Five Question Friday 2/26/10

For more Five Question Friday fun, check out Mama M.'s blog!

1. Do you sing karaoke? If so, what is your go to song?

I LOVE to sing but I would never be brave enough to sing in front of people who aren't related to me. I stick to singing in the car and at home.

2. What is your favorite coffee drink?

Coffee SMELLS soooo good, but I don't drink it. I've tried. I think it tastes like burnt water. :) I'll stick to some yummy sweet tea.

3. If you could choose your own name, what would it be?

Well, I get called Jennifer a lot (like I said in this post) so it might make my life easier if I just changed my name to Jennifer.

4. Were you ever bullied?

That was a long time ago. Funny how things work out though. One of the people who used to bully me in high school recently said she thought we were a lot alike now and if we lived closer would probably be good friends.

5. How often do you eat fast food?
Way more than I should but not as much as I did when I was working.

Wordless(ish) Wednesday

Daniel and Landon watching Elmo in Grouchland. He was sad because Elmo lost his blankie. :)

(the kids have been put in charge of cleaning the mirrors. It was Landon's turn this week-can ya tell?)

Check out some other Wordless Wednesday participants here.

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.


I haven't done a Not Me! Monday post in a while. I've missed it. Hmmmmmmm...what did I NOT do this week?

Well, it was NOT my husband who went out of town for the weekend. He did NOT leave on Thursday morning and come home on Sunday evening.
It was also NOT my oldest child who missed her bus from the middle school to the elementary school on Thursday. I had not warned her about missing the bus that morning when she got out of the car because she forgot her phone and her dad was out of town so it would take me a long time to get there to pick her up.
When she did NOT miss the bus, I was NOT in the shower when she tried to call me. The secretary did NOT then pull out her emergency call list. The first three people on the list were NOT impossible to reach because they live out or town. She did NOT then call our friend Louise to pick her up. I did NOT call the school within 10 minutes of missing her call. I did NOT call Louise to tell her that I COULD in fact pick Dakota up. I was NOT totally embarrassed and did NOT feel like a horrible mother! Dakota did NOT have to wait an entire HOUR after school because I had to pick up the other girls before I went to get her. The middle school is NOT really far from our house.

Also on Thursday, I did NOT come home from taking the girls to gymnastics to find a wonderful surprise from our puppy in his crate. My second child did NOT go into the laundry room and let the dog out of his box so he could go outside. He did NOT run, covered in said surprise, across the carpet from the laundry room to the front door. I did not end up having to wash the crate, the dog, the laundry room tile, the entry tile, the carpet, and an extra load of laundry before I could go to bed that night.
On Saturday when driving in Tulsa to take the kids to meet Grandma Debbie for lunch and a trip to Chuck E Cheese, I did NOT completely miss my turn and end up WAAAAAAAAAY out of my way. The traffic to get back was NOT totally nuts. I did NOT end up getting cut off and having to exit at a time I needed to go straight and end up taking another unplanned detour. This detour did NOT end up actually saving me time because the traffic was lighter. I did NOT end up getting there 2 hours later than I planned. I did NOT blame this on my husband for taking the TomTom with him on his trip. I have NOT been to Tulsa a million times and should NOT have known how to get there on my own.

When we got to Chuck E Cheese, every kid in Tulsa was NOT there! I did NOT get my foot stepped on, pushed, bumped, and cut in front off a thousand times. My kids did NOT have a great time anyway.

I could go on and on. This has been a long week! I'll limit myself to just one more though:

Today when Daniel went to pick up the girls and Landon was napping, I did NOT think it would be a great time to sneak in some double-stuffed oreos and milk and check out everyone's Not Me! Monday posts. I do NOT LOVE double-stuffed oreos way too much. I did NOT overfill my milk cup so that when I dipped the first cookie in it overflowed and made a mess on the desk, me, and the floor. I did NOT think that it should probably have been a sign to me that I shouldn't eat the oreos. I did NOT go ahead and eat them anyway. They were NOT delicious.

Friday Follow!

I'm participating this week in Friday Follow, hosted by One 2 Try , Hearts Make Families, and Midday Escapades.

Check out the blogs in the McLinky and find some new friends to follow!

