SDSU Jacks

 Steve had three tickets to the SDSU men's basketball game on Wednesday night so we took Brittney with us. She made us take a selfie and posted it on FB.

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We also watched my cousin Olivia's baby win a crawling race at halftime. 

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Brittney spent most of her time there critiquing the cheerleaders and dance team. It was a bit distracting but since I am, after all, a mom, I'm great at pretending to listen multi-tasking.

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 Brittney would also tell you that her favorite part of the evening was watching the stool guy. Who is the stool guy, you might ask. Well, let me tell you.

There is a guy at the game whose sole purpose is to put down the stool for Coach Scott to sit on during timeouts and then pick it back up when the time out is over.

And stool guy takes his job very seriously!

I'd never really paid much attention to him until Brittney pointed him out. Whenever there would be a time out, and not just any time out, it had to be a long time out, stool guy would spring into action, run onto the floor, place the stool just under Scott's butt and then wait. As soon as the time out was concluded, he would grab the stool and speed back off the basketball floor. He had to know if it was a short time out or a long one and put the stool in precisely the right spot.

He had it down to an art form.

 Here are some pictures just so you don't think I make this stuff up :-)

Then there was the time that Scott didn't move fast enough when the time out was over

and stool guy had to give him a push off the stool. 

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So kudos to you, stool guy! You did a great job!

I did wonder if this was a volunteer or a paid position?

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Painting

What do you do when you have a lot of painting to finish but you also have an active five year old?

The old me would've spent a lot of time trying to keep her away, yelling and probably very frustrated that she wasn't listening and obeying.

Fortunately, I've spent a significant amount of time with my friend Laurie, who taught me that "it's all about the process."

So I gave Sophia her own areas to paint and we painted together all afternoon. She had fun & I finished what I needed to paint!!!

Anthony & Sophia

On Tuesday, Anthony had a counseling appointment in Sioux Falls so we stopped at OhMyCupcakes and Lowe's.

Sophia Says

Two for the price of one today:


We babysat my sister's dog last weekend. Just for the record, he's a boy and his name is Milo. When I picked him up and put him in the van with Sophia, she was very clear with her intentions.


"He's my dog now. He's a girl and I'm going to call her Sparkles!"


She was not swayed all weekend. I'm sure the poor dog went home with an identity crisis.


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I was already in my bed and Steve was trying his best to get Sophia to lay down in her bed. She wasn't having it. Finally, she came into my room, walked over to my side of the bed, held out her little arms and with tears in her eyes, said, "Well mom, I guess this is goodbye."

Riley Says

A few days ago Riley walked past me and said, "Well, I'm pretty sure I'm becoming a man now."


I work hard to keep my facial expression from matching my internal expression with my kids. Remember that old deodorant commercial - Never let them see you sweat? Internally, I was sweating like crazy, mostly because Riley and I have had very open and honest discussions about lots of things, including puberty, so I wasn't really sure where this conversation was headed.


I calmly followed him and asked, "What makes you say that?"


His response: "It takes me a long time in the bathroom in the morning to do my business."


I still had a mini heart attack until I realized that he believed that part of growing up and becoming a man involved long amounts of time parked on the toilet pooping!


Seriously!?!

I Survived Winter Formal

I survived the winter formal! The day included my friend coming over to do Brittney's hair. That part was actually kind of fun because I got my hair cut too and I got to chat with my friend the entire time she was working on Brit's hair. Then she would use my hair as an example to show Brittney different techniques.

As much as I hate people touching me, I think it's really relaxing to have someone I know messing with my hair. I think it reminds me of my friends and music class in grade school. On days when the teacher would pull out the overhead projector and let us sing different songs for the whole class period, we would sit cross-legged on the floor. She was busy putting different transparencies on the projector so as long as we were sitting and singing, we could do whatever we wanted. Because I had long hair, my friends all asked to play with it, which basically meant that they would braid it and re-braid it the entire class period. So relaxing!!!

