Moving Right Along...

After much time, effort, time and many decisions, my new blog is up and ready for viewing!

Click here to see the new (and hopefully improved) Blonde and 3 Boys!

A Blonde and 3 Boys

Moving!

Hello, Friends!

I am moving...to a different blog site!

Blogger has treated me well for many years, but I have found that it is time to move to another provider.

 

Stop by Monday to click to the new blog!

Have a fun weekend!

Now that was Fun!!

Every fourth of July a group of us get together to celebrate. This year was no different, except that we added more fireworks. Before the arrival of our guest, the boys divided the fireworks into three different groups: the younger kids, the older kids and the dads. About 10 minutes in, the dads were having as much fun with the younger and older kids fireworks then the younger and older kiddos!

The party stared in the pool...there were 12 kiddos at the party and they all get along...seriously we never have an issue of fighting and everyone is included!

After eating, it was fireworks time! I don't have pictures of that night because I have yet to master the skill of taking photos in the dark! So, I will share with you...

The morning after!

(No worries, everyone comes back the next morning to help clean up!)

 

 Smoke Bombs!

 A rolling smoke bomb!

This year we had a fireworks that actually had little parachutes shoot out of it! The yard was littered with these! 

 The big hit of the night were the Roman Candles!

I liked them because they gave me the opportunity for a very colorful picture! 

And Snaps. We had hundreds of Snaps! So many that the clean up crew each got a package of Snaps to take home!

Clean up crew of 2016!

What's so ironic and wonderful is that many of Sam's friends  have a younger sibling Jack's age!! We were meant to be together (that was a little cheesy!) 

Hope everyone had a fun filled fourth!

UGH!!

I am having TERRIBLE issues with this blog site!! So, I am in the process of changing my blog provider. I am actually creating a new page in order to avoid further conflicts (and frustrations) that I encounter here again and again.

(Me holding back all my frustrations!!)

So, what does this mean? Check back here and I will soon be putting up the new address for the new blog. I am doing this on my own, so it is slow work and the blog site is very simple...nothing fancy, just a post and that is it! 

I would like to put the page up and have you check it out, then I will take it down for adjustments and continue in this manner until I have all the kinks worked out.

Please be patient and make sure to check back often for updates!! And remember, it is very basic at this time as I get it all figured out!

 

The Girl With All The Gifts

This is one of my favorite things to do at the pool: float and read!

Yesterday, while floating,  I finished the book, 

The Girl with all the the Gifts. by M.R. Carey

I give it 4 stars!

This is all I knew going into reading this book:

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. (this totally caught my attention!)

From another reviewer:

I really don’t want to give away much about the plot of The Girl With All The Gifts — it’s such a clever, surprising ride, you’re better off discovering it for yourself. But here’s the basic set-up: a group of kids are being taught in a very special school, where they learn about Greek myths and literature from a group of teachers, including the kind and beautiful Miss Justineau. But when they’re not being given a classical education, these children are herded into cells by a group of soldiers, who treat them like wild animals. And occasionally, one of the kids is taken away to a laboratory to be dissected by the cruel scientist Caroline Caldwell.

The smartest of these kids is Melanie, whose imagination fixates on the myths she reads about and whose mind is constantly going in romantic directions. She has a doomed hopeless crush on her wonderful teacher Miss Justineau, who in turn is trying very hard to keep Melanie from being the next child marked for dissection in Dr. Caldwell’s lab. But the things that Melanie doesn’t know about the world outside her little school will soon shatter her romantic notions forever.That’s really just scratching the surface — Carey does a fantastic job of building up the mystery of exactly what Melanie is, and why she’s treated like a vicious creature as well as a gifted child.

Much to my surprise, I found this trailer for "The Girl with all the Gifts." Warning: spoilers to what is going on with Melanie!!

Guess What...

We got ourselves a band!!

I could just leave it at that, but nope...there's a little more.

Sam had played guitar for about 4 years. Due to his schedule, he wasn't able to continue lessons at this time, so Jack thought it would be the perfect time for him to start the drums...which he has always wanted to play. That was 2 months ago. Jack actually uses our old Guitar Hero drum set to practice.  Jack's teacher told me  basically, if we wanted Jack to "proceed" we would need to think about getting a drum set. Well, he finally got a set. 

