Maintaining a healthy level of "insanity"

I received this email from my father-in-law and thought it was too funny not to pass along...

How To Maintain A Healthy Level Of "Insanity"

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at cars... see if they slow down.

2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.

3. Everytime someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

4. Put decaf in the coffee maker at work for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

5. In the memo feild of all your checks write 'For marijuana'.

6. Skip down the hall rather than walk and see how many looks you get.

7. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat... with a serious face.

8. Specify that your drive-thru order is 'To Go'.

9. Sing along at the opera.

10. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you have a headache.

11. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I won! I won!'

12. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, "Run for your lives! They're loose!"

13. Tell your children over dinner, "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."

14. Pick up a box of condoms at the pharmacy, go to the counter and ask where the fitting room is!

Our "Newest" Pet...

Today I picked Katie up from school to take her to the dentist and she whips out this sealed baggie of Goldfish crackers and inside the baggie was a fuzzy green caterpillar. She told me it was poisonous. I don't know if this 'fuzzy' caterpillar is 'poisonous' or not, but I do know some species of 'fuzzy' caterpillars can sting pretty bad when touched, so we did not touch this one. She wanted to keep it. I agreed since we already have a 'Butterfly Hatching' netted container. However, we still had errands to run. This caterpillar is lucky to be alive for the following reasons:

1) It had been in Katie's 'sealed' Ziploc bag for an hour an a half...

2) While inside the dentist's office (for another hour), the caterpillar stayed in my car with the baggie open...

3) After the dentist appointment, Katie and I went to go eat at the mall and get a couple things at Target, and again the caterpillar was in my car inside the open baggie...

4) I'm not sure that Goldfish crackers are the best choice of diet for a caterpillar...

As soon as we got home, we set-up a 'real home' for our new pet. We gave it fresh oranges and apples, threw in a few twigs and leaves, some sugar water, and let it be.

Katie went to bed early, and what she doesn't know yet is that the caterpillar has already made its way to the top of the netted house; which is where her previous pet caterpillars went to cocoon themselves! Cross your fingers!

White Belt Black Stripe

Yeah! My little kicker has been promoted from White Belt to White Belt Black Stripe at his Karate Academy!

Nathan has done SO well in every class; he's a very quick learner! During the test, they had to pass certain techniques such as 'double strikes', 'double blocks', 'kicks', 'self-defense', and answer safety question along with questions about where Karate originated and the type of Karate they are learning. His results were all A's and A+'s!!

Congratulations Nathan! Keep on kickin'!

Katie's Cookie Character

This is "Sweetberry" in cookie-form!

There is one "Sweetberry" for everyone in Katie's class!

This is the actual "Sweetberry" doll


All the 3rd graders at Valley Oaks have a project that is due Thursday, October 29th. Each student was to choose a character from any book that they are to give an oral report on along with some kind of visual; but they are not allowed to bring anything pre-made. Katie chose a book called "The Missing Recipe" and the main character is a My Little Pony named "Sweetberry". Since the book was about a missing recipe, we thought it would be creative to present her visual in the form of decorated sugar cookies! Katie, me, and Chris have been working on these cookies for two days now, and up top are pictures of the finished cookies!

Can you see the resemblance from the actual My Little Pony picture above and the 'imitation'? Gee, I think they look identical! Hehehe!

They didn't turn out quite as I would have liked, but YUMMY.... they are delicious!

The Good Ole' West

Chico says "Let me in! Let me in!"

My custom-made doors!

For quite some time, we have been wanting to put some form of doors in the doorway that enters the kid's playroom, our dining room, and our work-out room. This weekend Chris made our wishes come true! I told him what I had in mind, and he made it happen. He made these custom-made Star Saloon Doors. Home Depot didn't have exactly what I was looking for, so we went the next cheapest way; we found plain wood closet doors, some double-swinging hinges, and some white spray paint.... and poof! I got my custom doors! The purpose of these doors is mainly to keep the dogs out of this large area of the house. (However, we still have another doorway we have to block somehow. In the meantime, that door is being blocked with Katie's gymnastics mat.)

Didn't Chris do an AWESOME job!?!

Watch out Chuck Norris!

Can you see the Chuck Norris resemblance? Hahaha!

Nathan began his 1st 'official' Karate class at The Houston Karate Academy! He is SOOOO excited! I have never seen him so into learning something new. The Instructor fitted Nathan for his Gee and showed Chris and I how to put it on him before class started. Nathan paid attention, yelled "Yes sir!" when he was supposed to, raised his hand to try and be picked for a demonstration; which he did get picked for TWICE, and he's a VERY quick learner!

Nathan went two days ago to participate in a class to see if he would like this or not, and that's all he's been talking about for two days! When we left class today, he asked if he was coming back tomorrow! Poor kid, he only gets to go to class twice a week! Mondays and Wednesdays...

Nathan is our little Chuck Norris in the making! Hehehe!