Whew!

This is Sareese.  She's 19.  She's Marcus' cousin.  Doesn't she look sweet? She almost killed me.  And her friend, Lorraine.

This is me.  Notice the helmet. 

At the time, I was joking that I was scared.  You see, I am in the passenger seat.  Sareese is in the driver's.  Lorraine, Sareese's friend, was in the back. I didn't get a picture of her but her facial expression didn't show someone who was comfortable with the seat assignment.  (This should have been my warning to get out of the car.)  However, Sareese needs practice driving before her test in December.  Lucky me,  I volunteered to take her driving to hone up on her skills before the big day.  Let's just say, my left hand turned into a wheel grabber (multiple times) during this adventure and my right foot had a lot of practice pumping that non-existent brake!  I took the chance of having her drive in the dark with fewer cars versus in the daylight with more people sharing the road, in hopes that I would go home in one piece.  That was almost a deadly decision when she decided to take a left onto a road and stay in the lane of on-coming traffic, while insisting she was in the correct lane, until a car came barreling head on towards us!  If we hadn't gotten out of the way in time, I don't think that helmet would have saved me.  Just a guess. 
Whew!  Thanks Sareese for making me grateful to see another day! :)

Twizzlers

Chip clips and bag clips, I love them.  I have a whole drawer full of them.  So handy.  Lots of things to use them for: chips, snack mixes, puff corns, frozen vegetable bags, hash brown bags, bags of rice...pretty much anything you want sealed to stay nice and fresh.  I even used them on a bag of Twizzlers recently.  I hate hard Twizzlers.  So the other day I go into the cupboard to get a little snack.  And I found the Twizzlers bag.

Yep, just the bag.  And the bag clip.  Sealed for freshness.  No Twizzlers.

This leads to one of my biggest pet peeves and a reminder to those who are guilty of this.  When you take the last item out of the container, throw it away, please!  I hate going to the cupboard, reaching inside a box of treats, and finding my fingers dancing along the walls of the box to find nothing!  It happens too frequently in my house.  But I had to laugh when I saw this Twizzlers bag, obviously empty, and there was enough energy to put the seal back on but not to actually throw it in the garbage!  This time the culprit was Jaymeson, according to his dad. :)

Simple Things

I've heard multiple times this past week, from parents of older kids, to cherish the time the kids are small because the time flies by too fast.  I don't doubt this is true and have seen how quickly my own boys continue to grow each day.  It makes me sad actually.  I love the endless hugs and snuggles and need for Mommy, even the days when I feel like my body is not mine because in some way or form I have a child clinging to me.
I love that this past week Jaymeson was so excited for me to come read to his class on Friday...I'm still "cool" in his eyes and am hoping I have many more years of that before that changes.

Friday morning I rushed home from work to take the boys to school and read to the pre-schoolers.  I love that Jaymeson was full of smiles and proud to have me in his classroom.  I read two books about Miss Spider.  Jaymeson had a perma-grin through both stories and couldn't quit giggling.  The class thanked me for reading the stories and Jaymeson made sure the kids thanked him too for bringing the book. :)
Mommy time well spent before rushing home to get some zzzz's and pick them back up after lunch. 

And talking about cherishing moments, gotta love the excitement of seeing fresh snow for the first time this year!  Jaymeson rushed to the window and quickly exclaimed, "Mommy!  It's snowing!  Can we go see Uncle Jeramiah now? Can we go sledding?  This is a SUPER SURPRISE!"  It's the simple things...

The simple things:  My boy's excitement for snow. That he is excited to go see his uncle in Colorado for New Year's (because he's been told we have to wait for the snow to fall first).  That he's been dancing and singing to the songs on his daddy's I-Pod this morning.  And most importantly, that he does it all in his underoos!

Basketball

This morning we drove down and watched Marcus' cousin, Ross, sign on with Penn State on a scholarship to play basketball.  Way to go Ross!  This is a great accomplishment and I am hoping that Jaymeson will remember a bit of this day, although I think he might remember the two cookies he ate more. :)  At least there's pictures, right?

Seeing that hard work and dedication to the sport of basketball can pave the way to college (Marcus also played hoops in college), why not start our son early and get him into the game?  So we did.  Jaymeson had his first basketball practice this evening.  Much to his father's delight, he loves the game and had a great practice.  So fun to watch!

A couple weeks ago we had the opportunity to have our family photos taken. Here's a few of them.

Photography by Mycah Schrader