Pre Holiday Goodness...

I've been a bit under the weather all week. I've done tons at the house in small spurts. I've had some good hours. I knew in advance I would be putting costumes together Wednesday evening, as well as treat stuff for preschool. Wednesday came, I felt horrible, and when I got home {no church for me} Andrew started right in on the costume thing. Ugh, child, leave me alone. I will get it all done. I always do. That night, however, I was a tad worried. It dawned on me that Kyle's party was the very next day...the day before the other parties. I gathered my supplies and put them in a pile. I love befores and afters. Here is the before...

A little jumbled mess. Love it. Oh, except for one small problem. You know, I was going to do the whole "this pic {above pile} + this pic {...? }" The glue gun was missing!!!!!! I can't do my project without my beloved glue gun. I tore through my basement. twice. And through drawers. And cupboards. And closets. Nothing. I decided to move on to my treats. I prepare for the same type of intro...the supply pic...what the? The googly eyes were missing! A little breath {or 5} later, I realized I used the gun last Halloween for both Caleb's costume and Kyle's Handy Manny hammer with the eyes. I headed to the basement one more time. Nothing. I decided to forget about the fun treat containers and instead focused on how to get the striped on Kyle's pants. I suppose in any other situation I would not have cared, but K's pants have stripes and I wanted to mimic his uniform as closely as possible. BINGO! If the gun isn't in my craft room, something else is. I found remnants of ribbon tape for scrapbooking {$$} and pieced it all together. I should have taken a pic of just the pants because the results were pheeenom! Yay for me for being so...determined. Yeah, that's it.

Sneak peek...{more preschool pics later}

Skipping ahead, after the stripes ordeal, I needed to deal with Andrew. His costume sucked. I told him this is the last year I pay for his costume while the other kids get bits and pieces. The costume came with a mask, but the kind that is only the front half. It also included a coat/vest/shirt/tie combo. By combo I mean one ugly piece of fake. No pants. I purchased a punk rock wig, face paint and green hairspray and went to work. I should have posted the before of the wig. Andrew modeled it. I think it went to his butt. I cut it, but he looked more like Garth from Wayne's World than anyone else. You can't really do a fun cut on a crappy wig. I tried my 3 barrel iron to loosen the crimp but I ended up melting the hair. Perfect. Done. We took it outside and used the entire can of hairspray. Neon green. Good enough. I also hated the one piece suit so I cut out the fake collared shirt and tie. I added a different shirt and fun tie and was rather pleased. I just needed pants and we were good to go.

I realized this morning that I never picked up pants. Whoops. Leave it to me to remember I found a pair of black fun pants at Goodwill for Andrew for church a couple of months back. WOOT!! Andrew wore his mask to school today so I wouldn't have to worry about the makeup situation at the soccer game tonight.

Caleb was easy. he changed his mind again. Mr. Potato Head was going to have a hard time fitting at a desk. Caleb loves the Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau so it was only fitting that he dress as that. It started with the face disguise and ended up with the hat and magnifying glass. I really wanted the pipe but the adult in me came out and I realized it wasn't appropriate for school. Bummer. I own a khaki trench. Bingo. We simply added Caleb's own white button down, a tie and khaki pants. Quite Caleb, if you ask me.

All 3 were crazy excited about their costumes and showing them off at school. Ooh, it's 5:07 and I gotta get outta here. Gotta get Kyle and dash to the soccer game at 6. Go Master Tag Maniacs!!

Dream A Little Dream...

It's certainly not Wednesday but there's still no need for words!!

Unofficially Official...

Tuesday night K and Caleb skipped practice so we could all take my mom and dad out for dinner. We had big plans to take them to Holland, and I really cannot remember why or how the plans fell through but they did, and we ended up at Texas Roadhouse. If you know my dad, that won't surprise you in the least. We were truly thankful Old Country Buffet had closed its doors.

