Thursday, October 29, 2009

Political Correctness

The other day, Francesca grabbed Chris's arm with both hands and twisted them in opposite directions to "burn" his skin. Now, we all remember what we called this when we were growing up, right? Well, Chris said, "Ow! What are you doing???" and Francesca replied,

"I'm giving you an American sunburn!"

Yes, and they also sit "criss-cross applesauce" these days.

Monday, October 26, 2009

It's "crisp" outside

It is definitely fall here in New England, although we had a taste of snow last week. I'm talking GIANT flakes, thick and blizzardy (I think I made up a new word), and even sticking a bit in some places. The kids were very excited and wanted to build snowmen. But it was 35 degrees so we didn't have any significant snow on the ground. Thank goodness - I am NOT ready for winter!

We are all ready for Halloween. The kids have their costumes. Dominic is going to be Mario from the Super Mario Brothers, complete with red hat and black mustache. It should be a riot, I can't wait to take pictures of him with the 'stache! Francesca is officially an "Asian Princess," which I guess is the politically correct name for geisha. I think I'm going to do her face all white with those very red lips just in the center. Wish me luck taming that mane of hers into a bun!

I'll be dressing up for my Halloween Zumba classes this Wednesday and again on Saturday. I'm doing all Halloween-themed music and prizes for best costume, best zombie walk, etc. Speaking of which, I still haven't finished choreographing the songs or finalizing the playlist, let alone memorizing the choreo - and I only have two days! So that's what I'm off to do...

Stay tuned early next week for Halloween pictures!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Cuddly Question

This morning, Francesca climbed in bed to cuddle with me for a few minutes before it was time to start the day. While we were lying there, she asked me:

"Imagine what it would it be like if I had five arms."

She then proceeded to tell me that she'd have the two she has now, plus three more across the front of her chest.

"These two, plus one here, one here, and one more right here in the middle."

Yes, that would be interesting.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Rainy Sunday

It's a rainy Sunday here in Millbury, MA. Unfortunately this has put a kink in our plans to go apple picking today. We really want to go as a family before the end of the season, but unfortunately our weekends have been jam packed with dance, Zumba, soccer, CCD, church, the farm, and my Usborne home shows.

Going to Mass has become the biggest pain, I hate to say. Not only did they change our Mass time to 10:30 (right smack in the middle of the morning so we can't do anything before other than CCD and then it's lunch time), but it has been lasting between 1:15 and 1:30 hrs instead of the typical hour. Take today - getting out of church just before noon, then by the time we get home and make lunch it's now 1:05 PM and Chris and I haven't eaten yet. (Our calzones are in the oven as I type.) Then at 2:00 we go to the farm, get home between 3 & 3:30, clean and put away all of the produce, then it's time to make dinner!

Today we were going to squeeze apple picking in between lunch and the farm since I don't have an afternoon home show, but now it's raining. And cold. Looks like a quick trip to the farm will be plenty of outdoors for the Beyer family today!

Yesterday however was a beautiful day! The forecast called for 60 degrees as the high temperature, but it went up to 69 and was sunny all day. I had an Usborne booth at the Northboro Applefest (a neighboring town) and they had a great turnout! I sold about $450 in books and scheduled 3 home shows, so it was a great work day for me! *whew!*

Time to check the calzone!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Baggers

The kids and I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from gymnastics today. We purchased a bag of egg noodles, a 3 1/2 lb package of ground beef, asparagus and a pack of rolls.

I just unpacked the bag. The rolls were on top. Nice job, I thought. Until I found the egg noodles. On the bottom. Under the beef. Yep, fragile bag of noodles under close to four pounds of meat. That makes sense.

I can't help but remember bagging disasters in the past. Like the infamous onions, laundry detergent, chicken, eggs, and bread debacle (the latter three all turned on their sides).

Really people, it's not that hard.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Zumba

Since I have so much free time (uh-huh, yeah....), I recently added another fun thing to my life. I'm now a Zumba instructor!

The kids both have dance class on Saturday morning, so during the hour class, all of the moms would sit and talk (with Dunkin Donuts in hand). We told Patti (the owner) that she should have something for us to do while the kids dance - something like Zumba! (Zumba is a Latin-dance based fitness class - see www.zumba.com for info.) She wasn't having luck finding an instructor, so I volunteered to go to training and teach the class. (It was a moment of insanity! LOL!) So I got certified on August 1st and started teaching just after Labor Day. It's now week three of classes and I'm having so much fun! Instead of paying to go to a class twice each week, I'm getting paid to teach it. Not too shabby!

This past weekend I did a 3-song Zumba demo at our town's annual Block Party. A picture made it onto the web site for our local paper. And it's not half bad!


Soccer Star

Dominic is playing soccer this year for the first time. It's a short season that lasts just two months - September and October. Both kids do dance and gymnastics all year and I like to limit them to two activities, but we agreed on soccer since it is short.

He's been loving it so far, which is a good! (And a relief!) Their first game got rained out, so they had their first one this past Saturday. Unfortunately I couldn't attend because I was selling my books and doing a Zumba demo at the Millbury Block Party in town, but Chris took some pictures. His team won with a score of 9-3, so that was very exciting! Dominic is #6.




And here's one of Francesca watching the game. Crazy fuzzy hair!