A Special Memorial Day Edition of Not me! Monday

I did not forget, even though I am fully aware that today is Memorial Day (a holiday that always falls on a Monday), that today is in fact Monday. Which means it's time for yet another Not me! Monday.

I have not spent the entire day in my pajamas. And I have not allowed my children to spend the entire day in their pajamas either. I mean, it is a holiday. But come on, any good mom would have made her children put on some clothes by now (4:30 in the afternoon).

Hector has wanted to cut down a tree in our backyard for a while now. On one side of the tree, it has a big hole in the trunk that was left after it got some strange tree disease. After speaking to a friend of ours who told us that the tree trunk would never grow back over the hole, I finally agreed to let Hector cut it down. So, I would never dream of going back on my word only a few days later, after I discovered that a frog has made it's home in that yucky hole in our tree trunk. I would never go back on my word to my husband! Not me! And I would never go out, and spend money on vines to plant around the base of the tree, to hide the hole in the tree trunk. Spending money on vines to make a yucky hole left in a tree trunk from some weird tree disease, simply to make the tree look more visually appealing not just for Hector's benefit, but for the frog's benefit too, just doesn't sound like something I would do. Not me!

Can you see the frog in there? No! Well, let me zoom in a little more...

Now can you see the frog? No! Maybe I should zoom in just a bit more...

Now can you see it? How could I possibly let Hector destroy this cute little frog's home? :-) Isn't it amazing that God created this frog to be so well camouflaged in it's natural habitat? How amazing!

Okay, enough of that already... I did not completely forget to post pictures on here of Avery's school musical from last Thursday night. I could never forget to do such a thing regarding my only daughter and middle child. By the way, pictures are forth coming. :-)

Avery and I went to the garden store this weekend (see above paragraph regarding our tree and the frog). As we were pulling into the parking lot, I did not stop the car and get out to see kittens for sale, that some strange guy had in a laundry basket. So it would have been impossible, since I didn't stop the car, for Avery to beg me to get one of those kittens. And I absolutely did not hesitate in saying no to her, thus giving her even more momentum to keep going with her begging. And I would NEVER, after seeing the sign that said the kittens were FREE, in what could only be described as a complete and utter moment of weakness, tell my sweet child that if it were up to me she could take a kitten home, but that she would need to call her Daddy to make sure it was also okay with him. I would NEVER pass the buck like that. I would NEVER make Hector out to be the bad guy simply because I was too weak to say no, and I knew he would have no problem telling Avery no.... NEVER!


And finally, I did not just tell my kids that we simply can not spend this entire beautiful Memorial Day inside. I did not tell them to go put on their swimming suits. And we are not going outside right now to play in the sprinkler!



And I did not hold off publishing this blog for 3 hours, so that I could add these great pictures of the kids having so much fun in the backyard. I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day.

What's In A Name?

Years ago before Hector and I started our family, we knew that we wanted simple, strong, and meaningful names for our children. And we also knew that we did not want nicknames for our children. The names we gave them were going to be the names they went by. When Samuel was born, we called him Samuel, and we asked everyone else to do the same. When Avery was born, even though we had a strong desire to give her the nickname Miss Priss :-), we made a point to call her Avery. But poor little Isaac was given a nickname at birth, by Avery. She started calling him Bubba, for brother. Hector and I thought it was cute, and so we started calling Isaac by the nickname Bubba too. I guess we never really thought it would stick, because we called him Isaac most of the time. But last night as we were eating dinner, I was trying to get Isaac's attention, and I kept saying "Isaac, Isaac, Isaac!" but he wouldn't respond to me. And finally I said, "Bubba!" and he responded with, "What Mama?" AGH! I pointed to Hector and I asked Isaac, "Who's that?" and he responded, "That's Dada." Then I pointed to Avery and asked Isaac, "Who's that?" and he responded, "That's A-E." Then I pointed to Samuel and asked Isaac, "Who's that?" and he responded, "That's Sapsa." Then I pointed to myself and asked Isaac, "Who am I?" and he responded, "That's Mama." And with a bit of hesitation, I pointed to Isaac and asked, "Who are you? What's your name?" and he responded, "Bubba!"

"NO! Your name is Isaac." And then Isaac said, "No, no, no, Mama. I'm Bubba."

