Only child Saturday morning...

McKenlee is a card shark.  She loves to play cards and is really good at most card games.  I also love to play cards.  So last night and this morning McKenlee and I had two marathon games of Rummy.

 (I just have to add here that I won both games, usually she kicks my butt.)

As with most teenagers she does nothing without music playing in the background.  So as we played we listened to her current play list.  I don't know if I ever mentioned before but McKenlee is the comedian/actress/crazy one of our house.  She is always dancing around, acting silly, or singing in some dramatic style.  As we were playing cards she was singing to me with all her crazy expressions.  While she wasn't thrilled with the idea she allowed me to video tape her because I told her when she is older she will love looking back on what a goof she was. 

This video is classic McKenlee I hope you enjoy...

In our neck of the woods...

1. Dave got home early from work today because yesterday he was in a car accident at work in his UPS truck.  A woman rear ended him pretty bad.  So he went to the Dr. today just to have them run some tests and take some Xrays to make sure he was alright.  Thankfully he is, they just gave him some muscle relaxers for back stiffness and told him to take it easy for a few days.

2. Natalie is on a cruise to Mexico with the family of a friend and she will be gone until Monday.  I miss her like crazy of course but know she is having a great time.  Sydnee went on her first cruise with a friends family when she was in high school too so now all we are hearing from McKenlee is "when do I get to go on a cruise".  It would be nice for all of us to go together at some point.  Maybe next year.

3.  I weaned my baby hamsters this week from Mommy.  I left her one little girl with her so she wouldn't be to lonely. I put one girl in with older sister and left the 4 boys together in a big cage.  Now I just have to keep checking to make sure they remain 4 boys and 2 girls. (I know that sounds crazy but I am not kidding at this early age it is so hard to tell)  LOL  As soon as I am sure I will move one in with Dad so he isn't lonely anymore since his other son went to his new home a couple weeks ago.  Now if I can just find these other ones homes.  We are currently the owners of nine Hamsters.  Way to many.

4. Our weather is cooling off this week. Yay, highs in the upper seventies lows in the lower sixties.  This will be the first Halloween in ages where it has been cool.  Yippee!!

5. Tomorrow night since McKenlee is an only child this weekend (Sydnee at college and Natalie on a cruise) she is having some friends over for a Halloween Town movie party.  My kids love the Disney channel Halloween Town movies so this year I bought the DVD's so we could make watching them a Halloween tradition.  The junk food is bought and ready to go I just have to pick up some ice cream and toppings tomorrow.

6.  Natalie had her first High School Soccer game this week and I am happy to report she didn't spend the whole game on the bench.  In fact, she played more than she sat.  It might be because two key players were home with the flu but hey, she will take what she can get.  I was very proud of her and could tell she was really nervous but she did just fine.

7. That's what's happening in "our neck of the woods".

We survived the no TV challenge...

We did it!!!  We made it through the week.  To be honest it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  This is primarily because I knew that my beloved DVR was recording everything that I was missing.  I think it would of been ten times harder if I would of had to just totally miss all my favorite shows.  I say this because Hi, my name is Suzie and I am a TV aholic.  

The funniest part of the week was when Dave and I were sitting on our bed watching the presidential debate on our lap top.  I told him it was kind of ridiculous and we really should just go watch it in the family room and make an exception because it was the debate for heavens sake.  He being his stubborn self said no way and I of course had to follow suit because I surely couldn't let him win.  LOL

Saturday afternoon was spent, yup you guessed it watching TV.   Sydnee was home just for the day she came in Friday night for a friends B-Day party but wanted to drive back Saturday night so she could be home all day Sunday to study for an exam on Tuesday.  So we had an early dinner and she took off.

We packed up the truck with kids and chairs and headed to "movies in the park."  I talked about this more in depth here.  The movie playing was Madagascar III it was very cute.  We had McKenlee, her friend Hannah and Natalie and her boyfriend Thor.  We were met by my sister and brother in law Steve and their daughter Hannah and my friend Jenn and her husband Eric and their two girls.  Jenn's daughter Emma and my niece Hannah are only a year apart and they totally hit it off.  It was the perfect night, clear and cool.  I even got to wear a light jacket.  Woot ,Woot.

