Trying to be like his daddy

Ben played basketball this year for the first time. Brian is 6' 5" and has always loved basketball so, naturally, we signed Ben up even though he is a little shorty. Since he only has one game left next week I thought I would highlight his amazing basketball skills. He ended up being the shortest person on the team except for one girl who was the same height. Even though he was lacking in the tallness category, he still picked up some top-notch skills that he will probably use the rest of his life.

Some of which are:

Crying in the corner. (This only happened on the first day.)

Seeing how long he could stretch his wrist band.

Spinning in circles.

Looking in the opposite direction than the rest of his team mates.

Standing far away while the coach was giving the team a final pep talk before the game.

Smiling for the camera when he should be watching the ball.
And again.

While he was off court he didn't sit idly by and stare off into space. (At least most of the time.) He set to work doing things like:

Inspecting the brickmanship of the walls.

Playing roly-ball.

And running up against the padded wall to see how high he could jump.

We are so proud of our little guy. The team could not have done it without him. I don't want to brag but he might just be the MVP of the entire season. We are going to invite our entire family to the last game to see the awarding of the trophy. I'll film it so you all can see.

(Sorry for the dark pictures. They were taken far away and in a low-light building. I realize that when you are in a dark building you are supposed to put your camera on manual and open the shutter up or something like that but I haven't ever read up on how to actually do that with this camera. Or maybe I just have a crappy camera. Just kidding, I love my camera. Maybe just like. I like my camera.)

A tribute

Hello fruity fruit snacks.
I do love you so.
I know you are supposed to be just for kids,
but what is a grown woman supposed to do when she craves a mega-punch of sugar rushing through her veins?
I know what:
Turn to you and your colorful, sticky, sweetness.
That's what.
You've never let me down.
My husband wonders how our kids go through a box so fast.
Hmmm... I don't know. (gulp)

Postscript: that was a nervous gulp and not an I-just-ate-a-fruit-snack gulp.

Favorite books

1. To Kill A Mockingbird - I know a lot of people have this in their favorites too. I first read it in 10th grade. I think it was just the first amazing piece of literature that I had ever read and I liked it so much then and still love it now, so it will always remain one of my favorites. I love books written from a child's point of view. I laugh so much as I read about how they view the world.

2. The Princess Bride - I read this in 11th grade the first time. I had seen the movie several times and the book is just as good and a little better. Very cleverly written.

3. The Good Earth - This book just took me right out of my little world and put me in China in the early 1900's. It was so shocking to find out how people lived on the other side of the world in at that time. And when I read it I crave Chinese food! I like how it shows what can happen when someone grows up poor versus when someone grows up rich with everything at their fingertips. It's interesting to see what people do with the lives they are dealt.

4. Huckleberry Finn - Child's point of view. Mark Twain is soooo funny and can even be funny while writing about serious things. Huck Finn has just about the saddest life you can imagine and yet he is still so innocent and I find myself laughing throughout the book.

5. Dandelion Wine - When I first read this in a book club I was in, I didn't quite understand what the point was. It seemed like it was just jumping around to different characters and different stories. But after we talked about it in our club, and discussed what we thought the theme was, I found that the moments I liked the most were about no matter how old someone is they all feel a lot younger than they actually are. It made me look at people from different generations differently. I used to think that people who were older than me were just in a different mind set than me but it makes sense now, since I always feel younger than I am, that everyone still remembers what it's like to be a young and that I can even relate to and be friends with someone who is the same age as my mother or even my grandmother. I loved what the book made me think about afterward and I definitely want to read it again.

If a book changes my perception of real life (for the better) and if it makes me think even after I'm done reading then I will love that book. I have read each of these several times (except Dandelion Wine - I'm planning on reading it again soon) and still absolutely love them more and more each time I read them. I love a lot of other books too but these are my top 5.

What are some of your favorite books?

I FINALLY saw it

Lars and the Real Girl. I don't know what took me so long. And I loved it. It was such a sweet little movie. Ryan Gosling was amazing. -ly good looking. Just kidding. Okay, he was both. He was a good actor and he was pretty easy on the eyes. Mustache and all. hehe. It was just definitely my kind of film. A little quirkiness and a lot of originality. I just loved it.

He still looks 5, but he really is 6

A few weeks ago we had a birthday party for Ben. We had a couple of boys over. Not loud at all. Mine wasn't the loudest of them either. Okay, he was. The very loudest of them all. Now I'm all for boys to have fun at a birthday party and be loud and crazy, but it is nice to have a small moment of quietness to gather your wits about you and be ready for the next wave of loudness. I found out how to do that. We played "Ben 10 hide and seek". What's that you say? Well, it's VERY different than regular hide and seek because you pretend to be a Ben 10 alien while you are hiding and seeking. The rest is the same as regular hide and seek.

Let me tell you though, it was very nice to have everyone be so quiet while they were waiting to be found, even if it was only for a minute or two. I was able to breathe a little, which is not possible when they are all noisy. I could look around and see what needed to be cleaned up and get the next thing ready. Then I was ready for some more noisiness. (That is the correct spelling of noisiness even if it doesn't look like it is. I looked it up.)

I'm just saying, next time you have lots of kids over at your house and you just need some quiet time for your ears: hide and seek is your answer. Your welcome.


Ben had a lot of fun though and he had his most favorite friends in the whole world there so he was in heaven.

No, Ben isn't praying in this picture. He just blew out his candles. I just had to use this one because he was making a face in this one:

Little Ollie hiding. I thought it was a very clever hiding spot but he was found right away. Maybe it was because someone was taking a picture of him. We'll never know.

Not the plague

I'm FINALLY getting better from that horrible cold. I am so glad. Elli always gets the sicknesses first in our family. She gets them from school. I asked her over the weekend,
"Does your class wash hands before lunch?" and she said,
"No."
"Does your class use hand sanitizer?"
"No."
She had a small bottle of hand sanitizer hooked onto her backpack but if she forgot to use it before she left her class room then it was too late. So I told her that now we have to clip it onto the belt loop on her pants so that if she is in line for lunch or even sitting down to eat then she can still have it with her to use it if she forgets until the last minute. How mean am I? Making my daughter WEAR a bottle of hand sanitizer!! She's fine with it though. She even remembers if I forget. She'll grab it and clip it on. It's crazy that they don't make kids wash hands before lunch. Maybe they do in other classrooms that have sinks but Elli is in the portable classroom and there is no running water. I know that they talk about germs and ways to prevent them. I have gotten papers that they (Elli and Ben) have gotten about the subject. So you'd think that they'd really force the hand washing.

So to all the people that I have, or my kids have, spread this to:
1- I am sooo sorry. And
2- It takes about 10 days to go through your system. But it feels like longer.