What's happening in YOUR neighborhood?

In OUR neighborhood, we have sidewalk chalk swastikas, gas station air guitar and pedal-by shootings.

I love our neighborhood. It's a quiet street with quaint little houses and relatively well-maintained yards. It's a family- friendly neighborhood in a great school district. Yet it still remains that we live in central Phoenix. And that will be made known.

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Owen is good friends with Zack- a neighborhood boy. I think I have mentioned him before. What I have never mentioned about Zack is his affinity for all things German. Once, when riding in our car, he said "I don't like the American flag, I like the German flag. When I grow up, I'm going to work for the Germans." Did this raise a red flag? Yes, indeedy. And I don't mean a red flag with a white circle and a black cross whose arms continue at right angles.

But he is such a sweet innocent boy, I knew that he didn't really know what he was saying. I ignored it. I ignored it when he came home from school one day with a swastika drawn on his arm (apparently his teacher doesn't see the same red flags I saw). But when I walked out my front door one afternoon and found my driveway covered in sidewalk chalk swastikas, I decided to take action. After I quickly hosed down the whole driveway, I had a long 'discussion' with poor little Zack. A discussion that involved my finger in his face. If nothing else, I at least made it clear to him that I don't want any more swastikas on my driveway.

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The other day I took my Young Women to the corner store for some candy bars (long story). I sent them inside with some money, and as I waited in the car, a man exited the gas station. This man was dirty and hairy, dressed poorly, and riding a bike. No surprise there. But as he walked to his bike (parked directly in front of my car) and set down his mysterious "brown bag" that contained his corner store purchases, he proceeded to give me quite the air guitar performance. This was no joke. His head was down...so as to better concentrate on the fingers furiously plucking away at his jeans pocket while the other was high in the air constructing chords. This was the longest guitar I have ever seen. And he was not messing around. He did stop periodically to look around with a drunken smile, and then continued on with his five minute song. It worries me that watching him brought a smile to my face. But I will readily admit that I sighed with relief when my girls were safely in the car.

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The other night at around 9:30, Nathan and I heard several loud, sharp noises. We thought that it was someone rapping on one of our windows. We ran to the front of the house and looked through the blinds to see some of our neighbors standing in their driveway. We walked outside and joined what quickly became a neighborhood block party formed to discuss the gunfire that we all heard. Then, the young man who lives down the street came out with his gangsta friends and nonchalantly told us (and soon thereafter told a policeman) a story of a guy riding by on a bicycle and firing shots. A pedal-by shooting. Since this neighborhood young man had recently been released from prison, we were all pretty darn sure that he was somehow involved in this shooting. It is so funny to me that half the neighborhood stood around with this guy and his friends and expressed their outrage while he pretended to be a part of us. I still have no idea what actually happened. He was taken away in handcuffs later that evening, but walking down the street early the next morning. Apparently whatever his story was eventually checked out. But that certainly doesn't make me feel safe living on his same street.

So....what's happening in YOUR neighborhood?

Unconnected...

And now I shall bore you all further by posting my recently uploaded pictures...

Hazel got a haircut. For those of you who never see her, you probably won't be able to tell that she is missing about 3-4 inches of stringy, dead, strangely colored hair. I asked her if I could take a picture to send to Aunt Meredith and she proceeded to strike pose after pose with no encouragement or direction from me.

She had her friend Alex over for the whole day on Friday. I was in HEAVEN. Those girls played happily in Hazel's room the whole day. It was divine. They would come out periodically to show me their costumes and/or jewelry. I was especially impressed with Hazel's sharing abilities. She let Alex have the real princess dress and shoes while she settled for a fancy church dress and shoes. She was just thrilled to actually have a girl to play with for a change.

With all this quiet playing there was bound to be a huge mess. I couldn't have cared less. But I did suggest at one point that they try to pick a few things up so they would have more room to breathe. I found them a few minutes later cleaning up (angels) and making up a cleaning song to motivate themselves. I'm not sure why the chorus was "kite kite kite" or why they were "walking through the woods" while cleaning, but it was precious nonetheless.

Owen loves glowsticks. I'm not sure why. But I found a big box for $1.00 at Michael's and I've been trying to convince him to only light one or two a day so he doesn't waste them all at once. Last night, when I went in his room to see if he was asleep yet, I found him like this.

Oh well. It was a temporary joy anyway. I guess Ben 10 wears some kind of bracelet like that.

