NaBloPoMo: I blew it! I did get a few days further along than I did last year. Besides, Joshua was home from college for the weekend and we were chatting alone. I realized about 5 minutes till midnight that I hadn't blogged. So, Joshua grabbed his laptop and booted up (his is faster than mine). However, it was 12:02 when I was ready to blog. LOL. No, NaBloPoMo is not an obsession...

Shawn will be 16 on Tuesday. (It's hard to believe he was 13 when he came to live with us. He is SO one of us.) So, yesterday we had a birthday party for him. He requested bowling (again, because is was SO much fun last year.) Well, I scheduled it for this weekend, because he will be with his dad next weekend. What I didn't consider is that Nate has soccer on Saturdays. Or at least I didn't consider the possibility that he would have an 11:00 game. So, I had to enlist the help of Super Grandma.

I asked Grandma to stop by the grocery store for a cake, snacks and drinks. I DO NOT bake birthday cakes! And I forgot to order one from Costco, which is my usualy route. So, the party went on without a hitch... Yeah right.

It's lookin' good.

Shawn and his best friend (not Shawn's girlfriend) Alex

It's (not Shawn's girlfriend) Alex, again.

Shawn was giving Nate some pointers.

Shawn's friends (sorry guys, I'm bad with names)

Hmmm, will it stay on the alley?

Hilda and, umm, Shawn's friend (Justin, Jonathan, Matt?)

Joshua, (yes, she's Joshua's girlfriend) Brandi and Brian

Nate and Jacob, both up on different lanes.

Ah, the cake. Know what happens when you wait til the last minute to get a birthday cake? You can't fins what you want. Sometimes, you have to improvise. Sometimes you even have to settle for cake with a different theme. And, if there is a creative decorator in the bakery, no one will know the difference (until you blog about it).

So Grandma found this cake. Only instead of the football...it had blue booties and said "It's a boy!" The cake decorator knew just what to do, scoop up the booties and writing (but don't actually remove it from the cake). Then cover it with half a plastic football and write "Happy Birthday Shawn" When we removed the football to cut the cake, there was a blue and white icing lump under it. And that's the rest of the story...

Oh yeah, I forgot the candles too...

Shawn's friends have an interesting sense of humor.

Shawn's moonwalk backward throw gutter ball move

Aw man, Game over!

Nate is the kissing police. Here he trying to separate Brandi and Joshua.

NaBloPoMo: Day 12 (I think)

My friend Aimee introduced me to 12 of 12 several months ago. Usually, I completely forget until I see hers posted on her blog. 12 of 12 is 12 random photos of your day taken on the 12th of the month. You record the time and something that is going on at that time. So, here is 12 of 12 today.

Thursday is my most busy, least favorite day of the week. I am busy all day, sitting on my butt. Seriously, Class, after class, after class; from 8am to 5 pm. Then work from 6pm until 8:30ish (9 pm tonight). So how do you take 12 random photos of 13 hours in a classroom? Well, it goes something like this...

7:30am - off to school

7:40am - drop off
7:50am - caffeine "Oh Thank Heaven..."

Almost 8:00am - walking across campus

10:15am - Alex and Priscilla prepping for a presentation

10:30am - Solane and Shanisha being studious

We interrupt this wildly exciting 12 of 12, so I can attend six straight hours of class. I was thinking about photographing the profs, but somehow, it just didn't seem like a good idea. My classmates already thought I was a little crazy for taking random pictures of them.

5:30pm - Bertha, Fernando and I working on data analysis

9:00pm - Brian still carries my books

9:30pm - the sign in front of our house

9:35 - Just because his shirt was funny

9:40pm - The real reason I don't like Thursdays

9:45 - I don't get to tuck my boys in.

NaBloPoMo: Day 11

I decided to dig way back for today's random photo. Thing was September 2006. We went to Yosemite (one our favorite places). This is Jacob, just barely 6. Younger than Nate is now. Boy, we make 'em cute don't we?

Here are a few more photos from the same day, because it was so much fun to see these again. I love Yosemite. And I love these boys SO MUCH!

Nate was 3. Isn't he so darn cute?

Here we have Joshua at 15, with the sun in his eyes.

NaBloPoMo: Day 10 (I beat last year's day streak!)

This one is not random in the sense that I chose it randomly. But, it's a "random" picture. Shawn makes this silly/weird face, that cracks me up and so I had to snap a picture. Gotta love this kid. He's so...RANDOM!

NaBloPoMo: Day 9

Choosing random photos gets kind of boring, so I have the kids help sometimes, in random ways. Tonight, I asked Shawn to pick 3 random numbers/digits. He chose 2,3,5. So, these pictures have 2,3, and 5 in their last three digits.

More ice... Um, these are the icy waters off the coast of Alaska.

This was part of the chocolate buffet one night on the cruise. This is carved out of solid chocolate. Is that not awesome!

Ironically, this one was also chocolate buffet night (good thing there was only one!) It was TOO HARD to choose just one or two sweet treats. Brian and I got a little of everything (actually, not even close to everything) and have a bite or two of each. Honestly, we were quite wasteful. But, it was too rich and sweet to eat more.

