My oh My, How Times Have Changed!

So Bethany, our little singer of the family, comes in singing the old fav baseball song....

Take me out to the ball game
Take me out to the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and APPLE jacks,
I don't care if......

hahaha James and I interrupted laughing at her. "I meant CRACKER JACKS! Wait.... what are cracker jacks again?" Wow I suddenly feel old!

So Bethany, what do you think Cracker Jacks are then..... I don't know, I guess it crackers with cheddar jack cheese?

Feeling even older..... LOL

Phone Obsession

Yes, Kathryn has quite a few quirks and obsessions. Perhaps her biggest of all is the phone! She recently got ahold of daddy's Droid and factory rebooted it. Yeah, she's quite good with it! He spent over an hour just trying to figure out where she went to do it and never could find it! She is just a big techno junkie! And you know the obsession is bad because everything of slim rectangular shape goes straight to the ear as she chats away on her "phone". And that sounds so innocent and cute, until you're sitting in a store trying on shoes with your oldest daughter when your almost 2 year old comes walking up to you with a security tag to her ear just chatting away. Problem is, attached to the security tag is the skankiest imaginable pair of cheetah print panties trimmed in bright blue lace!

That's life with the K-Bug!

Lip Gloss Addict

Is it possible to be addicted to lip gloss? I think so! I think I have 2 addicts actually. But while Bethany has always been bad with her obsession, Katy is worse! She was busted earlier this week with a glue stick to her lips as she thought it was a big stick of chapstick. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately!, it doesn't bond to skin quite enough to actually glue her lips together, just make them annoyingly sticky.

Catch Up at Random!

Wow it's been far too long since I last posted to this blog! We continue to live our lives in constant chaos. In April we lost our beloved Trooper who past peacefully and unexpectantly in his sleep. We have recently added 2 new Chesapeake Bay Retriever Mutts to our pack. They are awesome, so sweet and adorably cute. Scout and Rosie, otherwise known as Stink and Whizzer! The kids are growing like weeds. We are now homeschool the 3 big kids and that is going well. Katy is beginning her terrible 2's. We spent the summer vacationing with the Sammon's in the Outer Banks again. James took over as director of Reams Football this year. Roman's team made it to 2nd round of playoffs. It was a long, but good season. The girls again cheered. Hope and B are now playing basketball. All 3 have been doing fencing for the last few months. I work from home more often than not now. And so the world continues to turn and we continue live our crazy life that I wouldn't trade for anything!

Hope's Best Friend

Hope is famous for her "Hopey-ism's" as we dub them. Always saying off the wall crazy things, putting her foot in her mouth and not even realizing it and making some hysterical comments throughout her 7 years. So it would only be natural that her best friend, Miss Evangelina would be no different. Yesterday after church we headed to Mexico with the Perkins for lunch. As we were looking over the menu her mother asked, "Evangelina, do you want rice or not?" To which she replied, "Yes, with soy sauce please!" The waitress at MEXICO just looked at her like she was crazy. A short while later she asks if I wanna hear a joke. OK. "A MEXICAN walks into....." Noooooooooooooooooooooo LOL Hope's waving her arms dramatically trying to hush her up and explaining in a very loud whisper that I'm sure everyone heard on why she can't say stuff like that there. Her mother had just put a big bite in her mouth and nearly choked as I just sat there laughing till tears fell. Funniest joke I've heard in a long time and she didn't even get past the first 4 words!

Paper Delivery

LandAmerica is officially in the last stages of bankruptcy and liquidation. There are still piles and piles of crap that needs to be addressed. Amongst these craps piles are many boxes of logo'ed paper products that will be thrown in the trash.

Reams Road Elementary, along with many other schools across this nation, are facing financial issues and cut backs contributing to a paper shortage. We first saw this last school year and Reams began recycling paper. It was normal to find K work completed on one side with Roman's homework on the other and such. I know our church did an outreach program "Reams for Reams" as did other community groups to help get them through.

During back to school night last week Mrs. Mattox mentioned how she was acquiring her father-in-law's old letterhead as he had recently retired and had no use for it. And how she was recycling some of her husband's work papers and suggested parents could do the same. So when I saw these stacks of LandAm paper about to be trashed I rescued a ream of each for the kids classes. This morning we delivered them. Of course the teachers were thrilled to receive them. After delivering to Ms. Neal and Mrs. Ziegler Roman and I headed over to his classroom. On the way Roman says, "This is fun! Who knew teachers would go so crazy over something like paper!"

