Coco the Cowboy

I went tonight to Buffalo Wild Wings with Rob and some of his football friends.  I misunderstood what they were doing, I thought he said they always went there after practice but I couldn't imagine that a bunch of dads or moms did that at his age.  I was wrong, it really was just the coach getting everyone together for a social outing.  So we met the Reeves there and sat at a different table while the boys sat together.  Lewis didn't even make the cut.  Laurel comforted him with some crayons and a coloring sheet.  One of the boys said we could drop them off and go to the Italian place but we said, "Nah."

Lewis went to the Book Fair this week and guess what book he bought, I Love Sharks. Surprise, Surprise.  He got his hair cut today, it was probably the least traumatic time we have had with his haircut.  Lewis heads to China on Friday.  He told me the other night he had figured out he wasn't really going, he was disappointed but not devastated.

Loving work, if you ever want to feel good about yourself teach at a preschool.  Probably teaching computers helps, they love computers.  I love them.  I had one class where all of the boys gave me a hug today and another class all hugged Shannon.  They are so precious to me.  I love the women I work with too.  Shannon and I have a new brown mouse puppet that we talk to the kids with.  We had two white ones called Click and Double Click all last year.  They are back this year with a new friend who we named Coco the Cowboy and he has a great cowboy accent.   The white mice traveled all over last year to the National Championship, Vegas, Snow Skiing, and Canton, MS.  They love them and we love being dorks with them.

Clara has been playing fall ball and enjoying it.  Except for Sunday it was hot as snot.  I mean miserable.  I asked her in front of the ump if she needed some water (she was catching) and she said no.  The ump then yelled to Brian, "Coach get your catcher some water!"  He was not listening so the ump said again, "I said.....get your catcher some water, Coach!"  Brian hopped to it.  I have learned how to work it.

Rob's coach tonight kept calling me "Maam", I tried hard not to be offended.  He didn't know my first name and maybe he just didn't want to call me Mrs. Fuller.  Yeah right.  Oh well at least he has good manners.  He wants the football players who don't play basketball to wrestle.  I asked him if there were other 82 pounds boys for Rob to wrestle against.  He said they just had to be within 10 pounds.

Looking forward to seeing a bunch of family at the football game in Starkville this weekend.  I hope it cools off some but I won't bet on it.

Peppermint Pantry

I have been working on operation Mice Stink * this week.   I am bound and determined that we will not have any furry friends visiting Casa Fuller this winter.  So I have been researching the best ways to prevent mice.  One thing they suggest is putting peppermint oil in your pantry and in any areas you have seen mice in the past.  My pantry now smells like a Bob's Peppermint stick.  It really is quite lovely.  Another thing I did was put EVERYTHING in plastic containers.

[caption id="attachment_273" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Everything that would be tasty to a mouse in air tight containers"][/caption]

Then they suggested putting poison bait in your garage because they often come in through there.  I really don't know why the mice picked last winter to visit us but I have my suspicions they heard about the large quantity of sunflower seeds I had bought at Costco.  Sunflower seeds are only allowed in Brian's car now.  I also have gotten three more cans of Great Stuff.  I am being very careful with the gloves this time.  I still have a scar from my last encounter with the Great Stuff.  I really love looking for crevices to fill with the expanding foam.

Tracey and I went to this really cool place in Gardendale today.  It was the Flea Market that is advertised on a billboard on 65.  It had over 300 vendors.  It was like a mix of antique mall and flea market.  When you walk in the door they give you a cart which we wheeled through booths of furniture, tools, baseball cards etc.  It was so odd, there was one booth that had clothing items for $1.50.  There were cute shirts too.

[caption id="attachment_272" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="My $1.50 shirt"][/caption]




One was actually priced $1.80.  Why not just go for $2.00?  I also got Rob some baseball cards.  They were packaged in stacks of 25 and meticulously shrink wrapped.  They were only $1.00.  I got 6 stacks.  Can you imagine going to all that trouble to package those cards for a buck?  This store had a great software system and gave me a printout of the items I purchased.  It was a neat place, definitely a fun field trip.

Rob had his first Boy/Girl teenaged birthday party tonight.  It was a tailgate party.  I think he had fun.  Clara and I finally watched Twilight  tonight, we weren't missing much.  Weird movie, I think some books are way better in your imagination, at least my imagination.

Lewis has started imitating Charlie Brown all the time. "Good Grief" and" UGHHH" are his favorite words.  He is a good reader but only wants to read comic strip books and Charlie Brown is one of his favorite.  I got him a magical expanding washcloth at Dollar Tree with a picture of Lucy screaming "Hurry up and pitch, You Blockhead."  He played with it for almost an hour today.  He suggested I take a picture of it and use it was my wallpaper on my Iphone.  He cleaned the walls with it and threw it up in the air, who knew a washcloth could be so interesting.

[caption id="attachment_271" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Lewis's washcloth/toy"][/caption]

Lewis has a wonderful teacher this year and one thing they are doing this year is a trip to China.  They will be building a plane and operating an airport with each person having an assigned job.  Lewis thinking he is really going to China, he asked me "Are you really going to let me go to China with Mrs. Thomas?"  I told him I trusted her to take good care of him.  He told me the other night "Clara says we are not REALLY going to China, but I know we are...."  That is Lewis in a nutshell, love that boy!

* to find out more about my mouse adventures see previous Mice Stink post