just another round of humiliation......

for my poor son.....

since today is april fools day, i felt compelled to show a rerun of last year's trick that i played on austen....

i just couldn't resist.  

enjoy!!!

i couldn't think of anything as good this year so i only put a rubber band on the sprayer of the faucet and reminded him to rinse out his cereal bowl and put it in the dishwasher this morning.

the winter of our content......

 like most of the country, we have had some pretty mild weather lately.  and when i say mild, i mean hot!!  it was 84 degrees here today and right this minute, at 10:39 pm, it is 70 degrees outside.  seventy degrees....seven-zero!  

tomorrow's expected temperature is 90 degrees.  ninety degrees.....nine-zero!  

tomorrow is march 21st.  not july 21st, march...

i am not complaining.  

no one is around here.  

normal highs for this time of year range from 26 to 45 degrees.  the temperature on this date last year was 36 degrees.  

the total snowfall for our area last year was 75 inches.  the snowfall this year so far???  33 inches.  

we have had temps 65 and above for close to two weeks now.  and with all of the 

whining and moaning that i did last year while waiting for spring, 

and more whining and moaning,

 this weather is heaven!!!

 we have tulips coming up in the yard,

and the rose canes are leafing out....

 the red maple trees, just look at them.

 my curly willow is green with new growth

it's green!!! 

everything has a tinge of green.

 and my lilacs are budding.

 the russian sage is sprouting and the spiders have added their silver strands to the design.

 the willow trees by the pond are leafing as well.

 we have never seen such growth on the butterfly bush as there is right now.  we usually have to cut all of the dead wood off each spring.  nothing died this winter.  it never got cold enough, really.

 the bradford pear tree will have their stinky white flowers blooming soon.  

 the weeping cherry tree still shows some of last year's remnants tangled with the new leaves.  

 i had fresh chives for our dinner salad this past sunday. 

 rhubarb, i have rhubarb......and i have visions of rhubarb crumble dancing in my head.

 the raspberry canes are abloom 

 and the strawberry runners are running amok....

even the weeds are growing.

and it looks like the grass is going to need cutting soon.

this just doesn't happen in michigan.  

we usually have snow well into march and even into april.  nothing starts blooming until the first couple weeks of april and the leaves on the trees usually don't start  budding until may.  we are supposed to have temps in the high 80's until the end of the week and then 20-30 degrees above average for the week following. 

the kids have been playing outside every day until nightfall, barefoot, bruised and mosquito bitten....

and best of all??? on saturday night, st. patrick's day, we went to ziggy's.

our local ice cream spot closes for the year on september 30th and reopens on april 1st every year....

it's been open since march 14th....

a really smart business move since i was in line for 25 minutes waiting for my first ice cream of the year.....well worth the wait...

      :D   <-----  that's me with a huge smile on my face....

i hope the weather in your area of the country is just as beautiful as it is here.  

for the love of the game......

austen's football season ended last thursday after a very loooong season.

his practices for freshman football began last june, 4 days after getting out of school for the summer.

he had practice and conditioning every day from 2:30 to any time between 5:00 and 6:30.  this schedule lasted until the beginning of august when the schedule changed to 7:30 am until 4:30.  every.single.day. 

 in between football practices, we had to fit in a traveling baseball season.  surmise it to say, it has been a very, very long season.....but we all loved it.

austen's football equipment had to be turned in today, so saturday i wanted to do a sports photo shoot.  

i told him on friday that since his equipment didn't have to be turned in until today, he needed to be sure to bring everything home so i could do this shoot over the weekend.....

well, he's 14.

and a boy....

so of course, he didn't have all of his equipment when he came home on friday.  seems his coach confiscated his shoulder pads before he left school.

curses!!!!

after some brainstorming, i asked around for shoulder pads from all of the boys families in the neighborhood.  no luck. but one neighbor remembered that he had a box of hockey equipment in his attic.  he found me shoulder pads and we were off.

by this time, however, austen was no longer up to doing the shoot and was a little less than cooperative...

well, he's 14,

and a boy....

so i had to threaten to take away his x-box bribe him to cooperate with me. 

i wasn't really successful, but the attitude just adds to the whole sports vibe....

he wasn't smiling here, he was whining....

i figured a few action shots would help..

ooh, a little smile there...

it helped a little....

but he was done.

but i wasn't. 

 i figured as long as we were taking sports pictures he may as well put his baseball uniform on and get some of those too.... 

ooh, not happy with me....(hee-hee...sometimes i love being the one in control)

i love the faces in this set....

i couldn't get a smile for anything....

