Halloween 2009

Here is a little Halloween love for ya. We picked a twisted Disney theme. Enjoy!!!

First we have the Ninja Mickey Mouse....he was awesome and I keep losing him in the pictures because his ninja-ness is so impressive.


Next we have the Goth Tinkerbell. She definitely has the attitude. And I am appropriately horrified that the kid looks 20, yes.



We are Vampire Prince Charming and Bitten Snow White. I am unbitten because my Prince got his teeth pulled by the horrified Cinderella who could simply not abide by her daddy wearing those fangs. She was not having it. This was an unplanned event, so we just went with it.




And the girl who inspired the theme....Cinderella. She is just Cinderella. No twist. She considered wearing wings, but decided against it. Possibly a wand, but, NO. In the end, just "Cinerella"...plain. The End. And Cinderella was a little stressed, incidentally. A very terrifying clown greeted her earlier in the week and she swore there would be NO HALLOWEEN for several days. That video from Oriental Trading that had Julia dressed like a witch did not help matters. FYI, for future reference, Caris DOES NOT LIKE WITCHES! Well, except Harry Potter witches....that is different.




We picked a couple of Julia's friends up for trick-or-treating buddies and headed to the condos for loot gathering. It was cold and it was damp, but we persevered and did quite well. A fun time was had by all!!

Watch us be all Farm-y

So, we had much bulldozing done at Rowe acres this past week and it basically made the yard look like a big, beautiful dirt pile. It will be very awesome when the grass ever comes up, but since the temperatures are in the low 70s and dropping into the high 30s at night, we are not overly confident in the germination process.

So, to prevent my beautiful, expensive, newly turned dirt from washing down the hill and into the road, we rented some heavy equipment this week and did some actual manual labor. I will admit that I (Jenni) kind of got out of some of it by having to go to work. The equipment arrived at about 4:30 pm on a Friday and I leave for work at about 5:30 pm, so I was just the photographer at this swanky soiree. I did my time later in the week by clearing limbs and getting a raging case of poison ivy.

The very best part of this whole thing was the training of Julia to throw the hay into the bucket thingy-- ( I dont know what this red thing is called, nor do i know what that bucket thing is called. I am no farmer. I DO know that this is not really "farm equipment" , so no farmers need call me out on this.)

Anyway, as Jackson is too short to throw the hay into the bucket and the hose thing was way too much for her to handle, Julia was called on to be the 'hay loader'.

She had a look of horror at the thought of it at first, but she quickly decided that it was much easier than being the 'hay shooter'. As you can see, she is inappropriately dressed but seemed to rather enjoy herself.
I complimented her hay throwing prowess at one point and got something to the effect of, "I have many hidden skills that you know nothing about" as a retort.

Jackson on the other hand was called on to be the 'grass seed flinger'. He was less than thrilled with this--especially with the lure of loud and unwieldy heavy equipment that could possibly remove your hand looming so near. He did a tremendous job though and (one day) when we have a lush and gorgeous lawn, we will owe it all to his skillful seed throwing. Definitely.

First Day of School 2009

Way too soon we have come to a new school year. None of us are particularly happy about it, but then nobody really asked us what we thought. If they had we would have told them that on tv, all the kids go back in the fall...when it is cool...when leaves are falling off trees and you can wear hoodies on the first day. Instead, it is 99 degrees in the shade, the leaves are burning off the trees from too much heat and lack of water and it is smack dab in the middle of what could have been a great summer if it had lasted maybe 4 weeks longer.

Anywhoo....my kids looked cute. Though they are decidedly not little enough for me to dress them all pretty and cute for their first day, they took great pains in picking out their own first day outfits. I just made a slight suggestion here and there. We are also in a whole new hairdo world this year, so the flat iron was getting a workout this morning.

Julia had met her teachers the other night at orientation so we knew her's already. She is happy with her schedule, her teachers and about starting algebra this year. Jack got Mrs. Lemley which made us very happy. Julia had her in 4th grade too and she is her most favorite teacher ever, so we are hoping Jack will feel the same way....so far, he is loving her.

So, without further ado, the rug-rats in all their glory....

This is the tree they pose "underneath" every year with their sign. This sign is lame because I made it with a crayon 5 minutes before we left because the printer is out of ink. Also, obviously, they no longer fit under the tree.


Close up...


This is the full outfits....and I want no crap out of you people about Jackson's shirt. He just laughed so hard and so completely adorably after he had this all laid out on his floor with the socks and everything and I got my first look at it. I told him to pick out something nice and he thought he was so clever....I couldn't tell him no. I have to admit, he did look pretty damn cute.
As for Julia, you can tell by the attitude how cool she thought she looked....


This is what I am dealing with....


One more of the backpack you cant see in the others.


So, all in all, a great start to what we hope will be a great year!

Ahhh, we DID get a real haircut after all.

Here is the new and improved haircut.


We love it very much. It is awesome. The ladies at The Mane Event in AC were mortified by our previous haircut, fit her in within 1 hour and fawned all over here the entire time. It was a much better and downright enjoyable experience and Julia left beaming from ear to ear.
We will never go to Gr**t Cl*ps again. This haircut only cost us $10 more than the previous one, if you can believe that. We learned a lesson that we will not soon forget. And we left Nikki at the salon a hefty tip for fixing us up!