Miss Attitude

This morning I took the kids into school. For the last 4 years we've been warning Ms. Neal about Bethany and her sassy stubborn attitude. She didn't much believe us as Miss B can be super sweet and cute when she wants to be. Well in talking with Ms. Neal, she FINALLY saw it first hand last week!

According to her, she had all the kids sitting on the carpet on Friday and began calling them one at a time to go get their things and go to their seat. So Bethany jumps up and starts heading over to get her stuff. Ms. Neal has to speak to her, "Bethany I didn't call your name yet." To which my girl turns towards her with hands on hips and lips pursed in that defiant manner James and I know so well and replies, "Yeah, I know!"

Ms. Neal said she was somewhat shocked, and somewhat amused at seeing up close what we've been trying to explain to her all these years. In the end she said she could see the conflict in her eyes, but she finally decided to do the right thing and sat back down.

A Call from a Teacher

This is our 5th year with school age kids and never, not once have we ever received a call from a teacher at home! Then last week we get a call from Mrs. Mattox regarding Roman's acceralated math program. Then last night James receives a call from Hope's teacher, Mrs. Ziegler. Uh-Oh! HOPE?!?! Apparently she has a concern with our sweet girl. As James paraphased to me: Hope had a great first week at school, but I have noticed she puts a lot of pressure on herself to be perfect and quite frankly there is no such thing in 2nd grade!

Yup, her teacher is already noticing her obsession over school and her perfection issues. This is NOT a stress or pressure that James and I put on her. She has just always been this way, nagging her teachers for extra work, complaining when she doesn't get as much homework as Roman, and on and on.... seriously this is all HER! She's not a perfectionist in all areas, it's truly just a school thing. Her parent/teacher conference in another month or so ought to be an interesting one!

Chuck E Cheese

For a job well done and a great first week of school we treated the kids to Chuck E Cheese after church. We invited the Perkins kids to come along. I loved seeing my new mini van packed to the max capacity of giggling kids. It was awesome! All 7 kids were well behaved, perfect, with not a single issue in our 3 hour fun with the big Cheese. How did that happen?? Probably the BEST trip to that place ever, and trust me, I'm not a fan of the big Cheese!

Kathryn's First Girls Night In

While our guys were out intimidating Providence, me and my girls took the opportunity for a girls night in! This was Kathryn's first official girls night in. We pillaged the kitchen for leftover chili, Oreo's, and the saltwater taffy daddy smuggled into the house. We watched 2 new movies, Nancy Drew and Princess. And of course we painted our toenails.... Katy's too!

I love spending girl time with my daughters and I especially love that love it too!

Scouting Providence

Scouting is known throughout football and we learned quickly Roman's first year of flags that scouting is known throughout ALL football! I remember sitting at a Powhatan game watching my tiny little boy playing flags and a group of guys sitting 2 rows behind me catching my attention. They were from Gordon scouting our FLAGS. Roman's number came up many times throughout the night and somewhere I know his name is forever tagged as a potential threat to Gordon football. We went on to beat them the following week.... a MAJOR upset in CQL football!

To my knowledge Reams has never been big on scouting other teams. However they were all pumped after a 3 for 3 victory and decided to head over in the evening to watch the Providence game. Providence beat Reams flags 2 years ago in a very poorly ref'ed game and the only game that Reams flags have lost in 4 years! So for Roman and his buddies they are, without a doubt, the enemy. There was some added tension regarding a coach moving over there for a "better" team for his son to play on. And some talk of merging the 2 organizations that just completely fell through this year. So basically, Providence is probably the biggest rival we're scheduled to play this season and everyone is getting pumped over it (I'll be out of town that weekend, but know I'll hear all about it when I get back!) .

Typically I've noticed that scouts come dressed incognito and do not flaunt the fact that they are from another team. You don't exactly want the team being scouted knowing that you are watching their ever play, learning their weaknesses and working on counter strategies to play them. So we explained this to Roman and he dressed accordingly understanding what was going on.... or so we thought.

As they arrived, parked and began walking to the field. James noticed Roman carrying a marble notebook and a pen. In big letters across the front it said, "REAMS RAMS MINORERS SCOUTING BOOK!" Yup, he's a genius!!!! LOL He later came back and wrote down the numbers of the 4 top players he intends to pound. He's extremely animated with the fact that Reams WILL win against Providence.

As it turned out some of the other coaches were not at all interested in going incognito. From Rams shirts to hats 6 very large Reams coaches lined up against the fence next to where the Providence Juniors huddled and glared down the former coach who abandoned them for greener pastures. We're talking 6 line man sized men here. Talk about sheer intimidation! I almost feel sorry for Providence!