My parents officially retire at the end of the month, but we were celebrating early. My dad is a crazy workhorse so I cannot imagine what he's going to do with all of his free time. My mom has been laid off for a bit so she's accustomed to the extra time and has tons of projects in mind. {run dad!!}

They have been so happy since making this decision. I am so happy for them. I am also envious. People think I have a cake job here. {and yeah, the frosting is sweet} However, I don't see a retirement in my future. Anywhere. So, as long as I don't develop diabetes, my cake job will be O.K. Until forever.

Party Fun Is Bittersweet...

Last weekend was playoff time for Andrew's team. Did I already blog this? I'm not surprised that I don't remember. Andrew's team lost, to the other Whitehall team, with an 8-0 score. It was a great game to watch with one bad call. Either way, so proud of ALL of those boys. Whitehall rocks.
Sunday was the combined team party. How lucky were we? It was held at the Young's farm and there were about a million and 2 people there. Fun, fun. Kris orchestrated this whole gift thing for the coaches Caleb's team because most of them are moving on as the team is moving up. Not to the East Side, but to the Middle School, in case you were confused. She picked up footballs for the kids to sign for each of the 5 core coaches and gift cards for all 8. Radium was there to allow parents to order action shots from the season, {love how knowing people really helps out} there was tons of food {and by tons I mean TONS left over} fun games and goody bags to boot. Last year, for the doughnut eating contest, the stuff was hung from poles and they dangled freely as the kids tried to eat the treat without it falling to the ground. A last minute oversight caused the doughnuts to be eaten from the table. No biggie. Lucky for me, all 3 boys were up against each other at the same time. Unlucky for me, some kid kept putting his big head in front of my camera every time I tried to get a picture of Andrew actually digging in. Oops. Did I just say that? Sorry to the mom of the kid with the big head. I'm sure his head wasn't big. Those darn lenses blow everything out of proportion. Yeah, that's it. The lens does that. Not me. None of the boys won. On the bright side, they aren't the pigs I thought they were. ;)

Coach Rake gave a small speech but said he wouldn't cry until the awards ceremony. I'll be there for that.

We're moving on to bigger and better things. {until Kyle can play ball in 2012} I am excited for change, selfishly speaking. I will now get weekends off during fall. Yippee Skippy. {funny how rhyming words aren't always spelled similarly} K and I can finally get back to Traverse City falls. Yuh-uh-ummy! Even with the excitement, I will miss Lil' Vikes. Not the stress or lack of support, but the fun little family I have been a part of. And I feel the pain of the person coming in after me. So much so that I have already agreed to volunteer for a few specified things next year. If I get frustrated and say NO WAY! later on, it's all down on paper. I've already committed. Please remind me of it. I will certainly miss it. Guaranteed. I enjoy helping my children and helping out with their projects. I want to be hands on all the time. Somebody warn Mr. Russell.

Kyle is telling jokes. Apparently, he gets that gene from Caleb. More specifically, he got the I'm-bad-at-telling-jokes gene from Caleb. Heaven help us all. {he got...nice English. ha}

I heart my header. It cracks me up every time I'm on here. I can honestly say I am embracing Kyle's personality. It usually makes me crazy, especially when I want him to sit still and smile, but lately the pics have been fun for me. tehe.

I heard this morning that 81 kids were absent from Ealy yesterday. Frightening. Also yesterday, Keith called to tell me that, after arriving at practice, Catholic's season is done. Apparently North Muskegon forfeited the game because their school closed down yesterday. Keith said he would have only practiced with 12 kids himself {11 on the field, right?} because of sickness. Today, Muskegon Catholic is also closed. This swine flu thing is out of control.

