Air Maisy

I was minding my own business, just making oatmeal as I should, when my eyes were drawn down to the floor. What I saw was just an ordinary red beach ball. It wasn't very big, about the size of a small cantaloupe. I'd seen it a million times before.

But today, I had a idea. Maybe it was the train of thought I had been going down just minutes earlier. I had been thinking about movies, then about dogs, then about movies with dogs in them, and then I thought about the movie Air Bud and how much I loved it.
Maybe that's why I noticed the ball.
After staring at it for a good 2 seconds, I thought" It sure would be cool if Maisy could hit a ball in the air like Buddy did." So call me crazy, but I tried it.
This is the result..........

1) Sit on the floor and call Maisy over
2) Scold her for being on the table licking Q's oatmeal bowl
3) Clean her sticky chin
4) Get her in position about a foot in front of me and command her to sit
5) Show her the ball
6) Reposition her, as she has already wandered away
7) Throw the ball directly in front of her and watch in dismay as she watched it fall to the ground
8) Throw the ball again and feel a spark of hope when she moved towards it
9) I should probably mention now that it was only 2 inches and more of a glance than a real move
10) Throw it yet again with not much expectation
11) She did it!!! Jumped right up off the ground and hit it high into the air with her snout!!!!!!
12) I scared her cute curly tail right under her furry little body with my shrill shriek of delight
13) Did it about 10 more time with smashing results (the Air Maisy Show, not the shrieking)
14) The whole family came down wondering what was going on
15) Maisy performed beautifully for the whole family
16) She was doing so good that we decided to reward her with cheese each time she hit the ball.
17) Bad move

She was so distracted by the cheese that every other thought left her fluffy little head. Despite our pleas, the ball bounced off her back, head, and every other place a ball could land with absolutely no results. We even moved to a different room and still all she thought about was the stupid cheese. Like owner like dog. However, we are weak, so we finally gave her the cheese.

Once she realized that it was gone, she was back in action! Twisting, twirling, jumping, hitting it almost to the ceiling! We were so proud. And everyone even gave me all the credit for teaching her!

Yep, I'm feeling pretty special right now!

~Laurel

$100 shower curtains

It started as a normal day, waking up at the crack of God-forsaken dawn, because in Portland the sun comes up after 7am. Got ready in 21 minutes due to falling back to sleep for 10. Arrived at choir early and regretted that I had decided not to find socks in favor of eating Breakfast and was envisioning the blisters i would get. Class started as usual...stretching, massages, warm-ups, Ms. Wright running out b/c she forgot something... when our wonderful Choir teacher told Laurel and I our choir dresses had come in.

Needless to say, I was very excited. I had waited almost a month to see the thing I spent $90 on.
At first glance, everything appeared fine. Then I took the skirt out of the bag and found that it didn't move without a battle (gotta love taffeta). After I got the thing on, the girl assisting me informed me that the skirt need to sit on my natural waist. "Wow, homeschool style!"
The shirt isn't much better, as it's made of very heavy velvet, and I can't for the life of me figure out the zipper. But Laurel and could breath in the dresses and that was all that mattered. So we were sent back into class and everything was all hunky-dory...until we got home.

The second we walked in the house we had to try them on. "So I can see how funny you look" Don't you love little sisters? So, after much "convincing" *cough* threatening. we put on the objects of nightmares.

"Good grief paigy, you are going to sweat SOOO much in that" thanks Claire, you're such a doll.

"Hey! If you cut the skirts in half and sew them together, we'll have a new shower curtain!" Well, Olivia if you want to pay for a $100+ for a shower curtain, be my guest.
"
HAHAHAHA you could HIDE in that funny skirt!" Quentin thinks he's God's gift to comedy
"
"When you're all in a big group, those will look great on stage. And you'll be glad you kept those when you get older." Who said anything about keeping them, Mother?

After about 15 minuted of everyone, including me and Laurel, laughing hysterically, the dresses got put away until the concert in a couple weeks where we will be forced to wear them in public. But I think it'll be OK...everyone else will be wearing one to!! HAHAHAHAHA

Shoes, Sushi, and Butterscotch Pie!

My last blog was basically just a rant, and after I wrote it, I really didn't think about it anymore. And today I realized that I didn't write about anything happy that happened on my birthday! Silly me! So this is what happened...........
On Wednesday, we totally pulled a Philippine birthday thing. We brought our own cake to GU. It was really fun watching that huge cake disappear in all of 2 minutes! I thought it was really funny until I didn't get any :( However, I made up for it at Red Robin! Nicole B. was having a little celebration there for her Birthday, but I got ice cream too!

That Saturday was the best! An amazing family friend took us to the Woodburn stores and proceeded to buy us......
ME:Shoes, sweatshirt, T-shirt, and shoelaces.
Paige: Shoes, sweatshirt, t-shirt, and hat.
(you've probably see us wear everything numerous times! Aren't the shoes cool?!)

Dinner was even better, since he bought us the biggest tray of sushi you've ever seen!
And as if that wasn't enough, he picked up Made of Honor and watched it with us! Then, during the middle, he brought out a homemade butterscotch pie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yep, he made us a pie, and let me tell you, I about passed out it was so good! So be verrrry jealous. THANK YOU ERIK!

So that is my happy 16th birthday story.

