The beginning...

My kids only have an hour and half of school today and then...

SUMMER BEGINS!!!!

How do we celebrate the beginning of Summer around here?

With this...

And these...

How do you welcome Summer?

Blog Much?

Watch the video. It's pretty short. My son says "Put it on your blog!".

And tonight after getting home from Jona's 8th grade completion ceremony. (basically a graduation program from 8th to 9th grade) He then tells me I need to update my blog.

So yah.

Blog Much?

Here he is receiving his certificates from the Jr. High school principal.
Right now Jona is at a part and a dance to celebrate his accomplishments. A DANCE!!! With girls and everything. (He just came home and informed me that he did indeed dance with a girl. And that he also danced to Don't Stop Believing and Eye of Tiger. In his words "It was the best hour and a half of my life.")

Jona got five separate awards tonight. They didn't announce each award for each student they had a power point presentation that had the kids' names on them and what awards they were receiving.

He got an award for attendance. He had no unexcused absences, he did miss a couple of days but they were excused, he got an outstanding citizenship award and he received his 8th grade completion award. He passed all of his classes. Here he is showing off his Completion Award.

On top of those he got a Certificate of Outstanding Performance on the Iowa Tests. He was in the top 10 percent in Social Studies and in the Total Composite.

And he also received a special Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in History. He gave an oral report on the Battle of Normandy and the teacher was so impressed with his knowledge of the subject he got a 230 out of a possible 200. He LOVES History and wants to be the teacher's aide in that class next year. Here he is with his History certificate.


I am very grateful that my kids do well in school and enjoy it.

McKenna also got one of the Certificates of Outstanding Performance on the Iowa tests. She was in the top 10 percent for Science and the Total Composite.

And Jilli was on the honor roll this term.

And George makes a pretty darn good bouncing baby.

So I blogged about it. Now I can let my kids know.

They are such slave drivers.

Oh and as an aside, I am finding it hard to come up with the time to read and comment on all the blogs that I would like to. I'm reading here and and commenting there. And once the kitchen painting gets started in earnest. Which I'm hoping will be on Saturday then I will probably me MIA until it's finished. I'll try to pop in and out when I can. Sunday may be my "Catch up on reading blogs" day.

For Reals

That is what the ladies are that I had lunch with today. (I'll explain later on in my post.)

Thanks to Danielle for hosting this blunch in honor of her blog's birthday. We totally forgot to sing Happy Birthday to her blog though. :(

I drove an hour in the pouring rain just to get there. And I showed up a half hour early, didn't realize it, drove around lost for that half hour, showed up on time thinking I was a half an hour late. Good start.

Kristina was there first and she and Danielle and I had a little bit of a chance to chat. Then Amber came in followed by Jillene and her friend Tina, who Jillene is trying to woo over to the dark side...or more so. She has a blog but I guess doesn't blog much and Jillene was trying to remedy this by introducing her to other lovely bloggers.(I hope her name is Tina...that's what my allergy befuddled brain is remembering...if it's not I'm very, very sorry.) Then in comes Motherboard and Sher. And last but certainly not least came Jo.

It was all types of exciting.

We chatted and ordered food by phone and harassed the workers, over the phone, and laughed at the workers as they tried to answer our phone but couldn't. Good times. Good Times.

Then we discussed everything from SuperDell, to Obama, to the blogosphere and bloglifting (my cool new phrase for plagarism of blogs. I'm probably not the first to use it. So does that make me a bloglifter?) To evil primary presidents, to drills to run if someone breaks into your house, to how the closer your house is to the mountains the more righteous you are, to Chacon.

It all comes back to Chacon somehow.

It was a well rounded conversation. I mostly listened and asked "Now who is that?" because I obviously do not read as many blogs as I should, and was entertained.

The title of this post comes from the conversation. The phrase "for reals" was said off and on throughout the lunch. And I loved it.

