Cool mom or glutton for punishment? You be the judge.

Alternate post title:
Yes, I am insane. Why do you ask?



Yesterday was Brielle's birthday, so tomorrow night, she has invited 17 of her closest friends to our house for her Birthday party.

Yes, you heard me correctly. I said 17.

seventeen.

SEVENTEEN!!!


Seventeen 10 and 11 year old girls will be spending 4 hours at my house.
Now, before any of you start giving me a hard time about allowing her to invite that many friends, I will let Brielle explain the situation.

"Shannon, Stacie and Lauren are my best friends at school, so I want to invite them. But if I invite Lauren, I need to invite Kelly because they're good friends and I don't want her to feel bad, and Katie invited me to her party, so I should invite her but then I should probably invite Hannah because Katie doesn't really know any of the other girls but if I invite Hannah, then she'll tell Kailey and Kailey is friends with Kelly too, and if I'm inviting Kailey and Kelly, then I'll need to invite Isabelle, Jessica and Natalie, and if I invite Natalie, then I should probably invite her little sister Rachel too, and I need to invite all my friends from church, Kristi, Danielle and Melissa, but if I invite them, I don't want Becky and Alicia to feel left out because they carpool with the other girls and I'm sure they will find out about the party, then I still need to invite my friends from dance, Shannon and Tiffany, and Morgan is in our same group for the recital, so I should invite her too.........."

(all names have been changed mostly because I can't keep them all straight in the first place)

I decided it was easier to let her invite all 17 than to limit her to 12 and listen to her stress over who to cut from the list.

Anyway, we plan on doing the normal party things, however, instead of pizza, Daddy will be grilling hot dogs for the girls. He even promised not to burn them.

Brielle wants to make her own birthday cake. She saw Amber's tie dye cake a few months ago, and has been anxious to make one.

We're also going to have the girls watch a movie. They are going to watch Pee Wee's big adventure. Only one of Brielle's friends has seen it, none of the rest have.

Actually, we wouldn't really need to have them watch the movie, they can just have Max recite the whole thing for them. (I won't even tell you how many times he watched that movie while we were on vacation) It's really cute when he repeats the Large Marge part of the movie. Or as he calls her Lahwge Mahwge.

So basically, the movie is approximately an hour and a half.
It will probably take a half hour or so to eat.
Cake - 15 minutes.
Opening presents - 25 minutes

The girls will be here for 4 hours, that leaves about one hour and twenty minutes left to come up with something to entertain these girls.

We had originally thought about letting them play outside for a while, but it looks like it might rain.

I thought tie dyed t shirts would be a fun activity, but I know that at least one of the girls will wear a new outfit that would be destroyed when the dye fight breaks out.

I need HELP!!

Please, do you have any ideas for things we can do with all these little darlings?

The activity must be inexpensive, easy, not too messy, and completely legal. (emphasis on inexpensive, legal is negotiable)

I've already made a few suggestions shot down by the Birthday girl, such as.............
1. Pictionary marathon .
2. Pulling out the cleaning supplies and playing "Who can wash the walls the fastest?"
3. The quiet game.
4. Anything involving duct tape.

Activities we are still considering include:
Making magnets with craft foam.
Making pom pom ball creatures.

Please, any suggestions you have will be greatly appreciated.

Extra points will be given for creativity, and legitimate use of duct tape.



Now, for those of you still think I'm crazy for having this party I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you. However, I will be carrying a note pad around with me and taking notes. I figure I should be able to get at least 5-6 good posts out of this party.

(with my luck, they'll probably be quiet and well mannered the whole time)

(Wait! That would be a good thing wouldn't it?)

p.s. Max's Birthday is on Monday. We're having a party for him on Saturday.




Sidenote.
Nobody correctly guessed the location of our vacation.
We went to Arizona.


I'm quite serious. This was the road on our way through Flagstaff headed toward Phoenix. The really bad part? I did not anticipate snow, and packed accordingly.