Football!!!!!!!!!!

It's that time again! We had 3 scrimmage games in pre-season and won them all. Today was our first real game of the season and we won and won and WON! James always seems to acquire a riff raff bunch of kids. Many are tiny little kids, and in pre-season you'd swear there's no way possible anyone could pull these kids together.... yet he does! The did win their scrimmage games this year which was a whole lot better than the butt whooping they got from Hensley at last years scrimmage. So we were expecting a good season this year, but those kids came out as if on fire today cheered on by the cutest cheerleaders ever! (Both Hope and Bethany are cheering for flaggers again this year. I LOVE watching my girls cheer - ADORABLE!) Final score 13-6, though that 6 points for the other team was technically not a real touchdown. He was taken down at the 1 but in the last few minutes of play and the ref threw his arms up too early and since flagger scores aren't recorded James didn't argue the call. We had already won the game, so really, why beat them down any further? WAY TO GO REAMS RAMS FLAGGERS!!!!

Next up.... MINORS!!! I'm a little partial to my minors of course. And my boy was feeling it! With starting positions on both offense and defense this year due to the small size of their team, he rarely came off the field except for a play or two now and then for a quick water break. They slaughter in a 20-0 game. WAY TO GO REAMS RAMS MINORS!!!!

Finally, the JUNIORS. Last season they did not pull off a single win. It was just a BAD season for our Juniors and a lot of kids did not return this year because of it. Others requested transfers to other schools to play on "better" teams. So this game was even sweeter as our Juniors completely obliterated in a 35-0 win! WAY TO GO REAMS RAMS JUNIORS!!!!

What an amazing start to the season! Looking forward to many many more victories to come. Hmmm..... could we have a chance at a Super Bowl run this year??? This could be our year across the board!

America's Funniest Animals

We had to make a quick trip to Staples after football practice tonight. As we were getting in the van Bethany was acting silly and in the process slipped off the seat backwards lodging herself between the seats. As we were all laughing at her Roman makes comment. "Mom, we need to get a video camera!" "Roman, we have a video camera." "Oh yeah, well you should be carrying it around taping us all the time. We could so win America's Funniest Animals!"

Accelerated Math

We got a call from Mrs. Ziegler last night..... Roman's been targeted for the Accelerated Math program!!!!! He is soooooooooooooooo pleased with himself. He can't stop grinning. It's pretty cute. We are VERY proud of him! I spoke with her about it and he will be doing 4th and half of 5th grade math this year and the 2nd half of 5th grade and all of 6th grade math next year. That puts him on target to go straight into Algebra heading into 6th grade..... 6th grade! YIKES!!! How are we already discussing that about my baby boy? That's middle school for crying out loud!

CONGRATULATIONS ROMAN!!!!! MOMMY AND DADDY ARE VERY VERY PROUD OF YOU!

First Day of School

Bethany has headed off to school. She's officially a Kindergartner and James is going into depression. We missed the bus this morning at their normal stop and rushed them to the other end of the street to catch it there. As the bus stopped Ms. Lynn opened the doors and was talking to James about how that wasn't a stop anymore - it had moved one street over this year - and he was standing in the way while talking. Instead of a tearful hug and wave goodbye and a few pics to boot he instead was literally pushed out of the way with a loud "MOVE I have to get on that bus!" Stunned he just stood there as his baby girl flew on to the bus without a look back. This one is hitting him the hardest. For me it was Roman who also ran full speed to the bus without looking back on his first day. We should be proud of the confidence we've instilled in them to take such a giant leap without hesitation, but it's just bitter sweet!

Tracie is going to be battling major empty nest syndrome this year, so when she called to ask if I wanted to go have lunch with the kids I went for it. Katy was sleeping so her and James stayed home. I think Ms. Neal was happy to see us and she quickly put us to work getting her kids to the proper tables. Once all the kids were seated Tracie got Graeme and went back to the parents table. I asked Bethany to join us, she said "NO"! Yup, I was snubbed twice in one day!

Hope's class came through soon after and she did sit to have lunch with me. They quickly realized there was a major screw up though. 1st and 2nd graders were scheduled for the same lunch times and there was no room. So 2nd grade headed back to their classrooms to eat. I spoke with Mrs. Ziegler who assured me Hope was fine to eat there and asked that I just escort her back to the classroom when done..... last year her teacher didn't want anyone near her classroom, so I was thrilled! I really think I'm gonna like this one!