By the end of the night the little girls were getting tired and cuddly and I was lucky enough to be their lap of choice.

The picture below is of me with Hannah and Emma.

It was a nice evening spent with family and friends...

Varsity it is...

Remember here when I mentioned that Natalie was trying out for her high schools soccer team.  I also mentioned that she hasn't played soccer in 7 years and when she did she was never really sure she liked it.


Well, I guess she must of liked it a little and paid a little more attention then I thought when watching all of her sisters games she was dragged to when she was little.

Because VARSITY IT IS.  whoop, whoop.

No one was more surprised than Natalie herself and her joke last night when she found out was "my position is left bench."  LOL

While it is probably very true she will be spending a lot of time on the bench I am very proud of her and very excited to be back on those bleachers watching high school soccer games.

Way to go Natalie!!!!!

The no T.V challenge...

Saturday morning over breakfast Dave started teasing me once again over my television viewing.  My whole family LOVES to make comments on how much T.V they think I watch.  I always have to defend myself and explain that while I admit I do watch quite a few programs I am a "productive" T.V watcher and not a "mindless" T.V watcher like my husband.  I have specific shows that I watch and DVR almost everything which means no commercials which is key to productive T.V watching.  Time must not be wasted on commercials.  My husband on the other hand never watches anything in it's entirety and is constantly flipping the channels around during commercials. (this is why he never watches an entire show he gets side tracked with his flipping lol)

During this morning discussion Dave throws out the statement.

 "You could not live without your T.V"

To which I reply "You would miss T.V way more than I would"

There you have it folks the start of a challenge, because of course we both have to prove each other wrong.

So we made a pact that we will have no T.V in our house for a whole  week.  Nothing until next Saturday morning.  We are hoping this will encourage more family time.  Which I have to admit in just the two days it really has.  Saturday night after Dave took the girls to a Rowdies Soccer game they came home and played golf on the Wii.  (I was at a girls night out with some friends)
Any other time they would of come home and watched T.V.  Last evening we hung out on the back porch enjoying the cooler evening and reading before bed.

That will be my ace in the hole.  I am a reader and have 3 books on my Kindle right now I haven't gotten to because of other commitments  see: the fall lineup on T.V. ha ha   Dave did read a magazine last night but by nature is not a reader.  I give him about two more days.  lol

I will keep you posted...

Last home swim meet...

Tonight was Natalie's last home swim meet.  She still has districts and a large several high school meet on Wednesday but tonight was the last meet at our home pool.  I captured a couple videos tonight.  The first one is of Natalie swimming her best stroke Butterfly.  Please excuse my finger which briefly took center stage. lol  The one below is of the kids chant that they do every meet before and after they swim.  I secretly think it is their favorite part of the whole meet.  Can you tell I am totally loving my new Iphone??? 

Around Here...

Just a few things going on around here...

1.  Fall ball has started and McKenlee is playing.  We have new coaches and a lot of new girls on the team.  (Most of the other girls moved onto other travel ball teams once McKenlee's travel team disbanded and are not playing rec ball)  I really like it better this way.  This new coach moves the girls around a lot more and McKenlee is getting to pitch again.

2. Natalie is still swimming and practicing for the soccer team.  Try outs were last night and tonight.  They will be having a JV and Varsity team so either way she will be getting to play.  I am excited for her, I will keep you posted on what team she makes.

3.  My poor Sydnee was sick this past weekend.  Her room mate contracted strep throat and unfortunately Sydnee got it too.  She went to the campus clinic on Friday and they gave her antibiotics.  Poor thing she said at 3am Saturday morning she almost called me to come stay with her she was that miserable.  My poor girl wanted her Mommy, bless her heart she still needs me.   By Sunday afternoon though the antibiotics were kicking in and today when I talked to her she said she was tons better.  Thank goodness, I know she is an adult now but I still worry like crazy when she is sick.  Made me feel good to hear though that her circle of friends at school took excellent care of her and really went out of their way.

