time!

Saturday I woke up Duner around noon (he worked all night) so we could go take our family picture. It had been a LONG time since we did that so we decided to do it Saturday.
When I woke Duner he was MISERABLE... He had been fighting a cold that came to a full blown sick. He just wanted to sleep. He said he still wanted to do this. So we got ready and ran to the portrait studio. Duner looked awful. His eyes were red and had big red circles around them. When he sat down he just closed his eyes and leaned his head up againist the wall. It looked like he fell asleep with his mouth hanging open. I told him to close his mouth, but he said he wouldn't be able to breathe.
Well needless to say, we went on with the pictures and even he stuck it out and they turned out pretty good!

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Land of Lost

It would be nice to have the power to find the land of the lost. Often time I get asked, "Mom, where is my backpack?" or "Mom, Where is my coat?". Those are easy, most of the time. But when you have a 3 yr old, you can be amazed at where "lost" ends up. He always seems to be moving things. I never know where they are going to end up. I think he took pointers when we were homeless from my mom. She is ALWAYS putting things where she thinks they belong. Which completely messes me up since they are not where you know you left them.
My cell phone, and now my digital camera are now in the "Land of the LOST."
I have looked everywhere I can think of.
The only thing I can guess is that he put it in a box that went to good will or garbage. I had 2 boxes as I unpacked things either they found a home in the house or they went to garbage or goodwill (St Vinnies).
Luckily Brock had a digital camera so if I want to I can use that. It is just not very 'point and shoot' like.
If you want to use the flash you have to activate it for each picture you take. Otherwise it takes good pictures.
Well, I must go dig thru boxes trying to find pictures and 'Stuff' for Reece since he is the star of the week at school.
**Update**
Of course 15 minutes after writing that I found my camera! Zeb is so addorable...!!

Friday, January 20, 2006

We are goin' SKIING!

We vowed this is the year. We did it when we dated but have lacked the time (or ambition) but this is the year it will be accomplished. We have picked a date. February 19-20 (Sunday-Monday). So Duner won't have to take time off.
Now, We need to pick a location. Brule, Camp 10, Naverino and Nordic were all names of ski hills that we have thought of, but there are ups and down's to all. We are going to get a hotel room with a pool so the kids (and us) can warm up after being on the slopes all day. I rather like Nordic since we are most familar with that one, but they don't have ski time on Monday during the day. (Duner thinks he will want to go 2 days in a row.)
It doesn't say anything bad about 3 yr olds and skiing so I think we should be ok. I, obviously, will not be doing anything on my own. I will leave that to Duner. I like to play it a little safer. I rather like the placement of my limbs and joints. No need to reassemble.

Where are the germs?

Last week Reece had a friend spend the night. We picked up Jacob on Saturday and his parents picked up him on Sunday. He had fun I believe, even though the boys never saw actual daylight since they were in the basement the entire time. Except meals, of course. But now Jacob was home sick the entire week from school. I felt really bad. But my kids were bouncing off the wall! The weren't sick once.
I talked to his mom on Monday and she didn't blame me at all but I was just so amazed that he was so sick after leaving my house! It was one night, and my kids are fine. Then didn't get sick at all. Germs are amazing.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Getting back to normal

It is truly nice to get back to a boring life.
One thing about living out here in the village of nowhere, the wind really whips. It knocked down our mailbox yesterday and broke one of the hinges. Luckily it still closes ok, and that is what matters.
Good news, I finally found my calendar that has been missing since before the new year.
Still I don't know where my cell phone is but soon we will be cancelling that account. We are going to be signing up for new cell service. We want a company that has service up at the cabin. My father-in-law and nephew both have service that works at the cabin, even in the cabin. We have to drive 2 miles to get a good enough signal just to get our messages. Although, if you do stand in the driveway in one peticular spot you do get enough reception, but you better not turn your head or you just get fuzz.
Well we only have about one more load to get from storage. Yeah!!! My sister helped me load a bunch of the stuff into the unit and she did a EXCELLENT job! It's amazing we were able to stuff so much in it. I know if I had Duner do it we wouldn't have gotten it in so well.
Well normal is calling again....

Friday, January 13, 2006

What kids don't look like Shirley Temple?


This is the photo I used to see who my youngest son looks like on this website my sister told me about in her blog. It was really cool. It is funny.
It told us that he resembled Julia Roberts, Shirley Temple, Jodie Foster (younger verison), Sean Ashton, and Katie Holmes. I wonder if this maybe a sneak peak at her new baby.

I also did a picture of my dad, his was 57 % George Soros. I never heard of him by my dad might find him interesting. He grew up in Russia/Germany and did some hiding from the Nazis.
I ran a picture of Reece and it didn't come up the anything the first time but finally came up with shirley temple 68%, Katie Holmes (again), Madonna???, and Judy Garland.
When I ran Brock he it said Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, and Whoopi Goldberg.???
Just for more fun I thought I would run a pic of my husband who has been told he looks like Brett Farve and Woody Harleson, to see if this agreed... nope, they said Charles manson and Peter Gabriel. I had a hard time finding a picture with him that it liked. I tried to run a wedding photo with us and our parents in it; It said my mother-in-law resembles Ozzy Osbourne, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussin, among Others.. I just had to laugh and at the time I was talking on the phone with my husband and he had a good chuckle from that as well.

Friday, January 06, 2006

quick update!!

We are in our house! We FINALLY were able to close on our house! I can't write more, I must get ready for the Open house this weekend!

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

January 4th and still homeless...

day one....December 29th Hell begins with a call from Nancy at our mortgage company. Apparantly the bank did not like the appraisials. We 'may' be able to close yet on Friday but just incase she made an appt on Tuesday for us.

day two...December 30th Just warming up. We move EVERYTHING out of our apartment that we were staying at to the garage at the new house. We are not allowed to move anything in due to 'policy' at Tycore.

day three and four... December 31- January 2 -puppy training. We are now homeless, we decide to try the puppies inside for the weekend. It did go pretty good, only 3 accidents up at the cabin.

day five.... January 3rd -set up the outside kennel at the new house, started emptying things in the kitchen for the new house. (yes, against policy) Went to close on the house, only to find out that it is not possible since Duners work likes to take their time returning calls to mortgage brokers. Now, still homeless, we must find yet another place to stay for us and the puppies... There goes training.

day six... January 4th- we shall see, that will be tomorrow. I don't really have a good feeling about this. We are supposed to close tomorrow, actually I will be closing tomorrow. Duner has to work. He already took off early from work today to 'close'. Only to find out that we were not able to do so.

Wish me good luck....