Hupdates. Alternate title: Dear blog, I have been having an affair with real life.

We had vacation bible school last week.  I was in charge of the story telling room, and built -in this order- a mountain top and a burning bush, Pharaoh’s palace, an Israelite village, the upper room in Jerusalem, and the Red Sea-parted.  (That reminds me of my favorite lyric in Love Shack, “Tiiiiiiin Roof—Rusted“.  Now whenever I say the Red Sea I sing it, “Reeeed Sea–Parted”. )  What was I talking about?  Oh yes, vacation bible school.  I would say I probably spent about 40 hours this past week either at church, or building sets at home.

The worst night would be the evening  I had my room all ready the night before, Israelite houses built and the blood (red paint) in place to teach about Passover, and my Grandma decided to help.  Oh, have I not mentioned yet that she was my helper?  She was my helper.   That night, she got to church way before me and “helped” by “cleaning” up my classroom.  And taking down the set.  And throwing away all of the pieces.   I just switched the lesson around and it was fine, the kids never knew the difference.  That same night she spilled an entire pitcher of red juice on the sisal rug in my classroom.   Who knew the blood of Christ could not be Oxycleaned?   Dear Lord, please forgive me for joking about Holy Communion, but seeing as how you know about the kind of week I had, I think you understand.

I was shaking I was so exhausted when I finally came home that last night, and we all slept late the next day.  The Son just loved VBS.  He has started wanting to say his own prayers at night since VBS began.  They all start “Dear God, Thank you for letting me ride on the big airplane, and for vacation, and the funny car, and the hotel in Pennsylvania,  and for vacation bible school, and church, and my trains, and for Herbie.”  They continue with just Thank You’s for several minutes.  So far he has not been thankful for his parents, but I really don’t care.  Hearing my two year old pray, on his own with no prompting is the best positive feedback I have gotten as a parent thus far.   Last night he fell asleep mid sentence.  “Thank you for that man who….”  “Is he asleep?” “I think so.”  We got up to leave, and he said “Amen.” and rolled over and went back to sleep.  That kid just melts my heart sometimes.

I had one day of rest and then it was on to the next thing, cleaning and decorating for 7daytrial’s virtual baby shower!  I cut out approximately 4 million circles to use in my polka dot theme, but it turned out really, really cute.  I will post pictures and tell you all about it soon.

Next up, I have to get on the ball with my MOPS responsibilities.  Oh, did I not tell you?  I have been asked to be on the steering committee for MOPS this year.  I am the fund raising person.  I have to mail out hundreds of letters this week begging for money from local businesses, all the while convincing them that I am not begging but giving them a great chance to advertise.   I am mostly praying that I raise enough–because even though our community has not been super hard hit by the recession, it still is not a good time to ask for money.  After that we have a huge fundraiser we do with a local photographer– local moms, EMAIL ME!  I still have some really cheap coupons left to get professional pictures of your kiddos.  Like ten bucks cheap.  The Neighbor?  I am saving one for you.

We also finally, FINALLY settled with the insurance company for The Husband’s wreck he had back in January.  We prayed a lot over this one, and felt like we were being told not  to be greedy and fight for more than they offered.  He is well, the car is fixed, and medical bills will be paid–it was not worth going to court for more.

Hmm.  What else?  Uncle D and his friend came to visit, that was nice.  Umm, oh, the monolithic swing set got blown over by another storm, and The Husband said a “daddy” word or seven.  The Son is going to have a Herbie themed third birthday, and believe it or not I am going to go low key for it since we will be leaving for vacation that same week.   We are just inviting family and his three bestest, his age exactly friends.  I did, however, find a real live Disney made Herbie to come and make an appearance.    He is going to FLIP out.

Yeah, that is pretty much it.  Sorry I have been neglecting my blog, but you know what?  Sometimes it is either that or neglect life, and I just can’t do that when I have such a nice one.   So, tell me, what has been going on with you internet?  You have been pretty quiet the last few weeks,  so comment! Tweet!  Go update your blogs!

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A close runner up

Clean off my camera week concludes with the second cutest face on the block.  Although I am sure his Mama would disagree.