Soccer has officially started and football isn't even done yet. Andrew's team {1st place} has a playoff game Saturday and Caleb is playing on the all-star team for the two weeks following that. Their first soccer game is Friday. We are not yet prepared. Tried to be, but aren't. Monday evening I drove to Muskegon just to turn around because of naughty boy syndrome. Yesterday I made 3, count them 3, separate trips to Muskegon to be prepared. Foiled. Halloween shopping is mostly done. I just have to put it all together. The shoes for soccer...yikes. Our plan is this-Andrew will get a pair of low top court shoes. He'll be able to wear them on turf and then for basketball. Caleb's basketball shoes still fit him and he currently keeps them at school for phys ed so he'll get a pair to wear on the turf, but ones that'll convert to school shoes afterward. Neither are getting classic indoor soccer shoes. I'd like more bang for my buck. I found the shoes at Dick's for Andrew, but not in his size. There was a pair of sweet basketball shoes, but the toe was too soft for soccer. Caleb also found a sweet pair at Dick's, but mostly suited for school. Again, not soccer. We ran over to Dunham's as well but they had nothing. We ran out of time because Andrew needed to be picked up from practice, so we headed home. We even missed the Whitehall/Montague volleyball game, which we were really looking forward to attending. Bummer. Keith is home today so hopefully he will have some time to run to MC's and maybe even Kohl's. If nothing else, I may see what Payless has for hard toed shoes and pick something up there and get the boys the sweet shoes at Dick's. Friday is fast approaching so I gotta figure it out.

Still up this week...Midweek tonight at church, practice tomorrow night, game Friday, game Saturday football mega party on Sunday, as well as finally wrapping up the pop can fundraiser. Whew!

Yay Or Nay...

Andrew always cranks his glasses into his face. His ears are also uneven. Put those two together and there is just cause for not being able to see his eyes. He has gorgeous eyes. I reminded him for pictures to keep his glasses straight. I forgot to tell him to push them up so his eyes show through the center of the lenses. Eh.

There were a million and three choices for pics this year. Like 14 backgrounds and 2 poses. One with hands. One without. Fun for me, {not so much} I got a little of both. I haven't decided whether or not I'm doing retakes. I look at the pic over and over and it really depicts him. He is so Alex P. Keaton. I call him that often. He reminds me so much of that character. He isn't offended by it. I mean it in a super sweet loving way. Can I deal with the hands? I dunno yet. Andrew's solution is to cut the bottom off the picture. Yeah. No.
{the actual picture is much better. This was propped up with a paper towel roll and taken with my camera phone. And there is that protective coating on it so you cannot duplicate it. And the dude's got a big forehead. Wnder where he gets it from? ;)}
Yay or nay?

Can you put together a costume {minus one given to you} for 3.00? Yay or nay? I went to Goodwill today for a little looksie-loo. I ended up with a new package of tissue paper, a new tablet of paper and a navy blue tie. The total was 3.18. How funny is it that I had to write a check? I didn't plan to go there and I had no money. I counted out my change on the counter and I only had 2.93. I should have put something back. I didn't. The point here is that the tie is for Kyle's policeman costume. Yes, I previously blogged that he was going to be spiderman. Boys. The bummer is that I didn't get a very good {will} deal paying 2.00 for the tie. It wasn't marked. Otherwise, I would've done something else. Anywho, the only other thing I need is some ribbon to sew down the pant legs of the pants I have at home. Lucky for me, we have the other essentials at home. I love that Kyle gets to wear K's name plate thingy and that his stuff will all say his name on them. How fun is that?

Caleb also changed his {costume} mind. The washer doesn't "sit" well in a desk situation so at first he thought about Elvis. I had found a wig and was gathering mad sequins. Saturday, he decided to be Mr. Potato Head. Fun. I can make the entire face from felt but it will be a flat face. OR I can buy 3-D pieces, glue or sew them on, and make it more fun. {and challenging} 3-D fun? Yay or Nay?

Kyles' school pics are today. yesterday, after school, Kristin called me to ask me if I had done Kyle's hair for school. Of course I did. Basically put, she said it didn't look like it. I always do his hair. Andrew is the only one who can possibly get away without his hair being totally done...and that is possibly. Today I decided to slick his hair down {he goes to daycare before school} with only water to make sure I had a fresh slate to work with later. I brought along a water bottle and gel and did his hair in the van in the parking lot. Surprisingly, I kept his hair down today. No pony tails for him. ;) Seriously, I always gel it up, either just in the front or all over the top. My kids and their crazy hair. Would you go through all this to have a good picture? Yay or nay?

