TaterTot

Happy 8th birthday Caitlin!!  The youngest Goover is now eight years old.  I just don't know where the time has gone.  This means I am now eight years behind in my scapbooking........

Tater and Hannah Goovering it up!

Auntie has some time off coming up, so we will be planning a goover birthday sleepover, complete with a trip to the library, some cousin time I'm sure, and various other adventures.  There will be brownie sundaes, and I believe she has picked taco's for dinner. I'm pretty sure we'll be learning some more fabulous songs too.

I see so much of my fearless self in this young one, it scares the heck ( I was going to write something else, but if she reads it I will owe her a quarter.) out of me.  When I had the girls at the library last week I had to leave them for a minute, and I was terrified Tater would wander off, just because I know from experience how distracted one can get, and what fabulous adventure surely awaits around the next bend, even if you were told not to move.

As the girls and I were approaching the library I realized that I had to pee. ( I really love being over forty.  It's great......) They are eight and nine years old, do I have to drag them in with me?  This is a really bad neighborhood.  It's the library for Pete's sake.  What better place to snatch a kid? Arg!  About 70 scenarios flew through my mind as we approached.  There was a fabulous exhibit in the entry area, where the bathroom is, and the girls ran right over to it.  Some women were having a meeting in a room adjacent, with the door open, so I thought it was time to trust the Goovs (for the first time with me) alone for a second.

"Hannah, I'm going to use the bathroom.  You stay right here with your sister.  If anything happens that you don't like go right into this room with the ladies, or holler.  I will be back in one minute."

Bending down to eye level, holding Tater's face, I looked deep into her mischievous eyes.  "Do not move.  Not one step.  I am not kidding.  If you aren't in this spot when I come out of the bathroom I will return your books, you will get no more, and we will go straight back to your house.  Do you understand me?"  Her eyes widened as I spoke. "Yes, I understand." was her quiet reply.

That was the fastest pee in history!  The girls were exactly where I left them, and I was met with a proud bright smiling Tater.  "I didn't move, not one step!"

Yes, the baby is eight years old, and she is still my wild, willful, wonderful girl.  I am so enjoying sharing my love of reading with her.  I had forgotten how nice it is to curl up with a kid(s) and a book.  I'm used to reading to fifteen at a time.  Her passion seems to run more along the lines of art, which is not my forte, but we talked about an "art supply" birthday present, because I am nothing if not encouraging of their passions, as long as it doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer.

Happy Birthday to our baby!  Thank you for reminding me how fun the world can be when you have a free spirit!  I love you to the moon and back, and around the block! ♥  Even if I'm going to be up half the night because it's your turn to sleep with me. ;)

Tea for Two (Hundred)

For my birthday last September the Goovers (and parents) bought me a box of tea.  Yep.  A box of tea.  Now mind you within this HUGE box, there were several little boxes, each containing 20 tea bags.  I have enough tea to last me the rest of the decade!  A few Christmas' ago they bought me an electric tea maker, very similar to a four cup coffee maker, so I guess I'm all set.

Most of you know that I am a big coffee drinker. (understatement) I am also a snob when it comes to the kind of coffee I will drink. "Office" coffee will get me through in a pinch, but  I don't like it.  When I reach for that swill it's the caffeine I'm after, not the taste.  I  do enjoy tea also, but am not quite as snobby about it.  When I'm not feeling well, nothing hits the spot like good old Lipton tea with some honey in it!  I also live on Lipton iced tea in the summertime, and just like my coffee it's straight up.  No sugar, but sometimes a slice of lemon.  Homemade I might add, because I am not a fan of bottled/canned iced tea.

The best tea drink is when I add some UV Pink Lemonade(that would be vodka) to it.......  I had some Opulent pink iced tea last night at Happy Hour, and I kept thinking "This would be soooooo good with iced tea in it!"  

The tea the Goovers gave me is what I would call "snobby" tea.  There are fabulous flavors.  So far "Paris" is my favorite, followed closely by "Rubio Chai".  No one has cared for "White Grapefruit."  I wasn't surprised.  Maybe I should have a tea party, although the Goovers wont drink it.  Hmmmm an adult tea party?  Unless there's alcohol that probably wont work.

Picture from a card Hannah gave me years ago. :)

I'll just keep plugging away at it, because it's a fabulous way to warm up on a cold night, and around here we have plenty of those, even in the middle of summer.  Plus there's the added bonus of thinking of my Goovers every time I brew an aromatic cup, and that always makes me smile. ♥

Spring Breaking

This week the kids in our school district had "Spring Break".  That means there were goovers running wild all over the place!  In my old life that would mean extra kids, and older ones at that.  Why any parent would feel preschool is a good idea for an eight or nine year old is beyond me.  There are enough agencies that offer age appropriate programming..... I'm just sayin'.  Of course the older kids aren't going to behave in preschool, and can you blame them???  Anyway, I was glad to be out before this week arrived!

