Where Did These Kids Come From?

You know, I could go many places with a title like that....

My daughter the Astrophysicist: Mariah has started 7th grade and has a project on Supernovae. Our favorite part of her project is the cool pictures of exploding stars. They kind of look like tye-dye shirts! She also made the cut of the top 32 students in math and got in the only high school level Algebra class offered. The Algebra teacher is good, but you definitely do things her way if you know what I mean; students must maintain 85% at all times or get dropped. All tests count 50% of the grade. Luckily she likes math and is good at it, so hopefully she won't bomb any tests! The bummer is that Mariah won't have any Art classes this year at all. She has to wait until 8th grade. She is mad about that. But she says hi everyday to the Art teacher and is in the Art Club which meets every other week. Mariah is kind of patiently waiting for us to clean out Taryn's old room and move her into the "currently occupied" part of the upstairs and make the back part a "college student suites". We can then close off the door to the bonus room and save energy and keep it clean, using it only when Indie and Taryn are home, or when Mariah wants to watch TV past her curfew.



My son the comic: Gib has quite the sense of humor. He is always making me laugh. We went to P.F. Changs for take-out dinner one night when it was just me and the kids, and they asked for a bunch of fortune cookies which was a funny story all by itself (mwahaha). We ended up with about 20. I managed to score 3 from my little cookie monsters, and was all excited with my fortunes: You will receive a surprising gift very soon; Look forward to great fortune and a new lease on life; and something about what my heart desired. So I tell Gib "I'm gonna get a fortune! I need to buy a Powerball ticket or something!" and he replies... "or maybe you're just gonna get another fortune cookie". Nice. Actually it was so funny it may have been the laugh of the week if it wasn't for all the stupid Family Guy clips Gib assaulted me with during our drive to Macon. I don't know whether to be glad we went back for my iPhone car charger or not. Gib and I are also finding immense humor in the reaction he gets from one of his new Axe scents. I would describe it as citrus-y with a hint of chocolate. And it draws girls like magnets. Gib says they start sniffing the air going "someone smells REALLY good" and he knows it's him. So he confidently says, "it's me" and pretty soon they reach him and go "It IS you! you smell soooo good!" It's eerie how much this reflects the birthday card. Gib even came up to me last night and had me sniff him just to see what I thought. I could smell it but I wasn't close to passing out in bliss, so we have surmised that female teenage pheromones are more affected or mothers are immune. Thank goodness - who knows what he could get away with otherwise.


My daughter the Party Animal! This photo pretty much says it all. Taryn is having a GREAT time at Missouri Science & Tech. This was taken during Freshman Orientation. Her friend Clayton whom she met at Hit The Ground Running said she was too short to be seen in the photo and scooped her up and put her on his shoulder. You can tell she didn't mind a bit! She loved being tall. The university has it on their web page. Oh yeah. Classes just started but so far so good. Taryn knows quite a few people in the first two days of classes from HGR and through other activities. She is happy and doing well. She and her friend/roomie have the individual suites dorm where you have your own room, 4 people share a common living room/kitchen and a bathroom. She and Katherine have each bought betta fish - Taryn's is named Fishy and is blue. And they have roller blades and mountain bikes to keep them busy when not in classes or fraternizing with frat boys. Not alot of time for gazing at the fish I'm thinking. They had movie night in K's room the other day. Waaay more people in there than I think fire codes allow! But alot of fun!!

My daughter, Big Sister to the world! Indie is coming into her own and it is such a neat thing to see unfolding. She is now an accomplished international traveler, and experienced third world primitive living conditions, but nothing could have prepared her for: The Waterworld Outhouse! She said nothing in Africa was as bad as that. Which is why we girls choose to stay at the resort. We were so happy that Indie, Ricky and Taryn were able to join us for a day at the Scout lake trip. We all had a blast tubing and waterskiing! I took a ton of photos. They'll be up on the blog someday, maybe. Some are on our facebook pages. Now that Indie is back at Mercer she is in the thick of things with her sorority - Alpha Gamma Delta. They are in rush week and when we visited she was put to work interviewing people. Indie is very good at interviewing - both as the interviewee and apparently the interviewer! I expect to hear she will have a little sister in the sorority before too long. Maybe not this year, but I'd be surprised if she doesn't have one next year. It's just not in her nature not to nurture. She has an easy, chill class load this semester which makes her smile!

Today is Open House at preschool, preceded by the ever popular Staff Photo. We have to look extra nice. I am still in my PJ's, so I really must run now. Only a sentence for me and Mike. Mike for some reason is now a travelling man for work. But work is going good, so can't complain. However, he just got back from one quick business trip and now there's another on the horizon! P.F. Changs here we come!!!