Two Things

1)

If Hayden does not stop spending his days purposefully annoying his sisters, I am going to lock myself in my closet.
2) If the girls do not stop shrieking and tattling on him every time he does this, I am taking alcohol with me.

School starts in three weeks. This would be much more exciting if I did not have to go back to work then. Also, I found out yesterday that I’m working 35 hours this year, up from 25 last year. Money is good, but in my book, time is better. I’ll adjust I’m sure. Not really sure, but pretty sure.

Seeing Spots

My older two children are highly resistant to change. Pathologically resistant. Any time we want to do anything different to the house they throw unbelievable fits. Some examples:

- Both times we have gotten new cars, they cried and carried on for days and declared undying love for the old cars (which they had to hug goodbye) and made disparaging remarks about the new cars.
- When I stripped the wallpaper in the kitchen, they got hysterical. I later found scraps squirreled away in both of their bedrooms.
- Last year, when we re-carpeted the house, they cried. Hayden wore slippers for three weeks and refused to let his feet touch the new carpet until Rich threatened him.
- Both of them have had their rooms decorated the same as the way I originally did them when they were pre-schoolers and have adamantly refused all offers of a makeover.

Until now. Finally,

finally,

Reagan let me makeover her bedroom for her 13th bday. The wallpaper with scenes depicting teddy bear tea parties came down and has been replaced with pink paint and polka-dots. Reagan was the designer and Rich and I executed. A nicer mom would have used this as an opportunity to teach Reagan to paint. I have no patience for such things and the carpet is still relatively new so I did it myself.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the room any bigger. The original plans for this house were for a three-bedroom but the builder/owner eked out four. This means that Faith’s room is the size of a walk-in closet and Reagan’s is only slightly larger. We offered to knock out the wall between the two to let them share one large bedroom and they quickly decided that small is not so bad.

I love the re-do. Pink and polka-dots are much more age appropriate and really, only a teenaged girl can get away with it so I’m glad she has it while she can. Soon enough she’ll get married and have to decorate everything in beige and blue and blah.

Prepping For The Fair

So . . . I’m kind of a dork. It’s true.

I grew up in a suburb of Denver. To the outside world, Denver is full of cowboys and people carrying lassoes around but really, if you live there, that’s not actually true. At my high school, not a single person that I knew owned any animal more interesting than a chihuahua. No one rode horses or knew anything about livestock or poultry or hay baling. To wear Wrangler jeans to school meant social suicide. A few people (myself included which could explain how I ended up here today) listened to country music on the sly but we certainly wouldn’t have driven into the school parking lot with the windows down and Restless Heart blaring.

Fast forward 20 years and several hundred miles and I hang out with the 4-H crowd. Really - 4H. It’s because of the horse of course. We aren’t yet to the point where I have the kids making their own jam and raising rabbits to earn ribbons but we could get there. For now, we are just involved with horse stuff and Reagan is preparing to show at her first County Fair next week. County Fair is SO much fun. It’s much smaller and less scary than State Fair and it’s free so you can wander through the exhibits of pigs and cows and goats as much as you like and still afford a funnel cake. I’m all about the funnel cake. There are also rides, but they look alarmingly rickety and the people running them look . . . well traveled? So I remind the kids of whatever large amusement park we last went to and try to steer clear of the rides.

Next Saturday, Reagan and Jamboree will ride three classes in the Open Show and then the following week, another three classes in the 4-H Show. I am so, so grateful that Reagan has chosen to ride English rather than Western. Her shows are full of disciplined riding and kids with helmets. The Western classes have kids whipping around barrels and running down lines of poles at 30 mph. Also, English riders do not have to wear shiny, snap-front shirts and Wranglers. I still can’t get over the jean thing. I’ll be wearing my Luckys.

It's Random Day

I’m making Reagan’s birthday cake this morning. Yes, her birthday was two days ago, but she was in no condition to eat it that day. So tonight we are having her birthday dinner - fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob - and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

While waiting for the cake to bake I did some random kitchen cleaning, including my favorite chore. Mind you, there is not a lot of competition for my favorite chore. I do not keep a clean house. Ask anyone who has ever dropped by unexpectedly or who has been invited over but dared to go beyond the “public” areas of my house. It’s kinda scary. There are two reason for this:
I don’t really care.
There are SO many things to do that are more fun than cleaning.
A few things I don’t mind so much (laundry) and a few things I do just because I have to (my kitchen is relatively clean - I don’t like to prepare food in grossness). My favorite thing though is . . . vacuuming the refrigerator coils! I love to get under the fridge with the skinny vacuum attachment and suck up the hairy dust that sticks to the coils. It is very, very satisfying because the “before” and “after” are so dramatic and also I am sure that my refrigerator is colder and more efficient afterwards. All good things.
Conversely, cleaning out the

inside

of the refrigerator is one of my least favorite chores. If I wait long enough, my mom will come visit or my friend Christine will drop by and they will do it. Or, I make it a punishment for a child. Come to think of it, it needs cleaning again. Hopefully one of the kids will be really naughty in the next couple of days.