Anyway, by 5pm, Brittney's hair was done. Since she had her nails done a few days before, she proceeded to do her makeup, get dressed and speed out the door. You'd think my part was done, but oh no, there was more. Remember that nasty wonderful know-it-all book all about formal that I'm sure exists out there somewhere? I guess in there it says the kids have to get together in a bunch and the moms are required to take a million pictures. Dang it!

So I did my momly duty and drove over to Amy's house. When the kids got there we took pictures for 45 minutes. You can thank me later for only posting a few of the millions of pictures that exist from that night. I'll spare you the specifics. Let's just say that these stupid beautiful photos required us to move furniture, wall hangings, get correct lighting, spacing, etc. Can't you just see me rolling my eyes in the background?

The pictures taking was finally finished and Brit's friend Jenna started downstairs to grab her jacket. She only made it two steps down when the heel of her shoe caught on her dress and she went headfirst down the stairs. I was standing right by the banister and saw her catch herself on the bottom step. I first asked her if she was ok and then I looked at her mom, Amy, and said, "She's really lucky she didn't break her....."

I was going to say 'ankle' but before I could get the word out, Amy finished with, "heel!"

Her heel? Don't you mean leg or ankle?

When I questioned Amy, she emphatically stated that they didn't have a backup pair of shoes so Jenna couldn't break these! She was totally serious!

I think I need to hang out with Amy more often again. She makes me laugh. When I'm not shaking my head in disbelief!

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I ended up staying at Amy's until the kids got back from the dance. We chatted and drank hot apple cider. They got back by 10:30pm, changed and went to a friend's house. All that work and money for a few pictures, supper and a couple of hours at a dance. Is it worth it? Brittney seems to think so. I think it's just MY practice for PROM! Yikes!!!

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Formal

Friday's Adventure

I went to the Children's Museum with Sophia's preschool class.

Basketball

I'm sure people wonder what I do all day now that most of the kids are back in school. I really envisioned staying in my quiet house and doing nothing. Then reality kicked in. Which turned out to be a good thing yesterday because I actually saw the sun and it was beautiful!!!


Yesterday morning I was able to take one of my favorite friends (yes, I used the 'F' word) to get her hair cut and colored and then afterward we went to our favorite hang-out for coffee.


Brittney had an orthodontist appointment in the afternoon and then went back to school but Steve had the whole afternoon off. Last night, Brittney decided it would be fun drive to Brandon Valley to watch the basketball game. At first I said no because I hate driving after dark with all the deer running around. Steve said he would drive so we called Grandma Sandy who graciously offered to pick up Zeke from basketball practice and then babysit the other kids. Steve, Brittney and I hopped in the car and headed to Brandon.


The downfall of having someone else drive is that it's super stressful because I'm not in control. The bonus is that if we would happen to hit a deer or have an accident, it wouldn't be my fault!!!


Anyway, the game was ok. I had forgotten how small town basketball gets so intense but that's a post for another time. Or maybe never because I really don't care that much anymore. We had fun watching and got some family time in with our oldest so it's all good, even if our team lost :-)


Coming up: Riley Says (Tune in later for the latest on why Riley thinks he's becoming a man!)

Sophia Says

I've been very intentional with Sophia to let her know that I accept and love her no matter what her behaviors and that I can handle her strong emotions. I wasn't sure whether to be upset or laugh when she parroted back some of my words to me.


I was getting frustrated with her because I'd had to ask her repeatedly to put on her coat and boots and get ready for preschool. She just kept messing around and we were going to be late if we didn't leave soon so I finally said, "SOPHIA! PUT ON YOUR COAT NOW!"


She looked up at me with her adorable little eyes and said, "It's ok mom. I still love you even when you're crabby."

Van Issues

Sometimes I think that anyone who doesn't know me in real life probably thinks I make up half the stories that I tell on the blog. The interesting part is that I don't even tell half of what I could. Our life truly doesn't have many dull moments. As I've said before, I think I must prefer it that way because when life gets to mundane, I just add in something challenging. I haven't done that for a while either so I must be challenged enough right now!