Everyone should take a cruise to Alaska, at least once, in their life. It was a vacation of a lifetime.

NoBloPoMo: Day 8

For my birthday last year, the guys had roses delivered to me at work. It was Jacob's idea. He is such a lady's man. The boys were quite proud of their gift. Check out Nate's "bunny ears"; he is such a silly boy. I love these guys! (ok, now it's bed time. This was taken after baths, lol)

NaBloPoMo: Day 7

Joshua picked today's "random" photo #2655. (Actually, he picked 2555 first, but it was black. I really need to go through and delete some pictures.) So, here we have another fine photo from the July 4th party. I hope this one brings a smile to your face. Again, I'm not sure who this is. It's hard to recognize from this angle. If you can identify this butt, leave me a comment, lol.

NaBloPoMo: Day 6 (I think)

This is Mrs. G., Nate's kindergarten teacher and our friend Mia. Mia has a December (or early January) birthday, like Nate. The week before winter break, they celebrated all of the winter break birthdays, including Nate and Mia. Gotta love her pink boots. This girl's got style. I just love her, and her Mommy and Grammie too. She gives me a big hug everytime I see her.

NaBloPoMo: Day 5

Nate getting ready for a T-ball game. He was barely 5. Look at the sweet baby face. He looks so much more grown up now.

Click here to see Nate in action. He was so surprised, he didn't know what to do. And it didn't help that everyone was yelling, lol. But it's too cute.

NaBloPoMo: Day 4

Different SD card. This picture was taken at Sandy's 4th of July, family reunion, party this summer. Sandy and her daughters used to babysit Shawn when he was a baby. One of the daughters, Kassandra, was in Ca visiting this summer (her husband is in the military on the east coast). She contacted me to see Shawn, and we were invited to this celebration. It was a lot of fun. They rented this great water slide, which was enjoyed by kids and grown ups alike.

Random, unseen selection pulled this photo. I don't even know who is in it. I tend to not delete photos from my SD cards, even if they are bad, or unidentifiable (as seen in NaBloPoMo: Day 1).

A few more photos from that day. I know who is in these pictures!

Shawn showing how high he can bounce

No wonder his nickname is Tigger!

Nate was loving it. No surprise there!
Jacob (accidentally) went head first.
He was none to happy, but it made a great photo!

NaBloPoMo: Day 3

More ice! I think a good portion of this SD card was used in Alaska. But, it's the only card I have with me right now; and right now, I have the time to blog. If you read the prior entry, you got my mini lesson on iceburg density and color. Well, this chunk of ice is a good example of that. See the blue in it? I took a lot of pictures of ice that day. The were beautiful. Of course, there was that thought in the back of my mind about a ship that did not fair so well in icy waters...

NaBloPoMo: Day 2

HA! It's a picture of me. That wasn't supposed to happen, lol. I am usually behind the camera. So how did my random photo of the day happen to be one of the FIVE or so of me?

This photo was taken on our cruise to Alaska this summer. Oh, what a fun trip. This was our 10th anniversary celebration vcation. Not sure what I was reading here; but check out those iceburgs floating in the water. They were so cool to look at (no pun intended). They denser the ice the darker blue the iceburg. Some of them, you could see how big they were, because you could see the dark blue under the water. Ah, to be in Alaska again. This does bring a smile to my face!

NaBloPoMo - Day 1

So, first random photo was a flop. But, what a funny way to start the month. Jacob helped me choose a random (unseen) photo. And this is what we got. The plan was to describe the selected photo. But, I think it would be more fun you heard your ideas of what is happening in this photo. So, come on...comment.

Ok, so we decided to try again. This photo is of Nate last fall, playing in a pile of raked up leaves. I remember this day very well. All of the kids were involved. Joshua raking, the rest of them jumping in the piles. Shawn doing flips into the leaves. Nate doing everything Shawn did. Monkey see, monkey do! I have some great video clips from that day too.

Ok, so we all know that I do not have enough on my plate right now. So, I have committed myself to another project: NaBloPoMo = National Blog Posting Month! What is NaBloPoMo? Well, it's a commitment to blog everyday for 30 days, the month of November.

I tried last year. I only made it to November 9th. How pathetic is that? Then I got the 11th and 12th. Then I hit every other day for a few days. Then a week later, November was over. I failed miserably. But, it was fun trying.

I have a strategy this year. It might even be cheating, but I don't think so. The idea is to get in the habit of blogging. I'm not sure that my issue is things to write about, but rather taking the time to blog. I have plenty of things to share. But it seems that when I have time to blog the things are so old that no one is really going to care anymore. So, for NaBloPoMo I have decided that each day I am going to select a random photo (they are labeled by number, so I will not know what the pic is until I upload it) and post it with it's story, assuming I remember it. I have several SD cards, so photos might be quite old. Depending on which I choose to use on a given day. It should be a fun trip down memory lane.

So, join me for NaBloPoMo. Come back and encourage me. If you decide to sign-up let me know (Did I mention there are prizes?). You can click on the the NaBloPoMo logo on the right sidebar to sign up.