Presidential Inauguration

Here's all my little sweeties watching the Inauguration of our 44th President. I recorded it, then had them watch it when they got home from school. To be quite honest, they weren't all that interested. Still, they had some good questions and thought that the millions of people there were really cool. I wanted them to watch it & I took pictures so that they can remember that they were witness to the first African-American man taking the Oath of Office. Of course, it's not at all strange to them, because they've never experienced racism. Thankfully, it's no longer a part of our everyday culture, and I hope that they only way they do experience it is through reading a history book.
I was fascinated, not only by that aspect, but by the renewed interest in politics in the nation and in myself. I'm not usually taken by things of a political nature, but found myself yesterday glued to the TV, drinking it all in. I learned so many things about presidential history, and I was amazed at all that is involved with inaugurations. It's fascinating. And the fact that the President and the Chief Justice messed up the oath is great! It's a perfect example of the fact that we're all just human, and capable of error. Next time, I suggest that Chief Justice use his notes, though! LOL I always figure that if the President can do about 25% of what he promised to do, then he did a really good job. There's a lot they have to contend with to get stuff done, you know. If President Obama does 25% of what he promised, he really will have managed to turn this country around. I'm actually very interested in what the next four years holds. I hope you are too. And I hope I can get my kids more interested too!!!

Pinky Lee turns 3!

So Pinks turned 3 on Sunday! I know, I'm late getting this out, but I've had technical problems. That seems to be a theme lately. Anyway, she could have cared less that it was her birthday. People kept telling her "Happy Birthday" and she would smile, but that was about it. Oh, well! Those oh-so-yummy creations that she's eyeing hungrily are a new creation I like to call "Orange Brownie Cuppie-cakes". With pink sprinkles on top for my Pinky Lee! They were SOO good. And apparently she really liked them too, because she's been stealing the extras ever since. We called Daddy & put him on speaker phone to sing Happy Birthday with us. Lil' Coconut even played her a little song on her piano. How cute. So it was a nice little celebration. Thank you to everyone who sent something or called for her birthday...she loves that!

Fundraisers & Doctor's Offices

Two things that totally annoy me, and I had to deal with both of them today.

The first one was the doctor's office. Why in the world do they book so darn many people into so little time and space? The poor doctor is scheduled to see a new patient every 15 minutes, plus they have to wash their hands & do all their paperwork and whatnots in between. So that really only leaves about 10 minutes to actually spend with the patient. When was the last time you only spent 10 minutes with your doctor??? Exactly. So today, alone with 4 children in tow (what was I thinking?), I bravely faced the dreaded doctor's office waiting room. For over an hour. Closer to an hour and a half. It's very hard to keep even one child happily occupied in a chair for over an hour. Try four. Then we got to the exam room. It was a tight fit, but we made it. My children are fascinating with the rubber gloves, so everybody got one. As truly exciting as rubber gloves are, though, even that didn't last long. It was short of mass chaos by the time the doctor got there. Bless her heart, she's so tolerant! At the end of the visit she even asked how my blood pressure was doing & had them check it then said, "It's pretty good, considering." LOL So funny...so true. BTW, all kids are fine, just a check up.

Let's talk fundraisers. I've grown to REALLY dislike them. It seems as though they come every month, from the same corporation that inevitably takes 75% of the profits for themselves. Besides, I only know about 10 people who are willing to buy this crap (and yes, that's mostly what it is) & 2 kids who desperately want to sell stuff to get silly dollar store prizes. The odds aren't exactly in our favor. What happened to a good old fashioned bake sale? Lil' Coconut's school last year did this "Fiesta de los Ninos" thing where all the kids performed (so all the parents had to come), and in between performances there were little carnival games (so you had to buy tickets to play), a book fair (so you had to buy books... I mean, you HAD to, right?), plus all sorts of yummy food (so you had to buy dinner because it was right in the middle of dinner & your kids can't possibly NOT eat). These people probably raised a ton of money, and everyone had a great time. Seriously, we did have a good time. That was a really good idea. I have all kinds of ideas for good fundraisers (okay, so they aren't really my ideas, but I've gleaned lots of really good ideas from other sources), but no one to tell them to because there's no actual PTA (or PTO, whichever you prefer). That however is a totally different subject. *sigh* So, on that note...would anyone like to buy some jewelry or chocolates???

