i'm a plumber now.

so here is a really long story short. i came home from work yesterday to a sink that was leaking water out of the cupboards. this is why... a plastic knife (circa 1990 i think) was stuck in the pipe.

this is the hole the knife left in my pipe. i forgot to mention that gerry was at a school union negotiations meeting and was completely unavailable. my dad was a maintenance man, i could figure this out, right? well, i made a phone call or two and got a little advice and decided that i was going to impress the hell out of gerry and fix this myself.

clay thought this whole thing was hysterical and kept taking my picture... for this one he told me "mom, look REALLY mad"...

look at me... all confident in my skills as a plumber. so i packed up the kids, and off to the hardware store we went. now, my BIG mistake happened at the hardware store... i listened to the older gentleman working there are bought the parts he told me to buy. i brought my rusted, busted pieces with me, and could tell from comparing them that i was not getting the right parts. i gave him the benefit of the doubt though... for all i knew he could be a plumber himself! well...

i had to cut the one pipe because it was far too long...
yeah, i had to cut it a few times... i finally got the right length, but as i thought in the store, he sold me the wrong parts. i will say, gerry was THOROUGHLY impressed (as was myself) at my attempt. after getting the correct part (which i'm pretty sure is the one that i had originally thought) gerry fixed it today and all is well.

now, the boys and i are off to the monster truck show tonight... the boys are so excited they can't even focus. i on the other hand... wish me luck!

i am NOT a copycat!

so my girl tina, over at polkadotbug, just posted an ADORABLE picture of her girls in the bathtub. it just so happens that i took a pic of my little hellians in the tub tonight! there is really no point to this post, other than i have a cute pic of the boys to share.

and then there is bean... when chris sent me this picture my immediate response was "who does she think she is? olivia newton john?" i LLOLed (Literally Laughed Out Loud- not to be confused with the incredibly overused LOL... i LLOL when i LITERALLY laughed out loud) when i got this picture...

:)

if you are easily offended... DO NOT READ THIS POST!

so there is a new requirement at my school where the teachers must have a "word wall" posted in their classrooms, showing current vocabulary. the social studies teacher that i work with is a man... and therefore has TERRIBLE handwriting, as well as a COMPLETE INABILITY to spell words correctly. so i did him the favor of writing his word wall on the side board in his room. his last period class took it upon themselves to "edit" the word wall as seen above.

RECONSTRUCTION- was kept the same (i don't think they could think of anything clever)
PARDON- became pucky (not sure what that is)
BLACK CODES- became black cooch (no explanation necessary)
IMPEACH- became sweet peach (again, no explanation necessary)
CARPETBAGGERS- became "T" baggers (this one almost made me pee my pants)
SCALAWAG- became swag (in front of swag it says booty got... booty got swag)
SHARECROPPING- became sharecrotching (my other favorite)
TENANT FARMING- became ant farming (not that funny)
INFRASTRUCTURE- another one they couldn't touch...
SOLID SOUTH- became dirty south

call me immature... this is STILL making me laugh...

please empty your bladder before watching this video

so lets face it, for those of you who know me... i'm not exactly an "athlete". i actually feel like i have to put the word in quotes because it is so amusing.

notice the form in this picture! i almost look like i know what i'm doing!

and then there is this video. need i say more?

omg... my baby is 7!!! (tomorrow)

so clay is going to be 7 tomorrow. i'm thoroughly disturbed! we celebrated his birthday sunday at my in law's house on the hill... even though clay had decided that he did NOT want a birthday party. "mom, i do NOT want a birthday party." "so should i call everyone and tell them not to bring the kids out?" "uh, no... well, then i don't want a cake." "so you don't want the dirt bike cake that you begged me for? then i guess i will take the new dirt bike toy back that was going to go on the cake." "uh, no. i guess we can have a cake."
this is not like my typical million-frosting-star birthday cake. just a regular funfetti cake, green frosting and crushed up peanut butter oreos for the dirt. then i took a (washed) dirt bike toy and squished it on there... the "mountain" came with the dirt bike toy.

not one of my best... but he loved it!

we spent the day frolicking in the snow... skiing, snowboarding, sledding, tubing and snowmobiling.

the really long hilly driveway served as a fabulous slope!

clay all geared up in his new xmas helmet...

and we christened the new jacuzzi tub (not that way you sickos!). the kids LOVED it! they didn't want to get out!

stay tuned for pictures (and possible video) of me snowboarding. yeah, that's right... i snowboarded. i apologize if you just split your pants laughing... :)

my sewing center!

so here it is... my sewing center! it only took me 2 hours to put it together... that's not bad, it was actually quite complex! when i opened the box and saw how many parts and screws and hinges there were, i'm not going to lie, i was a little nervous. but it went together easily... i LOVE putting things together actually. it's funny, gerry is a technology teacher, yet i am the one who always puts everything together and hooks up all electronic devices.

this is it all opened up. when it is not in use, my sewing machine hides on that bottom shelf, out of the kiddies reach!

the right side keeps my scissors, thread, buttons, patterns (that i don't ever use), other various tools etc, and that middle shelf? that is all the projects that i have already cut out but need to put together. notice that shelf is so full that stuff is almost falling out of it. :(

then the left side supports the side table part, and holds all of my ribbons, velcro, snaps etc.

i LOVE my sewing center! it's so sweet! i love having things organized... and this is the perfect thing to keep me organized. yeah, this is a rather boring post, but i had to show off my sewing center! :)

happy 2009!

so we spent our new years eve back out at the in law's house... so much fun. cute headbands... check. really annoying clapper things that the kids immediately broke... check. mardi gras beads that the kids LOVED... check. enough food to feed 47 armies... check. i love new years!

i seriously think that i ate enough food on new years eve to feed a family of 7.

the kids wanted jen to read to them... all she could find were some martha stewart magazines and consumer report magazines. they didn't care though!

my sister hollie... and some of our food. mmm, i'm hungry again just looking at it!

my sister in law christiane rockin the headband

jen is also (excitedly) rockin the headband... and i'm not sure what hollie is doing!

madeja kept telling clay to take off the headband because he looked like a girl... so clay snuck one on his arm and i took this picture- clay almost peed his pants laughing!

the girls celebrating... not sure why we are gripping christiane's arms like that... perhaps it was to stabilize us from all falling down! ;)

on new year's day we all went tubing at holiday valley. SO MUCH FUN! i'm not going to lie, it was a titch scary at first, but it was a hoot! from left to right is clay, heffay, christiane (we called her chuck, short for woodchuck- look at that hat!), dave, jen, gerry, and me.

then on friday we had a girl's night at my girl kimmy's house... these are her gorgeous twins isabella and jenna. they might be the cutest little girls i have ever seen (that aren't my niece of course)!