Gorgeous Colorado Fall day!!!

Nice try...

How hard could it be? Really?

So last weekend while my in-laws where here my mother in-law purchased this cute haunted house gingerbread kit for us. So last night we had a few minutes to work on it. The kids were so excited and I was inspired after seeing my sister's too cute halloween cookies. (Sorry, Bob. I had to mention it.) We got to work. First you set the walls into the grooves in the tray with a little icing to hold them in place. You set the walls together with a little more icing. A little icing on the top of the walls, and voila you have the roof set as well! Easy, right?

Well... the next direction was to wait for 15 minutes so the icing could set. We didn't wait 15 minutes... we waited half an hour.

Gathering back together we are ready to decorate! A little icing on the roof line and a row of candy corn. More icing on the front of the roof and a few jelly beans. Wait, hold on to that jelly bean for a minute...

wait, the roof is slipping...

hold on...

wait...

let me try this....

wait the walls are crashing...

Okay. Let's stop.

I ended up sending the kids on to bed and putting the main parts of the house back together. I figure if the icing has time to completely dry that we can try to decorate more tonight.

Cross your fingers for a more successful attempt tonight.

Pumpkin farm

Little cutie

Avery got her very first webkinz yesterday. She named it Rosie and she has been carrying it around everywhere. Today she decided to wine and dine her. =)




I also have a predicament. Dillon wanted to be Frank Drebin for Halloween, but
one: I have no clue how to do that and
two: no one would know who he was.

He wants to be someone that is funny. Any ideas?

and this is what I did...

And started one other one. Not too bad for a short one day trip.
And today, Bailey and I made this necklace...

This weekend...

I am headed to Fort Morgan to do this...



And then I am going to kick butt in not one but two poker nights!!!
Watch out peoples... here I come.

Pictures of you

Every once in a while you will get a glimpse of what your life actually looks like. We all have an idea of what we look like, or what people see when they look at our families, but those ideas are not always the true version of what really is. I am not sure how we could go about seeing what really is, but every once in a while you get a peek at what other people see.

Take, for example, a picture of yourself. Do we ever really believe that that is what we look like? Do we ever really like the pictures of ourselves? I don't. That is not what I see when I look into a mirror. But obviously it is what other people see when they look at me.

I used to have this image of myself. Keep in mind that this was 11 years ago, before my bubble was burst when purchasing our first house. Do you remember the scene in Sleeping with the Enemy when Julia Roberts was at the fairgrounds? When she was with Ben and the camera was swirling around her while she laughed and smiled? That is what I thought people saw when they looked at me. Not her, but a smiling happy person all the time. What I found out that day, in March of 1997, was that I was a scary person. People were frightened of me.

What? Talk about bursting your bubble!

I was at the closing and our friend from college was our mortgage broker. I remember asking the lady that owned the house if the rugs were going to be cleaned before we moved in. She replied "Yes, Mam" with a look of... well I don't really know, but I remember being shocked. Why would this stranger treat me this way? What did she see that I didn't? On the way out, I remember asking Kevin about it and getting a strange look from Sully. Later I asked Kevin what Sully's look was all about. Apparently Kevin's friends were scared of me too.

A little while later I took a trip with a friend to go visit Kevin's sister Courtney at college. I told them what had happened, and asked if they could believe it. Apparently they could, because they both replied that sometimes I scared them too!

What is going on!

It ended up being a good thing, because if I never found out, I could never have changed it. For the most part, I feel that I am no longer a scary person. I can still turn it on when I want to, just ask my second graders or my own kids or some stupid sales clerk or bad waitperson. I mean really. It is so hard to provide good service when IT IS YOUR JOB to do so? Any who... back to glimpses.

Lately my youngest daughter is going through a language spurt. She is picking up new words left and right. One of her new favorites is "stop it." At first I thought "how funny!" but then I started thinking about it. What made her pick up those words and how can she already use them in appropriate situations? Hum... Maybe it is something that she hears often. Another glimpse of our crazy life. Great.

So now I have another view of what my life looks like. I am still not sure it is the right view, but this is how I feel we look....

Let me know if you agree. =)

Braggin'

I don't brag on my hubby very often. Bag on him sure, but I do need to brag every once in a while.


My hubby is a hockey coach. He coaches for Dillon's team when he can, but he has a regular gig with the U18 AAA Colorado Thunderbirds. He travels with them to many a tournament and happens to be there with them right now. This morning he had an amazing experience.

The team had just finished playing, and unfortunately they had lost. He had finished up doing what he needed to do on the bench and even the follow up in the locker room. He was waiting out in the hall when a man approached him.

The man was a father of a player on another team from another state. This man asked Kevin if he had been a coach on the U16 team last year. Kevin responded that he had been. The man proceeded to tell him about a situation that he had observed last year.

At a tournament in Dallas last year, Kevin was observing a squirt level(9 and 10 year olds)game while waiting for his team's game time. It was the end of the 3rd period and the squirt coach was screaming at his goalie. Screaming... at a 9 year old... about his level of play. Screaming that the goalie had lost the game for them. In front of the team, and in full view of the crowd of parents.

Kevin watched and then waited. When the team exited the ice, Kevin quietly approached the goalie and tapped him on the head. He doesn't remember exactly what he said to the kid, but it was along the lines of "Hang in there."

It took a total of 5 seconds probably. Not a noticable thing, or so Kevin thought. And here it is 8 months later and a man, not even the father of the goalie, but just a dad from another team, approaches Kevin and tells him that he saw it.

He saw the moment and he saw the kid's reaction. Kevin touched that kid that day. And for just one moment in that kid's life, Kevin was there to support him.

If he can do that for one kid in five seconds, just think what he can do with a whole season and a team full of impressionable teenage boys.

That is my doodie!

Using your assets

I am one that truly believes in using your assets. If you are talented, use your talent. Sing, Dance, Create, whatever it is that you have. Use it.

I used to have an asset that I relied on in college. I was pretty good at using it and now I haven't needed it in 17+ years. Kevin is here to stay. Now my oldest daughter is figuring out her assets.

She is a pretty girl with a magnetic personality. She attracts everyone to her. Always has. As I have stated before the girl is not lacking in friends... or boyfriends. She is always juggling a few at a time. So it should not have been a surprise when she came to me with this conversation.

"Mom, you know Joe, right?"

"Sure."

"Well, it used to be his job to love Kaitlyn, but he does not want that job anymore."

"Okay???"

"Now he has decided that he loves me."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep. He told Kaitlyn today that he did not like her any more, and that now he likes me. He told her he likes me better because I cross my eyes."



Like I always say. Use what you got!