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.

all good things must come to (an abrupt) end....

the weather has taken a bit of a nosedive.  granted, it is still waaaaayyyyy better than it was at this time last year but we all got really spoiled this past two weeks.  in fact, 

don had to cut the grass on sunday.  

i don't think he has ever cut the grass before may or june in years past.  it was the last really warm day and it topped out in the high 60's or low 70's.

the kids played and 

 the forsythia is in full bloom.

everywhere i look, there is a glow of green.

but, alas, it never lasts.  this is michigan, where the state motto is "if you don't like the weather, wait an hour and it will change".  

and change it did....

last night the temperatures got down to 25 degrees.  

sigh...

our neighbors, curt and laura have two apple trees and two peach trees which had already flowered.  they were worried about the freeze, so curt googled what to do and found out that if you put christmas lights on the trees around the blossoms, the heat from the bulbs will keep them warm enough to not freeze.   

 he covered the trees with bedsheets

 and tarps for good measure......

the tarps looked a little scary....

but the trains and trucks sheet added a bit of a hillbilly flavor.....

they had the purtiest yard in the whole trailer park.....   :)

but it worked, the blossoms didn't freeze and i am looking forward to some juicy peaches and crunchy honeycrisp apples in the fall.  

hopefully.  unless it snows. 

this is michigan, after all!

neighbors are such a blessing......

we have some wonderful neighbors....they have six kids and are just the greatest family i know.  since i had the girls for the weekend, they went over to their house to play on friday night.  while i was helping them clean up all of the toys, i saw the scariest toy i have seen in a while.  it was a mechanical monkey..you know, one of the ones that have real looking eyes.  i commented to their mother, angie, how disturbing and creepy i thought it was.  she laughed and said that she hadn't really looked at it in detail before, but upon examining it again, agreed with me.  little did i know that the wheels were already turning in her head.

 the next night i took austen and the girls out to eat while don worked on the kitchen floor and we inadvertently had dinner at the same restaurant.  when they left before we did, angie thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to hatch their little plan.  she sent the three older boys over to my house with the monkey.......well, this is the email i sent to them today.  i think you can get the gist of the rest of the story in the email.....

From: me

Date: November 6, 2011 11:08:09 AM EST

To: them

Subject: to my wonderful neighbors

dear ethan, muaz and aiden.....(and the rest of your fabulous family)

thank you so much for the monkey.  imagine how horrified surprised i was to see the scary and nightmare inducing cute little monkey in my bed last night.  

i was so comforted to see his adorable eyes as he stared at me from between my pillows.  you guys are just the best EVER!!!!  he had to sleep downstairs last night though, because champ was lonely and really wanted to have a companion.  the evil little adorable monkey slept on top of champers cage so i wouldn't have to have it anywhere near my bedroom he could guard him through the night. 

this morning i made sure that i gave the monkey to tessa to hold on to so that it didn't end up in the garbage can it could get just as much loving as it could get....

she loved it a lot and hopefully squeezed the life out of it  gave it lots of hugs and loving.

 and i am sure that she didn't mean to show that rude gesture......i think she loves him just as much as i do!!!!

thank you so, so much for my unbelieveable shock wonderful bedtime surprise......and be assured that i did not have any bad dreams!!!!

all my love,

mrs. mandernach

:D

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!

just sayin'......

not a good idea!!!!

the real life.....

this is what my life consisted of today.....

there were, at one time or another, 9 kids in my house

using my couch cushions and decorative pillows as a fort and/or armor... 

for an epic nerf gun war.

things got out of control pretty quickly

what is this, you ask?

besides a really dirty front door rug?  how about the front door handle

which ended up on the floor

how does a handle just fall off of the door?

since we are having a subdivision garage sale tomorrow and i will be participating, i made some 

goodies for the kids to sell....4 dozen cupcakes, a pan of brownies and banana bread which resulted in my kitchen looking like

this:

and this:

aah, a little visual reprieve....

nope. back to real life.....

the dog played it safe and hid out in his cage during all of the madness...

and what could be more craptastic than all of that?

the email i got from my girlfriend that said 

"good morning! 

your baby is now a high schooler"! 

yes, austen graduated 8th grade and hence is done with middle school.  he had his recognition ceremony 

tuesday night....

and today?

he turned 14.  fourteen!

and my stomach is sick.  he was just in kindergarten....how does this happen?

he is too young to be 14!

happy birthday buddy, you are a rock star.

what i love about the internet......

there are good things and bad things about the internet.....i focus on the good things....the amazing blogs that cover any and all topics that interest you, photography, food, decorating, sewing, crafts, 

the plethora of information at your fingertips, the way you can connect with family and friends through social media websites, email and skype... the fact that the internet is the biggest black hole of shopping on earth, that it is the most complete cookbook available  and the mind boggling and almost incomprehensible amount of images that are there for everyone to see and access....

