End of the Season

Baby Doll had her last basketball game this morning at 8:00. You know how I hate early mornings...

It turned out to be a great game with our team clearly winning even though they don't keep score at the kindergarten age. At 9:00 we headed for Curly's game and got there halfway through the first quarter. It was nice to sit by my sweetie for a minute. He only saw a tiny bit of Baby Doll's game because he was taking Sport to his MathCounts Competition.

Curly does a great job in every sport he has ever tried and basketball is no exception. He is tall and big and the kids respect his skill level. He made 12 of their 20 or so points. Sadly, we had to leave for Scout's game halfway through the third quarter. I made a quick stop at the house to drop off the Dog Walker and Baby Doll and then I met up with Grandpa who had already taken Scout down to the school where our girls play.

That was a crazy game!!

We have never won a game before, but the girls play their hardest and we have come awfully close. By the middle of the 4th quarter, we were up by 1 point. Then suddenly the other team was up by one point. Inside the two-minute mark our girls ran the full-court press (they can only run it in the last two minutes). Our cute Ashley stole the ball on the inbound pass and popped it right in to put us ahead again by one.

Scout made 4 points!

Grandpa was getting pretty excited on the sidelines. As a former college player, coach, and official, he hollered about a foul that definitely should have been called. I calmed him by putting my arms around him and reminding him we couldn't yell at the officials and I didn't want him to get kicked out. Thankfully they didn't even give us a warning although I'm pretty sure that if I had been the one doing the yelling I would have been shown the door.

With 16 seconds we were still ahead by one and the ball went back and forth until Scout finally grabbed the ball and made one last shot for us! Their first win! And just in time too, their season ends next week.

Everyone is so tired today. My sweetie and I even got a little time this afternoon for a nap so we watched a movie that kept the little ones up way too late for scripture time. Thankfully, the Dog Walker got home from work just in time to carry them up to bed.

Groundhog Day

Guess what we did on Groundhog Day! Besides my Cub Scout den meeting and a host of other activities... we went "around the world in 80 minutes." Our PTA did a program called STEAM. You probably already know what STEM is (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), but if you put the A in the middle, it can also include the Arts.

I love that.

I know we have to focus on all of those areas of technology, but I love the arts, especially reading and literature. I have never been to one of these programs with so many different things involved. The whole thing only lasted 80 minutes, but they had 12 different stations where the kids could do activities, build pyramids and towers, race cars, try animation, and a host of other things.

Curly loved playing with the Tesla balls, Scout didn't really care about the activities as much as she wanted to make sure she got every single sticker. And Baby Doll was having a rough time because reading was involved and she is mostly still a pre-reader. 

The kids collected a sticker at each station around the school and then they turned in their passports at the end for prizes that turned out to be coupons for free books or ice cream cones. It was fun, but we hadn't planned it into our evening activities, so it made things crazy.

After it was over, I dropped the kids at the house and then I ran over to the church for a viewing. The Beast's best friend's mother passed away and I couldn't possibly miss that (or the funeral today). After hugs and tears I ran back home to change again for our 9:00 pm basketball game. I even managed to snap a pic of Bossy (#42) while she was on the court.

It was a rough day, but my sweetie is home now and all is well. Life is just so much better for me when he is around. Maybe that's why we have been married for so long. Oh come on, it's February, weren't you expecting at least a little bit of mushy stuff?

Guest Blog: Castle L'Orange by Drama Queen

Hey, bloggersphere!  I haven't posted in awhile, but I have some pretty exciting news to share: I'm starting to close on my very own home!  I've been looking on and off since mid-November, there have been quite a few good options - I even put in two other offers, but as soon as my realtor and I pulled up to this crazy pink-orange house, I knew it was meant especially for me.  

It even matches my hair!

The house is part of a complex built in 1978.  It's a detached split-level with a separate garage and a cute little yard out front and back.  It has four official bedrooms, and then a downstairs family room that we are going to convert into a second master - since it already has a bathroom.  Come summertime, Teach, Twiz, and their little baby will be coming to live with me.  They get the basement, I'll stay upstairs.  

Now, it's not the prettiest house around cosmetic-wise, but it's in really good shape.  (Had the inspection today and it came out excellent!  It's a house from 1978 but the biggest problems to deal with are a cracked window frame and a leaky shower head. Furnace, HVAC, and water heater are all less than 10 years old!)  

And as for the cosmetic-issues...well, let's just say my Pinterest board has seen an awful lot of traffic from me this week.  I'm inspired by a few different styles that are all coming together.  You know how shabby-chic plays around with farmhouse style?  Well I want to do a similar thing, but with neo-Victorian and industrial style.  The pictures can kind of give you an idea.  Just imagine bright, white walls, black trim, and beautiful brass and copper accents.  Then decorative elements like pillows would be in awesome jewel tones and keep to the Victorian steam-punk theme.

Mummy and Bossy saw this fantastic idea that I'm super excited to do, too: a penny floor.  Have you guys seen this?  So they take a whole bunch of pennies, glue them to the floor, and then cover the whole thing in a layer of epoxy.  I'm planning this for the kitchen and the bathrooms.  It looks so cool...and it's cheaper to lay than any tile I've seen so far!

The second upstairs bedroom I'm thinking of making my library/craft room.  It's been a great excuse to ogle bookcases all week.  I'm so excited to have my books back out of storage.  It's been like having old friends locked away...but maybe not quite that creepy.

Furniture, of course, will have to wait a bit, but that's okay.  I do have my eye on a few cute things.  Like this awesome gray couch.  And someday I'll have the chance to buy every cute octopus decoration I can find on Etsy..  

I'm not gonna lie, Bloggersphere, this week has been crazy-stressful.  But dreaming about the way it will look once I have the chance to tear out the old carpets and brighten everything up.. It makes me want to move in tomorrow!  

So tell me: What do you think I should do in my awesome house-make-over??

Real Life

I finished my cute rhino costume today, so my commitments for the kindergarten operetta are done! Yay! The crazy part is that Baby Doll can only model them for me now. She doesn't get to wear either one of them on stage. She is a village girl and a narrator.

The other half of yesterday I was at the elementary school doing a "marketplace." In 3rd grade they try to give the kids a taste of what it's like when real life finally hits. They have to go to every booth and buy something. I was in transportation this time so we got to sell invisible cars (or bikes or bus passes...) to these kids. So many of them still handed over most of their money for a sports car!

I convinced Curly to go for the two-door hatchback. His salary of $400 a month as a coach just wouldn't support the $75 he needed for the fancy car. At $30 the small car was much more reasonable. I wonder how long he will take my advice on vehicles?

My very sensible Coach Curly decided to take a break from spending his money...

Cookie sales are almost over and I am so glad! It seems like these 3 weeks have been FOREVER this year. In Utah they have two different prices for cookies this year, so I am planning on twice as much time to go over all the orders for my own girls and the troop. It would be so easy for the girls to forget in their totals and then somebody has to make up the difference. I don't want it to be the troop and I really, really don't want it to be me.

I also really, really want my sweetie to come home! These early mornings are wiping me out.