'so ready for the weekend' shorts

*Rhett wants to go to New York for his birthday.  I am planning the trip in my mind already...

*We did make Apple Strudel.  It was good.  I like apple pie and apple cobbler better, but it was worth the effort. 

*Yesterday, I watched Oprah.  I don't usually because I don't like her interview style (shh..don't read that too loud...lots of Oprah fans out there) but, BUT, she had the cast of The Sound of Music on her show and it was wonderful! Did you know that 'Louisa' was Robert Urich's wife?  Did you know 'Liesel' was 21 when she filmed? She was only 7 years younger than Julie Andrews!  And she had a big crush on Christopher Plummer, but honestly, who wouldn't?  Did you know that 'Frederich' grew 6 inches in the 6 months it took to film the movie?  'Liesel' had to wear heels, then stand on apple boxes just for consisitency. 

*I am ready for Halloween to be over.

*I turned the heater on this morning. 

*This weekend, I need to make a pie with Noah for a school assignment.  He also needs to start on a book report about Comanche Indians.  He is so excited to do his very first book report.  He even wants to dress up like Quanah Parker.  Full headdress and all.  I guess I have my work cut out for me.

*I have been taking the kids to school in my pajama pants and slippers.  What does this say about me, I wonder?  Dad, don't answer.  ;)

*I've been missing my friends and family a lot this week. 

*In the course of a week, I have broken a new bottle of pure maple syrup all over the floor, spilled a glass of wine, dumped dog food all over the floor, spilled flour all over my clean counter, knocked over 2 bottles of water on the carpet, not at the same time, dropped a box of crackers and guess what, they spilled out all over the floor, and dropped my breakfast, say it with my, all over the floor.  I am seriously thinking that I should quit eating, drinking and doing things until my clumsy bad luck ends.

*I hope everyone has a good weekend!

love, aimee

no deed goes unpunished; however small

The other day, I walked into the laundry room to put something away and when I turned around, my eye caught this on the wall by my built-in desk:

Someone has been busy. And it sure isn't Rhett.

Immediately, I think about when I did this as a child. I wrote "Casey" on the wall of our bathroom and in a corner by my bedroom door but compared to Noah, I actually got away with it a couple of times before my parents really looked and knew it wasn't my brother's doing. Apparently, he wrote his "s" backwards back then. Small detail I missed.

Anyway, I couldn't help but laugh and then groan. How am I going to punish him for doing the same thing I did?

When confronted, Noah broke down and cried. He then told me, "What am I supposed to do when I'm mad at Rhett? You won't let me hit him!" Then he said, "I tried to erase it!"

Later that day, we went to Wal-mart. Before we went inside, he asked if he could buy a toy with his own money. I told him no. He didn't understand why I was punishing him that way. It was his own money. After 15 minutes of listening to him in Wal-mart go on and on, I wondered why I was punishing myself.

Not remembering what my parents' punishment was for me when they finally caught me as the culprit, I figure I am now square with the universe for my act against my brother.

Vielleicht werden wir backen Apfelstrudel heute**

Fall Break has come and gone.  We worked on the house, had friends over, went to Oktoberfest  (Dieses Bier ist zu teuer)*, watched How to Train Your Dragon and then went to Barnes and Noble and found out that How to Train Your Dragon is actually a book series!  Imagine that!

Rhett bought a Wizardry book (which I fully supported because I really want him to get into Harry Potter) and so far, he has tried to make a wand (it broke), tell the future with cards (his question: What does brute mean?), summon Merlin's owl (in the morning) and he wanted to see if he could make something fly but you have to hold your wand over it for 6 hours, so he hasn't done that yet.

He also has decided he does not like school (Too much math and maybe the writing isn't much fun either).  I promised him we'd do something fun like bake cookies today.  Because he does like to bake.  He has made muffins (from the box) all by himself and is ready to tackle more difficult things.  Too bad I haven't been in the mood to bake.  :(  Today, though, today we will bake.

Noah, well, I'll have to tell you about Noah's doings tomorrow in another post.  He's been busy.

That's all I have for today.  Have a good Monday!

*This is German for "This beer is too expensive!"  My friend taught us that saying and yes, it was fitting.  Oktoberfest was fun for the men (they sat, watching sports and drinking German beer).  The kids, thankfully, had a good time too because of the carnival rides.  Rhett rode his first roller coaster and loved it. They all had their faces painted (there was 6 kids in our group) and ate pizza and lemonade.  Noah had funnel cake and ate most of it himself.  No one tried any German food but the strudel did smell delicious.  I know, we went to a German festival and didn't try German food? In our defense, half the kids were picky eaters, it was raining cats and dogs and the men weren't around to help us search for the right food tent.  We saw pizza and went for it.  :)  Then we left when all the young, college kids were arriving.  I am sure they had a great time dancing to The Chicken Dance.