In my new life, it didn't really mean anything for me, except I had the chance to meet some new kids when they came in with their parents, including a lil dude who was just three days old!  I also got to flex my "Ruthie glare" at some unruly children, who immediately stopped what they were doing.  One beat feet to do some coloring and the other one ran to Mom. :)  I've still got it.

My Goovers were all over the place this week!  From the looks of his Mama facebook page TAFKAP was all over the city whooping it up with his pals.  A welcome break from homework I am sure!  Ashlyn and Hannah were up at Canal park, and playing in the water at the Edge.  Their youngest sister, Tater, was down in the Dells with a friend and her family at the water parks.  Apparently she was even at the House on the Rock. (Now I"M jealous too!)

 Cierra was just hanging with Mom, beepopping along.  BUT:  For the very first time I asked Cierra a question, and she answered me.  Answered me vocally.  Granted it was:  "CeCe, what does a cow say?"  The answer was correct: "Mooooooooooo"   Then her mother told me to try lamb, so I did, and the answer was  "Baa-Baa".  Now to some of you that might look small and mundane, but it was so huge I can't even put it into words!  A couple of weeks back Cierra had new tubes put in her ears, and since then she has been talking at school (mostly saying "Hi") talking more at speech at UMD, and now actually communicating things that she knows.  That end part is the big thing. 

Oh yeah, and that dang Ashlyn got her drivers permit.  HOW can she be that old already???  I've told her to let me know when she's ready and I'll let her take out a car with some REAL power behind it.  Yes, I am fully insured. :)

Ice Princess x3

Here they are ladies and gentlemen!  Princesses on ice, or goovers on ice, which I prefer.  Another blog last New Years already has that name.  Again I'm behind on the blogging, but sometimes even though the need to write is there, the will is not I guess.  I had the words, just some other stuff rattling around up there mucking up the works.  If I had waited two more seconds to take the picture I would have had all three of the goovers down on the ice. :)

This was my first adventure with the little goovs on skates.  Ashlyn and I have been skating together for years.  They did a really good job!  Hannah, who is eight, skated very well for her third time on skates.  She was slow and cautious and working her way around the edge of the rink near the boards for the most part.  She was able to balance well on her own and didn't fall too many times.

Caitlin, as usual, was another story all together.  If there are any Olympic coaches out there reading this you might want to glom on to this child.  I have some video, but I'm not sure I can hook it onto the blog.  Every time I add mobile posting things go horribly wrong.  Where she is lacking in skill she more than made up for in speed and balance.  We were working hard on slowing down and using two feet to skate.  She skates like she is running, or she skates like she is riding on a scooter.  One foot stays still and the other one pushes her along.  She is six years old, it was her third time on skates, and she was doing laps around the rink.  During the video she got tangled up a bit, did a spin and kept on going without losing her balance.  Twice during Hannah's video she blazes on through.  That child is fearless.  Which I equally admire and fear.

Ashlyn?  Well, she skated around helping her sisters.  She doesn't have friends who ice skate, so she thinks it's nice that they can do this as a family. (the kids)  That's a pretty good attitude for a fifteen year old.  Me?  I didn't have my skates on because I didn't know how much help the goovers were going to need.  Next time I will wear them, but when I do I want to SKATE, forwards, backwards, little bit of a jump cause I still can!  I love to ice skate, but I don't want Caitlin to get any bright ideas.

We are having a very odd winter here.  It was snow covered and freezing last weekend.  We actually tried to go to the Alloueze rink (Franklin) but the lazy (read the story about my stalker in Goovers on Ice) dumb ass who works there didn't bother to shovel.  In his own words to my sister in law "Not my job.  I'm just an underpaid glorified babysitter."   Ha.  Mind you, he probably makes more than I do per hour.  So then we went to east end where they did at least shovel off the hockey rink.  Sorry for the pick marks hockey skaters.  NOT !   This weekend the snow is just about gone, and we are going to be in the forties, so the rinks will all be melting. :(  Glad we went last weekend when we had the chance!

Intolerous!

The spell checker is going to go wild on this one! 