WHY? (and word verification Wednesday)

Why is it that when I go to the doctor's office I can wait for 45 minutes to see the doctor and it doesn't seem to be a problem to anyone working there, but if I get stuck in traffic and get there 20 minutes late for my appointment, I get grilled by the receptionist?

Receptionist: (scowling) "Were you aware that your appointment was 20 minutes ago?"

Me: "Yes, I apologize, I got here as quick as I could"

Receptionist: (looking around the room, rolling her eyes and letting out a big sigh) "Well, I don't think he has anyone waiting for him right now."

The waiting room was completely empty. I was the only one there.

I sat in the waiting room for ten minutes.

The nurse came and brought me to the exam room where I waited another 15 minutes.

If you do the math, that's 45 minutes, the original amount of time I usually have to wait to see the doctor.

The good news is that the doctor actually agreed that I am indeed sick and gave me some antibiotics. I should be feeling better shortly.

I hope.

*********************************************************************************

Today is Wednesday.

Go define those word verification codes!

Necessity is the mother of invention

What do you do when you're a little kid who is only trying to play your video game in the car, but since you are a little kid, you have a little head and the headphones are too big, and hang down below your ears?










Well, if you are a lucky little tyke who happens to have a very resourceful grandma sitting in the seat next to you in the car, you might just end up looking like this.


































This picture was taken shortly after beginning our very long drive to go on our vacation. Max had toasted himself two waffles and only eaten one of them so my mom put the other one in a sandwich bag and brought it along for him to eat later.
When Max was having difficulty with the headphones, his clever grandma came to the rescue and grabbed the closest thing she could find to lift the headphones high enough to reach his ears.

He traveled like that for over an hour and a half.

When we stopped for the first of many potty breaks a short break, Max got out of his carseat and happened to catch a glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror.

Apparently, he was unaware that he had traveled the last hundred miles or so with a waffle on his head.

To say that he was confused would be an understatement.

(I do need to mention that this turned out to be the perfect solution, the waffle was just the right thickness to raise the headphones to the proper position, and it conformed nicely to the shape of Max's head.
I do, however, have one word of advice if you plan to try this at home. You will need to remove the waffle from the sandwich bag. We first tried it inside the bag, and it kept sliding off the back of his head)



We were on vacation for 10 days. I would like you all to look at these photos and guess where we traveled to. (If I already told you where we went, you don't get to guess, because obviously, that would be cheating)




I will write more about the trip tomorrow. Right now, I need to go to sleep.
I'm still sick.
My doctor managed to squeeze me into his schedule tomorrow morning at 8:20, which is the exact time that I should be dropping my kids off at school.

I just love it when I have the opportunity to be in two places at once.

I could have asked for a better welcome home

Yes friends, it's true, I have returned.

I am now back home :0)

For the last 10 days, we have been on vacation, and I have only had brief access to the internets. I was able to check my mail but not much else, because my in-laws don't have high speed internet, they have a cellular/wireless type access and they only get a certain amount of minutes per month. 

We were already eating all their food, I didn't think that I should use up all of their online minutes too.

I did get all of the comments that you all left in the last week and a half. Thank you!! 

I apologize for not visiting any of you during this time, but now that I'm back, I'll be spending the next few days catching up. Sure, I have immense amounts of laundry to do, I need to sit on the kids to make sure that they finish all of the schoolwork that they have missed, and I should really go to the doctor because I have seemed to have contracted some sort of horrible upper respiratory infection, but all of that will have to wait until I catch up on my blog reading.

I missed my house. I missed my computer. I missed all of my bloggy friends!

So when I got home, the first thing I did was to turn on my computer to check my mail. I was thrilled to see that yesterday, 31 new comments were left on various posts on my blog!! I was so excited! I automatically assumed that I had a new reader and they had gone through and left comments on 31 different posts!

Until I opened the mail and found that all 31 comments were from the same person and were all the same comment which was a bunch of Chinese characters linking to a highly inappropriate website.

