2-23-07 POW

Happy Birthday Alyssa! Can you believe that she is already 11 years old? Here's a picture taken on her 5th birthday. She was in kindergarten that year. Isn't she sweet? Look outside her window: snow! Today is going to be 60 and it was 68 yesterday. MUCH better! Anyway, I did the usual stuff this birthday morning which includes jumping on her bed at 6am and yelling "Happy Birthday!", smothering her with kisses, then logging her height and weight in her baby book. From 9-10 she grew 5 inches, now from 10-11 she logged only 3 inches (which is still a lot). I'm not sure if when you click on this you'll be able to read all of the individual entries, but she was quite proud. She likes that she has Sidney beat, as you can see from the doorjam of my pantry. I'm guessing that she'll pass Sidney in the next few years.

This was a busy week for us. On Monday all of the 5th graders dressed up and went to the OPERA. Yes, the opera. She wore the dress she had on New Year's Eve and I curled her hair as per her request. Have you ever seen the TV show "That 70's Show"? If you have, she ended up looking like the older blonde sister. It was very 70's looking, but that's what she wanted. She did, however, ban me from photographing her so I think she had some idea of what she looked like. When she got home she told me that they had fun and it was very short, "not even long enough to get bored and fall asleep". Ha! That was Monday.

I worked all of last weekend (three 13 hour days) and I was reminded as I fell into bed Monday night after a "short" day at work that I had volunteered to help make cookies the next day (my first day off) in Alyssa's classroom. Be there at 8:00, OK? Only because I got to bed at 9 was I able to pull this off. Actually, it was quite fun. We were making those chocolate / peanut butter / oatmeal no-bake cookies. Do you remember those? Well, they had some tabletop burners to help melt the butter/cocoa/sugar and then an assembly table to add in the cold ingredients. Back to the desks to finish mixing and rolling into cookie balls to place on the waxed paper. They were divided into groups of 4 and took turns at each station. Sounded good, except the recipe was wrong. Alyssa's group had too much milk and peanut butter and theirs wouldn't hold their shape. When I got them home I added some more oatmeal and they were fine. Anyway, only 2 other parents showed up (another mom and a dad). The dad manned the table with the burner coils and I helped with the cold ingredient additions. The other mom supervised the mixing. When it was all over I looked around and it looked like an explosion at Dunkin Donuts! What a mess! The worst part? I got stuck on KP. If any of you know what a 5th grade classroom looks like, there's only one little hand-washing sink (low to the ground) and the water doesn't get very hot. I had to wash 6 huge spaghetti pots, 6 massive mixing bowls and tons of spoons and measuring cups...with no hot water OR soap! Yuck! All they had was hand washing soap which didn't work very well. Her teacher was very thankful for my efforts, though, so all was well.

Wednesday started tryouts for Track and Sid was very excited. Tuesday afternoon while I was still tired from the weekend and picking oatmeal out from under my nails from my cookie morning she reminds me that she needs to get a physical before tryouts (that were the next day). My "you've-got-to-be-kidding" look didn't seem to phase her, nor did the Death Rays emitting from my eyeballs, so off to the doctor we went. Two hours we were there. Yes, TWO HOURS! She owes me. Clean bill of health, no big surprise, and $20 less in my wallet to be told that. Gotta love it. Anyway, she did really well at tryouts Wednesday (she had to run the mile) and also yesterday (she ran the 400 meter). Today is the last day and they will get the results on Monday. I'm pretty confident that she made the team.

At a school assembly today the choir (excuse me: chorus! Sid corrected me....) that Sidney sings in will get to perform. Her she is in her CHORUS uniform shirt. She's really excited because they are singing a fun song. If you've never seen Sister Act 2 with Whoopi Goldberg you really need to. They are singing one of the songs from the movie - Joyful, Joyful. If you want to see a clip from the movie, click on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_c_MHkba5c It's a little grainy, but you can get the idea. Sidney said that they even get to do the dance moves. My face lit up when she told me that and immediately she got a horrified look. "NO, parents can't come and especially parents with cameras!". Fine. I'm going to eat lunch with Alyssa today anyway. Ha!

Tonight is the party at the hotel. Wish me luck!!! I'm sure the POW next week will be all about it. Have a great week!

2-15-07 POW

My cable was out all morning so I couldn't write this before now. It wouldn't have been so bad, but it also knocked out my TV and phone (one drawback to digital phone). I still had my cell phone, though, so I wasn't completely isolated. The silence was really nice!!! Now the girls are home, one is on the phone talking LOUDLY to a friend and one is on the computer listening to a song (and I use that term loosely) that would make most parents cringe. You know the kind...they usually have parental warnings on the label and the singers (again, a term used loosely) have more gold around their necks and on their teeth than the entire US mint has locked up and they wear pants that defy the laws of gravity. Here I sit on the couch, forced to listen to my ipod so I could block the noise. Currently I'm listening to Chuck Mangione - Feels So Good. Now THAT is music!