Five Question Friday 2/19/10

1. Have you ever hit an animal with your vehicle?

Oh yes! There have been many over the years, but a few are memorable. I could do a whole post on these, but I will limit myself.
Okay, the sad one first. I made a wrong turn one day on the way to pick up Dakota. There was a little jack russell that came tearing out of a yard after me and I got him with both wheels. The little girl that owned him was about 5th grade and she was hysterical. Broke my heart. I still think about it every time I pass that turn. :(

Over the summer, I ran over several snakes on my way to and from home. I don't generally run over animals on purpose, but the day I came home to find a snake in our driveway, I did. I ran over him and then backed up and did it again a couple of times. Turns out it was a Copperhead so I didn't feel bad at all.
The funniest one though (not at the time) was when I was the second in line to run over a skunk. The car in front of my hit him and I didn't have time to avoid him. I was on the way to meet some friends for dessert. I parked as far away as I could because of the smell, but when we came out, we couldn't even stay around in the parking lot it was SO bad. That smell stayed around for weeks!

2. When you see a string on your clothes do you pull it off or cut if off?

It really depends on how handy the scissors are. If I can get to them pretty easily, I'll cut it off. If not, I'll just pull it. (Don't tell my Mom! Ha!)

3. Did you have your own room or share a room when you were young?

Okay, this is going to make me sound a lot more spoiled than I actually was...but I had TWO rooms. I didn't have any siblings and we had a three bedroom house, so I got both extra rooms. One was my bedroom and one was my toy room.

4. Would you rather wear the same thing for the rest of your life or eat the same thing for the rest of your life?

I can't stand to eat the same thing over and over (which is why leftovers always go to waste at my house), so I will have to go with wearing the same thing for the rest of my life. I don't have that many clothes anyway so it wouldn't be much of a change for me.

5. What was your favorite TV show as a child?
I had lots of favorites! Some of the ones I remember are The Smurfs, He-Man, Double Dare, You Can't Do that on Television, and Kids Incorporated. I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them right now.

If you want to participate in Five Question Friday, head over to Mama M.'s blog and link up.
And check out how everyone else answered the questions!

At long last! Gymnastics videos!

Here is Cheyenne's floor routine. She did pretty well, except that she forgot the last handstand which is why she is standing so long at the end waiting for the music to stop. I think part of the problem was that she was distracted. Cheyenne was the last one in her group to perform, so the rest of the group kept getting up and going to warm up for the next event while she was doing her routine. I think that would have made me nervous too. Even with that, she got a red ribbon for her floor routine.

Here is Cheyenne's "vault". There's no vault there at this level, but they practice with springboard. Cheyenne got a blue ribbon for her vault at this meet. She's improved a lot since the December meet!

This is Sierra's "vault". They are working on the proper technique for the springboard.

Here is Sierra's floor routine. She's a lot more confident than she was at the first meet. Oh, and it looks like the judges aren't paying attention to her, it's because they are judging the girls who are on vault. The floor judges are to the left-you can see them a little at the very end.

If you want to see how far they have come since the first meet, click here to see the post with those pictures and videos.

Happy Birthday to Sierra!

Once we finished with Cheyenne's birthday celebration, it was time to start Sierra's. We have been celebrating Sierra turning 6 for two weeks now! She started celebrating on January 30 at Grandma Phyllis' house. We had another birthday party on January 31 at Grandma Debbie's house. Her "real" birthday is on February 2 (she's our little groundhog baby), so she had brownies at school, went out to eat Chinese food for dinner, and had another round of birthday brownies at home for dessert.

That little number 6 candle looks innocent enough but, let me tell you, it cause A LOT of trouble at Grandma Debbie's house. :)

Sierra has played with this art set EVERY DAY since she opened it. Aunt D.D. knows what this girl likes!

"Look! I got a DOLLAR!"

I think this was Sierra and Landon's first time to play "stick the tail on the donkey".
They thought it was really funny when Sierra missed her mark, not so much when it was THEIR turn. :) We had to explain to Landon that putting the tail in a silly spot was part of the fun. He didn't really buy it.

Poor Donkey!

We had Sierra's "friend" birthday party yesterday at the bowling alley. She had three little girls from school, her brother and sisters (of course), and Grandma Debbie bowling with her. It was fun!

I remembered to get a picture of Cheyenne bowling this time. Landon is supervising. He seems to think he is a professional bowler since he's been TWICE now. :)

And here's the birthday girl. It was fun to see the difference in her personality when her friends were around.

Daniel and Landon watching the action.

Dakota spent most of her time hiding and playing her DS. She came out to take her turn to bowl, but couldn't really risk being seen with a bunch of kindergarteners too much. :)

Grandma Debbie and Sierra checking out one of her birthday cards.

After all the trouble it caused, we just had to use the number 6 candle one more time!

