Idlewild with Levi & Savannah

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Four Things

Four jobs I've had:
- Denny's waitress
- Sears Portrait Studio secretary/sales/photographer
- legal secretary/assistant, paralegal - depending on the firm
- teaching mom, maid, washer-woman

Four places I've been on vacation:
- Outer Banks, NC - various trips, different towns each time
- London, England
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- South Beach, Miami - lots to see there, if you know what I mean.....

Four of my favorite foods:
- chicken
- grilled salmon
- peanut butter cookies - if they're good - I have very high standards :)
- lime Tostitos

Four movies I can watch over & over again:
- While You Were Sleeping
- Overboard
- Christmas Vacation
- Pirates (1)

Four places I've lived:
- Greensburg
- Youngwood
- West Newton
- and, uh, Greensburg

Four tv shows I watch fairly regularly:
- CSI - Vegas
- CSI - Miami
- House - this is a recent development
- um, I don't watch tv... John & Kate plus 8

Four websites I visit daily:
- all of your blogs
- Homeschool Reviews
- The Well Trained Mind
- MSN

Four places I'd rather be right now:
- someplace hot and sunny with beaches, pools, and frosty drinks
- up at camp
- on a Mediterranean cruise
- in bed, asleep

A-Z

I totally hijacked this list from someone else's blog that I was reading. I figured that we all needed some help, and this seemed like an okay list, so here it goes:

(A) Attached or Single... Attached. In fact, I've been attached to Big S, in some way or another, for over half of my life!
(B) Best friend... Big Sexy, my boys (I'm their mom and their friend - I think it's important to be both and important to know when to be which one....), my mom and my sisters.
(C) Cake or pie... If I never had to have one of these ever again, I could live a very happy and contented life. I guess I'd choose pie if it was blackberry from Sand Hill Berries. I'd choose cake if it was one of Big Sexy's 600 layer chocolate cakes with chocolate icing and chocolate chips around the outside. Otherwise, I'd just pass on both.
(D) Day of choice... Is there a difference between days??? I was unaware of this fact. I'm under the impression that they are all pretty much the same.
(E) Essential item... Chapstick, lotion, iced tea, a book to read
(F) Favorite color... Orange and Green
(G) Gum or mints... Gum.... you can't crack mints in quite the same way!
(H) Hometown... Same one I'm in now. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or a depressing thing.
(I) Favorite Indulgence... books, school curriculum, late night take-out during PMS.
(J) January or July... July. And here is my reason - January is made up of snow-covered, dirt-slushed streets and dead, bare tree branches. January is a cold, depressing, blah time and I wouldn't wish it on anyone and am not looking forward to it....can ya tell?
(K) Kids... 3... I mean 2... boys.
(L) Life isn't complete without... my family. Sappy, but true.
(M) Marriage date... October 9, 1993.
(N) Number of brothers and sisters... 2 sisters. I'm the oldest, most mature, most beloved firstborn.
(O) Oranges or apples... This is tough. I'd never go and just grab one for the heck of it. If it was apples, they'd have to be green, sour, Granny Smith. If it was oranges, they'd have to be the yummy seedless kind we buy at Sam's...and they would have to be cut in circles, and then the circles would have to be cut in half - don't ask why, that's just how it should be.
(P) Phobias... the dentist...he prescribes me anti-anxiety pills before my appointments, 'nuff said.
(Q) Quotes... "Why is the rum gone?"; "Inconceivable!"; "No. The answer is you can not."; "You can milk just about anything with nipples."; "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood!"; "Do the chickens have large talons?"; "Make yourself a dang quesa-dilla!"; "Gosh!" - we're pretty much always quoting Pirates, Princess Bride, Meet the Parents, and Napoleon Dynamite around here. Sad. Oh, and now Spaceballs :(
(R) Reasons to smile... doing my form at testing without screwing up or throwing up; getting big hugs from Levi & Savannah when they see me; new babies (as long as they aren't mine); puppies (same comment as before); when I say something that my boys think is really hilarious and they laugh hysterically, or when I answer one of the questions they ask me and they say, "How did you know that?!" and look at me like, "Wow! Mom must be the smartest person EVER!"; hanging out with all you crazy people 'cause some of you are very smile worthy, Christmas bonuses, vacations to tropical places, vacations in general (as long as there is no snow).... I'm sure I could go on.
(S) Season of choice... Fall. Leaves changing color. The smells. Warm days and cool nights. Pumpkins.
(T) Tag... All 5 of you guys!
(U) Unknown fact about me... I got pneumonia on my 18th birthday. I'm a paralegal. I worked at Denny's for a few months back in the day as a waitress, not something I'd recommend. I turned 21 on my honeymoon. I'm sure I'll think of some really cool ones after I post this because right now, I got nothin'.
(V) Valentine's Day or not... NOT!
(W) Worst habit... My obsessive need to have everything in order, in its place, clean and organized. Impatience with incompetence in others and my inability to hide my disgust with those who I find annoying.
(X) X-ray vision or invisibility... Invisibility. He he he!
(Y) Your favorite food... I love food. I can honestly say that I don't have a favorite. I love Chinese food, Mexican food, Italian food, sushi, a good ol' burger and fries, salads... This becomes a problem when it comes to decision-making (which we all know from LL's blog that I'm not good at anyway!)
(Z) Favorite Zoo animal... the monkeys.... they remind me of my family.... :)

