Stories in Hand

I reluctantly did an online class led by Jessica Sprague who I like to read her blog http://www.jessicasprague.com/ . She is a digital scrapbook teacher for Creating Keepsakes, and she has begun her own online digital scrapbooking classes. Anyway... the class was free so I thought what the heck. I am not a writer, but maybe it will help me to remember some of those forgotten stories I have hidden away in the dark recesses of my memory. It started last week, and I still haven't completed the binder that we were supposed to have printed and bound, and looking all cute, but I did get to the memory triggers. She compares getting our stories out to snorkeling and scuba diving. First you kind of flit around on the surface looking and remembering, and then you dive deep and find those stories. It worked! I started last night writing about the greatest life lesson I learned from my mom, and ended up writing about clothes that my mom made for me and even the time she really challenged herself and made down filled "puffy coats" for my sister and me. This was way before internet, so I am not sure how she ever found the resources for the down filled coats. This was in the 70's. My mom could make anything I thought, including down filled coats. Jump forward a few more years to when I was in junior high. My mom made my jeans. Unfortunately the jeans were harder to duplicate to the real designer thing. Even though she studied the pocket stiching and everything. She really tried, but the unappreciating teen that I was they weren't close enough. I wore the jeans until a boy brought attention to those jeans and caused me mortal embarrassment. I'm not sure what he said, but I remember the feeling I had. Isn't it funny that we can remember emotions like that so well.

Anyway hats off to mothers that do the very best they can for their children even when it can never be enough (according to the kids). I understand now that I am a mother how much you just want them to be happy.

Hallowe'en Chronicles

What a really fun, and busy Halloween weekend. The planets aligned so that we could have Halloween on a Friday AND very warm temperatures! It was the perfect night for mischief.


Because it was a weekend, we had all kinds of things going on...
Trick or Treaters for sure, Halloween scary movies with a basement full of teen-agers (sure why not), and maybe a birthday party.


Kamryn and Anna were Batgirl and Wonder Woman. They didn't even have to cover up their costumes with their winter parka's this year.


Derek and his friends all dressed up as "each other" He is dressed up as his friend Tyler (next to him) who is dressed up as another friend who used to go to a school with uniforms. Since they weren't allowed to "trick or treat" being 15 years old, they went "dance or treating" They had a pretty big group of kids, and they would ring the doorbell, then dance, then run away when they tried to give them candy. By they way the girl with the red wig and soccer jersey is supposed to be Derek. Some of the kids dressed as other things too, he doesn't really have a friend who is a clown, or a Barney fan club member.



















Mikaela and her friends had a party the week before where she dressed as her favorite singer
Bryce Avary from The Rocket Summer. Here she is standing by him, but apparantly I neglected to take a picture of her dressed like him.

On Saturday morning Derek informs me that his friends are all coming over that afternoon for a birthday party. This was after I have spent several weeks trying to pin him down on some details. So he texts everyone that morning, and then he works out what they are going to do. My job, to come up with a cake, and food. This is a prime example of why this kid drives me crazy. I don't work like this. I need a plan, I need details, I need more time! Is this too much to ask? Apparantly... I need to NOT make such a big deal of things, and just let it happen... according to Derek. In the end some of the kids couldn't come because they had to babysit, or they had other plans. But it was all right with him, they still had fun.

Happy 15th Derek!

Now he starts Driver's Ed next week, and before we know it, we will have another driver in the family! Wow how time flies!