I need a new 'do. Bad. This current style is gettin' old. I've had a variation of the same cut for 14 months now. It has certainly lost it's cuteness. I HATE bobs. Not in general. just on me. I really like the theory of the front being longer than the back. But then I'm back to current. And I want a new color. Okay, so that has been the case for 11 years now. Funny, I've tried my "natural" color twice before and cried both times. {duh} The third time highlights were added. The color was great. From the back. I just couldn't handle it around my face. I love blondness but I've been finding that my hair matches my face matches my lips matches my teeth. DO I really want to have all of that the same color? Yay or nay? I have the answer for that one. NAY!!!! I want a contrast. I want a change. The last time my hair was dark {'03} I received a few "you don't seem like yourself" comments. I was in no way offended. I actually got it. I kind of felt that same way. Right now is my January. You know, when everything is blah and nasty? October is way too early for that. Must be that I haven't tanned in months. I gave it up.

Hahahahaha!!! I stopped typing and came back to this and HATE [above} caught my attention. I thought it said "I HATE boobs!" Oh, and for the record, I do!

Looking forward to the weekend. It is my last bought with concessions. Woot! It's really my last bought with Lil' Vikes responsibilities! Double Woot! Are you happy for me? Yay or nay?

Walk Like An Egyptian...

Hodey hum. Where do I begin? The beginning I suppose. So many pics to share, none of them really good. Nonetheless, you'll get all this and a slice of pie. Just don't offer any to me. My 5 year anniversary is coming up and I want to look goo-ood! Mm! {with a slight grunt...and short! not drawn out} Okay, that made me laugh. Whatever. Isn't it funny to read 5 years? How bizarre.

Last week was spirit week at school. The only pic I took of Andrew is the one from wacky dorky day. It really wasn't called that. Interruption # 2...Kyle spilled a Shirley Temple all over himself the other day and I was miffed cuz' we were at the mall and I started saying, "Oh, Kyle. Now you look like..." Kyle asked, "A doke?" Okay, so maybe I call him a dork more often than I should. Noted.

Should have corrected the color here, but eh. Andrew didn't quite look dorky enough with his original attire so I scoured the costume box and came up with a few extras. The elf pants (aka pirate pants from a previous dress up} were NOT made solely for this occasion, Kristin.

Friday was Homecoming. Long story short, it rained until the game so the parade was cancelled. It was also the varsity's Black Out game. I forgot to take pictures of the boys {well all of us} in their Tackling Hunger football tees. The varsity's black jerseys looked sweet and the crowd participated by wearing their black tees. I think the jerseys were donated by an anonymous donor. Awesome. Worked concessions again. Only 'til halftime. Weather turned out great for Friday night spectators. Still really chilly, especially for the little queenies.

Saturday was game day. What, you're shocked? It was Absolutely. Ridiculously. Bone-chilling. Cold. Outside. At least our games were done before the rain came. Poor friends got stuck in that crap.

This picture is funny for obvious reasons. Um, like Kyle is NOT a Tallquist. His new fascination is wearing the boys' old sports clothing. He has given up wearing his Viking jersey gram bought for him. Instead, he wants to wear Caleb's old Lil' Vikes jersey. Cracks me up. The boys like their names on the backs of their shirts. Me, not so much. Not because of the name or anything silly like that. I like to share and sharing becomes difficult with a name on something. It doesn't work for Kyle and it doesn't work for other littles I can share with. Abbi wouldn't look too cute in most of the boys' stuff.

After the games, Keith rushed to MCC for the rest of his game. He really is fabulous and I don't tell him near enough. {or like ever} I remember telling him years ago, in our dating phase, on the phone, on his machine, a laundry list of I-promise-tos and I know I've fallen short. He coached Caleb's game and missed most of his own. Simply put, he said it was because he wouldn't miss Caleb's game. Love you, K.

