Happy Birthday Patty

On Saturday night we had a big birthday bash for Patty (Michael's mom) with our family, Tom & Patty, and Becky, Patrick, Will and Zach.  Tom got a prime rib for Michael to grill on their "big green egg" smoker/grill, etc. and we all pitched in and made the sides.  We also got a yummy cake from Confectionately Yours to top off the night.  Will had a little incident where he fell and landed against one of the legs on the pack n play and busted his lip but he seemed to feel better pretty quickly.  In his picture he has a towel hanging out of his mouth to stop the blood.  We all had fun and we're stuffed by the end of the evening.  And, how lucky am I to have such a wonderful mother-in-law?!  She's so easy to talk to and it's so great having a mother-in-law that I feel like I can just call and talk to about anything.  Happy Birthday Patty!  (Oh yeah, we had to have Grammy pretend to blow out the candles because no one seemed to have any).

Happy Birthday Gran!

My brother's birthday in August officially started "birthday season" for us and I'm running a little behind.  Anyway, my grandmother's (Gran) birthday was on Thursday, September 25th and she turned 92. For those of you that don't already know, she is a newly wed and has been married to Dency for a little over a year.  My grandfather passed away a couple of years ago and they had been married almost 70 years.  She knew Dency from high school and when he found out my grandfather had passed away he came a courtin.'  It's a neat story and she does seem happy which makes all of us happy too.  She wasn't feeling too well on her birthday so I'm hoping she'll start feeling better soon.  I have great memories of she and I spending Saturdays shopping and just spending time together.  I wished I lived closer so I could spend more time with her now.  I believe I inherited my love of shopping from her.  I love you Gran!  (Doesn't she look fabulous?)

Trip to the Fair

It's been a few days since I've posted due to my business with PTA stuff.  Our school had a big BBQ/Karaoke night fundraiser and I was one of the lucky ones that got to help put it together.  Anyway, here are some pictures from Tuesday when I went with Alli's preschool class to Old McDonald's petting farm at the fair.  She had a great time but those kids were sure worn out at the end of the morning.  I think the kids' favorite part was watching the pigs lay in the mud.  Imagine that?  We also got to see one lucky cow named dolly get to be milked.  I wonder if she felt violated by the end of the day?  On yeah, these pictures aren't that great because I took them with my phone.  I decided it would be wiser to keep up with the children rather than my camera.

Carlee's 4th Birthday

My niece Carlee's 4th birthday is on Tuesday so we headed over to Broken Arrow to go to her party on Saturday night.  The party was held at Lee's Feedstore off of 11th and County Line in the Broken Arrow area.  Carrie's parents own the store and this party kicked off the "Party Barn" business which her parents are also starting.  It was so cute.  It definitely had the cowgirls them with various games that included fishing for magnet fish, roping cow horns, and doing the Cotton Eyed Joe in order to get your cupcake.  All of the kids were given a cowboy hat along with prizes for each of the games.  It's a great party place for both boys and girls.  Oh yeah, we also went on a hayride which was really neat too.  There were also animals that the kids could pet such as a miniature horse and mule, goat, chickens, and bunnies.  I'm sure the  bunnies were quite relieved when it was over since they were constantly being picked up by 3 and 4 year olds.  I know I would have been happy to get out of there if I were them.  Anyway, we all had a super time and if any of you are interested in getting more information about the party barn, just let me know and I'll get someone in touch with you.  Below is a slideshow of the party.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention it.  I actually met a blog fan.  Isn't that exciting?!  Her name is ShaRhonda and she is a friend of Carrie's which is how she found out about my blog.  I, now, know of a new blog to follow and I've included her blog title on the right which is "The 4 Crows."  I look forward to seeing ShaRhonda at many more birthday parties.