8-24-08

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Cheesecake, anyone????

Big S spent Tuesday night making this delectable chunk of "five pounds now added to my back-fat". It's a "layered mocha cheesecake" from the Taste of Home magazine. Mmmmm, was it good! The boys managed to hog sizable pieces of it down after testing last night, even though there was some coffee flavoring to it that they didn't particularly like. Isn't it pretty??????

Wednesday, August 20, 2008, Testing

Today

Today was one of those days. It wasn't a particularly good day, but it didn't completely suck either. Nothing exciting happened. I didn't win a large amount of money or meet any of the celebs on my "5". It was just one of those days that was unremarkable, but busy and tiring. One that, now that it's coming to a close, makes you think, "Today was kinda boring."

The boys and I went to tkd this morning. We were the only ones there so it was sort of like a private lesson for the Bartholomews. That was kinda cool. We practiced some jahng bahng stuff so now I'm even more lethal with that thing :)

We got home and the boys immediately ran upstairs to change and to scrub the "mat fungus" off of their feet. Then, of course, they had to eat as they were "starving". We got started on some schoolwork and were really taking care of business when the phone rang. It was my sister. She had taken her dog, Roxy, to the vet earlier that morning and had just received a call from them that she (the dog) had died. I'm not a vet, but my diagnosis is kidney failure. So, my sister, who has the most tender heart toward animals out of anyone in this entire universe, is extremely upset. She needs to go to the vet and pick up the dog and give her a proper burial. She wants to know if I can come over and stay with Levi & Bannah. Off the boys and I go. Of course, we have haircuts scheduled for 3:45, so we can only be there for an hour. Ry, Cam, Levi & Savannah jump on the trampoline and throw balls at each other and become sweaty messes, but have tons of fun and laugh and giggle. At 3:05 I took the kids down to their neighbors who would keep them until Danielle got home. The boys and I jumped in the car and went flying down the bypass. As we near the exit I begin to wonder, "Do I have enough change????"


We got to our haircut appointment exactly on time - awesome! Now the boys look human again. Well, except for this picture of Ryan.


Here we have a picture of "Dark Helmet" - the boys are really into "Spaceballs" right about now.......

The day is done, I'm going to bed. See you all tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, Pap!!!!

Today is my Pap's 80th birthday! He's the most awesome Pap EVER!! He and my nanny live in Georgia and they volunteer in the surgical waiting room at Doctors Hospital two times a week. When I'm 80, I wanna be cool like my grandparents. Those two crazies are always up to something and I'm pretty sure that's why they're so spry and ornery. Apparently, when I was little, I had a penchant for dancing on tables and, instead of discouraging this behavior, my pap would throw quarters at me! He was also my pet horse, Fred, for the first several years of my life. He would follow me around making horse noises, eating imaginary oats, and, of course, giving me rides. My pap has a picture of every single one of his grandchildren and great grandchildren asleep in his arms...and every single one of them love him like crazy! Today, the boys and I called and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Everyone in our family gets that special honor on their birthday (let me know if any of you would like a call on YOUR birthday....I'm sure it could be arranged).

I love you, Pap! Happy Birthday!

Jimmy's Festering Wound

Since everyone is concerned about Jimmy, I thought I'd post his festering wound pic. SB, take care of this, would ya please???? Also, notice Jimmy's leg warmers.......

A Night at the Fair

Let us begin this evening's post with a shout out of congratulations where a shout out of congratulations is due! Way to go MP on your eight gold medals of these Olympics (he's gonna be so honored when he finds out that he was mentioned on my blog, TWICE!! :) I watched every one of his final races and most of the preliminaries and he's just an amazing athlete. Those two wins - by eight one hundredths of a second and one one hundredth of a second - were unbelievable! That is all you'll hear about MP from me on my blog ..... (and all of the guys breathed a huge sigh of relief.)