Last night Jack and Sam were down stair "jamming." Sam came up and said, "Either Jack is going to have to turn it down a little, or I am going to have to stop playing Stairway to Heaven." When Jack plays, which is in the basement, it sounds as if he is right in the room with me.

So Sam, I vote for the first option. 

Right Now...

My wonderful soaking tub is no longer a tub for soaking.

It is now a swimsuit and towel drying rack.

A Couple of Tricks!

Here are two "tricks" I recently heard about!

Have you ever driven another persons car or had to drive a rental and have no idea which side the gas tank is on? Well, I just discovered there is a helpful hint right on the gas gauge!

See the little gas tank, which is located on the gag gauge? Check out the arrow...it points to the side which contains the gas tank! How easy it that?

The second hint deals with one of my biggest fears, driving my car into a large body of water and not being able to get out. I actually bought a tool that will break the window in case that might happen! Please remember, we do not live near any large body of water, so I consider myself fairly safe, but you just never know!!

 

The pointed piece will break the glass and the tool at the end of the handle will cut through your seat belt if needed. BUT, you don't have the fancy tool, you can use your headrest!

 

Place one of the metal rods between the window and the door and push down. then close your eyes and pull out the headrest. In doing so, the window will shatter. Or, you can use the metal poles and hit the window and it will shatter your window. 

Just a couple of helpful tricks for your day, one that I hope you never need! Drive safely!!

Memory Keeping...

I love scrapbooking an memory keeping, but at this time in my life, I unfortunately do not have the time to do "traditional" scrapbooking. I have tried many different "techniques" such as project life to get caught up, but I would soon fall behind or become frustrated that is wasn't "easy" enough for me. AKA: having to have the just right size of pictures to go into the page protectors! So, I decided to give memory keeping a try in my MAMBI planner! And I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!

What I do is highlight the main events of the week. I don't have a "set time" to do my pages. Many times, I print off the pictures and then put a few notes on a post-it note for the week. Some weeks I have a few pictures and other weeks I need to add an extra page insert. What is nice, is that I control the size of my photos, the page protectors no longer do that.

Here are my pages for the week of May 16th.

The highlights for the week were Sam turning 14 and being recognized at the School Board meeting for his participation in the Knowledge Bowl!

I added a page insert due to having many pool highlights this week.

 

As you can see, MORE pool pictures. My mom sent a selfie of her and my dad while they were on vacation which makes me smile!

Once I have the pictures placed, it's time to add washi, stickers, stamps and die cuts!! I love the freedom to add whatever I wish! the added bonus is that it doesn't take any time at all to complete a page or two!

I get several questions on how I print my pictures. I print the majority of my pictures at home. I usually print them off in 3x4 size. I also use my Instax printer which prints 2x3 photos that look like mini Polaroids. What I really love is that I can print pictures on my Instax right from my phone!





Not only do I include pictures, but big news stories, newspaper clippings (laminated) weather and temperatures, things the boys say and other memorabilia. Do I think I will use this for ALL my scrapbooking, no, but at this time it does make daily record keeping pretty easy!

How Do You Explain...Again...

The boys asked about the tragedy in Orlando. 

What happened? A man went into a night club and open fire on the people that were there. 

(Jack: What's a night club? A bar.)

Did they die? Yes. 103 people were shot, 49 people died from being shot. 

Did the guy who was shooting die? Yes. 

How? The police did it to save more people from being killed.

Why did he do he want to kill all those people? 

 And that is where it gets so hard to explain to your kids about why someone would do that to so many innocent people...again (and again and again.)

My answer to Sam: "Well, supposedly he didn't like gay people and so he shot them. There are rumors that he was with ISIS." 

Sam thought about it a bit and then said, "You know, how did those gay people ever effect that guys life?"

And I must say, my heart glowed a bit. Jason and I have really tried to raise the boys to accept everyone...no matter what class, age, size, race, religion, handicap or who you love. We tell them to be kind...you don't have to be everyone's friend, but you do need to be kind.  You aren't going to mesh with everyone, you don't have to, but you do need to be kind and tolerant of others. So when Sam said that, I knew he got it and it warmed my heart. It makes me happy to see there is hope, that in Sam and Jack's generation it really won't matter your class, age, size, race, religion, handicap or who you love.