Open House

Last night was Open House at the kids' school. I always got super excited about Open House as a kid, even though my parents knew my teachers, and I try to make sure I'm always available for Open House for my boys. Of course, since Duane and I are both involved with PTA, it means that Open House involves things like staffing the PTA information table part of the time and arriving early and helping tear down at the end. They are good sports about it though. Of course, letting them get a book from the book fair probably helped.

My favorite part of Open House is seeing the work the kids have been doing. Check out the poem Ryan wrote.

He didn't seem real happy with it. "There's not a lot to say about carving a pumpkin," he said, but I think he did a fine job!

And then there was Wesley's work. Each student had what looked like the front page of a newspaper all about themselves. One of the columns was titled "My Hero" and look what Wesley put there.

 

I don't mind telling you that I teared up right there in the hallway. Guess Open House is still one of my favorite school nights of the year.

Howdy Strangers

Wow, I feel like it's been forever since I've done a real post. I guess blogging feels a little harder now that the kids aren't little and experiencing all the milestones they did before.  Life just rushes past in a routine. Everyone says it's the little moments that count, and while that's true in many ways, they can be a little boring to recount for all of you. I'm going to try to be better about it though.

So we'll start with a weekend recap.

As I said, life has been going by in blur around here. Saturday mornings in the fall are soccer season, so I took the boys to both of their games. Duane was working on finishing up a couple of cakes (more on those later) so I played "single parent" for the morning.  Wesley did a fantastic job in his game. I love to watch him play because, no matter what, he always has a big smile on his face. He just enjoys playing. He's gotten more aggressive on the field this year too and I think it might be the year he scores a goal.

Ryan....well, Ryan had to wait a long time until his game started and he and I had a bit of a falling out before hand. Plus he had team pictures to take. By the time his game started, he was just done.  Not his best effort and a lot of complaining. But he did it.

Goofing off before team pictures

Saturday afternoon we went on a food tour with some of our church group. Duane and I arranged the social since we had such a great time on the tour we did last year.  This time we focused on the Short North area and, not only was the food great, but I learned a lot about that part of town.

Our tour began at the North Market. We started with Hot Chicken Takeover. We learned a lot about their business. They are a second chance employer, hiring ex convicts and homeless people. They have an employee retention rate of over 60%, which is unheard of in fast food. Very impressive!

I have to admit, I'd been avoiding their food out of solidarity with Mya's, but it was quite good. Nice and spicy!

Next, we stopped at Little Eater for some delicious corn, tomato and quinoa salad. I gobbled it down without taking a picture, so I took a picture of their produce stand.

Our noses got a treat at North Market Spices where we sniffed some AMAZING spice blends!

We sampled pretzel twists at Brezel

Knishes and pickles from Katzinger's

I've been wanting to try Destination Donuts forever!

I mean, just look at those beauties!

We had Mexican Hot Chocolate donut bites that were nearly the size of tennis balls!

We sampled some caramel and cheese popcorn from Pam's

Our next stop was a chocolate bar/cafe/shop called Chocoholique where we sampled a couple of kinds of candy. The lavender caramel was to die for!

We strolled past the Greek Orthodox church, where we learned that although most Greek churches have Greek festivals, the food at the vast majority of those festivals is prepared off site by caterers. Not here! Everything is made on site by the yayas!

I learned about an art gallery I never knew existed

It might seem strange to stop at a fair trade store during a food tour, but we tried fair trade coffee and dried mango. And I discovered a new place to do some Christmas shopping!

Rigsby's Kitchen is a well known and respected restaurant in town.

Chef Rigsby himself prepared and served mushroom and truffle risotto for us!

Our group of happy diners

We ended our tour with ice cream at Jeni's.

It would have been so nice to hang out in the Short North after our tour concluded, but my dad and stepmom had hired Duane and I to prepare some desserts for an event and we had stuff to deliver!  I have to show you the cakes Duane made for the luau. They were amazing!

A pineapple with a lovely looking cocktail

Tropical flowers

And what's a luau without a hula girl?

Let's see, that takes us to Sunday, which also happened to be Duane's birthday. Unlike me, Duane does not like to have a big deal made about his birthday. The boys got him a new CD, but the rest of the day was just taken up by general life. We taught Sunday School and attended our small group while the boys were in choir and after church we unloaded a huge truckload of scout popcorn at the Pack's church (Duane is also in charge of the popcorn sale.)

After all that, we finally got to celebrate his birthday with dinner out. So, as you can see, it's been a whirlwind around here. We had scouts last night, tonight is open house, then we have two nights of soccer. I'll try to post again when I can. Just wanted you to know that I'm still alive!

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama.

I did not receive a concerned phone call from my parents because I had failed to update my Facebook status or post on my blog for over 24 hours and they were wondering if something was wrong. No way am I that addicted to social media.