Get a real haircut!!

Okay, the kids needed haircuts and I thought...."let's just run into AC and get a quick little trim at the cheap little "Gr**t Cl*ps". Easy peasy and we will be done. Right.......no, wrong. Good Gawd Almighty....
There was two people working in that place when we got there. One was actively cutting a girl's hair when we got there. Jack went first with the unoccupied "beautician"---after her smoke break. His hair is nuts anyway and she cleaned it up with the clippers and was done in a few minutes. All good--or good enough, anyway. (The other lady was still cutting that same girl's hair.)

Then, it was Julia's turn. She has recently dyed her hair blood red and wanted an appropriately trendy haircut to go with it. The goal was this....which we explained in extensive detail....


So, we got this in the front....which looks EXACTLY the same as it did yesterday.

There was no change whatsoever---which is fine. We wanted the length in the very front to stay essentially the same.

Then comes the back......
Let me preface this by saying there was some "creative combing" and "creative spraying" done while we were there to disguise the reality of this situation or I would obviously have blown a gasket right there. Let me also say that before I took this picture I combed through this hair and made sure it was in no way tucked into her collar so you could see the full effect. And I also made her stand perfectly straight.

Yes, for real. No shit. I kid you not. Dont you like that long piece in the middle....it is my favorite. Apparently she was also telling Julia the entire time that "it looks crooked because your hair is so thick". It is funny that as we came out Julia had a weird look on her face and I actually asked her if everything was ok before we even pulled out of the parking space. Doesnt it stink that kids feel like they cant speak up for themselves when being told what to do by an adult, even when they know they are in the right? I was out of earshot and watching the other two kids and she was on her own with the painfully substandard scissor-wielder who was blaming her inadequacy on my poor kids beautiful thick hair the entire time.

So, next time you think about a quicky cheapo haircut, DONT DO IT. Get a real hairdresser with her own chair that is paying for her own insurance. Tina, can you come to TN tomorrow please? I get to spend tomorrow demanding my money back and finding someone to fix this....honestly, it shouldnt be too hard. What hairdresser in her right mind wouldnt gasp in horror and then drag her immediately to a nice lifty chair?!
And BTW, when we left, the other hairdresser was still cutting the same girl's hair as when we come in.....we were there almost an hour. I would hate to see her hair tonight.

Day at the Dam

Yesterday, with the sister and brother-in-law here in town, we had an afternoon at Cheatham Dam. The kids opted out of the swimming area, so we stuck to playground/sand pit and hot dog grilling. We really enjoyed it. The weather was beautiful, it wasnt too crowded and other than the flies buzzing our food it was all good. Poor Chris had to work all day though, so he missed the fun :-(

Barefoot in the sand.

Slide hair.

Walking with papa to see the ducks/geese.

The new haircolor sees the sun for the first time.

Skipping rocks.

Wearing a "probably unsanitary, but we tried not to think about it" found birthday hat. Go spiderman.

The whole famn damily....note my ever so photogenic face. Nice.

Julia is all blue and "rebel-y"

Hey, she has new fancy hair ... she loves it to pieces. We must do our fun hair in the summer due to militant principals and such. This was done with a kit named " Splat" and it turned out really cute. The stuff is just like normal frost and tip type with the lame-o plastic cap. You bleach it out with lightener first and then rinse it and dye it with what looks like royal blue jello. We like it. I may have a purple streak before the week is out....the kit we got had red, plum and blue. I would hate it to go to waste...

All Hail Summer Vacation!!

This is the last full week of school. I hate the last full week of school. We are so busy it is just ridiculous and the kids are in school for absolutely no reason whatsoever. They watch movies everyday and field day and field trips and so on and so on. Anyway, here are some highlights of the week so far.

First event of the week was the Liver Lip's awards day. We were given the "secret" note that told us to show up, so we did. She got a science award, a language arts award and a certificate because she got First Place in the county wide math competition.

Doesnt she look thrilled--in typical middle schooler fashion?

Next on the agenda was the fabulous musical put on at the elementary school. It seems to get larger every year and I think the music teacher outdid herself this year. Different classes did different eras starting in the 1920s with some flappers and ending with Miley Cyrus (bleah). My favorites were the 50s, of course, because one of those little greasers belongs to me, but a special shout out to our favorite 4th grade teacher ever and her class's rendition of the Thriller video...awesome!!


The color on these is horrible....that gym is sooo dark and with those mercury lights...awful.
Here is some 50s dancing for you.



Janis and Jimi


THRILLER!!--none of these kids are even mine, but I got immense joy out of this performance....



These are all the cuties from his class...


And here is a shot of the greasers because little boys are just cute!!

Next event up was the Spring Fling that the PTO puts on...me being a member of that means I was waaaaay too involved and I have the sunburn to prove it.

Snow cones...


Giant bouncy climbing things...


A beach chair relay race between the PTO and the teachers...yes, that is me and no I did not fall down....and yes, we whipped their.......we won!!


Much fun all around...and his class won some beanbag thing that I didnt get to see because I was shaving sno-cone ice.

Finally--yes this is too long--today was Elementary Awards day. We are the social studies guru!!