For the past few weeks, I've had issues with my van. We can't seem to keep a working door. Last summer I had to replace a handle that the kids ripped off the rear driver's side. It was expensive but necessary. A few months ago, Zeke got mad and pulled the door handle off the rear passenger side. I left it off and wasn't overly concerned because I could still use the electric button on the inside to open and close the door, plus we still had a working door on the rear driver's side.


Then a few weeks ago, one of the kids (no one will fess up) slammed that door and messed up the catch, which made it impossible to close completely. Steve rigged it closed but then a few days later, Taylor tried to open it again and we couldn't get it shut. Envision me telling Riley sit next to that door, buckle up tightly and hang on to the door all the way home to keep it closed. It was a stressful ride back across town.


The final straw was two weeks ago when Riley tried to use the button to open the sliding door on the other side and the cable completely snapped! So for the last two weeks, Zeke got to sit in the front passenger seat because his legs don't allow him to get in and out very easily. The other kids had to crawl in and out through the rear hatch. Rednecks-R-Us! We had to look like some sort of weird version of a clown car. I drive up, jump out, walk to the back, throw open the trunk and then kids just keep tumbling out one after another!


Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse............We were already down to no working rear doors and then because the van's computer registered that the door wasn't completely closed, there was an incessant beeping reminding me to close the door.  My sister and I drove all the way to Sioux Falls that way. Not even kidding.


Sometimes I think I should just be content with the problems I have instead of complaining. I forget that it can always get worse. I should've just been thankful for a working van even if it had no working doors and beeped insanely.


Since the rear door was technically"open" the lights would stay on and so by the next morning my van wouldn't start at all. Remember Brittney's car blew up a few months ago so now without the van, we were down to just one vehicle.


The good news is that my dad came one day and put a charger on the van so I could drive it. Then yesterday I finally took it in to Mr. V's. Gotta love Chad!!! I told them the door issues and said we just wanted one door fixed, which ever one is cheapest. Having multiple doors is overrated anyway ;-)


It was going to be over a thousand bucks to replace the cable but they could repair the other door fairly easily. Under thirty bucks. Plus, they washed all the mud off and then nicely took out the fuse that was responsible for the beeping!

Message

Message on my dry-erase board from my oldest daughter:

Risk

I love that some of my kids are old enough to play games that require thinking and strategy. I still totally beat them, of course ;-)

:-)

This bit of humor is in honor of my friend Rick. Pretty sure Heather will need me to explain it to her ;-)

There was a prison break tonight and I saw a midget climb up the fence. As he climbed down he sneered at me. I thought, "Well, that's a little condescending!"

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No matter how old you are, sometimes you just need someone to tell you that everything will be ok.

Date

One kid at work, one kid at church, one kid in bed early, and one kid babysitting the last two watching a movie made it possible for Steve and I to go on a date by ourselves. Steve's friend Josh gave us his front-row SDSU Jack's basketball tickets.  :-)

Sophia Says

I promise you, I don't make this stuff up!!!


The other day I was in the kitchen and Sophia was sitting in the bathroom, on the toilet, singing. Taylor was watching tv so I asked her to get something from the freezer in the garage. She darted up, went to the garage, came back into the house, threw the meat on the counter and ran towards the bathroom.  I thought maybe she was sick but knew she'd let me know if that was the case. Being the good mom I am, I just shrugged my shoulders and kept making supper.


Suddenly, instead of cute 5 year old singing coming from the bathroom, I hear Sophia screaming. She comes running into the kitchen, crying, with her pants around her ankles. She's crying too hard to explain to me what happened so I scoop her up and head back to the bathroom.


There I find Taylor just getting off the toilet. When I ask her what happened, she said she really had to pee.


I calmly explain that we have two other bathrooms and that she isn't allowed to shove her little sister off the toilet. I told her she owed Sophia an apology.


So Taylor very nicely looked at Sophia and said, "I'm sorry I shoved you off the toilet."


Sophia climbed down from my arms, marched over to Taylor, looked her right in the eye and exclaimed angrily, "Apology NOT accepted!" Then she turned her back and walked away.