Report Cards & a Blanket

Report cards are in, and it's good news all around! Lil' Coconut & Bug both made the Honor Roll, plus they had perfect attendance! They got a bunch of coupons to a local fast food place that they can't wait to cash in. I'm not really sure where Bug's ribbon is, but I intend to find out on Monday. We're so proud of our little academics!

Also, I wanted to share the cutsiepoo blankie that our friends Rabin & Kathy made for Boo Boo Bear. They did all that beautiful cross-stitch, and I finally got the batting and back sewn on. They've made gorgeous blankies for each of the kids. Thank you! We love them!

Feel free to leave comments congratulating our smartypants kids!

Boo Boo Bear turns 1!

Yesterday was Boo Boo Bear's 1st Birthday!!! Oh, it seems like only yesterday.....*sigh* Here are the pics from eating the cake, & us singing Happy Birthday to him. He liked the singing, not so much for the cake. Don't know what that was all about, although he had just eaten a very big dinner & he was very tired. Everybody else enjoyed the cake, which is good since I had to make it from scratch. Daddy said he didn't think he'd ever had cake made from scratch, which is a really sad commentary on my life because I love baking. How could I have never made a cake from scratch before??? Hmmm...

Anyway, it was a sweet little celebration just with the family. We will be having "THE Birthday Party" at the end of January as a joint party with his sister Pinky Lee (whose birthday is now only 9 days away!). It won't be until the END of January because Daddy decided to run off and leave us for at least 2 weeks for a "business trip" starting Monday. The last "business trip" involved a NASCAR race. But since NASCAR is on break, he may have to actually do work! *GASP!* LOL, just kidding Daddy! We love you and will miss you!

Oh, I digress again. Now, here are the pics:

For some reason, the slideshow keeps cutting off his head on the one where he's grabbing for the cake. I couldn't fix that. Sorry! Still cute though.

BTW, the icing is blue because I made it with butter, which turned it yellow, which I didn't think was so cute for my little man, so I dyed it blue. Yeah.

2008 Year in Review Part 2

Here is Part 2 of our 2008 Year in Review. Enjoy!




P.S. If you want to see this again, you should download it to your computer & save, because the video hosting site will only have it for 1 month I believe. :)

Our Christmas Present to You

I'm ready to rip my hair out over this stupid present that I thought would be so cool to give as gifts. I found this great program on our computer in November (we've owned this computer since about March I think) called Windows Movie Maker. "So Cool!" I say to myself. Here I am thinking what a great idea it will be to make a slideshow of all the great pictures we've taken this past year but haven't sent out. It says I can burn it to a CD for easy replay. "Fabulous Idea!" I'm thinking. HA HA HA! Making the movie was easy enough. We've been trying for the last 3-4 weeks to get it to burn to CD & then play somewhere else. No go. We moved on the uploading to the web & going e-mail. So far, that's a no go too. Now we are trying to upload it here. Only, I had to deconstruct the stupid thing into 2 parts to make the video hosting site happy (and keep it free). This is the test. Let's hope it works. Otherwise, you're all out of luck. Sorry! It really was going to be a nice Christmas gift. Now only those of you priveleged enough to have computers, internet, and access to our wonderful blog will get to see it. If this works please enjoy it. If it doesn't work, please tell me my hair looks nice even if there's none left. Thank you!

The Beasleys now present their 2008 Year in Review Part 1:

P.S. If you want to see this again(and you know you do), you should download & save it to your computer because the video hosting site will only have it for 1 month I believe.