Random Tid Bits

1. On the last week of classes, I felt so bad for Mica. He had his Science Fair presentations. He had to give 3. The last presenter put his form in another student's spot. They are listed by number, and I guess the last digit was covered up. He had to present his project to yet another person. Thankfully this kid just rolls with the flow.
   
   The year earlier he was told to leave his stuff in his class, or wherever - do not bring it to his Science Fair Presentations. He left his stack of books, and stuff in the cafeteria, for that last presentation he shouldn't of had to do. Then he went back up to get his stuff, only to find it was all gone! He went to the lost and found, asked the cafeteria person if they knew who took it, and asked the office. It wasn't in any of those places. I told him, they may have turned his books into the school library. Nope! Thankfully he found his stuff the next day. A staff member turned it into the office. Talk about a heart stopper! If that would have happened to Isaak, he would have lost it.
   
   Then Mica checked his grades. He has B's in 2 or 3 classes, when he should based on his assignments have A's. His homeroom teacher thinks it's a computer glitch. She emailed his teachers. Mica's like, "Well B's are good." BUT he earned A's! We still don't know if this was fixed. 


2. We've been rewatching Orphan Black. We all love the show. I never realized it's rated M, and the first time we watched it Isaak was probably 8 or 9. Now he's 11. Dang Tatiana Maslany is a great actress! Underrated, for sure. I think we counted, and she plays around 12 or 13 different roles: Beth (cop), Sarah (punk), Katja (French Girl), Alison (Soccer Mom), Cosima (Science Geek), Helena (Ukrainian Messed Up One), Rachel (Stuck Up), Krystal (Prissy), M.K. (Introvert Artist), Tony (Trans), and others on videos like (Jennifer and Camilla) they don't always name. You can tell when one is trying to be the other. How does she do that?











3. Every year, for the past few years I have the boys write for this:
   
   
   
   
   
   They've never won, but it's still good to make them write. Isaak seems more about it than Mica. Mica's more the reader. Isaak's choosing to write about the Soccer Mom Alison from Orphan Black. It was from a book. Who knows if it's ok - being an M rated show. 


4. The boys were a bit ticked off at me, for not having a Dance Party for New Years Eve. They apparently like that. I just wanted a chill holiday. PLUS Nebraska is rated the highest for Influenza A. Not that I think we should build a bubble, for our family, but I don't really want sickness drug in. Isaak's "friends" wanted to know if he was having a party. He told them, "No". Then they proceeded to say they'd hang out together, but never invited him. What did the want? Our food? Thank Gawd he has other friends at school! One is our carpool, and takes Isaak to school a lot!
   
   What did you do, for New Years Eve?


5. At this point I'm tired of food, and we had a Pot Luck, for work on Thursday.

#happynewyear

When New Years Day rolled around it was snowing, and very cold. I asked my parents to come over, but they didn't want to get out. We went over to their house.

We were all pretty tired from the night before, but hey we were chillin'.

We brought over Won't You Be My Neighbor?, and watched it.

I love that move. I found it the day after Thanksgiving, for super cheap-o. That makes me like it even more. 

I think my parents enjoyed us coming over, and the movie. 

I think this movie inspired me to get Travis these sweaters at Alpaca Mall. He had a button down sweater already, and wears it ALL THE TIME!

He likes the blueish greyish one best, but I like the brown one. Which one do you like? 

When he wears them I just want to sing out, "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive. It's such a happy feeling..."

The shipping was $9, which I dislike. Hey we both love the sweaters, and I spent less than $100. Most alpaca anything is super expensive! 

Disclaimer: This is not a review. I'm just sharing something I purchased. 

What are Some New Year’s Resolutions You’ve Had in the Past?

This is a question from the blog A Life Examined.

So...What are Some New Year’s Resolutions You’ve Had in the Past?

I found this question to be hard. I make goals, but not really New Year's Resolutions.

Last year I decided that when I am checking out at a store, if a person comes up behind me, and only has say 5 items - I'm going to let them go in front of me. People love it when I do that. Why? Because I generally have a lot in my cart. The only time I don't do this is when I'm shopping on my lunch break because I'm in a hurry to get back to work.

I made it a goal to slow down, leave myself more time with driving. That sort of worked. It seems that no matter how early I wake up Isaak and Travis still run slow. Mica and I are more morning people. Mica gets up, dressed, makes coffee... Isaak gets dressed slow, and they both eat breakfast slow. I'm the type that eats a bite, and will get up to do my makeup between bites if I need to. It's frustrating that they are so slow. I want to be that drill sergeant that says, "Ok 5 push-ups and a bite to eat!" Ha! Isaak picks the worst times to go to the bathroom to! I'll be ready to go, and Isaak has to go number 2. It makes me want to scream.

I sort of wanted to call cashiers by their name when I'm checking out. I have to be honest, it feels a little creepy. They look at me funny when I say their name. Maybe I'll take that back up, maybe I won't.

My goal for 2016 is to clean up often and paint more. A girl came to our house for New Years Eve. She wants me to paint 30 pieces for a spot that she curates. Travis laughed. He doesn't think it's possible. I'm going to try. So far I've painted 1/2 a piece. I have an underpainting done. No details. It's a teepee with a cityscape at the bottom. It's about white man taking over Native Americans. I work with mixed media. This start of a painting is acrylic, fabric, pencil shavings, and will have vinyl triangles, thread, and toothpicks. More of the painting is already done, since I took pictures. 