Tonight our ATA academy did a demo at the Westmoreland County Fair. We all arrived on time and waited in the hot sun for our fearless leaders. Although LL denies it, Rob Thomas was singing to me during our wait ..... that made it much more pleasant! Here we have State Champ and moi bowing in to each other during our jahng bahng demonstration. Not only was she my partner for this exercise, she was also my date this evening as our husbands chose to stay home with most of the children.


Here's my favorite nephew, Levi, breaking a real, honest-to-goodness board after our demo. Way to go, Levi!! My favorite niece, Savannah, also broke a board, but my photographer - the favorite nephew and niece's mother - failed to get a shot of that :(

After all of our hard work was done - you know, moving rickety stages and all - we walked around and ate healthy things like funnel cakes and ice cream. Then, Alex decided to try out his skills on the "climb up a ladder that's on a swivel" thingie. Despite his immense concentration, he flopped gracefully onto the mat with both attempts. This is only a temporary roadblock, Alex, that can be overcome with continued training and practice:) After all, look how great the carny guy was at it!

Finally, I'll bet you guys won't ever guess who State Champ and I saw at the Fair this evening - in a cage, no less - it was "Jimmy"!!!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I clearly remember the day that my sweet baby

came home from "prestool" and handed me

this picture. I totally cracked up.

The look on the child's face says just about

anything EXCEPT, "I Love You".

For Kim.....In Honor of Our Olympic Crush

Really....... I mean, REALLY!!

Could he be any more ripped??????

My "5"

Yummy Colin Farrell

Yummy Colin Farrell.... Oops! Did
I post a picture of him twice? :)
It must be my Irish DNA calling
out to its own kind!


Gerard Butler


Goran Visnjic

George Clooney

Hugh Jackman

Dave's "5"

Big S spent some time today doing research and deciding on his "5". After that, he got in touch with his creative/girly side and created this layout of his ladies:

I guess you're gonna have to fight him for your alternate SC!!!

One year ago today............

One year ago today.....my back yard looked like this:

The morning started out with the ominous sound of rumbling thunder. You know, the kind that you can hear starting to roll and eventually your house rattles in that way where everything shakes. I was snuggled up in bed, but when the thunder sounded, I opened my eyes to an eerie greenish-yellow light in the room.....and then, the rain. Some sixth sense must have told me to get up and check the basement....when I got down there, there was a lovely - and growing - puddle of water. Shortly thereafter, the rain stopped and I spent a couple of hours cleaning up downstairs. Once I got everything dry, I went up for a shower.

About two hours later, the skies opened up. I think we got around 4 inches of rain in 45 minutes. There was no road in front of my house. The water was rushing down the street and stretched from my neighbor's garage (the one across the street) almost to my front door. Between my house and my next-door neighbor's house (where we played volleyball) there was a river. I was terrified that the water was going to start seeping into my living room from either the front door or the side of the house! The ground was so saturated from the earlier rain that water was gushing through the concrete block in the basement....and then the wash basin started backing up. In all, we probably had about 3 & 1/2 inches of water in the basement....in ALL of the basement.

We were the lucky ones. I had been home and was able to rush stuff out of the basement to the kids who were waiting on the basement steps to lug things upstairs. My next door neighbor had about 4 feet of water in her basement - she lost her hot water tank, washer & dryer and a freezer. My other neighbors were on vacation and the fire department had to break into their house to turn off the gas. They had a couple of feet of water. For the next couple of weeks, our neighborhood looked like a refugee camp. Everybody was lugging stuff out of their houses to either dry out, or put out for the garbage men - who, I'm sure, were cussing our street out that next Monday!

Anyway, I'm glad we've made it through this year without a repeat of THAT! I don't enjoy thunderstorms anymore, and I think that's sad. Camron is completely freaked out anytime it rains with any force or he hears thunder. He's quite adept at getting on the computer and checking the Weather Channel radar. Maybe he'll be a weatherman when he grows up????

Bruises, Science Curriculum, and a Computer

I didn't think I'd ever say these words, but I'm kind of sick of taekwondo....today. SC and I taught a Tiny Tiger class this morning that went surprisingly well. Then, against my will and better judgment, I taught the adult morning class. I only did this because Mr. D. called me up Tuesday morning crying and begging me to take the class because no one else was available (not really, but it makes me sound more noble:) I need to confess, I'm afraid of the grown-ups. I can cover up any stupid mistake in front of the kidlets, but the adults will know, and remember, if I do something moronic. And....I don't like people looking at me. That's already been established (except, of course, to my neighbor up the street who is so unhappy with her life that she makes herself feel better by making snide comments about others who she obviously wishes she could be like :) :) :) Also, my arm hurts....and my hip. I am sporting some lovely purple bruises courtesy of my jahng bahng. They're rather large and they HURT! Last night as I was watching tv Dave asked me, "What did you do to your arm? It's a mess!" Love you too honey. You'll just have to stand back in awe when I wield my jahng bahng at the Fair!!!