So basically, my first hour back home was spent going through my blog and removing 31 comments left by some jerkface in Taipei Thailand.

However, the joke is on them, because I didn't click on the link!

HA!

I copied all of the characters and fed them into my computer's nifty language translator and was able to read enough to know that I did not want to click on the link.

So I just went through and deleted all 31 stupid comments.

So now I'm in a bit of a bad mood. I was going to write all about our trip, but now I'm tired, more than a little onery,  and currently in the process of coughing up a lung, so I'll wait until tomorrow to give an update on the trip.

Wow, it's good to be back!

Come back tomorrow. I have pictures, and Max "vacation" stories.

I'm Back!!!!

Word verification Wednesday!

I still don't have full internet access.

However, due to fact that it is Wednesday, I decided not to ruin the fun for everyone else, so here it is guys!

Word Verification Wednesday!!!

Go ahead and play the game without me.


It's OK, really.

Don't worry about me.




I'll be fine.





Probably.

Overheard in the house of whine part 2

You're not walking on eggshells anymore. Now you're walking on big fluffy clouds full of sunshine!

Don't show your parents your grades until after you've hidden your electronics.

Is it a bad thing if smoke starts coming out of the vacuum?

That hairdo makes you look like roadkill.

DON'T TOUCH MY COOKIES!

Hey, why does it smell like fried vacuum in here?

Apparently, a bad haircut will really cause some damage to her self esteem.

I'm going through withdrawls

Unfortunately, for the next few days, I will have very limited internet access.



(sigh)


Poor me.

I have pre written a few posts to be published in the next few days. Please carry on as if I'm actually here.

Jillybean

I know you are, but what am I? (and Word verification Wednesday)

Congratulations to Jessica G who was the first one to correctly guess the title of the movie that Max currently has memorized.

Pee Wee's big Adventure!



Yesterday, Max was running around the house, tripped and fell, then stood up and said "I meant to do that."



Good times.

And Max's favorite part of the movie. (Go to 1:24)



CJ was kind enough to point out that I actually misquoted several of the quotes I wrote in my post yesterday.
I guess if I hadn't had to drop everything I was doing to take a certain someone's trumpet to them at school (due to the fact that this person forgot to take the trumpet to school with them, even though it was sitting in plain sight right where this person always sits the trumpet) I might have been able to be more accurate in my quoting of the movie.

(Seriously CJ, I had to drag an unwilling Max away from watching the movie. You owe me big time!)

********************************************************************************


Today is Wednesday!

Time to play Word Verification Wednesday!

I can't wait to see what you guys come up with this week!

And now, the famous "Tequila" dance.

Because I'm such a good mom.............

Have you ever had so many things to do that you decide to make a list of everything, just so you can organize your thoughts and make it easier to accomplish all that you need to do?

Do you then get so overwhelmed by this huge list that you just sit and stare at it, not knowing what to do first?

Do you start adding things to the list like................

Get dressed
Brush teeth
Eat lunch
breathe

Just so you'll be able to cross something off of the list.


Have you ever turned on a movie for your young child so you can get at least a little bit of work finished? (This is the first time I've ever done this. Really, it is............)

Did your young child learn how to push play on the DVD player so he can watch the same movie over,



and over,



and over,




and over,




and over.............


Does your young child memorize this movie, and start speaking only in quotes from the movie?


Here are some not so well known quotes from this movie. Can you guess what movie Max has memorized?


1. Everybody's got a bit butt."

2. "Follow that Nun."

3. "I just wanted to get a look at that cute little outfit you're wearing"

4. "Buenos Dias."

5. "What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?"

6. "Could you wire me a bus ticket? I'll pay you back. Honest."

7. "It was the worst wreck I ever seen."

8. "I say we hang him, and then we kill him!"

9. "I'm sorry. Would you care for some gum?"

10. "I don't have to see it, I lived it."


Leave your guesses in the comments.