Yesterday, Hazel was using my potty and it took me a while to realize that she was in there for a good 15 minutes. Doing this....

It's hard to tell from the picture, but she had a bunch of makeup on her face and clips in her hair. I had just bought several new eyeshadows and she had managed to dig big holes in every single one. I sure am glad I use the "cheap" make-up.



It's hard work being a princess...

Funnies

I took the kids to a morning movie the other day. After leaving the theater four times in the first 5 minutes of the movie, I decided to buy the kids a big fat coke...thinking "That ought to shut them up!"

I walked back in and plopped the coke down. Hazel, barely taking her eyes off the screen, leaned over and took a sip. She turned to me with wide eyes and whispered "Mom! Is this for us?" I nodded and she got so excited that she forgot all about the whispering and yelled "OWEN! IT'S CAFFEINE!!!"


After the movie we went to get haircuts. Owen was in the chair and I was keeping Hazel entertained. She kept spinning the chair and hitting my leg, so I said "Hazel- please quit hitting my shin" which of course led to an explanation of what a shin is. After that conversation, there was a short silence and then Owen announced to the salon:

"My mom has three chins."

Summertime....and the livin' is NOT easy (unless you are under the age of 16)

If only I had a picture of me looking tired, frazzled and stressed out, this post would be complete. But here are some things around the never-will-be-clean-again house that say it is Summer...

sidewalk chalk

deflated floats


towels that never get put away

a disgustingly filthy porch

kiddie pool surrounded by lifeguard chairs

owen's glasses

Owen is SEVEN

I mean...seriously. Can you believe it?! I have a seven year old.

I am trying not to feel too much guilt about the fact that I threw a party together in two days for poor little Owen (complete with a last minute evite). I guess he doesn't really know the difference! Friends showed up (thank you SO much for coming last minute and saving mommy's butt), cake was eaten, presents were opened. It's all the same to him.

Our fanTABulous neighbors let us use their pool for the party. Owen had three friends from his 1st grade class there, plus the five neighborhood boys that I pretty much think of as my own children.

getting prepped for some serious swimming...

pimpin in the pool...

Martha (my neighbor) was bound and determined to make Hazel get comfortable with the floaties. She screamed and cried and clung to the ladder.

But once Summer got in the pool, she jumped right to her and, as you can see, the look of terror left her face and was quickly replaced by sheer joy. Man, she loves that girl.

And my poor little birthday boy got stung by a bee in the pool! It was SO sad. He was totally brave about it, though, and even pulled the stinger out himself. Impressive, huh? It's that "hole" on his pinky.

This picture makes me want to cry!

Despite the potentially fatal poison being injected into his body, Owen had such a great time. He got lots of fun presents- including fun pool toys and a GIANT Bakugan. I loved the genuinely thrilled look on his face after ripping open each gift.

Harry (a neighbor)'s response when I tried to get him to pose for a picture.

the group that gathers when it's time for gifts.

The whole crew (minus Brody)

blowing out the candle

licking the icing

Hazel said "This was the best party of my life!"

Oh, the HORROR!!!

Ok- this is NOT the part of my post that earned it it's title. Just a few Hazelisms I wanted to share before I freak your freak.

After the blessing of the sacrament on Sunday, Hazel turned to me and whispered "Mom...was that Jesus talking?" SO precious!

Then halfway through church I was in the hall and she appeared out of nowhere
(supposed to be in class) and came running down the hall screaming "MOM! I touched poop in a bag!" Imagine my bewilderment! I just stared at her for a second. I wasn't even sure where my line of questioning should begin. Then her teachers came around the corner and explained that they had been on a walk and saw a bag on the ground. Trying to teach her about keeping God's earth clean, they said "Let's pick up the bag and put it in the trashcan." Lo and behold...the bag was filled with poop. Of course. You know, come to think of it...I never found out if they took a trip to the bathroom after that to wash hands.

As I was typing this, she grabbed a jar of rubber cement and asked me if it was medicine for cows. LOL. Get it? There's a picture of a bull on the front.

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On a far less humurous note, I stripped down last night to take a shower, opened the curtain and saw a huge cockroach chillin on the wall- just waiting for a poor, naked, unsuspecting victim like myself. So I screamed for Nathan and he brought some bug spray and a fly swatter and did work on the roach. What a man.

When I got out of the shower, I decided to spray the whole bathroom.
Within a couple of seconds, I saw a bunch of big black and red ants. Like ten of them! I called Nathan again and we started squishing them with tissues and properly disposing of them (in the tiolet). We determined that they seemed to be coming from behind the mirror, so I sprayed around the edges of the mirror and left the bathroom.

