Wednesday, May 27, 2009

My newest hobby

At the end of last year a new small group started up at my church. Blankets and Blessings is a group of ladies that get together and crochet(a few of them prefer to knit) lap blankets that are taken to a local hospice and given to new patients and their families when they arrive. The hospice group we work with is VITAS and they are all over the Houston area. They do so many things to help the families get through the difficult process of watching their loved ones slip away to a better place.

I had never crocheted before in my life. I remember my grandma always doing it and I wish that I had asked her to show me before she died. So I started learning and it just kind of took off from there. I am always on the search for new cool (not old and grandma-ish) patterns and things to try. I've finished a few blankets for the group and also made a few things for friends and family. Here's a few of the things I've made. I wish I had pictures of some other things I've already given away...

baby blanket...it matched her brown/white polka dotted bedding
baby blanket

sundress...this involved sewing also, which is NOT my strong suit...
crochet sundress

Logan's basketball hat...horrible pic
P9201450

So, that's my newest obsession...

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Long weekends...

We had a great Memorial day weekend. We didn't have any plans...just hung around the house, playing outside and getting dirty. What little boys are best at.

Apparently, eating a lunchable is dangerous work...please wear your hard hats.

P5233002

my sweeties...
P5233004

P5233005

Friday, May 22, 2009

How can you stay mad after this?

So Logan stayed home from school yesterday because he was up sick all night. Towards the afternoon he started feeling better (I know this because he inhaled 2 corn dogs and a ton of chips) so we went to rent a video game. We had to vacate the house for a showing so we took our Wii game and board and went to my Mom's to play and visit. After a few games he started getting pissed off when he was losing, so I told him to stop throwing a fit or the game was getting turned off. I gave him a few more chances and then I got tired of it...and I turned off the game just like I said. This started an even bigger fit of screaming and crying so I just told him to go cool it off and sit at the kitchen table until he was done being ugly.

Then I hear him tell my Mom that he wants to go make me an "I'm sorry" card in her scrap room. So away he goes. This is what he brings me in two seperate trips...

P5222999

The white puzzle pieces are the first trip...the colored ones are the second trip. Wanna know what they say???



P5223000

This kid cracks me up daily...seriously.

Oh, and I definitely laughed...but he still didn't play the Wii the rest of the night.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Baseball playoffs...2009

So Logan's baseball team made it to the playoffs. Last night was their first game and boy was it a doozie. We won, 11-5. It was a tough game but I'm so proud of ALL the boys for how hard they played and no matter what happened they kept playing hard. There were some iffy plays that got called in our favor and boy, you have never seen adults act more like children then when watching a little league game. The adults in the stands were yelling at the umpires and at the end the coaches were yelling and talking smack to them also.(the other team) Never a good idea. And we play this same team again tonight. Logan got a hit every at bat and ran as fast as I think I've ever seen him run in baseball. After the game he told me that Nathan told him a secret to running faster, you gotta move your arms like this (pumping his arms). I told him it worked...lol. He even slid into a couple bases. He made a couple of really good plays. It was just an all around awesome game. Hopefully, we can pull it out tonight again and go on to the championship round next week. On the way home, we were talking about the game and the different plays. Logan was talking about one kid that missed the ball and I told him that he didn't give up, he came back and got the next ball that came his way...and that's all you can do. Everyone is gonna miss the ball sometimes, you just have to get it the next time, or the next time after that. He said yea, and the #1 rule in baseball is to have fun. We have super awesome coaches to thank for that attitude on baseball. Every game they make the boys want to play and have fun. Isn't that what it's all about? What everything should be about?

P5192991

Go Sooners!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Wow...Citihomes Realty.

I'm working on a letter to send to the Texas Real Estate Commission...and I'll post it everywhere I can in cyberspace too. But first I need to get all the information I need from then, because I can just imagine how helpful they will be once they know I filed a complaint against them. Stay tuned...

Friday, May 15, 2009

House for sale?

So if you are ever thinking of selling your home, or buying a home...do NOT list with Citihomes Realty or use an agent/broker named Keith Griffin. Trust me, you will regret it and it will stress you out until you have him and the entire company out of your life. Which I am glad to say, we are now free of Keith Griffin and Citihomes...we at least on May 17, 2009 at 11:59pm when our listing is terminated. And word of mouth is a bitch...just like me. I have plans.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Astros and Mother's Day

This past Mother's day weekend, Logan, Mike and I went to the Astros game. They had the little league parade around the field and after the game the Mom's got to run the bases (with the kids). Here's some pics from our fun filled day.

during the parade
P5102866

cool angle
P5102875

The boys singing the national anthem
P5102902

crossing home plate
P5102923

P5102924

The boys had a blast...they always do at the parade game.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The house

So I've avoided talking too much about this on here for fear that something would go wrong...Friday something went wrong(again) so what the hell?



To understand my full saga of house selling I feel like I need to go back to the beginning so I'm going to just do this list style and throw in some dates the best I can remember.



-March: our house officially goes on the market...online and all, gets lots of showings, lots of attention...everything is starting out great.



-April: first official offer on the table, full price offer, awesome! we snatch it up.



-Good Friday: the day AFTER we accept the offer and the date of the inspection, buyer cancels the offer. She finally looked at the sellers disclosure and freaked out that our house had 2 inches of water during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. You might remember it, the entire city of HOUSTON was underwater.



