Busy, Busy, Busy...

I am going to attempt to catch up on what has been going on here without going onto too much boring detail...and spending too much of my limited time on a long update! :)

• My job at the greenhouse has ended for the season. I'm not so thrilled because I really enjoy working there but I'm glad to have more time at home with the kids. Jozie never really got used to me being gone so much and she is sleeping better now.
  
• I got a new job (sorry Joz!) at the local school. I am a substitute bus matron. It sounds cheezy but it's really fun. I ride the bus with special needs students (no, it's not a "short bus"!) and keep them quite, interact with them and make sure the little ones are in their car seats or safety vests (a seat restraint that is for bigger kids that don't stay in their seats to prevent them from roaming around the bus and hurting themselves). I also strap in wheelchair for a few children. They are so much fun and I have fallen in love with one in particular. He has the bluest eyes that I have ever seen (except for maybe Bobs) and he is always smiling. His name is Chester and he is 4 - or so he says. :)
• The kids and I took a trip to Indy to meet Amie and her family at the Children's Museum. The kids had fun and it was nice to see Amie and Miah. Jozie kept asking me, "Why won't those boys talk to me, Mom?" :) She loved Jonah, I must admit he was pretty cute, and had to take a few pictures of him. Luke had fun running around with Elijah through the "underground" tunnels and slides.
• My "man hands" are gone! But I now have about 12 2 gallon mums to plant so I'm sure they will be back by the end of the week!
• I just got some free pictures from Shutterfly. They turned out really nice and you get 15 free when you join (shipping is free on these too!). It's free to join. They have borders that you can add to your pictures at no extra cost which come out pretty cute. Jozie chose one of her pictures of Jonah for her scrapbook and we put a border around it. I am tempted to just send it to Amie...we will see what Jozie says though! :)
• I also got some free Christmas cards from them. I did have to pay shipping on them but it was worth it. I haven't gotten them yet but I'm sure some of you will get to see what they look like when they come in the mail to you! :)
• I got 30 free pictures from PhotoWorks. I just ordered 15 prints of one picture of each of the kids. I figure they will do for "school pictures" this year since we haven't had any professionally done for who knows how long - probably about 2 years! I suppose I should get on that but when you have a digital camera and can do so much with them who really needs more pictures of the kids? I will probably be sorry when I'm old though!
  
• I got 10 free pictures from WalMart.com with some batteries that I bought, I will probably wait for a rainy day to do those ones. I'm all pictured out for today!
  
• We went on a field trip to the Garwood Apple Farm a few weeks ago. It was lots of fun and the kids got to bring home apples and pumpkins. We got to see a Hail Cannon, it's a very interesting machine that changes the weather for about a mile around it when there is hail in the forecast.
• Kristin and I decided to do something fun and color our hair. We used those non-permanent kits from WalMart and it turned out to be a waste of $5 for me. I chose "Electric Black" thinking that my hair is such a dark brown that there wouldn't be much of a change. I was right. There was really no change, I don't know what happened. I followed the directions and the only thing that happened was that it turned my shirt purple after I had rinsed it all out. I'm going to complain and see if I can't get my money back or something free out of the deal at least!
• I went shopping with Kristin at the outlet mall in Michigan City a couple of days ago. I found some good deals - mostly Christmas and Birthday gifts. The only thing I got for myself was 3 bras...how fun!
• I have started teaching children's church during our Sunday morning service for the 2 and 3-year-olds. Sami and Kristin are going to be helping me. I wasn't really sure I wanted to do it but I know that they needed help and since I have done this kind of thing before I decided to go for it. It's now almost 8:30 on Sat. night and I haven't really looked over the lesson for tomorrow yet. Better wined this thing down so I can go do that!
• The kids started Aikido a couple of weeks ago. Jozie was the social butterfly of the class, talking to her little girlfriends while the class was going on and Luke was shy and didn't do much but watch for the first half of the class the first couple of weeks but after being talked to about that they have buckled down and are really starting to learn some stuff. They got their gie's (the outfit) last week and were really excited about them. I will have to post pictures of them from their first class with them on next week. Luke has a partner in his class who is a Senior at the local High School named Sam. Every time they have to pair off and help eachother I sorta feel bad for Sam because Luke picks him. But I guess he was in Karate before and knows a little about what he is doing so it's really good with Luke. I'm glad, Luke really tries hard with the older boys and responds well to their instruction and Sam seems to be a good teacher. Jozie still talks a lot but she's learning some. I think if I had to pay for this (it's a free class for the kids) I probably wouldn't put her in it, only Luke, just because she would do better in something like Girl Scouts where she is allowed to be social most of the time! :)
• It was Crazy Head day at AWANA last week - I think they do it in place of a Halloween party because most people there don't celebrate it, including us - so the kids wanted their hair done crazy. Luke chose to have his standing straight out, though it is getting a little long to do it, we accomplished it, but he REALLY needs a haircut! Jozie's was another story though. I separated it and braided it into 4 braids with pipe cleaners then bound them together and made it stand straight up with more pipe cleaners (I think we used about 20 or so!) so she looked like Cindy LooHoo from the Grinch that Stole Christmas! She was so cute! I told her she was JozieBella BooHoo :) She didn't like that much but she did win for the craziest head! She was pretty excited!
• I will post pics later...Hopefully sooner than a couple of weeks from now though!
  

Man Hands!

Ugh:P Today was a "working in the garden and moving 17 cubic feet of dirt" day! As Jozie would say, "I feel like a wet rag, Mom!" (she says that when she is "tired" but really doesn't want to do her school work!) John ordered dirt for the garden earlier this week but unfortunately the rain got to it before we did. I got to use the rented tiller (note: the guy in the picture has at least a hundred pounds on me! That picture doesn't do it justice! It was a "killer" - Luke asked Papa John where he got the huge "killer"), which was a GREAT stress reliever. Actually the whole day I worked like a horse because I was just really tired of hearing everyone else complain about how much work there was to do...I just wanted to get it done and I was having a hard time enjoying it with all of the whining!

So, now I have "Man Hands"! Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry's date could rip lobster claws like it was nothing? She was a really good looking woman but she had these huge, calloused, dry and cracked, with nasty nails "man hands". Well, I wore gloves to avoid such a travisty but to no avail. They are swollen beyond recognition - blistered palms, broken nails - and quite dry from the dirt. I love working in the garden, normally this would have been a happy post, but I am not that right now because of the state of my hands. Worst of all, I haven't got a manicure in the budget this week! Can things get any worse? (Now that I've said that I will probably regret it about midnight when my body feels every shovel full of dirt I moved and every row I tilled!) Ahh! The wonderful feeling of a job well done! :)