the last homecoming....

These are pictures from a friend. They are from the homecoming parade and pep rally last week.

Crispy is on the 11th grade float here.....

he is right above the word Set.

I never saw him during the parade, some how I missed him. Might have been busy keeping preschoolers off the street when the candy was thrown....

He swears he was yelling

 "mom"

"MOM"

But I never heard him.

The band Crispy plays with (Fuze) was on hand for the pep rally.

He usually plays bass guitar, but here he is on the drums.  He came home asking,

"did you see me???"

"I was on the drums today!"

Yes I did see that.

On the far left in this picture is the famous and now hairless Ben.  He gave up his hair, only to have it become a beard. Several of the boys did this. Was it because their coach is bald? I am not even sure. 

Everything at the high school is for the last time.

Our high school is closing after this year. Not enough kids, not enough money...blah blah blah

Everything has a little bit of sadness in it this year.

Add caption

I don't know who this little girl is, but I thought the picture captures that sadness perfectly.

homecoming

Crispy came home from school with 2 projects for me. The first was look up Sid from Toy Story...Sid had a T-shirt with a skull on it. For dress up day Crispy wanted to dress as Sid....
That didn't seem to hard, I had bought plain black T-shirts for him at the start of the school year. Plain old white acrylic paint was also in ample supply. I was pretty sure I could handle that.

It was the other thing he brought home... A plastic zip lock bag full of red hair. It was marked pure ginger.

"What is this?" My nose all wrinkled up.
"oh, that is Ben's hair"

"Why do you have Ben's hair?? Does his mother know he doesn't have his hair anymore???"
"oh, we aren't going to talk about that. I just want you to make a beard with it."

"A beard for what??...and what is his mother going to say??"

Then Crispy smiled. He must like to hear my voice get loud in panic.

He went on to explain that Ben shaved his head for homecoming and of course his Mom knew....and Crispy had the wild idea of saving it to make a beard for a skit they were doing during homecoming week.
So simple.

I cut some felt, using a basic pattern, checked to see if it fit Crispy's face and went out side to start gluing.
It was kinda gross.

But I did it. After supper I cut out a stencil for Sid's skull. I pounced on white paint until it looked white enough to show up on the black.

Crispy was very happy with how both things turned out. His brother was hoping I could make another one for him.
Even though Crispy doesn't play football this year, We did go up to the Homecoming football game. There were times we were even ahead. But in the end the other team won by 2 touch downs. At least they weren't blown away. There was always hope they would really win one game....but so far that hasn't happened.

scrapbook weekend....

My mom, sister and niece came down last weekend. There was one major goal....
scrapbook Katy's trip
to Germany.
It was her German class in high school that went on this little field trip. Her Mom wanted to help and I like doing scrap booking so all three of us got busy on Saturday.
First Katy went through the pictures to group them up for pages and mark where they were taken.
She was looking up all kinds of things to get the right spelling.







Then the embossing things came out and we started stamping and embossing things on paper until we were tired of that and the pile seemed high enough.

Then the paint came out. Katy told us what her favorite colors were, but both her mother and I tried to sneak in different colors too. We had no real plan.

At last, the pages were laid out and Katy started picking a page for each group of pictures. By Saturday night all the pictures were stuck to a page. She was even able to get the titles and some journaling done.

She needs two more pages to fill the album and her Mom was full of ideas to embellish them some more when they got home. It was very successful. We did 18 pages all together.

I hope she loves it. It was so much fun doing it with her.

out in the shed....

Or as we like to call it...

The Men's Crisis Center (MCC for short)

I like to watch Little People, Big World... Matt Roloff fixed up one of his barns and called it his men's crisis center on the show. The name kind of stuck here too.

The floor went in a couple weeks ago. Right now the only way up there is by ladder.

When you get to the top of the ladder, this is what you see...a real floor to walk on and a new place to put stuff (even though Tractor joe says we are not going to store junk up there!)

...and a window to look out. The first thing I did when I got up there was start to wash the window. It was full of dust and dead bugs.

I am not sure how this it happened, but tractor joe ended up taking over the washing part. When he finished he sat down to admire his work and check out the view.