I did not spend several moments trying to fit the key into the door lock in the dark, so I could go back inside to turn the porch light on so that I would be able to see when I tried to unlock the door when I returned from a nighttime walk with the dog, only to suddenly remember that I had a flashlight in my pocket. 

I did not spend several moments giving Ryan a spit shine to clean some dirt off his cheek only to realize I was trying to wipe away freckles rather than dirt. 

Just Call Him Cinderella

Mornings in our household can get a little crazy, the same way they do on any weekday morning in a house that has school age kids.  It's not that we are rushed, trying to get out the door, but more that the kids have chores to do before school.  And by "chores" I mean make their beds, double check their backpacks, put ice packs in their lunchboxes, make their breakfasts, that kind of thing.

This morning was one of those days when I had to a lot of nagging reminding the kids to get their chores done.  When Wesley came downstairs I asked, "Did you make your bed?"

"Yes."

"Teeth brushed?"

"Yes."

"Don't forget you have cat jobs this week."

Wesley gave a little sigh, but went downstairs to take care of the cats. When he came back up I said, "Thank you. I left you your part of the dishwasher to unload." He and I share that job now.

After that was done, Wesley went to pet Lucy. As he snuggled with her on the couch I said, "Ok, just a couple of minutes and then you'll have to make your breakfast."

Apparently that was the straw that broke the camel's back and Wesley exploded.

"All I do around here anymore is jobs! Every morning and every night! I bet I'll have to jobs all weekend too!"

At this point I reminded Wesley that he earns his allowance by doing his jobs, just like his dad and I earn money at our jobs.

"Yeah, but you guys only have one job to do! I have to do everything!"

You'll be happy to know that I managed not to burst out laughing when he said that.  Never mind the fact that I had already taken the dog for her morning walk, made the bed, put dishes away, scooped the litter boxes, got the meat out of the freezer for dinner, and was busy checking PTA emails and writing the grocery list/menus for the week. I only have one job, you know. Who am I to laugh at some tween angst?  But I did decide to be nice and make him a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. I should have given him a bill for it.

Love Knows No Bounds

Tonight in the car Ryan told me, "I love you, Mom."

"Aw, I love you too, kiddo," I responded.

There was a beat, then Ryan continued, "I also love the Lucy Puppy, air-conditioning, and pizza."

Nice to know I rank up there a dog, a modern convenience and junk food.

Dude is Hard Core

Ryan just asked for hot sauce for a snack. Just hot sauce. Off a spoon. Straight, no chaser. 

Who says little brothers aren't tough?

That Was Some Good Peeing

I had a moment this morning where I was reminded of the peeing scene in the movie "A League of Their Own."  Don't know the scene I mean? You can watch it (here).  I'll wait.

So this morning I was in my room and I heard one of my boys relieving himself in the bathroom. The other boy wandered into the bathroom and the following conversation took place:

One of my children: Wow! That's a really long pee.

The other child: I know, right?

One of my children: I've peed longer.

The other child: Oh, I've peed a lot longer than this too. This is not my best pee.

I just...there was nothing I could say to this. In fact, I decided to pretend I didn't hear it at all.

Back in the Swing of Things

Wow - school starts and we fall right back into the busy schedule. Soccer, PTA, Scouts, birthdays, homework. It's crazy! 

I don't know if I mentioned that Duane and I are both PTA officers this year, and I'm co-chairing the craft fair, so that is a lot of my time. I have so many ideas, that I tend to get a little carried away with it. And Duane is overseeing the scout popcorn sale, so that will eat up two months. 

Tonight we got a teeny break. Kirk took Wesley shopping as a birthday present. They went to the Lego store, then to get hamburgers and then to get ice cream. I was just so touched that Kirk spent the evening one on one with Wesley. And I know Wesley had been looking forward to it. I'm glad they had some uncle/nephew time.

While they were off shopping and doing guy stuff, Ryan was at soccer practice. We are fortunate to have friends on both Wesley and Ryan's soccer teams and have worked out a deal with one set of parents. Duane and I take the older siblings to their practice on Wednesday nights, and they take the younger siblings to practice on Thursday night. That way no one has to spend two nights a week hanging around soccer practice. Duane and I got the better end of the deal this week since there was a major downpour right as practice started tonight - as evidenced by this picture my friend sent to me.

At least it was a warm rain, right?

Duane and I dashed down the street and picked up take out from a restaurant we've been wanting to try (yum!). Then Duane did a little decorating of Wesley's door.

 

Before you think it's a commentary on the state of Wesley's room, Wesley saw this tape in Duane's car and asked for some on his door. Not only does it tickle his funny bone, but it's usually a fairly accurate description of Wesley's attempts to clean.