Pictures

Ambers Birthday Cake

Amber playing in a tub of water in 30 degree weather, when I asked her if she was cold she said "NO MOM, I am farting to keep the water warm"

This is a picture of our culdesac party - you can actually see the orange balloon streaking through the air (No it isn't an Orb of a dead person)

Ambers Big Birthday Bash

We had SO much fun with Amber at her party! Some of her friends from her class showed up (which is a first). We had some face paint markers that were a big hit. The adults drew on their own faces with no mirror - by the end of it the adults looked like we belonged to a tribe and the kids didn't have any face paint on them.

We decided to share the face paints with this kids and by the end of the party we made a startling discovery - the face paint is not as washable as the package claimed..... So even after washing our faces some of us looked jaundiced from the yellow marker, burned from the red marker, dirty from the brown marker, bruised from the black marker, sick from the green marker and those unfortunate enough to use the blue marker looked like walking corpses........

Needless to say when the parents came to pick up their multi color tinged children, I think they were a little scared and dismayed.

Then came the water baloon toss and water fight........... Everyone had fun but I kept an eye out for the police since Mallory already has a charge for throwing a "missile" I didn't want the rest of us to get tickets as well :)

We decided to have an impromtu block party complete with food, s'mores, a fire building contest and more.

We have some extremely picky neighbors with no children that seemed a little upset at the mess being made in the culdesac with remenants of baloons, sidewalk chalk, fireworks corpses and wood shavings but they are so damn dumb we told them that it was "National mess up your culdesac day" and they beleived us!

Thank you to everyone that came and made Ambers 9th birthday special!!!!!! Also thank you to those of you that didn't take it personally when Amber whined about no money in the cards, threw the presents and took more than 3 prompts from us to say thank you.......... Isn't she cute???!?!?!?!?!?

Scenic PO'd Car Ride and Scary Neighbors

Well, Ron and I got up early this morning (12:30 in the afternoon) and decided that since we didn't have the kids we would go for a scenic drive...... It was scenic all right!

It is easy to take in the scenery when your car is having a bad day and refusing to go more than 10mph up hill.... Yes folks, we were those awful people going up a mountain road that your grandma flips off for going too slow....

Imagine - we are driving our TURBO volvo on a two lane road going 10mph...... Of course maybe since the car has misbehaved we could change the word TURBO on the back of the car to TURDO......

I love my car dearly and apparently it want another sensor - the problem is the throttle position sensor....... The strangest part of this problem is that the car has alzheimers and forgets about its wounded sensor until we are on a two lane road in the mountains...... The check engine light goes off when you restart the car.........

We were at least wishing we had blue colored wigs so that people could try to understand that we were old, but we didn't... So we lit another cigarette in hopes that the car would look like Cheech and Chong - at least then people would see all the smoke coming out and think we were high, which is far better than being thought that you are super old or just an asshole......

Anyway - the car shaped up and we drove to a beautiful scenic area to go over a pass that is closed for 2 weeks (Yet again another National Lampoons moment)... We turned around and had a nice picnic next to a beaver pond...

We got home and some lady and her kid came to the door, I could vaguely recall her face and she informed me that she came by a couple of years ago on Halloween (I am thinking - DUH, that's what people do on Halloween). She informs me that she has come by my house a couple of times and we were not home and she sees us out front a lot and wanted to invite us over for s'mores.

After she leaves Ron and I decide that we are uncomfortable with our new stalker friend and wish not to go eat what might be poisened s'mores from the strange lady with the wandering eye down the block..... but we need a cover story as to why we couldn't make it since after all........she might be watching.

We decide to go have pizza to make the story plausible that we had to go somewhere. Although I half expected to find this woman and her demon child on the front porch when I got home, we were safe - ran into the house, turned off the lights, closed the curtains and hid...........

Yes we might be paranoid but we don't like new people, that's why we keep the same friends we had when we were 20 (OH...... and because they are cool).

Will the teenage stupidity EVER stop

Ok so I just got a call from the Lakewood Police Department, Mallory just got a ticket for throwing a "missile".... This is going down as one of the stupidist tickets in history!!!

She was walking through the Home Depot parking lot and was observed by a Lakewood Police officer picking up a bottle and tossing it on the ground. She didn't damage anything, didn't aim at anything and the bottle was not hers..... OK yes it is stupid but what ever happened to warnings??? She has NEVER been in trouble with the police, nor had a police contact.

Now I get to go to court with her on June 13th, you can't even just pay it, we have to go see a judge.

This seems LIKE A TOTAL WASTE of tax money in my eyes - am I wrong??????????

Teenagers and Punishment

So Mallory has finished the school year, but she failed a couple of electives. I was trying to calming talk to her about this when she exploded with major attitude. I simply tried to tell her that she totally wasted her time since now she will have to take those electives next year. MAN SHE GOT MEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She stomped up to her room and I overheard her saying some AWFUL things about me... I have never felt so hurt, some were lies, others I can not even repeat without my stomach turning. So I opened her door and told her to pack her crap, she could move in with her Dad. That stopped her in her tracks, she knew she had messed up.

