Today for the very first time I was officially the butt of a “mama” joke.

Charleigh just got off the bus semi-upset.
(That’s semi-upset which means she wasn’t blubbering just acting a little indignant.) I asked her what was wrong and she proceeded to spill out all the not so gory details of how the big kids on the bus told her she was the “ugliest girl in the school”. As I consoled her she informed me “That’s not even the worst of it!”.
She then told me that the mean boys called her mom the “S” word. (Now let me interject here, to Charleigh the “S” word refers to “Stupid” not the word you were thinking of) “AND” she loudly exclaimed “they said you were. . .” pausing for dramatic effect she then lowers her voice and completes the sentence under her breath “fat“.

“Can you believe that Mom?!? They’ve never even met you! I think they were just trying to make me mad!”

Kaleb then explained the aspects of your average bully and the best way to deal with such situations. Then he told her not to worry about the “mom” parts. He said mean boys just say those things cause they know if you talk about a little girls mommy it will hurt there feelings. After all his advice he decided it would be best if he sat with her on the way home tomorrow. What a brother!

Update: It’s not good to publish a post addressing ones intelligence without first spell checking it. Hope no one noticed those little “oopses” before I fixed them.

Friday night was the Harvest Carnival at the kids school. Charleigh was quite excited about her lovely costume. Oh, and look who was the Elementary School Harvest King!

The night was full of games and candy. Kurt and I both served our obligatory time working in the class booths. The royalty was finally crowned at 9pm. We were more than ready to head home by that time! We hear that after we left they still had a few hours of BINGO fun left. Apparently small town school carnival is a call for the whole town to party all night. We may have been up for more fun if I had been feeling better and if Kurt hadn’t already driven well over 300 miles that day. All in all the kids had a fabulous time and besides the extreme disappointment on missing bingo they came home pretty sugared up and happy.

“Uh. . .first I make it.”
But how?
“Because thats why I need it, to make it for those people.”
Tell them how you make it.
“I get some bread from the bread bag from the bread box. You go to and get that bread and you get some honey at walmart and my mom lets me have some honey sometimes and I Love love honey.
So you take the bread and you need to put some honey on it. Then you fold it over and take a bite. Then you say “That’s Yummy!, I like Honey”

Hey! that speaks spanish wait no it rhymes, oh yeah, not Spanish that doesn’t make any since to say it speaks spanish. Oh Well, now I have to go eat a Honey Sandwich. You should too.”
“Come on Mom”

Real friends don’t condone mediocrity.

I’ve recently shared with you some of Charleigh’s fabulous style. Now Dad has a few pics to illustrate my children’s uncanny fashion sense.

The Latest Styles
and More Styles

In recent weeks my demeanor would be in a classification one might label as frazzled. Yes, I’ve been a bit frayed, a bit grumpy, and sometimes even mean. Terrible I know. I’m not always this way, I’ve had my charming moments as well but lately towards the end of the evening with the homework and the supper, the dishes and the grounds of coffee on the floor I have found myself getting a bit stressed from the hours of 4:01 to 8:37 pm.

Last week I growled and sighed, grumped and rolled my eyes, I was an all around wreck. Finally after I put the last kid back into bed, after I found the last missing homework page, after we gave up ever finding that shoe I made my way to the kitchen. As I pulled out a tea cup and reached for the box of Chamomile I thought to my self: “Everything is about to be alright.” I reached into the box and planned out in my head how I’d sit down on the couch with my Bible and quietly sip my tea in silence. Aah yes, silence. I pulled the tea bag out of the box and began to take it out of it’s paper wrapper when for the first time I noticed the message the good people from Lipton had left for me:

That ministered to me.

stream-of-con‧scious‧ness- Pronunciation[streem-uhv-kon-shuhs-nis]
–adjective
of, pertaining to, or characterized by a manner of writing in which a character’s thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality, or the like

So you may know I’m still conscious:

I missed Nicole and Stan’s Wedding as well as JoAnna’s 29th birthday…We did visit People’s Church in Dalhart though…Charleigh informed me she now has 3 boyfriends. . . Apparently the boys were pretty impressed to learn she’s a princess…Kaleb is taller now at 8 than I was in the 6th grade…Joshua has changed his name to Lightning McQueen and his newest favorite toy is a nutcracker…Kurt is going to Odessa today…My stomach still hurts…Man am I getting tired of that!…Seems I’m getting to big for my happy jeans…What’s up with that…Lets pretend its bloating from whatever is wrong my stomach…ABC Family channel is annoying me…It’s tag-line is “a new kind of family”. Yeah, what kind?…It seems each time I turn to it I have to yell for the kids to hide there eyes while I change the channel…Perhaps it’s because of the Halloween season…Maybe they’re not always chopping off heads and such…I looked at their schedule and it does offer some good programing…I’m reading Hebrews. Good stuff people! “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” Mackenzie grew another 3/4 inch in the last month. I think she’s up to 5ft 3inches now. People this girl is only 10 yrs. Wow. Janae had Mattie less than 2 months ago and she already weighs less than me. Ding Dong that bothers me. My hands look like “little boy, Old lady hands”. Have I ever mentioned that to you? I’m wondering when Bethany is going to have her baby. Does anyone else miss Marla? I’ve invented Apple Pie ice cream. Sounds good huh? I think I’ll feed it to Nae, put some pounds on her. I got a call from the Army Family Program yesterday. It was for my “monthly wellness check”. Did you all know I’m a military family? How did that happen. The message asked if I had any “issues concerning Joel”. I thought that was really funny. I still think that’s really funny. Joshua has been watching the original “Land before time” he seems to say “nope, nope, nope” a lot as well as “my stomach is talking” and “yep, yep, yep, yep, Yep, Yep”. Speaking of Joshua he started to play “frogger” the other day but ran in my room and said he needed help. He said he was “too scared to cross the street without a grown up”. What’s the deal with having wrinkles and pimples. Shouldn’t you be able to turn one in for the other. No one should have to deal with both should they? Speaking of wrinkles I’m going to be 30 soon. Man am I young! Phone Ringing. The nurse just called concerning my stomach. They want to refer me to a Gastroenterologist. Really? Do we have to do that? He’ll just want to do an endoscopy which will cost more than I care to pay. I asked if we could do some labs to check for H. pylori first? Doesn’t that seem reasonable? I do have the symptoms of an ulcer which is often caused by H. pylori and can be treated with an antibiotic. I would much rather do this than go to my friendly neighborhood GI? I hope David isn’t offended by my recommendation. I’ve come to realize over the years that docs generally don’t like it when you have your own ideas. I think he’s different. . .I hope. . . Oh, look it’s lunch time. I think I’ll go make something yummy to eat. Either that or I’ll grab a bowl of cinnamon mini wheats. . .

MacKenzie and Mattie 10-14-06

Honestly, this not what she was wearing when I put her on the bus! Apparently the little princess stashed her preferred attire in her back pack and changed when she got to school. I first saw her as she dramatically descended the stairs of her big yellow coach. Down she came in full regal and before climbing in my mini van she gracefully turned and waved goodbye to her many adoring fans.

“Did you wear that all day!?!” I asked.
“Of course, and every body LOVED it!” she exclaimed.
“Didn’t your teacher say anything?” I questioned.
“Why would she? I look great!” was her answer.