Tomorrow The Son, my parents, my grandparents, and I will be leaving for New York; leaving The Husband here alone.   Take good care of him if you see him, remind him to eat his veggies and wear his mask and water my plants.   I am bringing my laptop and there is supposedly WiFi, so I will update on Thursday hopefully.   If you happen to be outside tomorrow and hear screaming coming from the sky, don’t worry–it just means the flight with my almost three year old and eighty something year old grandpa is not going so well.   If it is followed by a big boom, it is just my head exploding from the horrible stares of our flight companions.  If that were to happen– Ang gets the books, Cat gets the clothes, and  Shoeshe gets the shoes.

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She has never been too cool.

Clean off my camera week continues with ShoeShe demonstrating to two year old boys how to play in the sprinkler properly.  She does a good job.  One of my biggest pet-peeves are people who think they are too cool to be silly and have fun.  She has never ever been one of those people.

My favorite part is H in the background wondering “What the heck is this “grown-up” doing?”

What grace. What form.  She gets a 9.7 in the sprinkler jumping Olympics.

H is all “Lordy here she comes again, I am MOVING!”

Last time.  Make it count, the Canadian judge is being harsh.

Awesome.

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Neighbors, puddles, and tricycles.

Thank the Lord Almighty, the rain has finally stopped.  We finally get to see our neighbors who we have only seen to wave at from under our umbrellas for the last month.   The sun came out, and so did we.

The grown-ups stood around and chatted about things like French drains and fill dirt and grass.   This is The Neighbor’s Husband, he likes grass. That came out wrong.  Let me try again.  He has a beautifully maintained yard.  Whereas, if The Husband and I could have a goat do our yard work we would.

The Neighbor was there too, but she was feeling camera shy.  Hey, she has a secret. I think she should tell the Internet in the comments section, don’t you?

The boys rode their bicycles.

Well, H rode his bicycle.   He is an athletic genius.  Seriously,you should see him swing a bat. The Son?  Hmm. We can’t all be Lance Armstrong, and unfortunately genetics is not on his side as far as physical prowess goes.  He is really just now starting to be able to peddle his trike more than a few feet.

He also gets stuck in every little crack in the road.

And we make him wear his helmet for a very good reason.

The Son thinks I should put down the Nikon and come rescue him.

Why would I do that when H can help him?

That H is a mighty sweet kid.  He even brushed the dirt off of The Son.

Gotta climb back on that horse kiddo.

He may not be that great at it, but you have to admit the kid has spunk.  Not a tear or whine in sight.

He is getting better everyday, and I happen to know for a fact that there is a bigger tricycle in the attic waiting on him.  I bet we get it out any day now.

Then we can watch him ride into the sun set.

The End.

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Dr. Ang came through for us.

See over there on the right where it says Read it or Rant?  Well there is a new one up thanks to Dr. Ang, she reviewed A Lion Amoung Men for us. You guys wanted the Read it or Rants to have their own page, so go on over there and join in the fun.

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The Magic 2008 Ball, pee on everything, and the worst segue ever.

TheHuckablog was one year old yesterday. I did not start telling people about it until around the end of February, but have been writing it for a year now. I keep a file filled with ideas for posts on my laptop. It seems to be a black hole because I never seem to write anything from those ideas; maybe I should change the title of the folder to something I might open on a regular basis, like “How to take a shower when you have a two year old boy who insists on trying to injure himself or others when left unsupervised for more than 20 seconds,”  or something similar. Anyway, in the folder which is now titled, “Ideas for Huckablog” there is a partially written post called, “The Magic 2008 Ball”. I was going to come up with some questions for what was going to happen in 2008 and use an Eight Ball to predict the future. It was going to be cute, and easy, and fun to follow up whether the ball had any right answers. I never did it. I got busy, I needed to write about other things, I never found the pictures I wanted to go along with the post, and then it just seemed weird to write about 2008 predictions in August.

I deleted the post from the folder today. Just in case you were wondering, none of the predictions were right (Hillary Clinton is not the president elect for example.)

I am sorry I have not bothered to write a real post in weeks. I have had a nice vacation and have been spending time traveling and with family and friends I rarely get to see, and while I am sad to see how low my hits dropped this month, I think I needed a little blog break.