None of this has anything to do with the picture. The picture is from the 4th of July and the series of pictures that I thought I had deleted. Early in the evening, the neighborhood girls decided to blow up Barbies. I don’t know why. I’m pretty sure it was not a feminist statement or a protest against the unrealistic body type that Barbie has thrust upon them. I also don’t believe that it was significant of growing up and rejecting the toys of their childhoods. I think they just all have brothers who convinced them that it would be cool. Several Barbies met their ends that night - each in a unique and spectacular fashion. I’m so proud?

13

Reagan is 13 years old today. With a late summer birthday, she’s about the last of her friends to become a teenager so I’ve had time to ease into the idea. I think I like it. One day in, she’s still funny and engaging and generally delightful. Unfortunately, she is also sick. She slept on the bathroom floor last night because she was barfing. In case you hadn’t noticed, my kids celebrate special occasions by throwing up.

We did have a very good time before she got sick. My long-time friend, Christine, has a daughter Reagan’s age who happens to be her very best friend for 13 years. Christine and I took the girls to the mall where they studiously avoided us for three hours before we all met up at

The Melting Pot

for dinner. It was the girls’ first fondue experience but Reagan was starting to feel queasy, though she was fighting it hard, and I don’t think she enjoyed it as much as she could have. I did though. What is not to love about pots of melted cheese and chocolate?

Earlier in the week, I took my three kids to my parents’ lake house to hang out with my dad. It was great to get away and just enjoy sun and sand and water for a few days. We rode the boat and the kids played endlessly in the water. Also, I took them into the small town nearby to see

Wall-E

(SUCH a dumb, boring movie but the kids liked it. ) and it only cost $17 for all four of us to see a movie - at night. I love small towns.

My dad is a high school track coach and he just happened to have some hurdles with him. The only really strange thing about that is that I don’t find it strange. Doesn’t everyone have shot puts in their garage? Aren’t pre-wrap and athletic tape standard medicine cabinet items? I have been raised to believe these are normal things. But I digress. Again.

So my dad had hurdles. This was great because he took Reagan out and showed her how to run them. Last spring, Reagan’s track coaches gave her this advice about hurdles: “Run fast. Try not to hit them.” Then they sat them up

backwards

and let the kids figure it out on their own. It made me crazy. So in two, half-hour sessions with her grandpa, Reagan made a lot of progress.

I put other pictures up

On the Fridge.

Also, take a look at new recipes

In the Fridge.

Summer Television

Pretty much, television over the summer is re-runs and bad reality shows. We don’t watch much t.v. this time of year because it’s generally so unenjoyable. However - the girls and I have become kind of hooked on

TLC’s Jon and Kate Plus Eight

. They are running the past three seasons, plus the current one all the time and we record them and watch them when we’re in a vegging mood. I totally love this show. It’s a reality show that follows a family that has twin 8 year old girls and 4 year old sextuplets. Basically, your average child-bearing nightmare.

I love it because of course the kids are adorable and watching sextuplet toddlers do

anything

is entertaining. Also I like that Jon and Kate snark at each other in a manner that I think a lot of couples do (well, we do anyway) but still manage to look as if they are genuinely happy together. The icing on the cake is that Kate IS my sister Nicki, and Jon is a Korean version of Nicki’s husband, Brett. Even my kids noticed. Nicki and Kate even have similar hair. So I like to watch it and see just how Nicki would behave if she had eight children (which, if she keeps going off to the corners of the world and bringing home adorable babies to love she may very well have one day).

I am so currently taken with this program that I even went and looked at the message boards to see why the grandparents are never shown. That question didn’t get answered but reading the boards blew my mind. Who

are

these people who make horrible comments about real, innocent people? Does having your family on television mean that people can start posting threads about the relative homliness of one of your daughters vs. another? Seriously. What gives people license to comment at length on the mental health of a stranger’s child? I am aghast. No more message boards for me. The

family’s homepage

is much nicer. And when producer’s call and want to put make my family into a reality show, I’m telling them “no way.” I already know that I’m screwing this up, I don’t need faceless strangers discussing it at length.

I’m sorry the commenting feature isn’t working here. I don’t know what’s up with that. Hopefully it will be functioning soon.

Facebook

My 20th high school reunion is this month. I am not going. There’s probably a really long blog entry in the reasoning behind that situation and I may get into it later this month. However, that’s a lot of self-examination and who enjoys that? So for now I’m using Reagan’s birthday as my excuse. She turns 13 that weekend which is a superbigdeal and I must be here for it. Right? Right.