It Began Innocently Enough

I obviously haven't felt much like writing lately for a variety of reasons. Let's just say that this particular school break definitely hasn't been a vacation. Kids not on any set schedule, my surgery, Christmas Eve party at our house, Brittney's surgery, Sophia's birthday, New Year's Eve, sick kids and mom, girls room still torn apart, Anthony's Birthday, van doors all broken, Brittney's car not starting and freezing temps so low the kids couldn't even play outside or go back to school all made for a complicated few weeks. But life is starting to get back to normal again, whatever that is.


Yesterday's adventure I could have done without. I'm sure most moms would've loved the experience. I would rather have had all my fingernails pulled out, one by one, then go through what I went through yesterday. It was one of the worst experiences of my adult life. And I've had a lot of bad experiences. It began innocently enough...............


Brittney asked me to go dress shopping with her. On a Saturday. In Sioux Falls. For the Winter formal. AAAAAGGGGGG!!!


If you know me at all, you probably know that I hate shopping. I don't like spending money, I don't like people all around, I don't like trying things on and I don't like wasting time when there's so much else to accomplish in life. When I absolutely need something, I go in, find it, purchase it and leave. Simple.




Needless to say, I wasn't looking forward to this shopping trip. But my teenage daughter wanted me to go :-/


She wasn't originally planning on Formal this year because 1) she and Gerald had broken up a few months ago and 2) she's felt like crap since her tonsil surgery. Then she was asked by someone she didn't want to turn down. All I really know is that his name is Justin, he's fairly new to the area, he'll probably be the starting quarterback in the fall and his brother's a coach at the high school. So Brittney said yes and immediately began to panic about finding a dress and shoes for a formal dance in 15 days. Thus began our quest for the dress.




We left home around 9am on Saturday morning and drove to Sioux Falls. I guess in the formal dress hunting rule book it says that you're not allowed to purchase something in your home city. So off we went. I will admit, we had a good conversation during the hour drive by ourselves. One bonus point for the hunt!




Brittney had a few idea of where to look thanks to her friends. We started at Macy's and she found a cute black dress which she proceeded to try on. FYI, there is free wifi at Macy's, in case you're ever stuck patiently waiting in the dressing room there. I thought the dress looked great on her and the price was right but she wasn't convinced. She though it felt too long. She decided to keep looking and come back if she didn't find anything she liked better. Minus one bonus point for the hunt!


We checked out lots more stores but didn't find exactly the right dress.  She's only a size 0-1 so she did find a few that she liked but they didn't have her size. The downfall of having a great body! On a positive note, at least Brittney knows what she wants and she didn't waste time trying on dresses that were maybe's. She would buzz through a rack, disregard everything and move on. My kind of shopping! One more bonus point for the hunt!




So we continued fairly quickly to make our way through her list of stores. The dress hunt doesn't sound so bad, does it? Until we came to THAT STORE! And I don't mean that in a good way. I already knew just from the name and location that I probably wouldn't like it.


When we first entered THAT STORE, the greeter waiting inside the front door kindly requested that we remove our shoes. Excuse me!?! The look I gave her made her wither just a bit but she held her ground and repeated her request. I looked down at her feet pointed out that she was still wearing her shoes. She informed us that they didn't want anything getting on the bottoms of their dresses so if we wanted to look we needed to take off our shoes. If it would have been just me, I would have walked out right then but when I looked over at Brittney, she was already calmly taking off her shoes. Dang it! I sighed and removed my boots. Minus 5 points for the hunt.




Even though THAT STORE was fairly small, it was bustling with activity. There were moms and teens quickly pulling bagged dresses off of racks just like those weird reality tv shows. The moms were almost worst than the kids. Minus another 5 points for the hunt.




Just as Brittney positioned herself in front of one of the racks and began to look through the dresses, a young man came up to us and quickly rattled off, "You're T".




Ok. ??? I had no idea what this meant but I played along. At least he wasn't asking me to remove any more of my clothing.




"You can have up to 6 dresses on the rack at any one time".



Ok. ??? Is 'on the rack' some kind of code or was that supposed to be taken literally?