Happy Birthday Miss Sierra! Hope you have a great time being 6!

So, we have officially passed Sierra's birthday for this year. Now we're moving on to Daniel's birthday. I'm ready for that one because he won't be able to use the "you're 32 and I'm only 31" thing anymore (yes, he IS that mean to me :)).

After that, the one I'm really not ready for this year. I can't believe that Dakota will be 12! That just sounds crazy!

I think next year's birthday season will be much different. Since we will be living much closer to our families, we won't have to have quite so many celebrations. The kids will be disappointed, I know, but I am kind of looking forward to it. :)

Happy Birthday Cheyenne (better late than never)!

I mentioned the other day that we have entered the Harmon family birthday season. So far this year, our family has already had 4 birthdays-mine, Cheyenne's, Grandma Debbie's, and Sierra's. We are having a birthday party for Sierra on Saturday and then we get a couple of week's off before we get to Daniel's birthday. Whew! I need it! I've already baked 6 pans of birthday brownies and one cake, plus 70some cookies for kids' Valentine's parties (oops, I mean "friendship" parties) today.

Have I mentioned that my kids' birthdays can last weeks? They usually take treats to school on the day of their birthday. Then, we take them out for dinner and have cake and ice cream at home. We also celebrate with our families in McAlester-usually once at each grandma's house-the weekend before or after their birthday. My kids are the king and queens of birthdays!

The past couple of years, we haven't really done birthday parties for their friends. It seems like kids just don't really go to birthday parties anymore. The last couple that we did, only two or three friends showed up. But, my sly little offspring ganged up on me this year and convinced me that they "needed" friend birthday parties since we are moving.

Cheyenne had a bowling birthday party. The kids had a blast! In fact, it was so much fun that Sierra has decided to have her party there too.


Somehow we didn't get a single picture of Cheyenne bowling. But here are some of the other kids-even a big kid. :)


Be looking for pictures from Sierra's birthday tomorrow. I've got one more batch of brownies and cookies to go!

Snow!!!! (LOTS of pictures-sorry, I just couldn't help myself)

We have had LOTS of snow this year! It has been deeper and lasted longer than I can remember ever before.

Snow around here usually doesn't amount to much and is usually gone by the next day. It's not usually good for snowball fights or building snowman-sometimes we can get some snow ice cream out of it. Last year, we got one snow that we were able to play in for a little while (not long because of the wind). The year before, the wind was blowing so hard that we couldn't go out at all and when the wind stopped, the snow melted before we could get out in it. Mostly, we get ice instead of snow.

This year, though, we have already had 2 BIG snowstorms and one that was pretty but didn't last long.

The first one was began on Christmas Eve. We had to cancel our Christmas Eve church service, dinner at Hunan's, and driving around looking at lights in our P.J.'s because of the ice and snow. We thought we were going to have to cancel our trip to visit our families in McAlester, too. But the sun came out on Christmas Day and we were able to make it-slowly. Daniel had to literally dig us out of our driveway!

Here are some of the pictures we took on the way to McAlester.

The snow from Christmas Eve lasted a long time! At first it was mostly ice, so we couldn't really play in it. It finally warmed up enough to soften it up and the kids were able to play it in for a while-wasn't too good for making snowmen though. These pictures are from January 2. I can't remember a time, ever, that snow has been on the ground that long! It was amazing!

We got another round January 28. It was forecast to be worse than the one on Christmas Eve. Daniel was gone to El Paso for the week. Since we were supposed to loose power,-leaving me with 4 kids, no heat, water, or electricity (TV or video games)-I loaded up the kids and took them to my mom's in McAlester. We ended up not losing power at our house, but better safe than sorry. Here are some of the pictures that Daniel got on the way back.

That's ICE on the trees. Very pretty, but not good news for the trees.

This is a pretty view even without the ice on the bridge. Love it!
Can you tell how hard the wind was blowing? Those icicles are crazy!

The girls had to go back to school on February 1. While they were gone, Landon and I were able to get out and build a little snowman. He had a blast!

The next day, the girls got in on the action after school. Sierra and Cheyenne built their own snowman. It was huge! They had to have Daniel come out and stack the middle and head on for them because they were so heavy.

We got another little snow this week on Monday. It didn't stay around though. It was mostly gone before the girls got out of school.

I love snow! It's so nice to sit by the window and watch the snow falling outside. I love the sound it makes when you walk on it (especially when it's just snow and no ice). But, I think I've had enough for one year. I'm ready for Spring!