Celebrating US Independence in Dominica

Soooo July fourth is a much different day in Dominica.  In fact, all the normal holidays are.  It's just a day like any other day and the only way you know it's a holiday is if you keep track of your calendar.  Today we got together with the student families in our branch and had a swimming party.  No fireworks, nothing patriotic or heart warming, just swimming.  At least we got to try out the waterproofness of our camera and kind of learn what works and what doesnt.  Boys who wont stand still, for instance, can not get a clear picture underwater. ;)

Matthew and Aaron doing their usual acrobatics in the pool

look at those cute teeth

 whoa I look weird.

They love seeing the bubbles on the pictures

Squirmies

I think somebody lost their shoes.

Nope, he's not dead.

Time to go home!  Gnight all!  And enjoy some fireworks for me!

random thoughts consolidated for your amusement.

Listening to the boys playing in the back of the van while carpooling at 7:30 this morning brought a question to mind...
What is the plural for "triceratops?"

I love school.  I love that I know people and that they like me enough to call to me from across a courtyard while I'm walking the other direction so I will come talk or walk with them.  I love learning.  I AM feeling the weight of a full schedule this semester and second guessing my choice of enrolling in 8 classes/18 credit hours.  However, from the looks of it, I chose the right teachers to overload with... for the most part... kind of...  ANYWAY, I might have some exciting news about a trip to a very north eastern popular US city for Jazz Ensemble.... to work with one Phil Mattson. BUT nothing's official as of right now, we just have to see if the college will pay for our registration fee which is.... VERY expensive. All wealthy philanthropist readers please contact me :)  We are one of  only two community college choirs selected in the nation- joined by two University choirs and 1 professional choir.  All are a capella jazz choirs. NO choreography, thank you very much. ;) it's all about the tone, harmony, and expression.

Martin Luther King Jr Day aka Civil Rights Day was a ton of fun! Among other things we went and used our last two groupons at Bahama Bucks and I got something that is now my new favorite: 1/2 Rootbeer, 1/2 Jamaican rum Bahama Mama Rama. holy cheeseballs. It was sooooo good.  I don't think I need to try any other flavors ever. ever. ever.

The other day Matthew and I were eating our favorite snack and he looked up and me and said:
Matt: Mom, I heart chips and salsa. (how cute)
Me: *smirk* sighhhh Me too.
Matt: Really, I just heart salsa.  If I didn't have a chip, I'd use a spoon.

-----and then I proceeded to teach my young padawan my "pour-the-chip-crumbs-from-the-bottom-of-the-bag-into-the-salsa, mix-and-proceed-to-eat-like-unto-the-eating-of-cereal-WITH A SPOON" technique.  I know this may be a little too personal to share on the blog, sorry :) *sniff* my little boy's all grown up..

Now that I've got all that out of my head, it's time for ... no, not haiku Wednesday, but a Wednesday Limerick!!
 
I went back to my school this week
To learn how to add and to speak
to tell girls from boys,
play keyboards with poise
And learn about rocks like a geek.

Wow, I pretty much covered all my classes except for choir and voice....  I was going to do this for the last line:

And go sing for Phil in NewYeek <-----but I would've had to do new yeek instead of new york. and thats too weird for 90% of my readers.  I personally would've giggled every time I read it, though. Dang, I should've put it.  I'm such a sell out. hanging head in shame and going to curl up with my kindle to read a few chapters for my Psychology & Gender Differences and Public Speaking classes tomorrow.

Haiku Wednesday. Jingle Jangle.

Next is December.

Why does the time fly like that?

Life is a *?!$cuss word%#*

Haiku Wednesday

Children, spouse, food, house

Warm clothes, good friends, bright future

For these I'm thankful

Easter

Easter was fun- it came and went pretty quickly though! I hard boiled eggs and then was so wary about the mess dying them would make that we didn't even do it this year :o( I'm such a bad mom. We still have the stuff, so Megan says she wants to do it this week. I still have time to redeem myself a smidgen.....
Saturday some neighbors and I put together an Easter egg hunt and barbecue- it was lots of fun and yummy- yay bratwurst.
Megan wore a pretty dress that was handed down a couple of years ago from my friend's sister- (Thanks Robin and Wendy) and it fit perfectly and looked so cute with the headband I made for it. The pictures don't do it justice. She looked like a happy little angel walking down the hall at church.

my birthday :o)

Whelp, today is my birthday. yup. I'm 28. I've been saying I was 28 for almost a year now.. LOL I started to believe it and so today is a bit confusing. So this means that next year I'll either be turning 29 for the first time or 28 for the third time.

My parents sent me a birthday package which arrived two days ago. On the outside it said "Do not open until January 9th." Of course I opened it as soon as I got it, sorry mom! Inside was a skein of fuzzy chenille yarn and a "teach yourself how to knit" book with two pairs of needles and a ton of other knitting hardware that mean nothing to me as of yet since I'm knignorant. har har har. I asked for knitting stuff because I have wanted to learn for a while. I've got this weird longing to know how to do everything. I don't necessarily want to be a "knitter", I just want to add it to my list of things I know how to do. So... I have about 6 square inches of a soft fuzzy scarf knitted so far. yay! I'll post a picture of me wearing it when I'm done. Thanks mom1 and dad1!