"We'll call you."
Ok. ??? I'm sure this was all in that darn formal dress hunting rule book that I never read. I knew I'd just have to wing it. I used the tried and true 'smile and nod' and hope he goes away quickly. And with that, he disappeared back into the crowd. Minus another 5 points for unusually unhelpful and confusing letter guy.




As soon as Brittney turned back to look at the dresses again, another employee miraculously appeared beside us, and by beside, I mean practically hovered over us, smothering us with her presence while rapidly pulling dresses from the rack. She asked questions so quickly and barely waited for the answer before thrusting another question at Brittney and dress in her face.


"What school are you from?"


"Brookings."


What style do you like?


I'm not really sure.


Do you like red?


Someti.......


Do you prefer blue?


Not reall....


How about sparkles?


I guess so.......


"Here you go!" she exclaimed as she rushed off with a handful of dresses that she had picked out.


We just stood there, momentarily rendered speechless and not sure what to do next or where those dresses ended up. Minus 10 points for the hunt for rushing off with the dresses for Brittney that she wasn't even sure she wanted.


As we stood there, Brittney explained to me that the reason they asked what school she attended wasn't for polite conversation, as I had hoped. It's because they refuse to sell the same dress to someone attending the same dance as someone else. I'm sure that's all explained in that stupid wonderful formal dress hunting rule book.


I proceeded to do what I do best, which is watch people. We stalked the other patrons to find out what to do next. They all eventually ended up at the back of the store, like animals to a watering hole. Turned out, the first unhelpful employee had taken our letter 'T' and hung it on a rack in the very back of the store. The second overly-helpful employee had taken the dresses she had chosen for Brittney and hung them on the rack next to our letter 'T'. We casually sauntered back there and examined the dresses.


The good news was that Brittney actually liked a few of them. The bad news was the cheapest of the bunch was $310. Yikes!!! Since Brittney was buying the dress with her own money, I strongly cautioned her against looking any further. We hadn't even ventured into the isle that was $800+. As we were discussing the prices, the unhelpful letter guy announced over the intercom to the entire tiny store, "Letter O to dressing room 12. Letter O to dressing room 12." Minus another 5 points for using an unnecessary sound system when I could very clearly hear every conversation throughout the entire forty foot store, most of which involved mothers living vicariously through their children.


One bonus point to the mom who whispered to her daughter, "My wedding dress didn't cost as much as most of these dresses!"


I wanted to respond, "Lady, my first car didn't cost as much as most of these dresses!"


For Brittney's sake only, I kept my mouth firmly shut and hoped to escape from THAT STORE mostly unscathed.


All I could think of was getting out of THAT STORE and away from those crazy people as fast as possible. When it took another 15 minutes for unhelpful letter guy to pull out his microphone and call for letter 'P', even Brittney had had enough. We fought our way to back to the front of the store like fish swimming upstream. I was exhausted by the time we finally made it back to our shoes. Black Friday shopping has nothing on teens and their insane moms looking for prom dresses!!! 


As I was putting on my boots, I glanced up at the getaway door and saw three more salespeople standing between me and freedom so I quickly grabbed Brittney's arm and prepared to plow through them. The oldest of the bunch, who was deceivingly grandmotherly, stepped in front of us and slowed me down with, "Did you find something that you liked? We can help you."


When I let her know that we didn't want to wait any longer to try dresses on, she started in with a plea to buy a dress because a certain percentage of the sale would go to the Children's Miracle Network.


Now don't get me wrong, I support good causes but this was getting ridiculous. I had enough. I calmly went to the lady and put my arm around her shoulder as her two other door-guard coworkers looked on. "Ma'am", I said, "We have quite a few children and we've adopted four from foster care. I donate every penny I have into making my children's lives better. We simply don't have the extra time or money to stay here any longer." With that, I gently smiled and walked out the door, leaving every single one of them speechless.


Brittney and I then drove straight back to Macy's, she purchased her stunning dress for $85 and we went out for a lovely lunch together. :-)


Formal Dress hunt = Success!