that's okay...i love them.... and i think that someday he will too!

hail to the victors valiant....

the big game...michigan (6-0) vs. michigan state (4-1).  

on tap for noon today.  

my boys are undefeated. i am picking the wolverines to win.

i will be in my great room with my son watching the most legendary game in college football in michigan. my husband will be at the grocery store, the home depot, in the backyard or standing out in the wind and rain (which is our weather today).  he will be gnashing his teeth and developing a stomach ulcer.  because not only is the game legendary, so is don's reputation as a university of michigan alumni who

cannot watch a university of michigan football game.  he just can't.  his brain just won't let him watch a game without 

screaming at the tv, 

stomping off after a bad play, 

hollering at me to turn the tv off so he doesn't have to be tortured anymore 

or ripping his hair out at the roots. 

yeah, we call him "superfan"!!

and since i love to watch the game without him torturing me too, he has to leave. 

so i've written out the grocery list, i'm having him check out the oops paint at the home depot and i've pointed out all of the things in the yard that need to be attended to.

i just hope it is three hours worth......

GO BLUE

my baby is a high-schooler.....

sniff....

austen started 9th grade today. 

9th grade!!!

how does this happen?  he was just in kindergarten last year, or was that two years ago....

this mama is having severe anxiety about her boy growing up.

it is all happening too fast.

high school starts much earlier in the morning than middle school.  he has to get up an hour earlier than he did last year, which was 6:30 am.

5:30 am is ear-ly!

so we had everything ready last night.

backpack packed....check....

cereal and bowl set out.....check...

ninth grader showered, dressed and ready.....chec----whoa!

5:30 is really, really early!!!!

so early in fact, that it is still pitch dark out when he goes to school now.

so i had to take the pictures in the house.

i made him smile by telling him to say the proper name for "weiner". 

 he compromised and told me to stop taking pictures.  through gritted teeth...

we're even!!!!

have a great year buddy.  i love you!   ..don't let high school make you grow up too fast...

promise me, okay? 

taking one for the team.....

austen had his last baseball tournament last weekend.  it marked the end of his season this summer....

but he will be remembering one of his games for at least a couple of more weeks.

for sure....

 he was hit by a pitch in one of the last games.  those little squirts can really throw the ball hard.
we love that it is the perfect ball shape.

i'm not sure if the red zig zag is from the stitching on the ball  

or

maybe a little harry potter action...

hmmm, i don't remember voldemort being there...

and yeah, he's going to kill me for posting a picture of him in his boxers.....but, he is going to be graduating high school in 4 years and i need pictures for his grad party slideshow.
shhhh!

the lovely days of summer.....

since the weather around here has become a bit more temperate, it is starting to feel like a real summer.  

this has to have been one of the most unusual years for weather in our little corner of michigan.

winter was unusually snowy, probably the most snow i remember since i was a kid.

spring was unusually cold and wet and we were left feeling like it would never get warm....it was kind of like the dementors had invaded our city.  

summer came and we went from cold and wet to hot and humid.  i think the weatherman said that our area had seen more days in july over the 90 degree mark than below it...and my electric bill confirms that fact. totally not normal for southeast michigan.

last week, after not having had rain for about a month except for a little rain shower twice, we had 

a storm that dumped  6-7 inches of rain in one night, caused a power outage and flooded our basement.

fortunately, we don't have a finished basement.  we use it for storage and since we had had a flood when our house was 4 years old and the 4 year old sump pump broke, we got smart and put most of our stored things in plastic bins and up on shelving. 

we only had carpet in a small are of the basement where don has his exercise equipment.  

 there is still a bit of organizing to redo since we tried to get some of the stuff up off of the floor in a hurry.

 our poor neighbors weren't as lucky.  they had a finished basement and their back up battery powered sump pump (that they installed in the event of a power outage) failed as well.  there was just too much water.  too fast.

our neighbor curtis came over to the house on thursday morning and told us to check our basement for flooding because theirs had flooded.  when i went to their house a few minutes later, they and their kids were bailing water out of the basement egress window.  what a mess.  i was too overwhelmed to take any pictures of this debacle while it was happening, but lets just say it sucked!  

today, things are back to normal for the most part.  

austen is done with this:

(ooh, just look at that face, that determination)

(good form)

  and they got second place in last weekend's tournament.

it was a fun season, they lost more games than they won but the boys were great.  i was a great baseball mom and never missed a game and i will miss the other moms and dads.  

football starts soon though, so i will be just as busy with that, i'm sure!

for right now, i am going to happily live what is left of summer and enjoy the little things....