OH, Happy Late Valentine's Day! I hope you all had a good day and got lots of chocolate. Brent did exactly as I asked: a card and chocolate. Good boy!!! Sid and Lys got chocolate from me and Alyssa got this BEAUTIFUL homemade Valentine from her BFF, Hayley (my other daughter). The biggest one ever!

Sidney has tryouts for Track next Wednesday. She is nervous and has been running almost every day to prepare. I can already see such a change in her from last year. Her muscles are so much more developed and her legs seem to be twice as long. She is also running the Peachtree Road Race this summer in Atlanta with our friend Rory (She used to babysit the girls and I work with her mom). She will be one of 55,000 runners on the 4th of July. She ran it last year with Dean's dad Steve and did really well. She would have done better, she said, but she had to stop and wait for Steve. This year she'll be running with someone MUCH closer to her own age.

ipod update: Stevie Wonder - Knocks Me Off My Feet. I love that this thing has a shuffle on it. Who knows what the next song will be???

OK, some of you have gotten wind of this and some of you haven't: Alyssa's birthday party has been changed. No longer are we going to rent out a room and wear a fancy dress. It wasn't a huge surprise to me. I didn't think they'd be able to come up with 10 chaperones, much less the $350 it was going to cost. The clincher? I flat-out refused to use my credit card for the deposit. Even more funny/horrifying? She asked ANOTHER mom to use hers!!!! Thank God it was Hayley's mom (Jennifer, you are so cool). After the shock and disbelief wore off, Jennifer calmly explained to Alyssa that she loved her and she would do anything for her, even give up her house for a Halloween party, but (basically) it would be a cold day in you-know-where before credit card numbers were given out. When I found this out I took Alyssa into my room, sat her down and asked her if she knew how much damage 60 5th graders could do to a rented banquet hall overlooking a lake. I think she gets it now.

ipod update: Bobby Darrin - Mack the Knife.

On to Plan B. Somehow, and I'm not sure how or even when it happened, but it seems that it is ALL the rage to have sleepovers at .... are you sitting down?... the Embassy Suites hotel! http://www.embassysuites.com/en/es/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=GSOGBES I wouldn't have believed it myself, but Sid and Lys have been there at least 2 or 3 times each. At first I wondered if those parents had been lucky enough to purchase the winning lottery ticket, but it was explained to me last week when Sidney went for Elise's sleepover there. The hotel is less than 10 minutes from here, the guests get dropped off at 7, we order pizza at 7:30, they swim in the indoor pool until their eyes are the color of a bullfighter's cape, they relocate to the TV in our room watching movies until they crash and in the morning there's a free breakfast for all and more swimming. It is a suite with a separate bedroom with 2 double beds and a living room with a pull-out couch. Two TV's, a kichen and a bathroom with two doors. Parents pick up at 10:30 and we go home to a clean house. Hmm....a clean house. That, alone, made it worth looking into. I totalled up in my little head what it would cost to take 10 little girls skating or even to the paintball place. This might work.

ipod. Def Leppard - Photograph. As if you care. Ha!!!

Long story short, I called them and they had an impressive airline employee discount. I told Alyssa the good news and after she squealed and hugged me she immediately rattled off her guest list: Hayley (of course), Shayna (from NY Eve - we had renamed her Sasha), 2 different Taylors (you know one of them), Lauren (from the mall trip with the Christmas gift cards burning holes in their pockets) and Amanda (Alyssa went to her ice skating party a week or so ago). I might be crazy, but it will make for some great pictures and, I'm sure, a lengthy POW. Ha! I'll let you know how exhausted I am after Sid and I spend the night on the pull-out couch. I think I'll need my ipod for that trip, too.

Speaking of.... Creed - With Arms Wide Open.

I found this picture from 5 years ago, the first year I did the POW's. Aren't they cute? Alyssa is begging me not to publish it again. Too bad! Have a great week....

2-6-07 POW

Hello all, after taking last week off....we're back! There was too much going on last week to sneak off for an hour to write this, so now you'll get twice as much to read about. I'll try to remember it all, but bear with me if I don't. I'm over 40 now and my memory isn't quite what it used to be. Ha!