~Laurel

My Surprise

I was going to write a blog about my birthday: What I got, What I did, How much fun I had...... But then something happened. This will be a little about my birthday to give you the whole story. I'll start off with telling you what my dad got me for my birthday. I was expecting him to actually completely forget about it, and I was OK with that. So when I found out that he not only remembered, but got me a present, I had mixed feelings about it. I mean, what would he get me? So when the $50 gift certificates arrived for me and Paige, I thought it was a good present and I was happy about it!

But, of course.... it was too good to be true. Later that day my mom got a call from the vice-president of her insurance company. Turns out he had been working late and decided to pull up my parents' policy. Well, my mom's was all up to date, but it seemed that my dad's hadn't been paid since March, so it had been cancelled! The insurance agent had wanted to make sure we were aware. Of course we were. NOT. Well, thanks dad! If something happens to you, there is no insurance money, but at least we'll have $50 to Nordstrom!

But it was this morning that was the real shocker! I got up, made tea, went to choir....the usual. Except when my mom picked us up, I knew something was wrong. How did I know? Two seconds after I got in the car, she said "are you sitting down?" Not a good sign. I knew it was most likely about dad, so with a groan, I said "What happened now." She said "Guess." It only took one guess and Paige beat me to it. "Dad got fired, didn't he." Her silence and tight smile was enough.

I can't say I was surprised. I wanted to be, but I wasn't. I always kind of knew it would happen someday. I didn't want it to, but it did.

-Laurel

the butter made from peanuts

Today I came to a revelation. One so huge, it will probably change my life. How could I have not realized, not experienced this before. I thought I had it all figured out. Life was simple.
Apples were meant to be eaten by themselves, and peanut butter went on a spoon, complementing chocolate milk.
How could a life-changing moment come out of this, you ask? Well, allow me tell you a story. One that will probably make you simultaneously laugh and cry from the sheer awesomeness of it.

Once upon a time......... A couple weeks ago, I found myself in a kitchen. The family there was happily munching away on a snack, and me, never to turn down food, accepted their offer to help myself. What was on the table shocked me, although not at first.
I looked and saw apple slices. Normal, I thought. Then, I saw chunky peanut butter. Also normal. Both delicious, but quite regular.

But then, to my dismay, I quickly observed that there were no spoons! How can you eat peanut butter without spoons! I looked around the table frantically, trying to figure it out. My heart racing, I looked to the simplest place for help. If he knew what to do, I was sure to figure it out. I rested my wandering eyes on the 3 year old. He had just picked up an apple slice, and, to my shock, was propelling it with chubby fingers towards the chunky peanut butter! As I looked on in disbelief, he scooped up some peanut butter with the apple and took a bite!

"How can this be!" I thought, marveling at the sight. But it was true, and I had to try it! Quickly, before I could change my mind, I heaped the butter made from peanuts onto my apple slice and took a bite. I slowly chewed, allowing the flavors to meld and blend together. I thoughtfully swallowed, and with a new mentality, I quietly, almost in a whisper, said "This...Is...Good. And then I knew, that snack time would never be the same.

Laurel

Soccer Kids

Why did I agree to do this? I don't think I had to, I probably could have said no. But if I had I wouldn't have had the experience I had last night.

Last night was my first soccer game as a coach.

Let me explain something to you, I don't like soccer. I thought I did, I tried to at age 10. But soccer and I don't get along, maybe it's the running? It could be the fact that for an entire season all I did was run back and forth and back and forth with my only job being to keep the ball on the field. It could also be the fact that I only made one goal the entire season. Or maybe it's because I didn't get a trophy at the end of the year. We could go really deep and say it's because Laurel's soccer pictures turned out better than mine. Whatever the reason, I never wanted to have anything to do with soccer again, especially after being a referee at age 13.( I don't like to talk about this. Big mistake. Painful memories.)

Even after this fervent promise, when Olivia, Claire, and Quentin signed up for soccer just weeks ago. I found myself in a whirlwind of vague questions and answers, what I believe to be somewhat false information, and slight pressure from all sides. I found myself agreeing to co-head coach Quentin's soccer team. I felt pretty confident about this decision. I mean I was only a co-coach. Until I found out who my other co-coach was...Laurel. When we found out we tried to back down. But it was too late, they had already sent out the schedule with every coaches name and what team they were coaching. Salt in the wound was we didn't even get our own names on it, they put us down as the Tyson Twins. I am so not kidding, it was very demeaning.

but all in all I thought it would turn out OK. I mean, how hard could it be to teach 3, 4, and 5 year olds how to play soccer...You have absolutely no idea.

to be continued...

Paige

Whatever

So this morning, I went downstairs to get a fudgesickle, but then I saw the ice cream and that made me think of the candy in the outside freezer. So I went out there to get some and decided I wanted strawberry freezer jam which made me think of cereal. So I went to the pantry to get that, but we were out of kix and I thought against the whole cereal thing because I saw chocolate pudding and I thought about making that, but I didn't want to stir for 5 minutes and that made me think of a fudgesickle again but when I got back to the freezer there was just a orange creamsickle which is TOTALLY different from a fudgesickle and thats what I had finally decided on!! And by that time I was too overwelmed so I just went upstairs with nothing...and I was sad.

Thats it. I just felt like sharing.

~Paige~