It is also a description of those ladies. In a round about sort of way. They were all very real. Every one so much like they are on their blogs. Some a bit more talkative or a bit quieter but all very real.

I learned some things from them today. Good things. Just as I learn from them each time I visit their blogs. And this, my friends, is one of the reasons why I love blogging.

For reals.

Don't hate me because I rocked the Snuggie

I don't rock it as hard as Kristina but I did rock it. I'm surprised there weren't any of these on the red carpet last night. I mean they are so exceptionally stylish and this blue TOTALLY would have stood out. No one wore blue last night.


Here I am with the amazing Mrs. Pulsipher. This was a close as she let me get and it was just for the photo op. But I'm grateful for that! (Actually she was very sweet and even let me give her a little hug and a thank you for being the force behind this great lunch! She did a wonderful job especially with as many women as were there. She was warm and welcoming to all.)This is Bobie and Christa who were trapped behind the table with me. They were so nice and Christa even won the felted pig that Joe made! (I was envious). And even though Bobie looks like she is frightened of me I don't think that she was...I hope she wasn't.
These are the ladies that sat across from me Jo, Bonnie and Jill (I didn't get the chance to talk to Jill all that much). They were all such fun! They helped alleviate my fears of putting my foot in my mouth. (Thanks Jo!) And Amber and Danielle sat on my right. And Jessica sat at the head of the table on our end (but I didn't get a photo of her). Amelia is holding Jessica's beautiful baby girl, I even got to hold her! And I found out that Jessica and I are kind of "neighbors". Cool!
Here are Erin and Kristina looking all cute and you can see how much fun they are having!
And this was the far end of the table from where I was sitting ( I couldn't remember everyone in this picture so I apologize right now for not giving you a shout out if you are in this shot). I didn't get a chance to talk with these ladies as much as I would have liked but I did get to say hello to them.
Vanessa (in the green jacket) came down to our end to say hello. I already knew she was awesome because we went to the same High School we just missed out on each other by one year. She has some gorgeous eyes and her eye make-up was so cool! I'm going to see if I can get a tutorial from her. Martha (in the blue jacket) was there sans Alegra but Melissa was by her side. And I was able to give Tiburon her prize in person!


I also got to meet and say "Hi" to Annette, The Boob Nazi, Brittany, Tink, Shauna and Kathy. I am even in a picture with Kathy, Annette and Kristina and the snuggie on Kathy's blog but she probably has no idea who the heck I am so Kathy if you are wondering who that strange lady in the striped shirt is that is in the photo it was me. And I sat across from The Lady of Perpetual Chaos she told me her real name but I am drawing a complete blank at the moment so I hope she will forgive me. She was so nice!

And here are a couple of shots up and down the tables. I went around and tried to say hello to everyone. But I know I can't remember them all. There were also about three booths of ladies just next to the tables as well. All in all was so fun to go to this even though I was a little apprehensive and I did sit out in the parking lot for a minute or so before I went in. Every one was so incredibly nice and friendly. I hope everyone has as great a time as I did. Now I have many more blogs to stalk! Yay!

And thanks again to Kristina for letting me rock the Snuggie. I felt like I had won the Oscar.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

I did it! I figured it out! I did it! I have my blog all ready for Fall!!!

With MUCH thanks to Shabby Princess designs for the free papers and embellishments. And to SJH Design Blog tips for step by step instructions how to get those papers and use them for my blog. And for the tips for new bloggers that gave me the info to do the three column layout. They are all linked in my sidebar. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!

(edited to say - Yes I know that they aren't actually "papers" and "embellishments" rather they are graphics, I guess would be the correct terminology, but I couldn't for the life of me think of what to put so I put "papers" and "embellishements" K? I'm new to all of this.)

NOW....if only I can remember how I did it when it comes time to change things up for Christmastime.

Actually there are a few things I want to tweak here and there. I want to get pictures of my hubby and kids up in one of the sidebars but I think that's about it. I can't believe it. I actually did it.