I'm sure you're all wondering how the Disney trip went. Sid had a BLAST! She was totally exhausted when she got home, but talked about it for hours....days....on and on. They had long days and lots of free time. Sid, Brianna and Neha were inseparable. Brianna's dad went as a chaperone and ended up being their photographer. Of all the pictures Sid took I think she's alone in only one of them! They got back to GSO a little late that Saturday morning and I may be wrong, but I think she was actually glad to see me. Maybe it was the 11 hour ride through the night wedged in a bus seat. When the busses drove into the lot and parked, the drivers got off and opened the big doors underneath where the luggage was. The kids had piled off the bus and were joined by anxious parents, including myself. Then it happened. All the kids (and parents) were just staring at the bags stored under the bus as if they were going to magically jump out and onto the sidewalk. I looked around at all of the dads. Did they think the 70 year old bus drivers were going to unload all of those bags? I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Much to Sidney's horror I pushed through the crowd and unloaded about 30 of the bags onto the sidewalk until I got to Sidney's. I had them off in less than a minute. I guess since I handle bags for a living it was no big deal. Sidney's eyes told me differently. "Um, Mommy, don't you think you were a little rough with those bags? Were you in a hurry?". I laughed. If she only knew what went on daily on an airport ramp. The funny part? The rest of the parents just kinda looked at me when I stopped as if to say, "Gosh, you didn't get to mine yet. Aren't you going to get the rest?". Ummmmm....NO!

A few days later (Tuesday) Heather flew down. We were having an "early" birthday party for Brent and she and Billy wanted to attend. Billy was going to fly their plane down the next day, but we thought it would be fun to have a "sisters" day before he came. I was going to get Brent a dresser for his birthday and a new TV for the bedroom (woo-hoo! exciting, huh?) and she was going to help put the dresser together (I ordered his REAL present but it wasn't going to be here in time so this was Plan B). Anyway, we went to Wal-Mart (where all fine furniture is purchased) and brought home this harmless looking box full of boards and some loose parts. Some???? Try: 90. We looked at the clock when we started and after realizing that the drawing on page 12 was INCORRECT (we know this because we had to take the @#*&%$# thing apart to flip a board), we finished about 2 1/2 hours later (the phone rang a few times and slowed us down). It looked great...until we went to put the drawers in. One board was warped and the drawer wouldn't close. We looked at each other and almost cried. Instead, we opened a box of cookies and discussed our plan of action. The party was the next day and Brent would be coming over about 2pm, right when Billy was due to land. No problem. We woke the next morning, threw the already-built dresser in my 4-Runner and headed back to Wal-Mart. There were only 2 on the shelf when we bought ours and the other Wal-Mart didn't have one. We crossed our fingers as I pulled up to the store. Heather ran in to sweet-talk the customer service person and it must have worked. Minutes later a man came out with a cart, loaded the old one and gave us the new one and we drove off. We were barely out of the parking lot when she said it. "Those guys were so nice. Did you know that if you let them know a day or so in advance they will put this stuff together for you for free?" I almost wrecked the car. "What????" I looked down at the scratches in my hands. "You know, you could have gone all day without saying that." Back to the house to put together the dresser again. At this point we were pros. We even shaved off 30 minutes from the construction time! The only bad part was that Heather cut her thumb while scraping off a sticker. We told Brent later that Heather shed her own blood for this project. Here's the finished product. Stupid dresser!

On to the birthday party. Billy landed shortly after lunch and Brent met us at home. He loved the dresser and TV (smart man - Heather was going to kill him if he hadn't!). That night we had a small party at the house and had his daughters over (Kelly and Traci) and our friends Todd and David. Burgers on the grill and birthday cake. You can't beat that!

The next day we had some winter weather (a dusting of snow and freezing rain) so Billy was unable to fly their plane back. It didn't work out for Friday, either, so they ended up staying until Saturday. We had so much fun! It was really great to get to spend that much time with them. I hated to see them leave.

OK, the last set of pictures. Sunday was Brent's actual birthday, which also happened to be the Superbowl, so Sidney planned our annual party, complete with decorations. She worked so hard on decorating the whole house and on the menu, the day couldn't HELP but be a success. The best part was his cake. She decorated it to look like a football field and put M&M's in the spots where the players would be. You "football" people will have to let me know which play they are setting up for. I haven't a clue. Ha! We had a house FULL of kids (mostly girls) which only added to the excitement of the game. The house was anything BUT quiet!

The harem on the couch is (left to right): Hayley, Lys, Sid, Margot, Elise and Ashley. We had one more (Elise and Ashley's brother, James) but he is camera shy and wouldn't be in the pictures. It was a fun night!

That's all for now. My fingers are sore and I have to go to work. Have a great day and look for a much shorter POW next week. Yeah!