**Ok, I feel guilty for not having the kids at least try German food.  "Maybe we will bake Apple strudel today"

:)

beware: lots of "s and 's

The "Beatles" concert was so much fun! All of us had a great time and Rhett and Noah survived their first concert.  Here are the highlights:

*We sat next to one of Seth's co-workers who is orginally from England and when asked what she thought she said the "John Lennon" was pretty spot on.  I thought he was pretty good myself.  Through the course of the concert, he transformed from a member of the Beatles to the John Lennon who was married to Yoko Ono and stayed in bed for days to prove a peaceful point. 

*They changed costumes that matched the Beatles album covers from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club and my favorite, Abbey Road.  "Paul" even had barefeet! And I got to tell Seth all about the "Paul is Dead" controversy.  Fun stuff!

*Seth had no idea that he liked the Beatles.  Throughout the concert, he kept looking at me and saying, "Hey, I know that song! I didn't know they sang it!"  His biggest surprise was that Guns N Roses did not sing 'Live and Let Die' orginally. 

*Rhett's favorite song was 'I am the Walrus,' a song that makes absolutely no sense but is so much fun to try and sing on Beatles Rock Band.  I think he likes that song best because he knows he doesn't have to understand it.  Every other song, he kept asking questions.  During 'Imagine' he asked, "Why is there no heaven?  What would happen if there was no heaven?"  During 'Eleanor Rigby' he asked, "Who were they talking about being lonely?  Why were they lonely?"  You get my drift.

*All Noah wanted to hear was 'Yellow Submarine'.  And they played it.  He was happy.  Of course, after that, he got tired so Seth had to go walk around with him, missing my two favorite parts of the whole night:

*During 'Live and Let Die', Rhett looked at me and said, "Who's Little Ned?"  I had no idea what he was talking about and said as much.  Rhett said, "You know, Little Ned?  And why did he die?"  Rhett thought they were singing "Little Ned died" instead of "Live and let die."  I laughed and laughed. 

*During the first encore, the band came out and sang 'Hey Jude', truly a favorite of mine.  Cell phones shot up in the air, as people waved them back and forth (someone old-schooled it and waved a lighter). Rhett asked me for my phone and he waved it back and forth throughout the song.  It was great.

*I think the greatest part was that I never thought, "When are they going to sing this song?"  At the end of the concert (before the encore), I never realized they didn't sing 'Hey, Jude'.  Only til they came back on stage, did I think, "Oh yeah, they hadn't sung that yet!"  A great night.  Mom, I wish I would have known so I could have told you to come here and go with us.  I'll keep a look out for them to come back.

roll up for the mystery tour

I made these last week and hung them up in my kitchen/breakfast area.  I certainly didn't come up with the idea myself but I love the touch of red in my kitchen (if you remember, my kitchen in Edmond was completely red).  I also like the reminder and the fact that it is from a Beatles song is just an added bonus. 

(And now look as I move seamlessly into this:)

Saturday night, Seth and I are taking the boys to this:

I'm more than a little excited.  And I think the boys will enjoy it too.  Seth may or may not be looking forward to it but he gave me a choice of this or a University of Tulsa football game and well, we all know why that was a silly question! Ha.ha.  Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh and Dad-hope you have a great birthday tomorrow!! love ya!

our scout

Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Scout
Born February 1999.  Died October 11, 2010.

Became a Houston during Spring Break of 1999.  Seth and I were only going to look at boxer puppies because someday we would have liked one.  We took one look at this beautiful puppy and tried to leave her.  We drove away knowing in 10 minutes we would be back.  And we were.

Named after the character in my favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Thankful for Seth's parents that took her for about 2 months until we could find an apartment that allowed dogs.

Her favorite thing was to be rubbed on her belly while she stood in front of you.  Sometimes she would stand there, in front of our feet, just waiting.  She also loved laying in the sun.  She would stretch out and you know that she was saying, "Ahhhh. This feels so good."  Chasing Brinkley's tail was also a favorite pasttime.  I think that is why Brinkley can't be still to save his life because he always had Scout behind him, biting his tail.  I bet he'll miss it though. He'll miss her. 

She loved to lay on my lap when I was pregnant with  Rhett.  I knew it got harder for her the bigger I got, but she still managed to fit.  Then when Rhett was born, she knew that she had to protect him. She sat right in front of his bassanet and growled at anyone who tried to get close.  She was so good with the boys and only barked at their loud and obnoxious friends.