one of my favorite new ways to catalog these images is 

PINTEREST

have you heard about this site?  it is a virtual bulletin board that you can create and "pin" images taken from the internet in any subject that piques your "interest" to individual "boards".

how many of us have overfilled binders full of pictures, ripped out pages from magazines, paint chips, etc, when we are decorating our houses....or we are looking for that perfect setting for a photo shoot that you see online.  or simply an idea or recipe that strikes your fancy, so you "add to favorites" bar but then, if you are like me, you have hundreds of favorites and can't find anything???

what i love about this site is the ability to place these images into visual files that you can access and add to at any time. 

 i have a friend who is having me do a photo shoot for her two daughters birthdays later this summer and she wants to have a tea party theme for the party....i put together a "tea party" board to give her ideas for decor, food and set-up.

sometimes i just want to look at pretty things, so i have a board called pretty pretty.  i had no idea that there were so many beautiful and fantastic images on the internet.... i also have one for home decorating ideas and one for diy projects, food and just plain crazy fun stuff... 

 once you are set up with pinterest, you can "pin" any image you want from anywhere on the internet...onto your "boards".

my pinterest boards are here

cindy's pinterest boards

one of my favorite boards is "the word".  it is full of inspirational quotes and sayings and lots of really funny ones....

check it out...you are going to love it...but be forewarned....it can be addicting..

busy, busy week

i can't believe that a week has already flown by... this has been a very busy week around here.  

the weather has actually warmed up a bit....in fact, it was in the mid 80's this past sunday..just two days after i whined like a baby about how cold its been lately.

however...

the following day it was back into the 50's and has stayed there since.  

and it was windy which makes it feel like the 40's...

i digress..

sunday's temps allowed us to finally spend some time outdoors.  

here is how our family spend the day...

don could not wait to get out into his garden

pruning the gardens and the rose bushes

did i tell you that our dog eats rose bushes???

it's true...when he was a puppy and before we had any control over him at all....he would yank the rose bushes out of the ground, roots and all, and drag them through the yard....

at least he doesn't eat his own poop....

austen spent most of the day golfing in the yard...

or as we like to call it

 fishing for balls in the pond..

doesn't the pond have a lovely green hue???  he could have teed off on the scum in there!!!

we went to home depot for some replacement parts to fix our 7 year old ( falling apart, burn everything you put on it, birds nest of a grill)

and came home with 

this

heaven, i tell ya!!!!  4 burners and a spit (that we still have to buy)

and the flames don't flare up and engulf our food and burn it to crispy ashes..ahhhh!!!

i scored an end table in someone's garbage pile...yup, totally slammed on the brakes,

pulled to the side of the road and hauled this baby into the back seat. because our cars were small and had no trunk space to be able to accommodate furniture....

so yesterday, we came home with this

an uplander with lots and lots of room

and seating for 7....people or pieces of furniture....

oops, how did that get in there???

i also worked on another piece of furniture for my friend lisa...

and when i uploaded this picture to send to her for a progress report yesterday, i noticed that there were some funky vertical lines on the picture....i googled it and learned that this is a major camera malfunction.  i was hoping that google was goggled in the head and bee-lined it to my beloved camera store where i bought my canon 7D.  they hadn't seen anything like that before and thought that it was an electronic problem and packed it off to the manufacturer......  :(

and i had a photo shoot to do this morning.....

so i got out my old canon xti and couldn't remember how to use it.  so i had to google that too.  but it worked and i was able to do the little mini easter shoot of these two lovelies.....

 so clear it almost looks like they are coming right out of the picture, doesn't it???

hey, how did that get in there???

it was actually warm enough to be outside in summer clothes....
i asked don to take a picture of me in my painting apron.  because it is a cute apron.

notice that he didn't get the apron....

hey, my eyes are up here.....(because i am so hugely endowed)

there we go.....

so i had to set it up so he could get the whole apron in the picture (i do wear it when i paint)

a bicycle, a couple of ladders, wading boots for the pond, the snow blower that hasn't been put away yet (i told don to get that dang thing into the shed before it jinks us again...crap..too late, they are calling for snow on saturday night, for reals!!!) a wooden sofa on its side, and numerous oil and paint stains on the garage floor. lovely isn't it?  hmmmmm...maybe the garage could use a little feminine touch, some pretty paint on the walls, and some curtains in the windows?????

nah, just a good power washing.....

i know your butt is cute, but can you keep it out of my post please???

i leave you today with an oxymoron of sorts

ruffles and skulls!!!

they are the same shoes as the raspberry ones in the photo above, only in mushroom.  

ok, i'm hungry now...

have a great weekend, friends!!!

seriously now!!!!