Tuesday, February 24, 2009

More Snow

I am adding two more photos from today. The first one I took off the side of our turnaround thinking it might show the depth of the snow better. The stonewall is the edge of an old foundation. It looks like there is 3 feet of snow there, and it is someplace where I would expect some of the snow to drift from, not to.


This image was taken at Dave's request. After all the plowing, climbing on the roof, etc., he wondered if the tree was telling the sky something. Forgive me for this one, but it is kind of humorous!

Got Snow?








Posing



I just think this is cute. I gave Thane a photo book with family pictures in it. When the book was bound, the last page was left blank. He didn't like that, so he asked Dave to take his picture so he could add it to his photo albook (that's what he calls them).

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Manners

School vacation week is drawing to a close . . . and once again I am not really looking forward to the children going back to school. The only bright side is that Braeden likes to do some online gaming and our only high-speed access here in the Styx is Hughes.Net. We have exceeded fair access (they limit downloading to 425MB) twice in the past 10 days and have been watching like hawks since and we teeter pretty close on a regular basis).

I found myself frustrated and making calls again for other options. It seems that Facebook is a very download-intensive website, but it has been positive for Braeden to be able to chat with friends that way. His friends are spread out, and some of the phone calls are long-distance depending on a family’s calling plan. I also see him chatting with friends online that he might not think of calling, so it seems positive so far. He’s needed a few manners checks – like don’t name the friend you’re glad has gone home because someone might tell him what you said!

Manners have been a big topic here this week. I’m starting to wonder if carpooling might be worse than riding the bus – not that a bus is an option in our case. Putting up to 6 boys between 9 and 12 in a tin can for 45 minutes just seems like more than they can tolerate. Friday was a bad one. We also have a situation where one child’s family tends to think the kid’s behavior is worse than it is, while another family feels their beautiful specimen of perfection can do no wrong. The latter child is the one dealing out words like “racist” or “Christians are dumb” or maybe it was “Christians are bad.” So I have been talking to people until I am blue in the face about these things because manners do matter, and powerful words should be understood but rarely, if ever, spoken.

I got Braeden a book on manners which is supposed to be geared toward the 9-12 crowd. In reality, it seems a bit too young for him, but some of the other titles discussed topics like who should bring the condom on a date and that seemed a bit beyond where he is (or where I want him to be!). Amazon had the book on its 4-for-3 promotion and I was so tempted to buy a copy for all the boys in the carpool!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Dressing Funny

Anyone who reads this blog probably realizes that I find Thane rather charming. Last night I decided to change into my nightgown, but decided I was too cold to remove my pants after I made the upper half switch. I figured it was no big deal. I walked into the living room where Thane was playing on his Nintendo DS and he looks at me and says “Something’s not right! You’re wearing pants, but that’s not a shirt!” I had to agree with him.

You know what is really wonderful? He can make a statement like that, laugh about how silly I am, and not let it really rock his world the way it might have in the past. A year ago I bet I would have given in about the pants and grabbed a blanket instead because he would cry and tantrum because what I was doing was “wrong.” Now he is starting to just laugh at my silliness and enjoy the fact that Mama’s goofy.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Facebook Eggs

I have to say that I find myself strangely intrigued by hunting for eggs on Facebook. I think it reduces my online window shopping (and buying) so it can't be that bad, right? I am posting this just to get some extra egg shells, though, which does seem silly, but . . .