So that's us folks, The 5 Aces; Dada, A-E, Sapsa, Mama, and Bubba! Are we country or what? :-)

A Little Validation

Every now and then in life, something really great happens. And all of the hard work, all of the sweat and tears, all of the heartaches and headaches, all of the laughs, and all of the ups and downs suddenly all become worth it! Well today, I received some really great news, and a little validation to boot! I don't think anything could make me come down from the cloud I am floating on right now.

Amanda passed the TAKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, I am beaming! BEAMING!!!!

In the past 2 years that I've been tutoring her, she's gone from failing almost every subject in school, to making the A/B honor roll every 6 weeks this school year (with the exception of the 1st-6 weeks). She's improved her vocabulary and writing skills, and she's won several Outstanding Writer Awards throughout this school year. And on top of that, she's gone from failing the math portion of the TAKS test at the end of 3rd grade, to passing the reading, writing and math portions of the TAKS test this year in 4th grade. I take no credit for this. Okay, I'll take a little credit. :-) But she deserves the real credit here, because she has worked so hard. O, Glorious Day!

Take A Tip Thursday!

I had BIG plans for this morning! BIG plans, I'm telling you!!! So, you can imagine how upset I was when I went to log onto the Internet this morning, only to discover that it wasn't working. Our Internet service has been acting a bit finicky lately, so I didn't think too much of it. I rebooted the computer, but still no Internet.... I waited all day long, and was so sad at the thought that I wouldn't be able to publish this today. So, you can imagine how relieved I was tonight when I saw that our Internet service is back up and running. Whew! I still get to post this blog on Thursday. I can't tell you how relieved I am!!! So, here you go, my loyal readers!

I have recently been inspired by 2 other bloggers' ideas; MckMama's "Not me! Monday," and Mama Bear's "Wanna Know Wednesday." I love things like this! And I must admit, I have wanted to do something like this on my blog for a long time now, but I just didn't know how to get started. But after giving it a lot of thought, I am thrilled to introduce to you a little something I have named.....

Take A Tip Thursday!

No, I'm not going to make all of you start tipping me every time you read my blog. But what I want to do is this... Every Thursday I plan on leaving a handy little tip on here, hopefully something that is practical, fun, and helpful. The critical 2nd part of this is that you all need to return the favor by leaving your own tip on here in the comments section. But please make sure that you stick to the subject of the week, because I'll be leaving different tips relating to different subjects each week.



So, for my first Take A Tip Thursday, I want to talk about unwanted pests and easy ways to get rid of them. A couple of days ago, after I swatted the 3rd or 4th gnat away from my face, I remembered this little tip from my good friend, Mama Bear...


Pour a little apple cider vinegar into the bottom of a cup, then make a funnel out of a piece of paper. Place the funnel in the cup, then tape the paper to the top of the cup. And do you know what happens? The gnats are attracted to the scent of the vinegar. They fly into the cup down through the funnel, and once they're in the cup, they can't get back out. Brilliant! And you know what they say? The proof is in the pictures:
See that tiny black dot? It's a gnat! Within 10 minutes I had around 20 gnats in there. Kind of gross to think about how many gnats I had in my kitchen. But this reminded me of a little tip my brother John told me about a while back, about how to catch unwanted bees in your yard. Take a Coca Cola bottle, cut off the top of the bottle, then turn the top of the bottle upside-down and place it into the bottom part of the bottle, making a funnel. Make sure to tape the 2 pieces together, then pour a little soda into the bottom part, and you've just made yourself a very quick, very convenient, and very inexpensive bee catcher. Confused? Don't be... Look at this:
So, there's your tip on how to get rid of unwanted pests! Now, it's your turn to leave a tip!

Subtle Hint

After I kissed Samuel and Avery goodbye this morning and saw them out the back door, I grabbed a cup of coffee and made my way to the computer. And that's where I found this note:

Go/to

the/store

10::00

GrAnola

BArs

I suppose this is Avery's way of leaving me a "subtle hint" as to what she'd like me to do today. I'll try to not over-analyze this, and the fact that she left it on the computer keyboard and not some place else in the house... any place else... Nope! She knew exactly where the best place was to leave it! :-)