Speaking of barking, she barked.  A lot.  All the time.  These past few months, I would catch her just sitting in the middle of the yard and just bark.  Maybe she was saying, "Hey, I may be old and can't get up but I still hear you so get away."  Or maybe she just barked to bark.  It will be quiet at our house now.

She layed on my bed after my miscarriage and knew to just lay there while I cried.  I think all dogs are so good at being your friend.  They just know what to do.

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell. ~Emily Dickinson

Scout was a really, really good dog.

(If you are still here, thank you for reading.  Using my blog to write about Scout has been good therapy.)

Tech game AND the fair? Lucky!

 This past weekend, we traveled to Dallas for the Texas Tech-Baylor game that was at the Cotton Bowl.  We picked Sammy up at the airport on Friday night and then Saturday morning, we tried out Dallas' public transportation.  First, we had to drive to Point A: The Park and Ride.  That took us about 20 minutes and after driving through a maze we finally reached it. The photo above is the Houston boys trying to console Seth after learning that the train that was taking us to Point B would arrive 15 minutes before Kickoff at Point C.  He wasn't happy.  In his defense, Dallas doesn't have the greatest public transportation system.  And we've been to cities that have great public transportation systems.  If Dallas wants to even come close to competing, they need to do a lot of work.  It was ridiculous.  It was however, much better than driving to the Cotton Bowl.  After reaching Point B and being herded like cattle onto buses (seriously, I heard many jokes about that and heard many "moos"), I saw the traffic.  Eeek. The buses took us through some sketchy neighborhoods and then finally, finally, Point C: The Cotton Bowl, which, incidentally, was surrounded by The Great State Fair of Texas!!  Oh boy.

 My mood lifted immediately when I saw that our seats were shaded.  It was rather warm and I was wearing long sleeves and jeans.  So I was comfortable the whole game.  We had a great view of the field and after seeing some tortillas fly, I was reminiscent about my ole college days when we would go watch the game.  We saw The Goin' Band from Raider land and we even won which made one little boy so happy.  The other little boy was just ready to go to the fair.  Can you guess which one? 

 The fair!  This is my view from sitting at a picnic table and being sprayed on by water spritzers (you can see the spray in the picture).  Being novice fair goers, we had no idea that to buy anything you needed coupons.  So Sammy got in line to buy coupons.  Well, he bought a fair amount of them.  Turns out, though, the only thing Noah wanted to do was play the games and guess what?  You can't use coupons for the games, you had to buy credits!  Those fair people have got this figured out.  They know people will buy a whole lot of coupons at one time because who wants to stand in a long line more than once? And they know that no one will question the people that swipe the game credit card you just spent $5 on when they say, "Empty!" and you have to quickly buy another one so your child can try their hardest to win a crappy toy.  They know when people get tired they will go home and they don't care because they have their money already from the coupons that weren't used.  Maybe I am not meant for the fair.

 But, BUT, we had a good time anyway.  Noah won a Texas Tech basketball for Rhett and a Scooby Doo doll, er, I mean, stuffed animal, that he gave to Rhett too.  Rhett won a stuffed parrot and Seth won Noah a stuffed parrot.  Everyone was happy!  They saw giant reptiles with their Pop and rode on the carousel and tried not to smile.  Sammy and I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel and then when Uncle Scott and Sara joined us, they wanted to as well, but the line was long and we were tired, so no Ferris wheel. 

 Big Tex is telling us goodbye because that is what we were trying to leave when we saw him.  Thank God for cellphones because we lost Sammy and Scott once and so we stayed by the statue until they came and found us. 

The end of the fair, but not the end of our day.  No, we had to make it back to the Park and Ride.  Another 1 1/2 journey (more waiting, always waiting), then we stopped, got Steak n' Shake, ate at the hotel and I was thankful we weren't at home in our beds because none of us took showers to wash off that night.  We just dropped into bed and lights out.

This weekend was a tiring one, but I think we all had a great time.  It was good to see family and it was good to get away.  I think it was fun to see all the people wearing red and black at the game and at the fair.  Living in Oklahoma, well, we just don't see that here.  I kind of liked seeing the absence of OU colors. It was fun being part of the crowd in that sense. 

Have a wonderful Monday!

lest you think i was exagerrating

 My spider story would have been a lot better with pictures.  Yesterday, I went back out there to see if the spider was still there.  You see that it was.  (It is the black spot in the picture above).

 It is also the giant blob in the picture above.  However, in this photo, I focused on the tree branches, not the spider.  Look at what she is doing to the tree!  There are webs all over the tree like this.

 And here is her masterpiece, the one she was on when I was directly below her, looking for a football.  I made these pictures black and white because the detail of the web really stands out better.  Beautiful.  The web, not the spider.