We still need a railing or something at the other end. I makes me dizzy just getting close to the open part. This is what the MCC looks like from above.

Back in the house....

it was my youngest sister's birthday. Jenny likes cats, so I made her a postcard with a cat on it....& mostly because I was told everyone was sending her "cat" cards and I should do that too.

I thought she might be able to leave it out longer if I put "happy fall" on it,

you know, right up to Halloween.

I haven't heard if she got it in the mail okay or not. I should really check into that.

first day of school for 2 of us....

Today was my first day back at work in the preschool.

When I arrived home, there were pictures of Madison's first day of school. (my niece in Virginia)

She really isn't that far from the school. You can see it from her house.....But there is a busy, major road the kids would need to cross.

Those in charge, decided it would be safest to have a bus take them there. She probably walks further to the bus stop than if she was able to walk to school.





First grade, here she comes.

My sister wanted to know where my picture was for my first day. I didn't have one, so I sent her a picture of me relaxing on the couch.

Of course that didn't count for anything. How is that really different from any other day??

One of my duties this year is driving a student to and from school. Yes, the state and school trust me to drive!

Jackie couldn't believe I would be driving a bus.....

I'm NOT,

it is a van. A very small and safe van.

But as you can see....it says SCHOOL BUS right on it.
I even have my own key now.

weekend things....

Tractor joe bought this car about 10 years ago at an auction. He has used it for work and trips out to the farm. It's a '77 Impala.
I think Karen and I took it to Forest City once. The radiator hose blew...we were stuck... until her Dad came to save us and bring us home.

Good times.

For the most part though it is a nice solid old car that has served us well.

But now there is a new kid on the block.

A '92 Grand Marquis. We went to an auction on Saturday, I wanted a dresser to store Tractor joe's trucking clothes. It didn't work out that way. As we walked up to the auction they had just started bidding on the car....and just like that Tractor joe was sucked in and didn't emerge until he was the owner.

I told him he could just store his clothes in the car. There is plenty of room.

I have to agree with him, he was due for an upgrade in cars....and this is a nice car.

Almost to nice. With the old car we didn't have worry about being dirty, now we do. It is so plush and soft inside. This one even has FM radio....and power windows!

On to other things...

Both Karen and I are doing on quiltalong from Blue is bleu

righthere!

At first I didn't like the way it was turning out. I nearly quit.

After working on it this weekend, I am starting to like it!! It might not be so bad after all.

Preschool starts tomorrow. I'll be helping in there again. Back to work.

baking banana bread....

This baking was all Karen's fault.

I called her the other night and she told me,
"I am making banana bread, I need to use up rotten bananas."
and I said, "I need to get rid of some sour cream, what should I use it in?"
With excitement in her voice she said,
"You need to make the banana bread I am making!"

"But I don't have rotten bananas"
Not a problem, she told me she had a ton of bananas and I should come over to get them. So off I went to her house.
Loaded up with bananas, I said "wait, I need to write the recipe down!"


"No no, just take that printout" oh, okay

Then I read the recipe, "oh oh, I don't have any walnuts"
She wasn't going to let anything stop me from making the bread...
"Here, take some walnuts home with you!"

With my arms full of bananas, the recipe and the walnuts I headed home. Karen also said to smash the bananas, even though the recipe said to slice them....okay



The next morning I got up & baked a bunch of bread. It was delicious!
Thank you Karen.

my package to Idaho.....

I put together a box to send to Idaho (God's country), a rather big box.
I thought about flowers for the memorial service...

and then I thought.....
there will be lots of relatives going to my aunts house....





So instead she will get a box full of.....

toilet paper, soap, paper plates (big & small), cups.....

coffee and kool-aid,

marshmallows (maybe there will be a campfire), cookies (Gwen's favorite kind) and an old LOGIC puzzle book

(I was tired of solving them wrong)

And......

one mini-quilt, "Explore Idaho"

I had one bears paw block and it was just staring at me.

In a drawer I found a mini flag, I have no idea why I had made it.

One small blue heart that needed a home and a small pinwheel block....

It is a good thing I still have Gwen's quilt book, Spirit of the Northwoods, the bear, tree and eagle came out there.
They all came together in this little quilt.
Everything was mailed today. I hope it gets there okay....