No School Today!

YAY!  It was an in-service day, and since I'm hourly...I didn't have to go in.  What a WONDERFUL way to spend a Monday!  Woo Hoo.  I slept in...went for a walk, and got some scrapbook pages made!  Then we went out to supper (Chinese Buffet...YUM!) and did some grocery shopping and KMart shopping. 

I can't wait to have another day off!

Here are some of the pages I did.

(These photos are (c) Kohl's Photography.  Didn't Lorry do a GREAT job??? How will we ever decide which we want to purchase??)

I used a kit called Cranberry Breeze by my friend Lisa.  Check out her blog for her awesome templates and kits!

Here's one of Caleb and Cameron at last week's Upper Iowa Conference Cross Country meet.  The papers are stuff I made, but the template is from Lisa.

And...Are you tired of Harvey stuff yet?  Here are 2 pages I made from photos from the play.  I'll do a few more if I can get some more pictures.  I would really like to do a total cast page.  I know someone took a picture...now...to get a copy of it :)

 

I created the background paper...I worked and worked to get that paper to match the set design...I think I did a pretty darned good job!  The template was converted to DIP by

Lisa and was originally one of Hummie's templates. I adapted it just a bit to make it work with my own pictures and ideas :)

Photos from Harvey

My friend Lorry took some photos when she attended the final performance of "Harvey" last Tuesday night.  Here are some photos that she shared with us.

Dr. Chumley gives orders to trim carefully around his prize Dahlias in front of his sanitarium.

Dr. Chumley discovers the hat with two holes in the top.  "It must be some new fad!" he comments.

Dr. Chumley, Dr. Sanderson and Wilson discover that they have let the wrong person go, and have put the wrong person IN the sanitarium!

Wilson wonders "What is a Pooka?"

Myrtle Mae

Dr. Chumley meets Myrtle Mae

Wilson, Elwood P. Dowd and Dr. Sanderson discuss where Dr. Chumley could have disappeared to.

Dr. Chumley reappears, sure he is being followed by "Harvey".

Dr. Chumley is a bit of a "wreck" after being gone for 4 hours with "Harvey"

Dr. Chumley would have Harvey send him to Nashua, with a quiet woman and cold beer.  He would tell her things buried "Deep in here...things I've never told anyone before"

He would order more cold beer, and she'd pat him on the head and say "You poor thing.  You poor, poor thing."

The whole event was a huge, HUGE success, and Ron had lots of fun with it!

Middle School Variety Show

Immediately following last week's conference Cross Country meet, we hustled over to the Middle School to watch Rachel in her variety show.  The choir was awesome, the band was great, and Rachel and her group of friends ROCKED at singing "Mama Mia!"

Rachel in the choir

Bridget, Rachel, Nicole, Katelyn, Mercedez and Josie performed "Mama Mia!" 

They were awesome!!

Racing Together

Last Thursday, due to a "series of unfortunate events" it ended up that Caleb and Cameron both ran in the same race!.  That was fun to watch, although Cameron was running while feeling pretty sick!  Well...pretty sick is very much an understatement, but you DON'T want to know the details...

More Cross Country...

The season is winding down, with most likely just the Regional meet for Cameron on Thursday of this week left.  Here are a few more photos from the season.

 

State Marching Band Contest

I had to miss this year's State Marching Band contest due to being quite ill with a flu bug...yuck!  Ethan and I were both sick last Saturday and spent the day basically in bed.  So these photos are all compliments of Rachel.  When I have the time to get onto Ron's computer and play with the flip video thing again, I'll upload the performance onto you tube and get that posted on here, too.  But for now...here are a few photos of the Pride of S-F!

They played "Music from Styx"  which is AWESOME!

Lining up on the field...ready to perform.

Isn't it convenient how Caleb (tuba) and Cameron (trumpet) ended up marching so close together?  Makes for a great photo op!

It was a beautiful day in Waterloo.  Too bad I had to miss it!

Ethan's cookies

Ethan and I used his "Funtastic" cookie dough one day last week and made some "Fun" cookies.   They looked kinda cool, and tasted YUMMY!

aren't they colorful and yummy looking?

all different shapes, sizes and colors!

waiting...waiting...waiting for them to get done...

the first bite...

mmmmm....delicious!!!

