Triangles and Pinwheels

I'm so excited to learn something new in quilting. This quilt border has 188 small triangles. I think I'm going to be dreaming about triangles for a while but they are so much more fun than just boring squares and rectangles. I can't wait to see the finished project. I love the colors. Reminds me of spring and I am looking forward to spring. Actually maybe not anymore...Mario was accepted into a class in virginia that will run from early April until mid June. Guess I'm no longer looking forward to spring. But Virginia is a whole lot better than Afghanistan so I won't complain too badly. At least I have a hobby to keep me very busy for a few weeks while he's away.

Brushing Sophie's Teeth

I bought dog toothpaste and toothbrush when we first got Sophie. She had such perfect white teeth when we adopted her and so I figured her last owner must have brushed them. We never brushed Buzz's teeth and so they were pretty gross the last few years.

Well, I tried brushing her teeth and she wasn't very cooperative. I asked her old owner how she did it and she said she didn't ever brush her teeth. I put the toothpaste away and figured she'd have nasty teeth like Buzz. But this morning, Zach got out the toothpaste and brushed her teeth with no problems. He said that he always brushes her teeth. Wow, that's awesome!

Eric and Erin

Eric is dating a girl named Erin who has an older brother named Eric. Plus, her mom's name is Teresa. How crazy is that?


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Competing with the Webbers

The Bishop's kids win the pinewood derby every year. They always take first and second place. In fact, their family wins every competition they enter I think. One boy just graduated out of cubs so we are down to only one Webber to compete against. This is our boys' last race before turning 11 years old. Mario went and bought a book and all the tools necessary to get the axles perfect. "Too bad those darn Webbers use the same book" and all the techniques in it.

They want to win this year and they aren't stopping until they build the perfect car. It makes me laugh. My dining room table is completely covered between tools for the cars and my quilting stuff. Not sure when we will use our table again. We had our Valentine's dinner last night on the living room floor.

Valentine's Day and Eric's New Mom

Today, Mario and I celebrated 21 Valentine's Days together. We planned to go out to lunch or dinner but I had picked up some filet mignon on clearance a couple weeks ago, so I thought that would make a great dinner for Valentine's Day. Eric found me a great recipe for a topping for the steak. It was yummy. I don't know if I have ever bought real filet mignon before. Erin came home after shopping with a friend and I heated up the leftovers for her. She asked why we don't always have that kind of steak. I told her that when she's old enough to date, she should ask her date to take her out for filet mignon and see what he says as a 16 year-old boy working a minimum wage job.

Mario took the three younger kids to play basketball at the church this morning. Eric said he wanted to go shopping with me instead. Our first stop was the fabric store. He used my iphone to distract him from being in such a miserable place. He spent several minutes following me around the aisles with his head planted downward on the phone. But then he disappeared and I kept shopping. A few minutes later, I heard him talking to someone. I figured it must be someone from school and he must be embarrassed to be in a fabric store. I went to find him. Turns out, he was following a lady through aisles, thinking it was me he was following. She finally told him, I think you have mistaken me for your mom. Talk about embarrassing. I had a good laugh the rest of the day about it.

That wasn't Eric's only embarrassing moment and I don't think I blogged this before. Erin had a summer job mowing the neighbor's lawn but she didn't know how to use the edger. So I sent Eric out to help her. He went and weed whacked the wrong neighbors yard while they sat on the front porch and watched. He wasn't happy with me when he found out it was the wrong house. He said I pointed to the wrong neighbors house when I was up in his room asking him. My problem is unless I'm looking out a window, I don't know my directions. I went over and explained to the neighbors why Eric had just maintained their yard.

Back to today, after shopping for fabric, Eric and I headed for the commissary. He was super excited to pick out food since he thinks I never buy anything good. Problem is that I do buy good stuff but it gets eaten within a couple days. So it was funny today when we brought home all the groceries and the other three kids and Mario started digging into all the groceries. Eric was panicking because they were doing exactly what I always complain about each time. It's funny (and sad) to see your kids turn into you.

Zach's Resume for Elf Job

Zach Conserving Paper in 2nd Grade Math

I thought for sure this made my blog a couple years back, but when the boys asked me to pull it up on my blog last night, I couldn't find it.  So Zach dug through the filing cabinet and found it. So now I had to post it. 

In second grade, the students were assigned 5 math problems off the board every school day.  They were required to write the date and then answer the math problems on a sheet of paper.  Zach decided he would do an entire year's worth of bell work on one side of one piece of paper.  I feel sorry for his teacher that had to grade it.  But he had the most awesome teacher (Miss deGennero) in second grade so I'm sure she was cool with it.  In fact, I'm pretty sure she is the one that told me about it one day while I was in class volunteering.