Reviving my Poor Little Blog

February 2, 2013 by Mom on the Make 1 Comment

I have been off the blogging map for 10 days. It feels like an eternity. It has been a crazy couple of weeks, and blogging fell by the wayside.

Well, I’m back now and intent on posting again at least five times a week.

We watched Bam Bam play indoor soccer this morning with his 5 year old friends. This sport is way too cute. There’s basically no rules.

Just run and kick the ball, hopefully to the appropriate goal.

Today, I think there were only two goals scored in the wrong goal post. 🙂 As a spectator, you’re never quite sure what to do when someone on your team scores a goal for the other team.

On the one hand, the five year old who scored said goal is so excited to have kicked the ball in the goal, but on the other hand, we should probably let him know that he actually scored for the other team. Its a little tricky. We usually wind up clapping and smiling.

In this indoor soccer league, you can kick behind the goal, there are no out of bounds lines, kids are falling all over the place, and a random parent volunteers to be the referee at the beginning of the game. So, this is super serious stuff. In fact, the referee today, for part of the game, was carrying her two year old on her hip as she was blowing the referee whistle.

Tonight, we are thinking of going out to a burmese restaurant.

I love family time on Saturdays.

Overheard this Week

January 21, 2013 by Mom on the Make 1 Comment

I’ve decided to begin a new weekly feature where I will post the funniest and/or most interesting quotes heard from my family in that particular week.

There’s just so much material, I’ll have to be diligent about taking notes in my Evernote app to remember everything.

Here are three from last week to get us started…….

1. We were having supreme pizza for dinner last Thursday. Supreme Pizza includes sausage, pepperoni, olives and green peppers. When I was serving Bam Bam his slice, he looked up at me and said, “Mom, could you take off the decorations from my piece?” He normally likes cheese pizza. 🙂

2. We were driving Broadway’s friend to a basketball game the other day, and she was sharing a story from her Christmas break about her Grandpa and iphones. Her older sister was helping her Grandpa clean up the apps on his iphone. When they got to the Safari app, Grandpa pointed to the Safari icon and said, “Oh, I don’t need that one anymore, I only use Google.” This one had Broadway and I rolling. We just thought that was absolutely adorable and hysterical at the same time.

3. We have been watching Avatar episodes together as a family quite a bit lately on Netflix. We think its one of the most phenomenal cartoons ever. If you’re familiar with this show, Aang, the Avatar, is an airbender.

The other day, as I was trying to eat my breakfast, Bam Bam had his feet on the couch next to the kitchen table, and his hands on the table (about a three foot distance). It looked like he was attempting to do push ups in the air, since he was horizontal to the floor. I asked Bam Bam, “What on earth are you doing?” To which he replied, “I’m practicing my airbending Mom.”

My roller skating debacle

January 17, 2013 by Mom on the Make Leave a Comment

I love finding random writing prompts online to spark an idea for a post. Invariably a vivid memory will immediately pop into my head. I try to always write about the first thought that pops to mind, instead of thinking it through and second guessing myself.

Today, I found the writing prompt “I had the worst feeling of impending doom when….” (from Bloggy Moms), and the first memory that popped to mind was when I was in sixth grade on a roller skating outing.

My brother and I were roller skating through a hilly path near our home, having a grand old time.

I was skating in front of my brother. At one point, he yelled, “SLOW DOWN AND STOP, the hill coming up is too steep to skate, we won’t be able to stop!!!!”

To which I replied, “Its fine”. To which he replied, “Seriously, its way to steep, stop!”.

To which I replied, as I was going down said hill way too fast, “I don’t know how I’m going to stop!! What should I do??” It was really, really scary……

I careened off into the bushes, and endured a deep cut in my right calf. There was lots of blood and gore.

Looking back, I should have gotten stitches, but at the time it did not seem necessary.

I think this scene popped into my head first because when you’re looking down a hill where you cannot see the bottom, AND you’re on roller skates where you’re not familiar with the braking system, you do not know how the story is going to end, and that, I can tell you, is incredibly frightening.

You kind of HAVE to veer off course to change your path, or the ending is probably not going to be a good one.

Yes, I have a scar on my right calf to remember that “feeling of impending doom”.

Dusty Gets a Haircut

January 16, 2013 by Mom on the Make 2 Comments

Being a Havanese, Dusty’s hair grows fast and long.

After a haircut, within about two months, we can’t see his eyes.

So, one of the best parts about a haircut for Dusty is that we can see his eyes again! Its amazing how much communication there is with our eyes.

When his hair gets long and is flopping over his eyes, it is difficult to know what he’s thinking, unless he’s greeting a visitor with his welcoming barks. (we know then that he’s trying to protect his homestead with his very intimidating 9 pound frame)

Check out how cute he looks……. 🙂

California State Railroad Museum

January 16, 2013 by Mom on the Make Leave a Comment

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to take the family up north to Sacramento to visit the California State Railroad Museum.

This place is really quite amazing with original, real life trains bestowing the museum’s floors. There is one train there that gives you the feeling that the train is moving as you’re walking through it with lighting changes and train whistle sounds.

We decided to take Amtrak up to the train museum as the station in Sacramento is easily walkable to the museum. The train is so darn fun with little ones. Its also something a lot of us do not consider nowadays, but if you have a young family, it really is a great way to travel.

For Christmas, I finally broke down and bought myself a DSLR camera. I was tired of seeing lots of parents taking action shots with the greatest of ease at sporting events. The pictures are just so much crisper. So, I finally broke down and purchased a DSLR, the Canon Rebel T4i, to be exact.

I’ve been tipping my toes into the world of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed in this past week, and decided to dive right in and try out the DSLR with the trains and pictures of Old Sacramento. I really think just adjusting the settings after you take each picture is the best way to learn what your settings should be in different lighting situations.

This was our train coming to the station. The train was probably going 60 miles per hour when I took the photo, but with fast shutter speeds, freezing a moving object becomes so easy, as you can see.