-April: still showing the house, still getting lots of traffic...still truckin



-end of April/beginning of May: crazy lady interested, wants to know if there are foundation issues. We have an inspection and of course, there are, $2,000 worth. No problem, we pay to have the work done and get a lifetime warranty transferable to any new owner. Crazy lady is too crazy and asking for tons of little stuff to be done before she even puts in an offer, forget her. Two other offers come in, back and forth, we tell them both to give us their best offer and we will pick one. Offer A comes back and has DEFINITE financing, Offer B comes in about $400 more but is only pre-approved. We choose Offer A because of the financing and start looking for our new home. In the middle of all this, my friend, our realtor changes companies, so now we have a throwdown realtor handling the sale of our house. (and he's a realllll piece of work, let me tell you!)



-May: we look at a house we've had our eye on for a while, over our price range but we are willing to stretch. we make a full price offer and the seller comes back wanting $5,000 more and changes his list price online to reflect that. We pass and keep looking. Find house #2 in nice neighborhood, close to us now so the kids can stay at the daycare we love. Make an offer a little lower than our (new) max so we have room to negotiate...seller is "insulted" by our offer and comes back with a riduculous offer we pass on. Keep looking, keep looking...not finding ANYTHING in the area we want to stay in. Start branching out to Pearland, Clear Lake, after a meltdown I decide that I don't want to move away so we decide to stick it out, maybe stay with the rents for a while if our house sells and we don't find anything in time. Finally, we find the house. Under budget(the original budget, not the inflated one), older home(that's what I wanted), needs a little work but I'm all gung ho and excited about it. Love the area, the seller is desperate to sell and willing to fix everything we ask him to.


-May 8: (close date set for may 20th) buyers for our house do something to screw up their credit score(after they've already paid for an inspection and appraisel on our house)...they don't LOSE their financing but the interest rate jumps up and they decide to cancel their offer. Now they are trying to get their earnest money back because they say they can't get financing...our throwdown realtor says no, you have financing you just don't want to pay for it. So now we wait, push back the close on the new home and hope we can find another buyer for our house.

I know there are positives that I should be focused on...and really, I'm beyond the point of being upset...I'm just indifferent I think. So anyway, since not saying anything on the blog didn't help things go smoothly maybe if I lay it all out there things will start to go our way. I'm convinced this house is the one we are going to buy, but if it doesn't happen it won't be the first time I was wrong.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Trouble

So this past week has been really hard on Logan. I don't know what the deal is but he's gotten in trouble at school and daycare everyday this week.

Monday, he snuck the DS to school and got caught by the daycare teacher. He's been told at least 152 times that he is not allowed to take the DS to school and/or daycare. And he was on blue at school.
Tuesday, on yellow.
Wednesday, on ORANGE!
Thursday, on RED!!

Their school has a color coded conduct system. Everyday the clip with their name starts at green. If they don't get in trouble or get one warning, it stays on green. Two warnings and a conduct mark is yellow, two conduct marks is orange, red is a call to the parents, and purple is a trip to the principals office.

So he was one step away from going to the principal's office. And it was all over a bunch of little stuff that he knows better...playing, and talking, and throwing things in class.

So today his teacher is moving him to another set of desks. So hopefully he can start behaving better.

His teacher did say something that made me feel a little better. She told me that even when he knows he is going to be in trouble he always tells her the truth. She said he knows how to behave and she thinks moving him will help. So we'll see what happens today. He's been grounded from video games (for taking the DS to school) and then grounded from anything fun (for the colorful conduct reports this week) and I told him if he comes home on anything other than green today he won't be going with us to the Astros game on Sunday. I really hope he straightens up because I really don't want him to miss the game. It stinks having to threaten punishments that you don't want to follow through on...but I didn't know what else to do to get through to him.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Closed for remodeling...

I'm trying to make my blog all decked out...and blogger is not cooperating. I'm gonna try again later.
I've got lots of house news too but I'm a little superstitious about posting about it in case something goes wrong. Soon though, very soon.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

My very own strong man...

Check out the latest contestant in the World's Strongest Man Competition...
Here he is doing the car lift...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...


P5022838

I think he's outgrown the car, just a bit!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Family Reunion in the country

So this weekend we had our annual Johnson Family Reunion in Deadwood, TX. Yes, that is really the name of the town. So Mike, Jack and I left Friday night and my parents left a little earlier with Logan. We got in very late and everyone was asleep so when we woke up the next morning around 9, I went looking for Logan. Everyone was still asleep and my grandpa was sitting at the kitchen table. He said Logan was already at the pond fishing. (the kid has been talking about fishing for 2 weeks and spent all last weekend practicing his casting in the backyard). So I get dressed to go find him and this is what I see at the pond...

P5022812

Oh yea, that's my kid...the city kid, who couldn't even put all his clothes on before he took off for the "fishin hole". But as the day progresses, I start to hear more stories. The guys that were up all night manning the BBQ pit said it was way before 7 and they heard my grandpa coming up the lane on his 4 wheeler...and then they see a blonde boy running up the lane after him, waving his arms screaming and wearing only underwear and tennis shoes. Thankfully my grandpa made him go back to the trailer and put on some pants. Logan was the talk of the reunion. They all said the apple didn't fall far from that tree! They all knew he belonged to my Grandpa! lol

Oh yea, can't wait to tell the future girlfriends this story.

Both the boys had a blast though...Logan had the record for biggest fish (5 inches) for a long while, until someone caught a catfish. Here's some more pics of the fishing and other shenanigans...


Jack could barely hold the pole up...and he got mad when I tried to help him!

P5022821


Ewww...gross!
P5022819

Boy Meets Worm

P5022824


Logan getting his "catch" off the line...yea, that's a fish. lol

P5022809

We went ahead and came home Saturday night instead of Sunday morning because the news was talking about a big thunder and tornado storm sweeping through in the wee hours...

Love visiting family and getting away from the city...but definitely DON'T want to get stuck in East Texas!