Sunday we had my birthday dinner at Aaron's parents' house. His mom and dad made breaded fried chicken in the big cast iron skillet we got for his mom for Christmas along with mashed potatoes, country gravy, peas, and homemade angel food cake with strawberries and hand-whipped cream. yummmmmmmm......... They also got me two food storage starter kits from the distribution center which is awesome! Aaron and I had decided to get some when student loan moolah came in, so the gift was both useful and insightful :o) Thanks mom2 and dad2!

Another Elf Yourself

I started out trying to do bad pictures of everyone in our family, but realized as I was searching for a bad picture of myself, that I've made a habit of deleting all bad pictures of myself as soon as they are uploaded. Oh well. So, instead I made an evil twin one for the kids. cute. My favorite one is Matthews smiley face.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1398609881

December updates

A few new things are happening in the Shumway household that I thought I'd write about:


1. Matthew is half-way potty trained... on his own. He says "I needa go cotty" and then goes in to the bathroom all by himself and poops on the potty. Holy Cow says I. It was totally opposite for Megan. She would go #1 on the potty but was so scared to go poop on the potty that she'd get constipated and not go for a few days... at least she didn't poop in her underware- That would NOT have been fun to clean up. I have no idea how to get Matthew to use the potty the rest of the time, but I'm sure he'll learn somehow.

2. Aaron is done with this semester (and not looking forward to one more semester of Physics) He stayed up half the night playing on xbox live to celebrate his independence (I don't know how that's different from any other night... LOL)


3. I was a little creative this winter and made cloven fruit or a pomander as some people know it- I used one of those California clementines (mini orange) and stuck cloves into the peel and tied it with ribbon. It was so much cuter than the one pictured (this is a stock photo) and smelled really good. Matthew ate it today. How sad. And no, it is not meant for consumption. Oh well, I guess he was hungry and it is non-toxic after all. I made a new one with the cloves I recovered. Not as cute, but it smells just as yummy. Wassail!

Awesome!

Megan said something funny last night in the car. We were on our way home from her grandparents house and she asked, "Mommy, does Jesus' birthday last until summer time?" I said, "Well, Jesus' birthday is actually in the spring, but we celebrate His birthday PARTY on Christmas." (She just had a birthday last month and got the concept of having your party on a different day than your actual birthday) She got really excited and said with a loud voice "Yeah, and Jesus' birthday is AWESOME!" I could just picture her doing a fisted elbow dig along with "awesome." She proceeded to tell me all about the stuff that was going to be at Jesus' birthday party; Christmas lights, yummy food, and I added "-and presents" to which she replied, "Yeah we're going to give Him presents. What should I get Him?" I almost corrected her and said "No, we get eachother presents," but I caught myself. Why the heck do we get EACHOTHER presents and not Jesus? I think I'd be a little upset at my birthday party if everyone came and gave eachother presents and I was left emptyhanded. I now have a challenge for myself and for anyone who reads this. Think about what you can get (do) for Jesus this year. What can you do for someone else in need or how can you change your own life to please Jesus? Obviously you would also benefit, so get started today!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Halloween Fun

Okey Dokey Artichokey... Here is an update of what's been happening in the last little while including Halloween:

I failed to mention earlier that Aaron has officially applied for dental school. I had the honor of entering his course work class by class into the ASDEA(?) website for him.... what fun!

I've been hired by my next door neighbor to make some bows for her 3 daughters. We went to the ribbon store with the outfits she wants the bows for and picked out ribbons for each of them. It was fun. I'll be making a lot of them today at Alex and Julie's (a.k.a. Rod and Norma's) house when we (Anna, Julie, Terry) get together to make bows for our girlies.

For halloween we went to our ward's trunk or treat and I worked a booth for YW. My booth was the classic bean bag toss into the pumpkin cutout. Matthew slept for 5/6 of the night and I finally had to wake him up so he could participate in at least a few of the festivities. He has been asking for "Camdy" every 5 minutes ever since because he knows we have some somewhere... bleh. The wings I made for angel Megan turned out to be very hardy, withstanding the unending race through the parking lot with all of the other costumed kids. They had a ball and nothing was ruined. phew! Aaron was a "Bad Dentist" for halloween complete with scrubs, a carpenter's drill, and a monkey wrench. Both Matthew and I were farmers with overalls, bandanas and cowboys hats. Our camera quit working in the middle of the festivities, so I had my friend take some family pictures of us in costumes which I will post on here as soon as I get her to email them to me.

Here are the kiddos and dad:

I can FLY!

(click on picture to view full size) I constructed these wings out of tights, 2 hangers, watered down glue, and glitter. It was a lot of fun and REALLY easy! I was going to make them look like the typical wings that you see on halloween which are actually butterfly or fairy wings and then I remembered that angel wings don't look like that. This was the best I could do with the size of the hangers and no advice. I like how they turned out. Had I thought of this earlier I'd have made a bunch of fairy wings and sold them to a high end boutique in Scottsdale before halloween... oh well. I was as they say, a day late and a dollar short..

Megan's no-cost Costume!

I just had to post this really quick- This is a pic of Megan's Angel costume I've been working on all day- I didn't spend a DIME!!!!! I made the under white skirt out of an old polo shirt of Aaron's and I already had a white boa that I cut and wired for the halo, and Aaron's mom had a huge bolt of lace from when his grandma Shumway passed away. Cute cute! I will have to spend money on two pairs of white tights when I make the wings next week, but we're going to a community halloween trunk or treat tonight without the wings.