Caleb also went to Catholic's game so Andrew, Kyle and I headed to eat at Red Lobster. Hey, I cannot disappoint my guy who played sooo well. {Andrew suggested it. I super swear.}

We met up with Kyle and Caleb at JCP to shop for the winter wardrobe. Keith got 2 woven shirts, 2 ties, a pair of dress slacks {funny word} and a sport coat for $80 and some change! WOOT!! The sport coat was 180. marked down to 30. and 1/2 off that!! 15. smackaroos. Dude.

Sunday was Funday. The bus left at 7:30 from Pamida to De-troit! Kyle was in the bathroom within 3 minutes of departing. Thank goodness for charter buses. We were supposed to arrive at Ford Field at noon, but I think we got off the bus around 10:37ish. {ish really didn't need to be said with an exact time, I suppose} We all walked around, taking in the sights and taking some photos. {shown in no particular order}

Caleb tried his arm at this little throwing booth. BAM. Poor Sam couldn't even get it in.

Ha. How could I forget to mention the confiscation of my beloved camera? I knew from go that I couldn't bring my zoom lens so I didn't even try. The rules stated 50 mm. Perfect. my factory lens would have to do. Never mind that Andrew will be the size of the football in my pics. So I was moving through my line, getting searched and getting my bag searched. No big deal. The the lady, rather abruptly, states that I cannot bring my camera in. I told her it was fine and that it was a 50mm lens like the rules stated, when she informs me that it was a 55mm lens. She told me there was no way that camera was making it in the stadium yesterday. She wanted me to walk it back to my bus. My bus was gone. She called security, who told me the same thing...my camera was not going inside. He asked me if I brought another lens. I told him this was the smallest I can get. Dang. He kindly walked me to the help desk or whatever where I had to check my camera in and leave it there. {sad face} I completely forgot that Kyle dropped my factory lens last summer and broke it and I bought a new one, a better one. Would have been nice to have remembered that. I wouldn't have gone through all that for 5 measly mms.

The kind lady at the check desk did tell me about the ladies upstairs doing free face painting. Bingo. Something to take my mind off stuff. Nobody wanted anything to fun. Bummer. Kyle didn't even want a lion.

Kyle smeared his eye black from crying really hard because he didn't want to pee in the girl's bathroom. He decided to protest at the potty for what seemed like forr-eevv-err! "I won't go potty in da gew's bafwoom. I won't." I heard it over. And over. And over again. Rationalizing didn't seem to help, so I just stood there. As we washed our hands, a lady came up to us and said that she wanted to give both of us a hug and some other stuff. If she had, I would have cried.

The Lions played hard. It was a good game. Especially since the Steelers, in theory, should have killed them. Instead the final score was 28 to 20. The Lions should have tied it up in the last minutes of the game but the QB made some really silly mistakes. Mistakes that I knew were mistakes. Now that's just silly.

The Lil' Vikes Dynamite teams {Andrew and friends} played on the field at the half. Squint and you may be able to see red. What an exciting opportunity for those boys!! The boys played really well. Our little team even pulled off a TD. Way to go, guys.

I marked Andrew on this pic and the next so you can find him without squinting too much...

...and this one...oh, geez...in the bigger pic you can see Andrew's white shoes. Funny. Here, not so much. Oh well.

We got semi lost after the game, went totally the wrong way back to guest services, couldn't find our bus and headed in the wrong direction looking for it but all was good. We stopped for dinner and made it back to Whitehall right around, um, 8:40ish? Just enough time to stop for an orange for Caleb's class today. It was too late to do laundry {don't want it to sit in the washer overnight} so K had to wear his new, unwashed pants to work today. Eh. Better luck tomorrow.

Tomorrow I may venture out and finally change my name with the Social Security office. Or not. I really need to get that done because last year the school actually made my paycheck out to Jodi Hoffman since it was the only for sure-ity with the State. Oops. Really gotta get that done in '09.

Looking forward, Huizenga's party is Saturday. Good times. Cannot wait. Regular season will also be done Saturday for little football. Super Saturday is the week after. Andrew is in for sure. Caleb still may have a chance. Soccer starts the following week for both big boys. Cheer is a few weeks after that. Lots to do before then. Giddyup.