Happy New Year!

I've been kind of slow with blogging lately. I took off time last week, so the boys could get some time at home to play with their new toys, and have lazy days. On those days I don't think we got dressed until noon. We ran around in our pjs pants and t-shirts. It was wonderful. I cleaned and cleaned to. Areas that typically don't get dusted a lot are now dusted.

We had a dance party on New Years Eve. The whole idea was to have kids come over, and parents could go out if they'd like. We had 2 disco light balls running, loud music, things cleared out in the living rooms so the kids could have room to dance, snack type foods, desserts, and sparkling juice. 

In total we had 5 adults, and 11 kids. I know we all ate way too much, but had a blast. I loved how my nephew Edison danced the whole time. Watching 1 year olds dance is so cute!

One of Isaak's friends (I have gotten permission to post his picture online. His mom posts pictures of Isaak at times to.)

I'm not one for making lots of New Years Resolutions, but I do like to set goals that I started before the New Year happened. Last year I made the goal to give myself more time to get places. This year I want to save more money for retirement, clean the house more, paint more, and have some blog updates that I have been working on.  

Questions For You: 

1. If you have a blog, who do you get your hosting from? I'll just say it, I'm a dumb ass person when it comes to that. I really don't know what I'm doing. It scares me to set up hosting. I started this blog as a modern day baby book back in the day. I never knew it would lead to friends, reviews, and an outlet to express myself. I have a new "look" started, and as much as I've gotten comments on the name of this blog, I have to change it. I have a new name to! 


2. Do you set New Years Resolutions? 

 Happy New Year! I hope 2016 is better than 2015 for everyone!

WW Happy New Year! {Linky}

This little gif took awhile to make. It's a work project. Lots of dots!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas that celebrates it!

One of the boy's stocking stuffers was clear glasses. They've never seen Harry Potter, but I put it on hold at the library. Santa may have gotten the glasses on clearance at Halloween time.

It's 2014

Now what?

I'm not the type that makes New Years Resolutions. I sometimes make small goals, and hope that I keep them, but I do this all the time, weather it's New Years, or not.

Here are my recent goals. You can call them New Years Resolutions if you want.

1. I want to do more arts and crafts with my kids. They enjoy the Lowes Clinic, so I'm thinking we should do more project like they do there at home. Isaak in particular loves building, creating and crafting. I bought him some new clay for Christmas. We have scratch board kits. We bought DIY Catapult sets to keep the kids busy at Grandma and Grandpa Apel's house.


2. Keeping things cleaner. It's sounds easy enough, but isn't. I work full time, so it's hard keeping things as clean as I'd like. Papers accumulate! It's easier with Daddy home on the weekends. Last weekend I washed all the bedding, and drapes. This weekend I rearranged the baking cupboard. One step at a time.


3. I want to continue trying new foods. This is a goal I set awhile ago. I've tried a lot of new recipes, foods and restaurants in 2013. I want to keep it up. Sometimes I just need to try the foods cooked/served differently when I don't like them. Example: I'm not a fan of avocados plain, but I love them mixed into salads, and smoothies.


4. I want to keep going to the Y. This to isn't anything new. I say this because many people start going, then stop. It's a good thing to keep up.


5. I want to keep putting my school handouts into a different program. Once this is done it's done. There will be minor changes, but it will feel good to have the bulk done! I have a semester to go! 

What are some of you goals?

I Went Out of Town, Now I'm Back

We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Apel. It's about a 5 hour drive. It took us 7 1/2 hours to get there. It was snowing. It wasn't slippery, but the powdery snow was blowing everywhere. That made it hard to see. Daddy decided to go a different way. Ideally it was a great decision because there was less traffic. It ended up being more difficult because there was a ton of no passing zones. We had a snow plow in front of us doing nothing, but blowing a white dust behind them, and in front of us.

We ended up having to call Grandma and Grandpa Apel to opt out of lunch, and ate at the crappy McDonald's that served no salads, and had the opposite service of fast food.

Mica kept asking, "When are we going to get there?" We of course couldn't answer that. He was unusually our more whiny kid on the trip there.

We did finally make it.

I'm behind in blogging, but will get caught up. I have some winners to pick for some giveaways that ended.

New Years Resolution

Mica has been telling us all month that his New Year Resolution was/is to be stronger.

Is it bad that I use this resolution to my benefit? I don't use it to my benefit all the time.

I have caught myself saying things like:

Mica if you want to get stronger, you need to eat more veggies.
Mica if you want to get stronger, you should use your muscles to pick up your toys.
Mica in order to get stronger, you should do some push-ups and sit-ups.

So far it's working most of the time.

Happy New Year!!!

Do you do much to celebrate on New Years Eve? I never really have. I'm not a big fan of getting smashed drunk like some people do. I'm not a bar person. Usually we have pizza rolls and sparkling grape juice. I skipped the pizza rolls, but made some for the boys. Then I found out Mica and Isaak do not even really like pizza rolls. We never have pizza rolls except for New Years. That tradition will end up going bye bye.

On New Years Day Daddy watches football. I don't watch football. I'm thinking I will take all the Christmas decor down. I'm planning on playing with the kids. Mica got a magician set for Christmas we haven't played with yet. I want to play with some of Isaak's Christmas presents. Sometimes I think kids have to be shown how to play with some of their gifts to really get into them. 

Happy New Years to everyone. I do hope for happiness and families spending time with one another.