Laughter is the best medicine

WARNING: The House is contaminated. I refuse all responsibility for any germs you may get for visiting the House of Payne. We are on round 3 of various viral and/or bacterial infections. The current one appears to be strep, so you might want to go wash your hands after your visit here.

Among the bottles, vials, and boxes of medication that have suddenly appeared in the House (which now bears a frightening resemblance to a pharmacy), Landon brought us the best medicine of all, laughter. Tuesday of this week was his first day back to school in 10 days. Snow canceled school for him all week last week and he doesn't attend on Fridays or Mondays, so he had been out for a while. Apparently, Tuesday didn't go so well for him. Wednesday morning he was whining about having to go to school. After being told at least 5 times he was going to school, the whining turned to crying. Between sobs he choked out a conversation with me that went like this:

Landon: Whyyyyy do I have to go to schoooolll??!
Me: Because it costs money for you to go.
Landon: How do you knooowww???
Me: Because I write a check to your school every month.
Landon: (appalled, sobbing, and angry) You shouldn't do that!!!
Me: (laughing hysterically)
Landon: (crying even harder because now, not only does he have to go to school, but he is being laughed at which is taboo)
Me: (Still giggling) Landon, it doesn't matter how much you cry, you still have to go to school.
Landon: What if I stop crying? Then can I stay home?
Me: (dissolves in laughter)

No wonder I'm not sick. I get a daily dose of this medicine, and it truly is the best medicine of all.

Rockin' the House

So...I've discovered a new hobby. My dad got my sister Lm, the smart one, the Guitar Hero full band set for Christmas. I personally never had much interest in Guitar Hero until we were all together at Daddy's for Christmas. I think we played that thing for 2 days straight! I never got to try my hand at the guitar, but I was scared of it anyway and was content to play the drums. We had so much fun with that game that as soon as we got home, we sent an urgent letter to Santa via Fed Ex Overnight to please bring us a Guitar Hero game for Christmas. And he did! We didn't get the full band set, just the Guitar, but it was great! Haley hogged it for about 2 weeks and nobody else could touch it. Then the novelty wore off and the guitar stayed leaning against the wall for another 2 weeks. It started whispering to me, "Play with me!" You know, I hear this all the time, so I was able to ignore it...for a while. One night I picked that thing up and fired up the Wii and started rocking out. So. Much. Fun. I played and played for a couple of hours until my wrists hurt and my scores started falling. But I made a big mistake that night. I didn't wait until the kids were in bed before I started playing. Haley's interest was rekindled. Alec tried to play, and very quickly realized this was not the game for him. I won't publicly embarrass him by posting his scores, but let's just say you have more fingers than his either his percentage of notes correct or his correct note streak. Even Erin and Landon got into the act. They would hit the strum bar while Roger or I worked the frets. And speaking of Roger...he really got into the game. He made his own band and has advanced to medium difficulty. But the one who really took an interest was Carrie. She practiced daily until she was able to play all the songs at 90% or better accuracy and has even had streaks of over 100 notes correct! She is so funny to watch, too. Here she is playing just ONE song...

I think we have a future Pat Bennetar on our hands!

Let it snow!

Finally, a snow day! We really, really, and I mean REALLY miss the snow in northern Virginia. We miss other things, too, but today we're all about the snow. We woke up this morning to a good 4" on the ground, could have been 5", and it kept snowing most of the day, adding on another inch. AWESOME! The kids went out and played this morning, but I never could get out there! One or two kept coming in needing something. After an hour and a half of that, 3 of them were cold and wet and ready for a break. Wimps. We've been out of Virginia too long. So they watched Gilligan's Island while I worked out and dried their coats, socks, gloves, etc. Then we had lunch and everyone was ready for round 2 of the snow. Here was the worst part of the day ~ I had to climb a ladder to get the sleds down. You can read more about that here.

In the meaantime, here are some pictures from today:

The full album is available on my Facebook page. Try this link. If that doesn't work, you'll just have to join Facebook!

Now, pass the hot chocolate, please!

So true...

I found this on another blog, but loved it so much I swiped it.


THE MONTH AFTER CHRISTMAS DIET:

T'was the month after Christmas, and all through the house
Nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.
The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I'd taste
At the holiday parties had gone to my waist.
When I got on the scales there arose such a number!
When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber).
I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared;
The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared,
The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese
And the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please."
As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt
And prepared once again to do battle with dirt --
I said to myself, as I only can
"You can't spend a winter disguised as a man!"
So -- away with the last of the sour cream dip,
Get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip
Every last bit of food that I like must be banished;
"Till all the additional ounces have vanished.
I won't have a cookie -- not even a lick.
I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick.
I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread, or pie,
I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry.
I'm hungry, I'm lonesome, and life is a bore --
But isn't that what January is for?
Unable to giggle, no longer a riot.
Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet!

Happy New Year!

So, it's 2009, a whole new year. But as many years removed as I am from teaching, there is one thing that still hasn't left me yet. Maybe it's because I'm a parent of school-aged children now so I still live by a school calendar, but to me, January never feels like a new year. The year seems to start in late August/early September when the new school year starts. Now that we have kids on a year-round school schedule and their new school year starts in early July, maybe January will start to feel like the beginning of the year....after a few years. LOL

We do celebrate the New Year in the House, though. Even if it doesn't seem like a new year. Here are the highlights from Dec. 31, 2008:

The kids all had bags with clocks on them. The clocks told them what time to open the bags.

Their first bags had the Wii remotes in them. So we had a FamiWii Mario Kart tournament. That booster seat rocks.

The next bags had paper plates and plastic forks in them. The kids were a little puzzled by that until Alec figured out that they were for the kids to use to eat the confetti cake.



Here's what it looked like when that realization happened:

There were questions about how many of the kids would actually make it to 12:00 to ring in the New Year.

There's one answer. He made it to the cake, which I think was his goal. But he missed the next bag, which contained balloons. We played a very energetic game of balloon volleyball. Any other kids who were starting to poop out were very quickly revived by that!

The wrestling match ended the volleyball game and we brought out the next set of bags. Each of those had a card for us to write our 2009 resolutions on. Then we made a time capsule and put the resolutions inside. We'll open it on December 31, 2009 and see how we did.


It was after 11:00 by the time we finished the time capsule. I couldn't believe Erin was still up. Roger wasn't even awake! He missed the best bag of all! It was 11:15 and the kids all sat on the couch to open bags that had nothing but a post-it note stuck to the bottom. The notes read, "WATCH YOUR BACK!" So they all looked behind them where I was standing with a camera and a can of silly string!

Yep, I think that one was my favorite bag of the night. The running and screaming woke Roger up so he was with us to open the final bags at 1 minute till midnight. The bags had horns, streamers, and a couple of handfuls of confetti. We watched the ball drop in New York and they blew their horns and threw their confetti.

It was a lot of fun. We watched Robbie Madson (I probably butchered the spelling of his name - sorry Robbie) jump his motorcycle up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe in Las Vegas and then back down. Then we all went to bed and slept until 9 or 10 the next morning!

Happy New Year, everyone!