Photo Friday: More throwback fun!

January 23, 20151 Comment

Today’s throwback picture goes back to Christmas 2007. It was the first Christmas after my divorce, and Bubbles’ grandparents had invited us to help them pick out their Christmas tree:

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This picture singlehandedly destroyed my camera, the first digital one I’d ever owned. Not thirty seconds after I snapped this picture, I managed to drop the poor camera lens-first on the ice.

*sigh*

Curse you, butterfingers!

I took my Christmas bonus that year and bought another camera, which I subsequently bequeathed to Bubbles a couple of years ago. He’s used it all of twice, if I’m not mistaken. 🙂

Hope you all have a great weekend, and don’t forget to check out Charnele’s blog – she’s got a great post up today. Happy Friday! 🙂

Photo Friday throwback continues!

January 16, 2015January 19, 20151 Comment

My brain seems to be out of the office today, so my throwback post isn’t going back all that far:

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Here’s Bubbles fighting with some landscape edging last spring. He and Seymour were prettying up the front yard at our old house, and he had a little bit of trouble.

Don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog and see what she’s been up to lately. Hope your Friday’s a happy one, and have a great weekend!

Photo Friday returns!

January 9, 2015January 9, 2015Leave a comment

I had actually planned for Photo Fridays to return last week, but since last Friday was my first day back to work and generally insane, I decided to push it back a week.

This week’s Photo Friday post (and next week’s, and probably at least the week after that) is a throwback. You know, like Throwback Thursday, but on Friday. I have a huge archive of old photos, and I thought it would be fun to share a few.

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This one, clearly, is from 2010. We traveled south to see Seymour’s cousin get hitched, and as always, had a heck of a great time. Her wedding was the day before our first wedding anniversary, so we made a fun weekend of it.

Don’t Bubbles and Miss Tadpole look little? It’s hard to believe how much they’ve grown in the last four and a half years.

Have a great weekend, everybody, and don’t forget to check out Charnele’s blog to see what she’s got going on!

Photo Friday: Cookie time, part two!

December 12, 2014December 10, 20146 Comments

So, I’m sure you’re asking yourself how in the heck one manages to accidentally make somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 dozen cookies, right? I know I would be if I were you.

Look at all the cookies!

Mmm, cookies…om nom nom!

Bubbles and Miss Tadpole have a cookie walk tomorrow, and they are each responsible for providing ten dozen cookies. That’s 20 dozen cookies (aka a whole freakin’ lot). Last year they both helped with the baking and whatnot, but this year we’ve been so busy that it got left to the last minute. Bubbles is sick, so he wasn’t cooking anything for anybody, and Miss Tadpole was at school on Tuesday (aka, the only time I had to do any baking whatsoever before tomorrow), so it was on me…

Photo Friday: The Twelve Pains of Christmas

December 5, 2014Leave a comment

We’ve been decorating at work today. Each year, we put up two Christmas trees – one in our lobby and one in our entryway. As we were trying to string the lights on the trees this morning, Bob Rivers’ Christmas classic kept running through my head.

Go home, Christmas tree, you’re drunk.

So pretty! 🙂

Luckily, we managed to untangle all the lights, and it was totally worth all the hassle. I mean, even the drunken Christmas tree looks a lot better now than it did this morning. 🙂

Photo Friday: The Food Coma Express

November 28, 20142 Comments

We went to my in-laws’place for Thanksgiving yesterday. It was a nice visit, complete with enough food for a small army: ham, turkey, corn, potatoes, rolls, deviled eggs, pickles, jello fluff, pumpkin pie (without the crust), and ice cream.

And there were only nine of us!

After all that food, it’s no wonder that this was the view on the way home:

There was some snoozing going on in the front seat, too; Miss Tadpole curled up next to Seymour and slept most of the way home. If the rest of us could have napped, too, I think we would have.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of great food, great family, great friends, and great fun. If your celebrations are continuing this weekend, stay safe! 🙂

Photo Friday: Pride

November 14, 2014Leave a comment

One team. One dream.

That’s what you’d see if you drove past my neighbors’ house. They – and many other people in our area – have a sign in their yard with those words scrawled in blue and silver marker. And for all the Rebel fans out there, that dream is only one game away from becoming reality.

I don’t normally get worked up about sports, but when it comes to my home school district, well, that’s different. I’ve spent the last twelve years bouncing between the two (big) towns in our school district. I grew up in one, I moved to the other. Moved back to my hometown, then moved back to my adopted hometown. I am a proud Rebel.