While I am not attending my reunion, there are some people I’d love to talk to again. I started out with Classmates and got in touch with Eric that way and heard all about the five lifetimes he’s packed into my one, but Classmates has a very annoying format that requires money and is fairly restrictive. So I got a facebook account. I started out feeling waaaay too old to be on facebook. The only person I could find who I knew was my college-aged cousin Amanda. She was kind enough to accept my friending and I spent a few days being entertained by updates on her sorority life.
Then, I found

Brian

from high school. I got caught up on his very exciting and successful life in New York which left me feeling slightly mediocre and very mid-western but it was great to hear from him and discover that he’s still funny and friendly and talented. I also got caught up with Matt and Stacy and Melissa. That exhausted the high school friends I could find.
By that time though, I’d added my local 20something friends. It turns out, that if I want to keep up with their lives and communicate quickly, that facebook is the way to go. They’re all there and use it regularly. I love it.
The most interesting find was my long, lost, internet friend Heather. I’ve never met her but we used to communicate regularly and I was totally bummed when I realized I didn’t have her e-mail anymore. There she was on facebook though and I was so happy to find her.
The most disturbing find? Looking up one of my college friends and finding his teenage daughter instead and then realizing that I have an almost teenage daughter of my own. Someone pass me my cane please.
Rounding out my friend list are a few friends from my former life in Denver and my sisters and some of their real life friends. Also, Rich, but he doesn’t count because our lives haven’t gotten quite so busy that I need facebook to keep up with my own husband. Which is lucky for me because he never checks his. He’s kinda lame that way.
Really, I don’t know why facebook is a “young people thing.” When I was younger I had time to keep up with all of my friends. Plus, I saw all of them all the time. Now I have 30+ years worth of friends and acquaintances spread out across the country and little time to talk with them - assuming I know how to find them in the first place. I love the format of having everyone in one place with updates as frequently as they care to give them.

Shoot, I’m sounding like a paid advertisement here which was not my intent. I’m a bit rambly today. I had a great blog written in my head about the Barbie dolls the kids blew up on the 4th, but I accidentally deleted the pictures and the story wasn’t much good without them. So here are my thoughts on facebook instead. I’ll try to have a more interesting rest of the week.

Sleepy

I am too old to miss a night’s sleep. I know that people my age are still having babies, but I cannot fathom how they survive the first year. The sleepless night in Amarillo has caused all kinds of upset this week. My body is demanding that I make up every missed minute - plus interest. That would explain how I slept until 9:20 today when THE PARADE STARTS AT 10:00.

Every 4th of July, our neighborhood has a parade complete with fire truck, decorated bikes and wagons and - usually - llamas. Our llama owning neighbors apparently do not understand or care about my need for continuity and tradition and did not bring the llamas this year. It was very disappointing. Because of that, and my late sleeping, there are no parade pictures.

Now I’m taking a break from party prep and trying very hard not to crawl off into a quiet corner for a nap. We are hosting the neighborhood potluck tonight. You wish that you were here. My neighbors can cook. There will be no deli-potato salad or canned beans here tonight. I was incapable of coming up with a recipe this week, so

Meredith

sent me one for a Chopped Salad with Salsa Verde Dressing. I’m about half way through making it and so far it looks and smells very yummy. I’ll go ahead and trust that it’s delicious and post it

In the Fridge

.

Tomorrow, Reagan has a horse show. We’re gearing up for County Fair the first week of August. Stay tuned for yet more pictures of Reagan on a horse. I can’t get enough of them - please pretend that you feel the same.

San Diego

We spent last week in San Diego with our friends, Pam and Dana and their three girls. They are from that area so they showed us around and their kids’ friends became our kids’ friends. It was a great trip.

Faith is an excellent traveling companion. She makes everything about a trip seem even more fun and exciting. Faith’s life is full of exclamation points.
“Look! Our plane!”
“Hey! The seat moves back!”
“I can open and shut the window shade!”
“They bring us pop! For free!”
And so on and so forth through the whole trip. It’s not even annoying because every exclamation is accompanied by a wide-eyed, gleeful smile. I love that kid.

For both Hayden and Faith the highlight of the trip out was the layover. Dallas/Ft. Worth airport has a sky-train. I rode it with the two of them through an entire circuit. We were in the front car and they stood in the front window in a surfer pose and created their own musical accompaniment to their super surfing skills.

Pasted Graphic 126

We got in to SD late, but our friends were still up to greet us at the beach house we rented. We got everyone to bed and semi-rested so that we could hit the beach the next day. It was my kids’ first ocean experience. Their conclusion? Salty but fun. They also hunted for crabs. Here are Faith and Jenna tracking them down.

They brought the critters back to the beach house, named them and set up a habitat for them in a recycling bin. Here is how the crab thing eventually turned out:

Not so well. Our best beach story happened on a day when the water was full of people. There were so many that it was hard to pick out my own kids in the crowd. However, when the lifeguard came streaking by me with her surfboard I just knew it was for Hayden. Pam and I watched her head for the water and tried to pick out where she was headed and sure enough - it was my son. He was fine, though he did agree to hang on to her surfboard and rest for a minute or two, “because she kept asking me if I was ok so I thought I’d make her feel better.”

We also spent a day at Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. Those were just as much fun as we thought they would be. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials too, so I won’t bore you with the details. There are pictures

On the Fridge

.

It was a fabulous trip. I’d love to visit that area again. The home prices in that area were astronomical, but the weather and scenery are so gorgeous that I can see why people pay them. It’s good to be home though. I have a deep appreciation now for my grocery and gas prices. Also, if I were a poet I could write a whole sonnet about my own bed.