I got to see CAT long enough to hug her and talk about The Office, I had a cheese pizza with Ang long enough for The Son to insure she may choose to never have children, and Shoeshe came to stay for a few days. While Shoeshe was here we took my teenage cousin and The Son to the best, cheesiest amusement park on earth where The Son rode a roller coaster which my BiL will not even ride, and I got nauseous on the teacups we had to ride twice (pictures to follow). She also stymied my panic attack in a laundromat at two AM as we washed bathmats and kitchen rugs that my OMFG why will you not just pee outside you whacked out little mutt new dog seems to have confused as her own personal lavatory. Shoeshe never even complained. Not even when I told her she could wash her feather pillow. Ooops.

We got to see all of our grandparents, some for longer than others, The Husband’s cousin from Texas whom we love and who I envy because she can wear boots without looking ridiculous, another cousin with a baby almost as cute as mine. We saw Gabs, my cousin who lives with my Ma (my grandma, her Great-Grandma), who is ENGAGED, which makes me feel really old because I was old enough to be holding her when her umbilical stump fell off (I screamed and handed her back to her mother.) We spent another great weekend at the elder (but not old) Huckablog’s Scenic Compound where I laid in the hammock even though it was 40 degrees outside. I am glad I did it then, because I may never be invited back because my OMFG why will you not just pee outside you whacked out little mutt new dog chose to pee on MMiL’s feather bed. All in all it has been a bad season for feather linens.

So that, in a nutshell, is what we have been up to around here, plus you know, like parenting and stuff. New Years resolution! Not to say like and stuff so much! Hey, how about some New Years’ resolutions? (did you like my segue?)

Here are my 2009 resolutions for TheHuckablog.

1. Add a pictures page. I have tons of pictures I would like to share, but cannot always come up with time to write about them. To relieve the stress, and make relatives happy, I will just post directly to a separate page and people who want to look at twelve pictures of The Son eating spaghettios can, while other’s can ignore them.

2. Add a book club page which other people write. Some of you miss the Read it or Rants, others want to start a book club, I want to read what other people think about books other than Thomas, the Tank Engine. First book for the book club is really a series. Twilight. I know, I know, that is so 2008. CAT told me not to waste my time, MMiL thought it was okay, others think it is the BEST.BOOK.EVAH!

3. Finally get around to doing what it takes to have ads. By someone other than an EVIL CORPORATION THAT I AM PRETTY SURE SLAUGHTERS KITTENS AND PROBABLY HATES THE SIMPSONS.

4. Do the leg work to have some cool give aways. Did you know lots of blogs get cool free stuff to give away? I want to do that!

5. Write a post at least every other day…unless I need a vacation…or want to read instead…or have time for a toddler free shower.

Happy 2009 everyone.

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Two birds? One stone.

This is Ang.  Today is her birthday!  Happy Birthday Ang!  A few months ago I wrote a post about my bridesmaids, and she said that she never got a single picture from my wedding.  Hmm, I know!  How about I scan some of the pictures from my wedding that have her in them and post them on my blog! That way I can give her a free but lovingly scanned and posted birthday present, and get a post for NaBloPoMo on a day that I am still in a turkey coma.  Two birds. One stone,  but please nobody throw a stone at Ang on her birthday.  Maybe a cupcake, but not a stone.

If you have no interest in wedding pictures of people you may not know at a wedding that happened over five years ago, please scroll down and read and comment on this and this, I really want to know what you think! Really!

Here she is walking down the aisle.  That flower ball was apparently very heavy.  Maybe that accounts for the grimace, or it could be trying to walk in a straight line after all the wine at the salon.

Speaking of wine…..sorry Cat.  That red, white and blue tent? Sigh.  Another post for another time.

See Gabs’ feet?  And the bottom of my mom’s dress?  Sigh.   Ang looks like she is having fun, and when I bought them I had no idea how much we would need those navy flip-flops

This is Joe, they have been together for eleventy-billion years.  Or ten.  Whatever.

This would be the bridal party dance right before water got into the speakers and stopped the music for good.  I wonder why the bride is not wearing a wedding dress? Sigh.

Toasting! More wine!  Is Shoeshe okay?  She looks a little like she might pass out.

Ha ha ha Joe, very funny.  Now put it away.

Speaking of Joe, here he is again.  Walking.  You know wedding pictures are kinda boring.

Who is that cutie on the right?  My darling groom.  He looks happy, I was too.

At the time the flower balls seemed like a good idea.

How come the women have to do all of the heavy lifting and the men just have to stand there.  See that guy on the far right?  Another blog post all his own.

I hope this is what you were looking for Ang!  Happy Birthday!

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