I zoomed out a little.  This web really is high up from the ground.  the thing is, I am not sure what it is attached to.  Yes, the tree but then what?  Our tree is by our fence and then for 5-10 feet there is nothing until the neighbor's trampoline.  I don't know but it looks like it is just floating. 

Scout update:  I think she is doing better!  She feels better but still doesn't really have an appetite and is so smart she knows when I'm trying to sneak a pill into food.  I think she doesn't trust food or trust me with food anymore.  But she is acting like her old self and that is a big relief. 

Update on me:  There are times when I feel guilty staying home, thinking I should do more or that both boys are in school so I need to get out there and go back to work.  But honestly, these past two weeks, I haven't felt that once.  Rhett has so much homework once he gets home (something I am not sure should happen and I definitely am going to inquire to the teacher about come parent/teacher conference-yes, I am going to be that mother, sorry teacher friends and family) and for about an hour and a half, I have to be there with them, helping them with Math and Spelling, and keeping them, especially Rhett on task (another think I need to inquire to the teacher about.  This first, then the homework).  Then there is Scout,  who is takes half an hour to feed and take pills and so on and honestly, I am grateful right now.  I'm not saying I am never going back to work or that I still don't feel guilty (honestly, what mom doesn't feel guilty about something, whether you work or stay-at-home?)  but I do know that I still feel needed and that has restored my faith in being a stay-at-home mom.  Anyway, enough about me.

Have a great weekend and make sure  you look up when you go outside.  You never know when spiders are lurking above. :)

halloween cometh early at our house

Yesterday evening, the boys are playing in the backyard, enjoying the weather.

Rhett comes in and asks me to help him get his football out from behind the bush because he just can't reach it.

So out I go.

I am looking for this football and after a few minutes, see it so I pull the bushes back with a stick and say to Rhett, "Ok, I'm holding the bushes back so why don't you get in there and get your ball?"

Rhett hesitates.

I tell him, "It's okay. There is nothing behind the bushes.  Go fast!"

Rhett says, "I'm just hoping that spider up there doesn't drop down on me when I go by."

I look up.

Right above me is this huge spider (dime-sized is huge in my book) hanging out on his web. 

Of course I scream and jump a mile away from the bushes.

When questioned about whether or not Rhett knew the spider was there the whole time, the answer was definitely on the yes side.  When told to get his own dumb ball, the answer was "but I'm afraid of spiders."

We were at a standstill.  Both of us, afraid of things of the 8-legged variety, were not going in the bushes.

Noah sighs, gets on the fence, inches his way to the football, grabs it and gets out of there calmly.

His face was priceless. 

what we are learning in school

I am distracting myself from thinking of my dog, Scout, who is in the hospital due to heart problems. Apparently, it is a common problem with boxers. Now Brinkley acts lost without his friend and I'm on the verge of tears almost all the time. But I am trying to stay positive and these kids of mine are great distractions. 

Here is a snippet of what Rhett has been learning and writing about in school:

"I wonder why the Nazis just decided to hate the Jews. It just doesn't make any sense. You don't just decide to hate somebody.  It's very very cruel what they did."
-Rhett, August 24, 2010

He is also learning to play 'Hot Cross Buns' on the recorder and every time he plays, I say a silent pray asking for blessings upon the music teacher who has to listen to hundreds of kids play the recorder.

Rhett is also learning about Oklahoma history.  I've said this before, but it makes my heart a little sad that my kids aren't learning about Texas history.  Seth and I throw it in every once in awhile.  Oklahoma has an interesting history too, I guess.  Boomers and Sooners and "Kentucky" Daisy throwing herself off the train to stake a piece of land (now Edmond, OK).  Do you want to know what Boomers and Sooners are?  Yeah, I didn't think so.

Noah is learning how to write.  Coincidentally, he wrote about something he is learning from home:  Texas History! 

The Alomo by Noah Houston

The Alomo was a war Texas vs. Mexico

it all started when Texas was part of Mexico but Texas didn't want to be a part of Mexco so a war began

Sam Houston was the geral. (I'm related to him.)

Texas lost but another war stated and Texas won! and became ther on contry.

Yes, we need to work on a few details but I like that he made sure to add that he is related to Sam Houston.  My kids get such a kick out of that possible relation.

He also wrote about sharks:

Sharks by: Noah Houston

Sharks are insestengig creaturs.

Did you know that dog, cat, even pigs kill more people than sharks do.  Whale sharks are the Biggest fish in the world!

I need to go get the car's oil changed and then go to the vet for an update on Scout now.  I hope you have a good Monday.