On a side note, I just had to include pictures of the little book we got Carlee for her birthday.  This is the second book I've ordered from them like this.  The first book was for Cydneee and it was a Dora book and this book was an alphabet book.  I order them from Shutterfly and they are  just the greatest gifts, even if I do say so myself.  We just laugh and laugh when we read them and I feel they are something to keep and the kids will always enjoy looking at them, even if they've "outgrown" them.  I will worn you that they are not cheap but for a special birthday or Christmas gift they are great.

Black Widow

We had an exciting event at the household today.  When I brought up the trash cans from the street to put them back in the garage I noticed a little black spider hanging out in its web next to 3 egg sacks.  So, I took a closer look and noticed a little red dot on its abdomen.  I then thought to myself, nah, that couldn't be.  So I, of course, took the girls inside and went immediately to my computer to look at pictures of spider and sure enough, it was a black widow!  My friend Trish told me that she had found a couple of them outside her house under some rocks in the landscaping so I knew they were around here but I was just hoping they weren't around our house and I guess I was wrong.  So, being that Michael is out of town (of course) I went and got the bug killer spray and sprayed about half the container on that sucker along with the web, eggs, and anything else in that vicinity.  It turns out that black widows do get kind of a bad wrap.  They, indeed, are one of the most venomous spiders in the U.S.  However, if they do bite a human, they inject only a small amount, if any, of venom and usually people don't even have to go to the emergency room if they are bit unless they notice disturbing symptoms with it.  Therefore, the lovely brown fiddleback spider is much more dangerous then a black widow.  I have decided though that I really don't want to have the little creature hanging around here because knowing my luck, it would decide to unload all its venom on me.  Now that I've educated you on black widows, I took some pictures of the dead spider to show you that I have proof.

Congrats Emily and Nathan!

I'm sure if most of you follow the other blogs on my favorites that you've seen that my friends Emily and Nathan now know who their son is.  He is a beautiful little boy from South Korea and they will name him Owen.  If you want to see an adorable picture just go to Emily and Nathan's blog.  This is a long awaited answer to prayer.

Soccer Fun

Meredith and cousin Will have started playing soccer this Fall. This is Meredith's 4th season, I believe, and it's Will's first. To Will's daddy's dismay his team was assigned a light pink jersey. If you read Patrick's blog you are probably already aware of this fact. However, it doesn't seem to bother his team, "The Wrecking Crew", very much which is good. It was so fun to watch Will play because he just had the sweetest smile on his little face the whole game and seemed to be just having a ball.

Meredith had her first game of the season on Saturday and the name of her team is the "Dynamite." She even scored one goal which was fun and I believe they won both games even though they don't "technically" keep score. Let me tell you, I am so impressed with the drastic change between this season and last season. For one thing, Meredith is now old enough to play with all girls which I think makes a difference. They also call it the "Academy" approach where all of the girls actually drill together one night a week and then break off into their different teams. Their teams then have one night of practice together and scrimmage other teams the last half of the practice. All of the teams have two games which are 30 minutes each and all start and end together from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. on Saturdays. The girls are actually learning positions, passing, etc. and Meredith is loving it. It's wonderful exercise as well. I think I need to be out there running drills with her but I'm usually running my own drills on the sidelines hanging out with Alli.

Happy Birthday Staci!

My sister, Staci, turns the big 20 today. Can you believe it? She was just 8 years old when Michael and I got married and she was an all important "junior bridesmaid" in our wedding. I must admit that I was pretty frustrated that my parents were going to dare have another child when I was at the self-absorbed age of 15 but I think I've finally come to terms with it now. I love you Staci!

Not a good speller

My friend Trish forwarded me this video and it cracked me up so much I just had to share it. Don't worry it's super short. For those of you that know the name of my street you understand why I liked this so much. I also wanted to mention that Trish has also started a blog and I have included a link to it under my blog list. I'm really wishing she will move back here but I don't think that's going to happen.