A typical teenager, she tried everything in the book:

Guilt - "I have had a really tough couple of weeks", "I am trying my hardest" (NOT TRUE), "I am sorry I am stupid, not perfect or a great kid, sorry I don't have better friends."

Emotions - "I love you mom, you're the best" "I am sorry, sorry, sorry".

Basically Ron had to intervene which was strange, Mallory and I generally get along great. Sor we decided as punishment for the horrible things she said, she has to pull all the weeds in the garden in our yard........... She thought she got off easy until she saw it. After working feverishly for about an hour in the hot sunshine she had completed 1 square foot, however, she never complained.

Our reasoning for this approach was that I love this garden but don't have time to weed it, she needed to do something special for me AND we wanted her to experience manual labor since that will be her only job option if she continues down a bad path in school.....

I also explained to her that she did not have to be perfect or brilliant - if she was, I wouldn't like her. I also told her that I love her friends, I just worry that their bad decisions will cause her secondary pain (physical, emotional, etc.). As you saw in my previous blogs her friends have been making some VERY poor choices.

Tranni adventures

So Ron has been working hard getting the transmission in, we have only had to go to the parts store and dealership a couple of times to get the strangest things I have ever seen. The damn thing is like a chinese puzzle. I have been trying to be helpful but apparently I am not quite Tim the tool mans assistant yet.

When your husband says to lower the red jack while he is under the truck, DON'T lower the black one.
DON'T panic when something doesn't look right in the engine and ask him to crawl out to look at it - the whole thing doesn't look right, it looks more like a life size 3-D puzzle.

So I resorted to doing the girliest things I could to help him:

I "franken-sewed" the seat to the truck that had torn
Washed grease off of parts and bolts (Gross)
Sanded rusty parts
Spray painted parts that were uygly (I would have spray painted the whole truck, but Ron said no).
Tried not to panic when I was in the kitchen and Ron called the home phone from the garage to say "help me", thank god he was not impaled or bleeding, just balancing the transmission on a jack and needed assistance getting tools.
I brewed tea and coffee
Made Food (that didn't make anyone sick)
Attempted to do anything asked to help but mostly I wasn't strong enough to help.

Anyhow - The truck may move in the next day or two, I am excited!! Really - I am excited!

Yet another Car Accident - TEENS!! UGH

So last Friday I took Mallory to the funeral for the her friend that stole the car and rolled it and died. Well, apparently the death of a friend and bad choices don't change the decisions these kids make. Yesterday I was enjoying some much needed sleep when Mallory came bashing into my room crying because her boyfriend was in a car accident and at Littleton Hopstial. So, doing my motherly duty, I drove her to the hospital and got the details.

He is sore and bruised but not dead (although his parents may fix that) - He was wearing a seatbelt but was driving without a license or a permit OH and somebody elses car.

His passenger was not wearing a seatbelt and hit the windshield, fortunately he didn't die either, but he will have a nasty mess of scars on his face to remind him of his choice to go riding with a wreckless unlicensed driver.

The woman whom the car T-boned's condition is unknown.

So, he will lose his license until he is 18, do some community service and have to deal with the wrath of his parents but at least he is alive. His parents will probably be sued by the lady whom he hit, he will most likely have to pay to replace the friends car and have lots of time to think about what he did.

I wish as a parent we could pick their friends, never let them out of our sight, hug them even when they hate us and more..... I wish that teenagers were capable of rational thought.

The Transmission has landed

I am SO proud of Ron - He went out to the garage and took the transmission out of the truck. He is excited and so am I. So - those of you with money placed on how long it will be before it runs better start counting your pennies!! :)

Susan's Happy 30th Bash!!

Ok so you know those super boring adult birthday parties that we all get invited to and dread going to.............. Well, Susan's was NOT one of those. Holy Cow - we had such a good time, the following were some of the highlights:

-Adriennes admission that she has her father's cheeks (not the ones on her face)
-Adrienne commenting on Susan's dads butt...
-Beautiful 3 yr old Andy jr being the dancing queen
-Grisinger Step Father playing his guitar just made the party SO GOOD - wow, I never knew the talent
-Andy explaining that he keeps his wiener in a cage............ actually his wiener dog was in a cage in the bedroom, but it still sounded funny.
-Ron and Amber accidentally kicking the soccer ball over the fence and Margaret retrieving them with wooden pickets of a fence like chop sticks.
-The fabulous cake with a picture of 6 month old Susan drinking a Shlepps beer, although it did freak me out to eat the frosting part of her face.

The whole party was lots of fun, what a great group of people. For those of you that don't know them, I wish you could - they are GREAT PEEPS!

Yo Peeps!!!!

Ok so Amber is getting into a weird stage........ OK - since birth, but anyway she is calling everyone including Ron and I her "Peeps", I have tried explaining that I take offense to being called a nasty sugar coated marshmellow treat, but she just takes it a step further and explains that if I were put in the microwave I would blow up just like a peep....

Cute huh???