Indiana Weather...gotta love it

For those of you less fortunate to work in a profession where 2-hour delays, snow days, and early releases are not options, EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT! One good thing about Indiana weather: I had a 2-hour delay today. I got to school, and because of my schedule, I didn't have a class until 2 hours after school started. I tought for 2 hours, and then the roads were bad enough they sent us home early! :) One GREAT thing about teaching: bad weather!!!!! :)

DD anyone?

I'll admit it. One of my favorite movies of all time is the original Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey (pre-nose job). I know it probably shouldn't be, but EVERYTIME it is on TV, I watch it. After all, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

We went to Chad's brother's house tonight. On the way home, the song "Time of My Life" came on. Chad, may I add, loathes the movie...so if he sees it is on, he groans and goes and plays the guitar. I figured his fingers wouldn't find the scanner fast enough in the van, but much to my surprise, he started singing it with me. Surprisingly, we sounded pretty good.

Go ahead, admit it. You love the song and all its 80s cheese, too. You get sucked in when the movie is on. You're just waiting for them to dance in the lake and practice the lifts. You hate Robbie as much as I do. Go on...it's okay. I won't tell anyone. :)

Newest Things

Hmmm..It's been a while. Lot has happened and yet nothing has. Interesting to think about. Perhaps another entry.

Now I focus on the conversation that I observed with a smile tonight....maybe you might like to hear it. (First let me preface it by saying that I have had to teach my children about letting each child have a "time to shine." In other words, when I praise one child, and the other one feels left out, I explain that they will all have times to shine, and this is that particular child's time. Their turn is coming. This will come in to play later on.)

On the way to get flu shots:
Luke: I don't wanna go to get a flu shot. I don't have the flu.

Me: This is a shot to make sure you don't get it later.

Luke: But what if I cry?

Me: You won't! Are you kidding? You are so much tougher than a shot. It might just feel like your brother poked you or you got pinched. You can handle THAT.

Luke: I'm just gonna get that shot and say, "Is that all you got? Give me 2!!"

Me: (laughing) That would be great...we'll see.

Drew: I'm donna (gonna) say, "Is that all you got? You wanna piece of me? I'm tough. I want a big big BIG needle."

Evan: Yeah! I'm like, "Is that all you got, huh? Is that all you got, huh? Is that all you got, huh?" (Apparently saying it in a set of 3 which each one increasing in volume was funny because they all laughed.)

Drew: You wanna piece of me?

Gabriel: Piece me???

Luke: Did you hear that?? Gabriel just said, "Piece me!" He is so cute.

After the shots...way after the shots (at which none of the previous comments were made):

Luke: Mommy, 2 plus 5 is...(stops and counts fingers) 7. (Tucks his chin in and grins the Chad grin) It's my time to shine. I'm smart.

Me: Well, YES you are!

Drew: Now it'sth my time to shine. You know what my did today? I was like, (makes punching sound accompanied with punching motion) and then like (same action and sound) to Delaney. And she thaid (said) I was a stupid head. (sudden change to pouting)

Me: That wasn't nice. I'm sorry.

Evan: (burps)

Drew: Holwy molwy duatemole (Holy moley guacamole)! Evan! That was a dood (good) one!

Evan: Now it's my time to shine.


Some of the things they come up with just crack me up. I feel like should be taking notes at the dinner table. There were so many good things that now I can't remember!!! You would have loved it!

Luke has a loose tooth for the first time! I am so excited about it! Probably more so than he is! He's excited and nervous about it, afraid it will hurt or he'll lose all of his teeth at once. He asked me last night if he would be able to eat if he lost that one tooth! :) I reassured him that he would...