Sick Husbands

My super friend Jenni forwarded this video to me that my super friend Emily forwarded to her (did you get that?) and now I'm sharing it with my blogger friends. Anyway, it's pretty funny and all you ladies are really going to like it and you men have to admit that it's a little bit true.

Also, don't forget to take my survey on the right hand side of the screen!

Survey

Hello All-
Please take my survey to the right of the screen and let me know if you are able to read my posts with the new dark background. My parents said it doesn't show up very well on their computer but on mine I can read it just fine. I'll change the background if the majority can't read it.
Thanks,
Jennifer

Jury Duty, Glasses & Grammar

Well, wouldn't you know it, my group has to show up for jury duty tomorrow. I think I will make an appeal to the Judge to be excused this week since Patty's out of town and can't help with Alli. Luckily, I was able to get Alli into Mother's Day Out tomorrow even though she doesn't normally go on Wednesday so that will be a great help. Becky could watch her but I hate to do that to her since her days are already full since she's hanging out with her dad during the afternoons. Michael has been spending the nights out there in until his mom comes back from her cruise around New England and Canada with her sister. Doesn't that sound like fun? I'm so glad they chose to take a cruise up north instead of around the Bahamas, etc., that would have been bad. Talk about seasickness.

Oh yeah, I went to the eye doctor today and the inevitable happened. I'm in glasses again! For those of you who don't know, I had lasik in the year 2000 or so (prior to children) and have enjoyed being glasses free for a good 8 years. I knew I was starting to squint while watching TV so I figured it was coming. The good news is that I can still so up close very well so no bifocals yet. Hopefully I'll look as stylish and Sarah Palin though my frames were about the half the cost of her designer frames. Michael has managed to be glasses free since his surgery and his eyes were twice as bad as mine which is pretty amazing. I think having children since the surgery may have something to do with it, but who knows really.

On a side note, to make my mother happy I am going to change my grammatical errors in the posts when I talk about "me and the girls." I will correctly change it to "the girls and I." My mother said with my education I should not write in that manner even if I'm trying to keep it casual. I'm just trying to make her happy. Ain't that right, ya'll?

Saturday, September 7th

Went to Kohls today. After the lovely experience of trying on clothes, I checked out and the lovely teenage checker girl was kind enough to tell me that the inside of my purse looks like her mother's except her mother just throws her change inside. Thank you teenage girl. Any 34 year old loves to be told their purse looks like your mother's.

Can you tell I wasn't in a great mood???

Blogger Makeover

I'm sure as most of you have noticed I'm attempting to redo the blog look again. For those of you with Photoshop experience, please let me know what I'm doing wrong to have the white show up behind the frame with the family picture and the "Links" tab. I bought the blog kit and so when you open those files in Photoshop to move your picture into the frame or add text it has the checkerboard look around the frame/tab button as well and those are the places that show up white on the blog. UGH! Anyway, any help given is much appreciated!

This week has been a pretty good week though busy. As Patrick stated in his blog, I did show up for jury duty on Monday. We had an orientation time that morning and were divided into 4 groups of possible jury pools. Each group is supposed to call in on different days of the week for the next 4 months to see if they need to show up the following days or if the cases have settled. I'm really hoping the one on Monday settles because I"m supposed to attend our first "official" PTA meeting of the year along with the girls dance lessons. We'll see I guess. The good news is that several from the church were also called to jury duty so I'll know some folks in my group which should be fun.

I do have a couple of good stories from Alli. First I'll give you some background and let you know that the big "word" with Meredith and Alli lately is "bored" or "boring." They often call random things "bored or "boring." So, while Alli was going to the bathroom today she said that going poo poo was boring. I've never really thought of it that way so I offered her a book to read in the process to make it more "exciting" but she refused. Imagine that. Also last night, Michael was going through Alli's new "Cubbie" book for Awanas at church with her and it asked her to think of things that are beautiful. She said hula girls. I thought that was a very interesting choice of all the things in the world she could name that she said hula girls. You never know with 3 year olds I guess.