Cam's science curriculum for this school year arrived yesterday! I'm so excited. I looked forever and researched a million different things before I decided on this....A Reason for Science.


Do you see that way cool plastic container? That contains all the supplies needed to perform all of the experiments in the book (except for things like paper towel rolls). This curriculum is based on doing the experiment and then doing a sort of lab report on what happened. I've never been a big science experiment person, but since this came with all of the crap needed to do each one, I figured why not?

Here we have a picture of Camron, 1st thing in the morning, in his jammies, talking to his dad on the phone. The conversation went something like this:

"Dad, what's this huge box in the living room?"

"What does it say Cam?"

Cam getting down on the floor, "It doesn't say anything. Oh, wait, Dell.....is it the new computer?"

We hadn't told him that we ordered it, but he had been getting on Dave's case lately about how he couldn't play his games on our prehistoric old computer.....you know, the one that I have to use....Well, Big S didn't realize how horribly, painfully, eye-poking-outingly SLOW this computer actually was until he had to spend some time on it the other day....I should've made him work on it a long time ago and I'd have gotten Flash ordered much sooner (Cam named him....it's rubbing off!)

Look at him.....doesn't he look fast and clean and shiny???? We're happy to have you join our family, Flash.

Day 26: Yummy

Here we are...the final word and the final day of Southern Belle's Blog Picture Challenge! Today's word is "YUMMY" and I have taken a picture of a piece of blackberry pie from Sand Hill Berries. If you have never had a pie from here, it is quite possible that you have never truly lived!

I'm very proud of you girls (and those boys that have chosen to participate) for taking up the "Challenge" and stepping out into the blogging world! And I'm proud of you, SB, for blogging more regularly than you were prior to convincing us to join in your little game :)

I hope that you are all thinking of words/phrases for our next challenge. So far we have: something red, an animal (SC came up with these), something round, one of your children, and your wedding picture. As you can see, we are not making these too hard :) The rules of this challenge shall be (ooh, this is like a princess decree) that you will get to pick which word/phrase that you use each day, and each word/phrase may be used only once. Also, the accompanying picture does NOT have to have been taken on that day. *end decree* I think it will be fun and keep those ideas coming and keep blogging!

Day 25: Way to go!

Obviously, this picture is completely staged. But for the sake of today's word/phrase....."Way to go Camron! You did a great job of actually loading one of your dirty dishes into the dishwasher. I KNEW you could do it!" :) You've all seen my kitchen....it's not a large place, and, believe me, I don't mind because that means there's less to clean up. However, it completely boggles my mind that while the boys in this family are capable of bringing their dirty dishes into the kitchen, those dishes only ever end up on the counter or the cart/island! Why!!! Why do you do this to me???? If you get the dishes to the counter, no extra steps are required to open the dishwasher, just open the door (which falls downward by itself), pull out one of the racks and slightly bend to place your dish/glass in the proper place! I think that's all. (Other than this, and the fact that they can't manage to get their dirty clothes into the clothes bags on the back of their bedroom doors....they're pretty much perfect :)

This is just a "bike shorts" picture for Lady Leslie :) Ha ha!

Day 24: Tiny

This "TINY" treasure chest houses yet another of Camron's baby teeth that had to be pulled. Since the moment of Cam's birth he has had an unnatural attachment to and need for milk. I think, and I am in no way an expert, that all of the calcium that he has ingested over the course of his eleven years has made the roots of his teeth so strong that they are, in some way, attached to his sternum. You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? The child had TWO SETS of adult upper front teeth growing in his gums (supernumerary is the proper term :) He had to have surgery to remove the extra, weirdly positioned set. Here's a pic of Cam, quite high, on the morning of his surgery.

One would have thought that taking that action, plus pulling the baby teeth would have helped the REAL adult teeth come on down....but, alas, Cam was without front teeth for over a year! When his teeth finally came in, we celebrated with a "Tooth Eruption Party". Dave made cakes to match his newly "hatched" teeth.

When we got home from Dr. Bupp's office with our new treasure chest, we decided to see exactly how many of these Cam had collected. Pretty impressive for someone who has only lost 12 baby teeth!