Yes, I know that isn't a word.  It is a Hannahism.  My niece Ashlyn is lactose intolerant, and for whatever reason, the goovers think it's hilarious.  Their cat is also, and back a few years ago Hannah shouted out "Piggy is lactose intolerous!" (the cat, not her sister) So, that's where the word intolerous comes from.

I love milk.  I have always been a huge milk drinker, but stopped buying it when I moved in here, because it kept going bad.  Half the time I don't eat here, and in the warmer months I will always reach for iced tea.  So in the last four years or so I've rarely had a glass of milk, but thoroughly enjoyed it when I did.  That is, up until a year ago.

When I had the girls for five days last New Years I made hot buttered Cherrios for Ash and I one night after the goovs had gone to bed. (they aren't fond of them) We sat down with our snack to play Monopoly, and I had a big glass of milk.  Now, O's are really salty, so I had a second big glass of milk.  I paid for that the rest of the night.  I was thinking I had a tummy bug, but woke up in the morning just fine.  Then the next night I had a glass and immediately had tummy trouble.

Inconceivable!  Me?  Lactose intolerous?  That just can't be!  Well, it is.  It's so bad now that after one small glass the other night my tummy hurt.  I had a splash in my cafe mocha this morning........ not good.  Why?????  Ugh.  No I'm not drinking that soy crap, don't even bring it up.  I forget who I was talking to about getting older and all of these weird things happening, like suddenly becoming lactose intolerous, and she assured me that many of these oddities right themselves again as time goes by.  I sure hope so!  I long for the day when I am "tolerous" again!

Yes, the irony that my cat's name is Milkie does not escape me.   :)  I'm still tolerous of her, mostly. 

Moves Like Hannah

It's hard to believe that Hannah (Oh well)Noelle is eight years old today!  The time goes by so quickly.  You blink and they are walking, blink again and it's the terrible two's, turn around and they're starting school.  It seems to go even faster now that all the kids are in school full time.  Hannah is in second grade this year, and is "the smartest kid in my class."  It's possible.  She also thinks she is smarter than her fifteen year old sister.  It starts early.

For the first time I actually got to have the kids on one of their birthdays!  Hannah sent a message through her mother to me on facebook (she isn't allowed to have one yet) asking when they could stay over, and it lined up right for last night.  She chose Pizza Hut for dinner, and we actually went to the restaurant, which didn't turn out too badly, and brownie sundae's, by Auntie, for dessert.  "Can we have BOTH kinds of ice cream, PLEASE Auntie?"  Then we watched the movie "Hocus Pocus", which was a big hit for the little goovers.  Ash was out cold on the couch before eight thirty.  Hannah made it the longest and fell asleep around ten.

This morning she wanted hot chocolate, pancakes, and bacon.  We also watched Hocus Pocus again, which was mostly play time while it ran in the back ground.  Hannah and Caitlin also got to set up my fall village, and they had a good time playing with that.  We played some War, and Hannah taught me some new dance moves!  She is starting to become less shy, and more like the hurricane of her very young days.

Happy Birthday my baby!  I'm so glad that I got to spend some of your special day with you!  Love you with all of my heart!!!   ♫ I got the moves like Hannah, I got the moves like Hannah, I got the moooooooves like Hannah♫

A Rainbow of Goovers

That would be Aunt Ti-Ti on the left and Aunt Jenny on the right. From left to right it goes like this: Tater, Nana, CeCe Butt, Fred~the artist formerly known as Pablo, and last but not least Baby Easter Pig Nose. Auntie Pig nose is taking the pic, so she is not represented. :) That's ok. You know what I look like. I did get a hair cut the other day though. I can't really feel the difference because my hair is so thick, but when I tried to put it in a long glorious pony tail.... it was just a stump and I almost cried.

We colored eggs yesterday at my house. The older the kids get the more fun it is, because they take their time now, and are starting to get a little more artistic. Next year maybe I'll buy one of the cooler kits. Ashlyn and I used to play with those when she was 9 or so. (that would be the aforementioned baby Easter pig nose) Yesterday she asked me if I remembered the Easter when we tried to blow out the egg. I did, and then after the coloring, we dragged out the old albums and finally in the very last one we found the pictures. We also found the pictures of our Easter tea party, complete with dresses and hats.

Many times I've blogged about Ash being the light of my life, so she knows that. Finally I was able to point to something (the tea party pictures) and say there is an example. Ashlyn that was a horrible day in my life, and there you were with your tea set anxious and ready to play, so we did, and for awhile I was able to escape to a happier place.

Thanks for coloring the eggs for me, Goovers! They'll taste yummy all deviled up for Easter tomorrow. Can't wait for the big Easter Egg hunt!