Our newest edition to the house: Boo. She is a rescue kitten of 8 months old and absolutely perfect. She had one accident when we got her home, and the rest of the time she has been great about the litter box. She gets along with the dog, but holds her own...The kids adore her! She is friendly and personable but not annoying. Just the perfect pet. Who would have guessed? I can't believe how much I love her! I never would have thought a kitten would steal my heart. And of course, Luke is ecstatic! He has asked for a kitten for about 1 year. The kids have been doing so well with their chore chart that I thought they could handle taking care of her. The dog is doing so much better than before...I think it's simply because he has more "responsible" people looking after him. The house is cleaner. The kids are proud of their allowance and really good about it. They paid for some of Boo...

Things just seem GOOD right now. Praise the Lord! I have so much less stress...

One more thing before I go. I want to tell you what I came home to last night. I had a really long meeting at church, and I left the kids at the babysitter because I thought it might be a little too long for them to "play" through...so after the long meeting and a full day at school, I went back out to the babysitters and got the kids. When I got home, Chad (he hit this one out of the park...) had done two loads of laundry, fixed Luke's bed (which he had broken), put new sheets/clean sheets on all 4 of their beds, laid out the kids' pajamas, run a warm bath that was waiting on the first one, and had swept/dusted the living room and/or house within the 24 hours that preceeded. I was absolutely amazed by his thoughfulness! It was like he had thought of everything! He did a great job! :)

(And he is more than a little fond of Boo, and he says he hates cats...that's how good she is!)

Well, that's about all I got. Hope you have enjoyed catching up on the life of Michelle. :)

Can't help it

I can't help it. Tomorrow it begins, and I'm so stinking excited!! I love the first 3 or 4 shows especially. Generally after that I just get mad at America for being generally retarded and choosing people who liken the sounds of a cat in heat...but I can't help myself, I love AMERICAN IDOL! I can honestly say (with the exception of Clay) that I have usually liked #2 or #3 better...normally #3...than #1 in all the seasons...I mean seriously, where IS Fantasia? I told you she sucked...

Please take a few minutes and see why it's so great by visiting http://www.americanidol.com/videos/view/?vid=477

My favorite is the guy in red with the curly red pony tail...or whatever that is.

Recent Pictures - Children's Museum & Christmas Leftovers

One of my best and most dear childhood memories....listening to Grandpa read from Luke 2. He asks if anyone would like to hear the Christmas Story. We all answered "Yes, Grandpa," and still do. Now my kids can, too. What a great tradition. I'll never forget...











The gang's almost all here...My dad's side of the family. There are a lot of us, I know!












One of Luke's friends asked him to go bowling over Christmas break. He bowled a 76, if I remember right! Not bad for a 6-year-old!
















My little one, Gabriel, on December 21, 2006.













Gabriel at the museum this past weekend.












Luke being a dinosaur at the children's museum.












Drew in his paleontologist gear! He was so excited to find anything in the "dirt." He would yell for me to come over there and look at the tiniest things saying he had "dithcovered" it!











Gabriel at the museum again. He loved it all!
















Evan-Rex!












Gabe-osaurus!

About as racy as I get

I wouldn't suggest this one in front of kids, but for adult church-goers, HILARIOUS!

New Worship Team

So I revamped the worship teams and today was the first time they took affect. IT WAS GREAT To sing with Sharon and Phil with such a great group of musicians in the band! I absolutely had a blast! I had a great time worshiping and leading worship. The Words of the scripture readings seemed more alive...the songs seemed more real to me....maybe it was in my attitude about hearing all those voices!!! It's been so long since I had heard my church worship like that! What a difference going from 3 small services to 1 big one made!!! The new stage was great...and I loved it. Of course in this transition period, we have some glitches sound-wise that are slowly working out. Bill has put so much time in already! We are really blessed...I love it! I loved the song choices, if I do say so myself! I don't know WHY, I just know that God felt VERY REAL to me while I was up there.

Maybe it was my attitude, maybe it was the collective voices, maybe it was a well-diversified music set. Either way, God was glorified, and that is what it was all about.

God bless!

Giggly, goofy kids

Enjoying a Christmas gift, my kids are currently watching the end of "High School Musical." I can hear them in there singing and dancing. It's hilarious. Gabriel quietly plays on his own, having lost interest about 45 minutes ago. Every once in a while, he pokes his head in there and makes some crazy noises to see if they will laugh..again...and they do. It's a good night.