Since it was getting late I decided to wait and see Roman too. He had forgotten his lunch and i had dropped it off in the office. Last time that happened he never got his lunch, so I wanted to make sure he did. He came in last a few minutes after his class without his lunchbox. He came over to ask what I was doing here. I asked him about his lunch, apparently he had to go to the bathroom and gave it to Truman to bring in. And that's where I instinctively knew I was again gonna be ditched! Sure enough he wanted nothing to do with me, he just wanted to go have lunch with his friends. Again, it's just bitter sweet seeing them so independent and confident but not fully ready to let them go!

Bethany came home with a frog note and was beyond pleased with herself. Roman is griping about already having homework and Hope wishes she did too. Ah, it's good to be back to school!

Lake Mormon - Labor Day Weekend

We are home. What a fantastic weekend! It has been years since we last made it up to the lake and I'm so glad we took the time to do so this weekend. Aunt Jennifer was there with her entire crewe. It was our first time meeting Craig's kids and everyone just hit it off well. We, but most especially ROMAN, are THRILLED to welcome Jamie, Craig, and Jake to the family. Craig is 13 and Jake is 6 so Roman falls right in the middle and was just beside himself to have BOY cousins at last! Bethany and Jake were like 2 peas in a pod and practically inseparable most of the weekend and of course Hope was watching Jamie's every move. She's 16 and Hope was just in awe of her. Uncle Rob and Uncle Anthony were there too. We were all disappointed that Aunt Karla, Uncle Dan and Lucy couldn't make it up too, oh and I forgot to mention Jessie what there too. He is Craigs younger brother and we're glad to welcome him to the family too. Next summer Katy and Luke will be on the move and ready to take over that place! Here's a pic of just my and Jennifer's families! Can you even imagine what the entire family picture will look like??



The weather was perfect! Not too hot, but not cold either. I little nip in the air in the night and early mornings. Just perfect! The kids were able to swim and of course lots of fishing was to be had. Roman caught several fish. Hope caught her first fish and B and Jake were able to scoop a few small ones with nets.




We all hiked to the spring, then around the lake, stopping at Great Grandma's to play a game of touch football.

The kids road the golf cart, helped harvest seaweed - what an experience that was!, and Hopey even got to go shopping. She actually called back to the house to speak to Bethany, but since she was out playing Uncle Rob took a message.... "Tell Bethany that I'm shopping..... in NEW YORK!!!" *squeal* You would have thought the big apple itself by her excitement, but no, they were in the middle of nowhere NY state!






The boys harvested seaweed while Hope and the teenagers were gone. How does one harvest seaweed you may ask! Well, Lake Mormon is a shallow lake and the vegetation on the bottom has gotten seriously out of control. The worst they've seen in 30 years. So using heavy duty rakes they scrape it off the bottom and remove it from the lake. Easier said than done! In the end the decided that this would be the best method to harvest the most seaweed:

Which produced massive amounts of seaweed that Roman and Craig then loaded into wheelbarrows to dump in the woods. Both complained heavily the entire time, but they worked their butts off. On the drive home Roman asked if he could help harvest the seaweed again next year cause it was FUN! LOL

On Saturday night the mayor of the town set off professional fireworks over the lake. It was AMAZING!!! We were probably way too close and practically had to lay down as they were directly above us, but man was it beautiful! Katy never made a peep. She was just in total awe and the noise which echoed over every mountain within miles didn't phase her a bit.

Board games were played, more football games to be had, S'mores and bonfires, Katy said "HI DaDa" which totally made James's weekend, and as the sun began to set on the mountain Monday night someone from across the lake began playing songs on a Bagpipe and it was just so surreal and the perfect ending to a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

Happy Labor Day to all

Fish Tales

On our last night at the lake Katy and I went out to join Grandma in the boat (which was docked) as she fished and the sun began to set. It was very nice and peaceful. Then along comes their neighbor and friend Mr. Joe in his kayak. Mr. Joe lives in Pasadena as well and recently bought a house on the lake. He is all Baltimore from the accent to the gestures and sneers and sarcasm. Listening to Gail and Mr. Joe bicker back and forth was quite comical. She threatened to snag his big bass living under his dock, while he threatened to sink her boat! All in playful fun though. I was introduced as was Katy and shortly after here comes Hope and Bethany. As they stood on the dock talking to Mr. Joe he began razzing them. "Your Grandma can't fish. She don't catch nothing!" To which Bethany proudly announced, "Oh yeah, well MY Grandma ONLY catch WIDE MOUTH WHOPPERS!" and to which Hope proudly backed her up with a "YEAH" and displayed her arms a good 2 or more feet wide.

