Saying Hi to Stephen

Tomorrow, we'll be "saying Hi to Stephen", according to my children, aged 8 and 5. Little do they know that we'll probably be so far back in the crowds that Stephen and Jon will look like miniature ants on the podium.

Yes, we are insane. My normal "by the book" husband is actually taking the day off work, letting the kids skip school, putting even more miles on my Honda that's quickly approaching 200,000+, imposing on a friend I haven't seen since college graduation in 2001 (Wait! I saw her at the 1 year reunion the next year! So it was 2002!), and driving 8 hours one way in a car JUST to get a glimpse of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart at their faux political rally at the Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

If this is a rally in jest, why are so many people so serious about it?
Comedy Central comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are staging their Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the National Mall in Washington beginning at noon Saturday.
It started seemingly in fun, as a satirical poke at Fox News pundit Glenn Beck, whose Restoring Honor rally near the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28 drew from 87,000 to 1,600,000 people, depending on how wacked-out your estimate was.
But many locals who plan to go to Washington Saturday - in carpools, chartered buses, packed trains - aren't laughing. Asked why they're going, they're dead serious.
"Because the political scene has become truly insane," Karen Kaplan of Ambler wrote in an e-mail.
Allan Lundy, 63, a research consultant in Wyncote, said, "The political discourse has been so nasty and negative that there has to be a countervailing current that's more moderate and more reasonable."
When did this rally cross over from clowning to protest? Can you have a joke if for thousands it's no laughing matter? Will real protests break out at a faux event?
The actual content of the rally had been secret, but the Washington Post reported Thursday on its website that musical guests would include the Roots, Sheryl Crow, and Jeff Tweedy and Mavis Staples.

 

Cool! There's going to be musical acts! Awesome! I love Sheryl Crow, so I'm excited!
And the reason we are attending?

To be sure, some are going for the fun of it. That would include Easton, Pa., native Max Walker, 19, a student at George Washington University in Washington. "I watch both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and I'm going," he said. "Everybody I know is going. It's a fun, social thing to do; I'm not trying to make a point or anything."

We are so excited to be a part of the festivities tomorrow and especially excited that the kids are going with us. For sure, it will be a great (but fast!) family trip to our nation's capitol!

Wordless Wednesday: Fall Fun

Linking up with Molly at Synder 5 for this Wednesday post :)

I Heart Faces: Pink

Our local hair salon participated in Pink Hair for Hope which raises money for both the National Breast Cancer foundation and the American Cancer Society. Jaina, my 8 year old daughter, was thrilled to be able to participate this year. Once she received her pink hair, it opened her eyes up to everything else that went pink this month to raise awareness.

Go check out all the other PINK entries over at I Heart Faces and be sure to enter your own!

Jaina the Therapist

The thing with having therapists in your home 9 hours a week is that the become part of your family :) So not only Jayce benefits from the programs they teach, but Jaina and I get friends at the same time!

Jaina just adores these ladies :) She's always drawing pictures for them or sharing news of her day.

When she saw their pink hair extensions to support October's Breast Cancer Awareness  Month, she just had to get in on the fun!

Its hard to see Kimberly or Meg's hair extensions, but I promise they are there!

We have so much fun with these ladies. After all, their main job is to help Jayce be the most like a typical 5 year old boy as possible by enjoying the things all kids like!

Like cookies!

More Fall pictures to come later!

More Oktoberfest and we have a Winner!

You guys were all correct! It was the Chicken Dance :) The kids in International Choir and Dance Club performed it marathon style for a good 30 minutes!

And then they also showed us other traditional German folk dances. It was quite fun!

Here's a picture of Jaina and her best friend Eva and Jaina's (sort of) boyfriend Landon.

I just love Landon :) I don't mean to, but I usually embarrass the heck out of Jaina and Landon whenever they are together at school. We've been friends with Landon and his parents since Kindergarten. They are great people :) If I believed in arranged marriages (which I don't!) I'd totally be signing Jaina and Landon up :) I told Jaina that if they did grow up and get married one day, I'd show everyone at their reception pictures of them as elementary school friends.

Oh, and we have a winner!

Thank you to everyone who participated in my very first blog giveaway! The winner is my friend over at Bunch of Barons. Congratulations! I'm emailing you right now!

And I'll leave you with some more pictures we took after the dancing and singing!

Name That Dance

Its Oktoberfest time!