 

Ron's Dream...

Clip two

immediately following that first scene from the play. Ron had a really great time performing in this play. He made some new friends and impressed the community with his talent.

A scene from "Harvey"

Here is when Ron makes his quite comical entrance after spending a few hours "drinking" with and talking to the invisible white rabbit!

"This is GREAT, Mom!"

Ah...words that any mother likes to hear when sitting down at the dinner table!  Everyone (well...except for Cameron who was a whiney butt about the peppers!) enjoyed this meal.  Even Ethan, who REALLY doesn't like green peppers.  But at least HE wasn't a whiney butt about them!  He ATE them! 

I made

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

Ingredients

4 -6 sweet peppers (any color)

1 1/2 pound ground beef

1 medium-large onion, chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt (can be seasoned salt)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1-2 Tablespoons Italian seasoning

1 1/2 cups rice (uncooked-can be up to 2 cups)

8-10 slices of raw bacon

3 (8 ounce) tomato sauce (or tomato juice)

1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes

2-3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

Cut tops off peppers; remove seeds and membranes, and cut each pepper into 4 to 8 pieces.

Cook rice as directed (2 cups rice in 4 cups water)

Cook peppers in simmering water, enough to cover, for 5 minutes. 

Brown ground beef and onions.  Drain.  Add salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and cayenne pepper.  Add sauce/tomatoes.  Heat through.  Lay the pieces of pepper across the bottom of a 9 x 13 (or larger) greased pan.  Top with beef/rice/sauce mixture.  Top that with shredded cheese.  Top with raw bacon slices (I usually cut at least in half if not in quarters)  Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes til the bacon is done.

This could only happen

to one of MY kids!  I got a phone call after school today from the secretary at the elementary school.  "We had an incident with Ethan during recess this afternoon." 

My first thought was "Crud!  What did he do to get in trouble today?" 

But then Julie continued.  "Ethan was playing on the playground equipment, when somehow he slipped and his leg went through a bar on the bridge, and his leg/knee got stuck. "

My response was, "ok..."

"We worked for quite a while to get him out.  We iced his knee to get the swelling to go down so he could pull it out.  We also tried to get him to bend his knee, and stretch his leg, and we pushed and pulled and tugged to get him unstuck."

My response, again, was, "ok...."

"I was out there trying to help, and so was Mr. Pederson (the school superintendent!) and a couple other teachers.  We finally even went in and got some butter and spread it all over his leg, hoping that would grease him up enough to pull him out." 

My VERBAL response was "mmm-hmmmm" but INSIDE I'm thinking "You put BUTTER on him????"

"We did eventually get him out, but his knee is kind of swollen and he'll be pretty bruised up for a day or two, and we just thought you should know, so you can follow up with ice and such at home."

I responded with "Ok, I'll surely check on him and see how he's doing as soon as I get home."  But inside, I'm still thinking "You covered his leg in BUTTER???"

Julie, at this point, is trying to stifle her giggles as...come on folks..it IS pretty funny...and I thanked her for letting us know what happened.

So I head home, stopping at the church first to see if Ron has heard any of this.  And who should walk in but the little man himself.  I said, "Hey...did you have an adventurous day at school today?"  He just grinned and nodded.  When I said "Julie called me and told me all about it.  Why don't you tell your dad what happened?"  Ethan launched into his explanation.

It seems he doesn't really know for sure HOW his leg slipped and got stuck.  It just  "happened while we were playing tag". 

I asked "How long were you stuck?" 

"At least 15 minutes, and maybe more!"

"Did you cry?"

At that question I got a look as if to say "What do you think I am, a baby?" but he responded with a "NO!"

"Were you scared?"

"No!"

"Did you think they were going to have to cut off your leg to get you out?"

"No!  I thought they might have to get the tool thing that would spread the bars apart though.  But after the ice and the butter...I just kind of twisted it and it came right out."

And I was back to thinking "BUTTER????"

He's fine.  Sore and swollen, but fine. 

And I'm just glad he didn't get in trouble at school today!