Of course Bethany meant large mouth bass and I honestly thought Mr. Joe was going to tip his kayak laughing so hard. Grandma was in no better shape and from now on there will forever be a special breed of fish being caught only on Lake Mormon.... the wide mouth whoppers!

Back to School Orientations

Well I can't call it "Back to School Night" anymore cause Bethany's Kindergarten orientation was at 11 am today! We headed in and found Ms. Neal right away. After lots of hugs Bethany was tagged with her FROG!!! So cute. A short while later the new Kindergartners were marched off with their new teachers while the normal start of school schpeel was given. Nesheta was there to represent the athletic association and James held back to answer questions for those interested in football.... and there actually several so that is promising! We could use a more flaggers this season. Hope and I headed on down to the class right away and Ms. Neal gave her start of school talk and went over all the folder stuff with the bezillion papers to fill out and turn back in.... the usual. The kids came back and Bethany announced they were "stuck on the bus the whole time" and were "riding around and around around until [she] got dizzy!" She was very excited to see several kids she already knew. Most importantly Graeme Delauder from next door, Anna Young from swim team, and Julie from cheerleading. There were others she knew already too. She was completely comfortable and confident.... as if we expected anything else!

Since I had to get back to work and Roman's "open house" to drop off supplies wasn't until 2 we, of course, went by 4th grade anyway. Katie Bailey was there and we talked with her. Her and I are both relieved not to have him in her class this year, even though Roman was very disappointed about it. We meant the other 4th grade teacher and at the last minute Mrs. Mattox came in from lunch and we got to briefly meet her. I liked her alot and more importantly Roman seemed to take to her pretty quickly. Oh, and Truman Murray is in his class this year. I can't tell you how thrilled my boy was to see that! Kevin and Zach are also in there this year so he has quite a few good friends this year.

As if that wasn't enough for one day, we headed back to the school yet again for Hope's back to school night. Again sitting through the usual schpeel in the cafeteria before being dismissed to classes. Hope has Mrs. Ziegler this year. I had already gotten the 411 on her from the 4th grade teachers earlier in the day as Mrs. Ziegler just moved to 2nd grade from 4th this year. I really really like her. She seems very sweet and I think Hope will take to her quickly. She was also open and easy to talk with which I love. Hope's teacher last year was fantastic with the kids but didn't like a strong parent-teacher relationship. Fortunately Hope is my least concerning in the school life. She is just a great student and any teacher is lucky to have her. I think Mrs. Ziegler is already discovering that! Hope has several friends in her class this year too, though none of her really close friends. Still, there's Brianna from Girl Scouts, Naiyah, Bonnik, and Kaitlyn from cheerleading, little Greyson from football who had a big crush on my girl in Kindergarten, and her buddy Sam along with several others she knows well.

Overall I think it's gonna be a GREAT year!!!!

Katy's First Words (and sentence!)

Katy said her first real words tonight and it came out in the form of a 2 word sentence! We were watching Roman's scrimmage game and Roman sacked the quarterback. I got excited and yelled "YEAH ROMAN!!!!" Which was echoed back "YEAH BOBO". We've gotten her to repeat it many times now. Roman is definitely her BOBO!

Sending Another Kid off with Confidence!

The kids teacher assignments arrived in the mail yesterday and Bethany has Ms. Neal! This is the same beloved teacher that gave Roman and Hope the best possible start to formal education possible. I can not say enough great things about this woman. She is amazing! I know there are many Ms. Neal references throughout this blog and I look forward to adding many more in the coming months. Baby girl has been looking forward to this day for years.... not going to Kindergarten, but finally going to Ms. Neal's class and I'm so happy for her that that time is here!

We took the kids out for dinner last night and announced their teachers. Roman and Hope had never heard of theirs, which is fine, and Bethany just gave a little "told ya so" look. When I asked it she was even a little excited she grinned and said, "YEAH!" but that was it. I was a little surprised with her reaction. Hope was literally jumping for joy and squealing for days when she found out she was in Ms. Neal's class, but James is probably right when he said that she has been so adament about going into Ms. Neal's class this year that had any other name been on her card we would have seen a huge reaction.... and not in the positive sense!

Oh, and Hope was assigned Mrs. Ziegler who I'm told just moved down from 4th grade. And Roman will be in Mrs. Mattox's class. He is a little bummed not to have Mrs. Bailey, who is our "backdoor neighbor" and whom he knows well and is already comfortable with, but I'm sure he will do just fine with Mrs. Mattox. I just hope he has some good friends in his class this year.

Looking forward to a great 2009-10 school year!