And what about walking like an Egyptian? I dunno. It just felt right.

Slow Weekend....

I am already getting ahead of myself, but can anyone explain this to me? Anyone?


I was sooo looking forward to the weekend last Friday. With the rain coming in, we had already planned to miss the football game. It was a pretty ho-hum evening. I fell asleep on the couch way too early.

Saturday I was up early to pack the van for concessions. It was then, about 15 minutes before I was leaving, that I realized I forgot to thaw hot dogs! Boy oh boy. I should have known then. Instead, I kept going and managed, at two different times, to miss the road I needed to turn on. The weather was strange. No rain. Then rain. Then no rain. By the time the boys played, it had cleared up. I left my camera in the van since I didn't feel like dodging raindrops. Dumb luck.

Andrew's team won and they stayed first in their age group. Two more regular season games and then Super Saturday. Regardless of the outcomes of the next two, Andrew's team will for sure be playing. As it stands, he is slated to play against Whitehall's other dynamite team. How cool would that be?

Caleb's team started strong, but was defeated in the end. They were ranked 4th going into the game so I kind of figured they are out now. Buchberger doesn't think so...not yet. Our next two games should be wins, so we'll have to see.

By the time we got out of the stadium {after coach chats, concessions cleanup and kid roundup} it was near 8pm. So much for snack and movie shopping. We headed home, showered up, made hot cocoa, grabbed snacks from the pantry and picked an already owned movie. Kyle had fallen asleep so K put him to bed. Gremlins. Not unanimous, but whatever. I was asleep within 10 minutes. I swear. I woke up once to hear, "This is scary!" It was Andrew. The child who picked the movie. I told him everything was fine and fell back asleep.

Yesterday we finally made it to early church. Hooray. Did they change the start time? I got there at 8:15 and had to walk in the middle of Pastor speaking. We ended up in the second pew...which was the front row yesterday. And Communion. I was first. It always freaks me out.

After Sunday School, we headed to Lewis Farms for apples, treats, pumpkins and fun. It was so stinkin' cold, though, that it was a short lived event. The elephant arrived as we were packing up. I promised the little one we'd make another trip. I also plan to take him to Country Dairy. We had an interesting conversation about what Caleb was going to do with his dead deer and ended up talking about cows producing milk.

We did some other fun stuff and made it back home just after the Lions started. It amazes me how slow time moves when I'm not moving. Actually, I moved quite a bit yesterday, finally collecting summer shorts and putting them away, not to mention the LOADS of clean laundry that finally got sorted. But ironically, every time I checked the clock, I still had tons of time. I imagine I would get it all in order if I could just slow down. Done. No football tonight for me. I have a pretty easy schedule this week. I plan to get a lot done.

Doofusses...spelled correctly or not, I can account for 3 of them. {well, really 4 of them, but for the sake of this post...}

The boys named their pumpkins Tim and Brad. I don't know where I was or what I was doing while all of this was going on. Caleb kept calling dibs on various pumpkins. Somehow that translated into naming the third pumpkin, you guessed it...Dibs. I love this picture {minus the labels} so much that I may use it for my header.

One little sneak...I am finding that this little mutt is kind of fun to photograph. His personality, the one that drives me utterly bonkers, keeps coming through in his pics. It is actually refreshing.

Today K's dress code changed. Long sleeved shirts and ties. The poor boy doesn't have enough to last a week so I bought him a white shirt and fun tie from Meijer to give him an extra day. Dude. Seriously. Hey, the tie was only 7.49. We desperately need to get his clothing allowance check. And quick!

Oh, and so cute this morning. Kyle asked me to write a letter to his dad because he was naughty. sweet, right? We were rushing like mad to get out of the house but it was so darn sweet that I had to take the time. I asked him what he wanted it to say and I wrote it for him. He signed his name and then basically added a p.s. Ha, is my sweet, loving little four year old peaking out from the mad man currently residing in my home? I won't get my hopes up but my fingers are secretly crossed.

Yes, I will keep him. For now.