When I returned, I stepped into a real-life horror film. My entire bathroom was under attack. There were ants EVERYWHERE. They were literally scaling the walls, swimming in our sinks and dripping from the ceiling. It was disgusting. I gagged repeatedly. Unfortunately, I didn't think quickly enough to record the live evidence. My only concern was to turn it into dead evidence. Nathan fogged the whole room, shut the door and plugged up the cracks with a towel. They were all dead in the morning and yours truly had the pleasure of sweeping them up. I counted about 250, and I have seen more creeping out throughout the day which means we probably didn't even phase the majority of them. Time to bring in the professionals!

I sure wish these pictures even began to do justice....

A whole lot of nothing...

Just a share....

Is anyone else as entertained as me by the dramatic irony of a day that starts with sharing the gospel with a friend and ends with screaming curse words while throwing cleaning supplies across a customer's driveway?

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It's that time of year again!

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Projects...

One project I have been working on is finding gifts for the Young Women's birthdays. I wanted something that was cute and would make them feel special and pretty...but I still wanted to be able to give them a spiritual message. So- at Pier 1 I found these ADORABLE glass rings for $4 each. That is the cheapest I have ever seen them. So I bought a ton of them and wrote a little note for each of them. It talked about how the ring is made layer upon layer and filled with "imperfections" that make it unique and beautiful. Then I compared this to the way God has made each of us layer upon layer and how each girl is unique and their flaws and 'layers' (the paths they have chosen) are what make them beautiful. I have given them to a few girls so far, and they seem to really like it. I cried writing the note. I love these girls in a way that I can't possibly explain.

I am the crappy homeroom parent that didn't give her son's teachers anything on teacher appreciation day. So I decided to make them something cute for an end-of-the-year present. I think it turned out pretty cute. I hit up the clearance shelves and Pier 1 and got these adorable, huge green wine goblets. You can't tell how cute they are with all that wrapping, but they were cute...and the perfect size for stuffing some goodies in. I filled them with some cute soaps, yummy smelling candles, a cooling eye mask, a blockbuster gift card and a little hand-written thank you note that I rolled up and put one of those cute glass rings around. I hope they think they're as precious as I do!

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Temporary pleasures...

I know these things won't follow me into the afterlife, but sometimes just buying a new cute thing for myself or my home brings me so much pleasure. I am not bowing down to them or using them to replace the eternal joy that the Lord offers. But I see nothing wrong with having something shiny in a room that makes me smile each time I see it! Especially when it was on clearance! (For those of you that don't know already....that was all supposed to be humorous sarcasm).

Here are some of the shinies I bought on those awesome Pier 1 clearance shelves. It's been nice to add a little bit of color to my otherwise VERY neutral home. It's much easier to buy a couple of colorful trinkets than it is to commit to the time and energy it takes to paint all the walls!

*Ms. Fishy - thank you for making my hall bathroom sparkle*

* Teal drum lamp- thank you for completing this tiny corner of my home and shining your light on the pictures of my precious niece and nephews. You have really brightened up my $5 chair and picked-it-out-of-the-dump table.*

*Throw pillows- thanks for adding such color and life to my old, mangy sleeper sofa. Your beautiful embroidery makes me giggle with excitement.*

*Gorgeous misshaped turquoise dinner plates- thank you for bringing your charm to my otherwise bland dining room. But most importantly, thank you for being marked down to $1.50 a plate so that I could afford to buy a lot of you!*

I also got a new throw. What are the chances that the EXACT throw I have been wanting for my living room was being majorly clearanced out?! And a couple of other decorative things that ranged between $.48 and $3.00. For that price, I can find a place to use them.

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The Hales (a family @ church) invited me to come to their oldest daughter's senior recital. I can't turn down the chance to listen to beautiful music and get out of the house right at the kids' bedtime! But I'm pretty sure I will never be invited back. I sat by Melanie (one of my young women) and she brings out the 'best' in me. ;)

All my goofing off aside, though, I really enjoyed myself. I watched/listened to these people and kept thinking "I need to go back to school." I mean, why didn't I finish?! Obviously I want to be able to play like Rachel! Obviously I want my fingers to be able to fly across the keys like crazy weird mechanical spiders. What am I doing just sitting around on my butt (aka working like crazy and raising two kids) when I could be continuing my education!?

I will attempt to upload videos tomorrow.