Happy New Year!

It's time to start messing up the dates on your checks...if you actually still write them! That was always the worst part of a new year for me....that's not the point of this post...I'm only posting for Leslie, otherwise I'd be in bed. So Leslie, here you go :)

We had a good new years eve...in fact, I think it was one of the better ones I have been to in a while. The party was at a kid-friendly house with lots of stuff to do. I Think there is a gaming system in every room, including the new Wii. I kicked Chad's butt in Wii golf! That was fun! This party was completely right up my alley (and I'm not saying that because the hostess may be reading) because they had games galore! If you know me very well, I love card games and board games. When Chad and I were first married I conned him in to playing Scrabble MANY more times than he actually wanted to play! As we have gotten busier and gotten a bigger family, the games don't always leave their shelves, but tonight was great! I love it.

The kids were really pretty good. We had a few blunders....like the time Evan was running in to the house from the garage (filled with an air hockey table, remote control monster trucks, chalk to draw a track for the trucks on the garage floor, other assorted toys and bikes). Let me preface this by saying that he was wearing new pants that he got from his grandma for Christmas. These are tricky pants even though they are advertised as easier for kids. For one thing, Evan and Drew are built like their daddy: STICK THIN. Usually when they go to the bathroom, they just slide the jeans or whatever pants they have on down over their hips to go without unbuttoning. Herein lies the problem. These pants are slims because of their build and because that is what I told their great-grandma to buy. However, when she bought them she did not know they were specially made to make it "easier" to go to the bathroom. These pants are equipped with an orange plastic tongue-looking device that surrounds the button. The concept? Push the orange tab through the button hole. Grab the tab once through the hole, twist in a circle. The tab will pull the button through the hole. Re-adjust the tab to the side to keep from sticking you in the belly when you sit or bend over. Sounds easy.

Yeah...not so much.

Evan, Drew, and Luke have all struggled with these pants. I think this is the 2nd time I had them wear them. Evan had to go the bathroom. He was in the garage playing with his playmate of choice for the evening, Leah, I believe. We were all Wii-ing in the living room. All of a sudden something crashed in to the house and shook the house. Adults scattered. Then we heard Evan. He didn't see the GLASS door at all when he came barrelling up the back steps to come in the house to potty. Bloody nose. Chad was trying to help him, he was crying, he had to go potty. Wet pants. My kids don't have accidents (when they are awake). I can count on one hand how many times that has happened with all of them. (Sleeping is a different story.) So I loaded Evan up, bloodied and wet, took him home, cleaned him up and changed his clothes (and shoes). He had to have hit pretty hard...it shook the whole house.

But that was pretty much the worst that happened. They were really good about playing, even though they were tired. There were few tattles, few arguments (between all 11 kids). The adults had a great time. We played such games as Pit, Bang, and some card game about Ninja Fighting. All on top of snacking and playing the other things around the house.

There was one other time when Evan and Leah got "locked in" the garage. I think it really amounted to them not being able to unlatch the door. They both came in pretty weapy-eyed...sounds like a bad evening for Evan...but he had fun, as did the others.

As far as New Years go, I'm not good about resolutions. It's been a long time since I even had one. I usually never did well with them when I did make them, so I don't have any exciting things as far as that goes...the ones I have made to myself are too personal to put on here. Other than I'm going to try to better at housework. You can imagine that I am really busy with two jobs and four kids, so I usually don't have the desire or energy to clean well, but I'm going to work on that this year. A little each day should be pretty sufficient....Plus we did some re-organizing and some trashing, so everything has a PLACE now. In a tiny house, that is imperative if you want to appear clean. That should help.

Sorry there's nothing exciting about the new year as far as promises or life-changing goals. Like I said, I have a few, but they aren't really blog material.

Have a fantastic 2007! Here's praying that God blesses you abundantly in it!