Our football team made the state playoffs this year. We played the first two playoff games at home and won big, then traveled last week for the quarterfinals, where we won again. Today we played at the UNI Dome in the semi-finals and won. The team we played today? We beat them 43-0 back in September. The win today wasn’t nearly as big, but it was a win, and we haven’t been to the finals in ten years.

Stand up! Be proud! Say your name! Out loud! WE ARE THE REBELS!

Prior to that, it had been decades since we were in the finals. Our school district as it is now didn’t even exist then.

So to say I’m proud of our boys in blue today is something of an understatement. I am beyond thrilled that we’re in the finals. I’m already praying for another win, because one of the teams we may face is undefeated (we’re not). Go big blue!

The picture above is from last night’s pep rally (sadly, I couldn’t go to today’s game, though Seymour took the kids, who I’m sure are ecstatic). I think the caption says all that needs saying. 😀

Okay, I lied. I’m going to leave you with the lyrics to our school song, because it’s going to be running through my head all day now. And if I can find a link to a clip of our band playing it, I’ll share that, too.

School Song by Gerald Ramsey

We are the Gladbrook-Reinbeck Rebels,
As proud as we can be!
Gladbrook-Reinbeck Rebels,
Fighting for victory!
Fight! Fight! Fight!
Win that mighty battle,
That is our Rebel cry,
It’s on to fight!
Win!
Victory’s ours,
As we lift that banner high!

Go Rebels!

Photo Friday: Minimalist

November 7, 20143 Comments

IMG_20131205_112005 I checked my calendar this morning and realized that – horror of horrors! – Charnele and I are out of prompts for our Photo Friday feature.

Whoops.

But then I saw that this week’s photo challenge is all about minimalism, and guess what? I just happen to have something that fits the bill. It’s a picture of the frozen condensation on my bathroom window one morning last winter. Sadly, I awoke to find condensation on the inside of the windows in our new house this morning, and it’s not even that cold yet (although we did finally break down and turn on the heat yesterday).

I hate to think what it’ll be like in another month or so when winter is in full swing.

Photo Friday: Halloween!

October 31, 2014Leave a comment

That’s right, it’s All Hallows’ Eve. For the first time in a very long time, we didn’t hand out candy tonight. Not that we ever had many kids stop at our house before, but since we’re in the country now, it seemed rather pointless to buy candy for trick-or-treaters who will never stop.

This is also the first year we took Cricket and Thumper trick-or-treating. I found a Scooby Doo costume for Thumper at a local secondhand shop, and Cricket went as his best pal, Shaggy. Miss Tadpole was a goddess, and Bubbles wore his football uniform, a Rebel football player one last time (this year, anyway). He went trick-or-treating with his dad, though, so I’ll have to wait a year to get a picture of all four of them together in their costumes.

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The boys were disappointed this morning when I wouldn’t let them wear their costumes to daycare, but while my stitching was good enough to hold up through this evening’s candy hunt, I didn’t trust it to hold out all day, especially the way Thumper likes to romp around (his costume required a bit of sewing (by which I mean about four hours’ worth because I had to hand sew it all) to make it wearable). I needn’t have worried, though – he faceplanted while tearing down a darkened street on the final leg of tonight’s journey and split a seam in his shoulder, but my stitching held up perfectly. 🙂

What do you do for Halloween? Do you hand out candy, or take the kids around, or both, or neither? Don’t forget to check out Charnele’s blog and see what she’s up to on this spooky holiday. Happy Halloween! 🙂

Photo Friday: Haunted

October 24, 20149 Comments

There’s an old hospital in the town I work in. I’m not sure how long ago it closed, or why, really, because the building now houses a doctor’s office and a home health care agency, but shuttered hospitals never fail to arouse my curiosity (this despite the fact that, for me, there’s something inherently petrifying in the thought of ghostly physicians of yore (thanks, House on Haunted Hill)).

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This particular building also hosts a haunted hospital tour each October. I’ve never been through it, but it does sound fun (though not for Cricket and Thumper, as they’re too little to see the amusement in being terrified). Tomorrow night is the last night for it this year, and all the proceeds are invested in the community, which makes it fun and beneficial. 🙂

Don’t forget to stop by Charnele’s blog and check out her haunted photo.

Have you ever been through a haunted house? What was it like? Would you do it again?