Bird is back

Do you remember Bird?

He's back. Apparently, after Max threw him in the garbage, he somehow managed to find his way back home.
Yesterday, Max was sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch, and calmly announced that "Bird" was in my office.
"What on earth is Bird doing in my office?" I ask, "I thought the garbage truck took him away."
Max replies "He's back, and he's messing up your garbage can."
I was a little concerned because my garbage can was pretty full, and the last thing I needed was an imaginary bird messing it up. I told Max he needed to go get Bird out of my office.

Max got down from his chair, went into my office for a minute then came back.
"Bird is stopped playing in your garbage" he says "Now he's also playing with all your papers."

Bird spent the rest of the day getting himself into trouble. Max was quietly playing in his room when he came running to me and says "MOM! MOM! Bird is knocking me over!"
"Are you OK?" I ask (you know, because I want to make sure that this imaginary bird hasn't been causing my sweet little boy any serious harm.)

"NO! He did knock me over like this."

Then he fell over.

"SEE! HE DID IT AGAIN! HE DID IT AGAIN!"

I told Bird that he really needed to stop picking on Max or he would be in big trouble.

I must have really scared Bird, because he was quiet for a while, in fact, we didn't see him again until later that day when we were in the car. Bird showed up, and true to form, started misbehaving.

"BRIELLE! BRIELLE! HE'S GETTING YOUR COAT! HE'S GETTING YOUR BACK PACK! HE'S FLYING AROUND THE CAR! HE'S MESSING THINGS UP! HE'S TEARING UP THE SEAT! HE'S BEING NAUGHTY!"

I said to Brielle "Maybe Bird needs to go out the window."

Before Max could protest, Brielle quickly rolled down the window, threw Bird out, then rolled it back up.

(and for any of you that are worried that Bird might be hurt, first of all, he's a bird, and birds can fly, second of all HE'S NOT A REAL BIRD!)

Max looked a bit shocked.

I said "Max, don't worry about Bird. I'm pretty sure he will find his way back home."

Max thought for a moment then said "NO. He not will find his way to home, he will fly to a different house."

My heart leapt at the thought of the stupid bird moving somewhere else. I mean, this imaginary bird was causing quite the commotion in our home.

But I was also curious.

"What different house will Bird fly to?" I ask.

Max very calmly replies "He will fly to Amanda's house." (Amanda is my SIL)

So Amanda, I'm really sorry. Watch out, he will attack your head when you least expect it. He is rather fond of flying into the closet and messing things up. In fact, he messes everything up! You can try putting him in time out, but apparently, he can fly right through a wall, and will get back at you by attacking your head.

And no, we do not want him back.

We have a new imaginary bird. His name is Fooba, and he is a nice bird. He's small, and he has pretty, fluffy feathers, and he has never once attacked any of my children.

We will keep this bird.


I'm serious Amanda, I DO NOT want this bird back!!

Why? (And word verification Wednesday)

Can anyone tell me why............

A room can stay in the same state of cluttered disarray with the mess not moving or changing at all for two whole weeks, yet when I get the room clean, it can't stay that way for longer than 2 hours?

I can't remember what someone told me 30 minutes ago, yet I can remember all of the lyrics to a song I heard on the radio 30 years ago?

The girl Scout cookie boxes aren't bigger?

It takes at least two months to lose 10 lbs, yet it only takes one pound of fudge and a weekend to gain it all back?

IT'S STILL SNOWING?????

There are 6 half full/half empty bottles of barbecue sauce in my refrigerator?

Nobody ever cleaned up that can of Dr. Pepper that exploded in the freezer?

Max always asks me to fix peas for dinner, and then NEVER EATS THEM?



*******************************************************************


Today is Wednesday!

WORD VERIFICATION WEDNESDAY!!

Go to the comment box, read the word verification code, come up with a definition for the word....................

OK, you guys know how to play, I won't give the rules and instructions again.

Go. Define.