4.  We bought the mattress for McKenlee's bed last weekend so she can finally sleep in her own room.  I made the bed all up in there and it looks really nice.  Can't wait to get the dresser and night stand.  Dresser next month and then night stand in January. (We decided we better wait till January to get the night stand since December is such an expensive month.)  It has been so weird having to wait for it.  We have NEVER bought furniture this way.  We have always financed it and gotten it all at once.  I love the fact that we are paying cash though with no interest.  ( I know your thinking "why don't you just take advantage of the zero interest financing deals that are available all the time."

Well, been there done that. lol

We always say we will pay it off before the zero interest time limit is up and we NEVER do.  This has been a lesson in patience.

5.  I ended up keeping my Iphone upgrade because we found out that we can replace McKenlee's for $199.00 through Apple.  I didn't know that they offered that.  We haven't taken advantage of this yet because hers is working with the exception of the camera.  Clever enough though she downloaded some AP that allows her take take pictures another way.  Not really sure how, but man kids are smart these days. Plus, I am going to put off spending $199.00 as long as I can of course.  I just love the phone and Siri is a hoot.

Well, I guess that about sums up our last week or so.  I figured you probably got tired of hearing about our hamsters.  Sydnee said I should re-name the blog "House full of Hamsters."

I guess I have been a little obsessed with them lately.  But come on TEN hamsters that is definitely blog post worthy.  LOL

The re-introduction...

Today my two surviving hamsters from the first litter are 4 weeks old. I am confident that I have a little girl and a little boy. I have felt so bad for Charlie these last few weeks because he has been in his cage all by himself. He has never been by himself and it really bothered me that he might be lonely. So I decided to introduce Charlie to his son and see how it would go. Everything I read said it should be fine so today since I was home all day and I could keep an eye out I put them together. After the initial "you sniff me, I sniff you" they seemed to be doing just fine. This is how I found them just a minute ago when I went to check. I think it is safe to say that they get along pretty good.

You can't really tell in this picture but Charlie is a lot bigger than Pip (that's what we named the baby boy)
It was to cute it was like he was watching over his baby while he slept.

Hamster, Hamster, Hamsters Galore...

Last night I went to check on Lola (mommy hamster) because I knew there was the possibility that she could be pregnant again.  This was due to the fact that we were not expecting the first litter. Remember, we thought we had two girls.  So I did not remove the Daddy hamster prior to Mommy having the babies.

Everything I read on the internet about baby Robos warned me to take Daddy out before babies are born otherwise he will most certainly get busy quickly ensuring the survival of his family line.  Well, I definitely  would of done that had I been aware we were having babies.

Yes, you guessed it Lola had litter number two last night.  If I am not mistaken and it's quite possible I am (they are so tiny and all wiggling together) we have six more little hammies.

Crazy right???

Just as I was coming to terms with losing the one I have six more to worry about.  I hope Mommy isn't overwhelmed and of course I hope they all survive.

Then the hard part begins finding homes for seven hamsters.  Luckily I already have a home for one of them.

YIKES!!!  Wish me luck....

Out of her box...

Natalie has been on my mind a lot lately.  She has been very busy and hasn't been home much, I miss her.

She has been so busy with school sports and friends.  This is kind of out of character for her as she is usually my home body.  I love that she is coming out of her box a bit.  She is my shy girl and by nature not very out going but she has been turning over a new leaf lately and getting involved in more things.

She decided she wanted to try out for her high school soccer team this year.  She hasn't played soccer since she was 8 years old.  The old Natalie would  of never had the confidence to do this.  So right now she is burning the candle at both ends between swim practice and meets, soccer practice, and school work.  She has even managed to fit in some time with her friends and boyfriend into this schedule.  The old Natalie would of been overwhelmed by this.

Needless to say I am incredibly proud of her.  I love the fact that she is branching out and trying new things.  I love that she is becoming more out going and gaining confidence.  I love what a wonderful young woman she is becoming.

Yeah, I guess it's safe to say I just really love her!!!!

Standing on the field she will hopefully be playing soccer on in a few weeks.
  (It was very sunny that day can you tell? LOL)

So sad...

Sad to report I found one of the little Hamsters dead in the cage this morning.  I think it was the little girl.  Not sure yet.  They will be three weeks old tomorrow so I thought we were in the clear.  I think Mommy might be to blame.   I told myself this could happen but it sure doesn't make it any easier.  :(