(except since we celebrate at a local elementary school, there is no beer involved.)

To kick the festival off right, the kids participated in a group dance.

Can you guess which one?

Leave your guess in the comments below and be entered into a drawing to win a $10 gift card from Hobby Lobby Craft Store. Everyone can use some more Fall decorations, right?

Thanks for playing! Winner will be chosen by Tuesday night.

Soccer Game Five

Oh, its really sad when you are posting pictures from a previous game a mere 3 hours before the next week's game starts. To say that I'm a bit behind would be an understatement!

I cannot believe that today marks Game 6 in our season! There are only 8 games! And we may possibly miss the last one due to being out of town. Wow, this season sure has flown by!

My pictures suck from Game 5, sorry about that. I couldn't take a single shot of Jayce's game due to my last minute appointment of Assistant Coach for that game. Although it was fun to help out again like that, it did remind me about why I'm a much better parent on the sidelines than on the field with the little ones. Thank goodness Jayce's coach will be back for Game 6 today!

Hopefully my friend Becca's husband will email me some pics of Jayce.

I wish he could email me some of Jaina's game, too. I was having a lazy photo day. I didn't get up from my chair once. I spent more time talking to my friend Tracy than I did paying attention to my settings. 1/2 my pictures are blurry. 1/2 of them are exposed incorrectly. So, here's one of Jaina. Just one!

She really played well!! I'm so proud of Jaina and how much she's learned about soccer over the years!

And here's a few of Miss Caroline, my friend's darling two year old :)

I promise to do better with pictures today!! :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

Ten on Ten

Today I'm linking up with Ten on Ten  to document my life as it was on the 10th day of the month of October.

Jaina and I woke up at 7:30 yesterday, however, this photo was taken around 8 AM. The sun hadn't been up long at all :)

Jayce was at my mom's house so we didn't make our typical Sunday big breakfast. Instead, Jaina recruited me to play Barbie Mini-Kingdom with her.

It didn't take me long to have quite enough of that. I settled for some hot chocolate in peace instead :)

Brian usually sleeps in until 9:00 AM when the kids and I descend on his bed forcing him to get up. On this day, however, we enjoyed the peace and quiet. Brian finally got up about 10. And wondered where his big breakfast was. I told him he was lucky to get cinnabon poppers from the microwave.

We move slow on Sundays... can't you tell?

11:00 AM found me scrubbing tarnish off my pampered chef sandwich press with a lemon and sea salt. By golly, it really worked. The internet is good for something after all!

Ugh. Grocery list. Please don't make fun of me for not knowing how to spell "vinaigrette". I wish real life had a spell checker like my computer does.

Can you guess what the next hour's photo looked like?

Exciting lives, I tell ya.

Here's Jaina, an hour later, modeling her new headband she got at the grocery store. Yes, we know she's spoiled rotten. Isn't it adorable?

After grocery shopping, it was time to collect my youngest back from Grandma's house.

My baby. My sweet boy. My poor little allergy stricken coughing boy :( That's why he doesn't look happy.

An hour later found the kids dressed up in their new halloween costumes while doing crafts at the kitchen table. Yep, just a typical Sunday for us!

Jayce is still insisting that he's NOT going to dress up as Harry Potter for Halloween, but go as a tornado instead. If any of my dear readers have any clue how to make a tornado costume that does not involve the use of chicken wire, please let me know! Thanks!

Park Days

Fall also means "let's drop everything and head to the park!" days :) It may sound strange to you northerners who only get 8-10 weeks of 80 degree summer a year, but we don't go outside hardly at all from June to August.

Its just too darn hot. The only times that there isn't a heat advisory in effect is at 8 AM and 6 PM. Oh, and don't forget about the humidity.

So we reserve our park days for Spring and Summer mostly. Oh, and those random days through out the year when its unseasonably the right temperature for the park. You just never know in South Carolina :)

You gotta love those 30 degree temperature changes. It was 54 degrees this morning at 7 AM. The high today is predicted to be in the mid-80's. Jaina's in long sleeves right this second and I can bet you anything that she'll be changing into shorts soon.

And my husband is complaining that I haven't switched their Fall clothes all the way over yet in their closet? Really?

That's another rant for another post :)

So, this week we found ourselves at a local park after school on 3 separate occasions.

Although, maybe going to the *same* park three times in one week does get a little old. We may try a different park next week :)