Instagram Photo of the Day

I've recently started reading a new blog that I'm in love with. It's written by cute-as-a-button Chantelle from Australia.  She writes about a little of everything, and can be found HERE.

Chantelle has an Instagram Photo of the Day project on her blog that you can find out more about HERE.

I have been participating for about a week, and it's awesome.  I know I've told you how I love Instagram on my iPhone.  I always have my phone with me, so I can be looking for the daily assignment all day long and snap my picture whenever I see it!

I'll share what I've taken so far...

March 21 - Delicious

March 22 - Kitchen Sink

March 23 was Moon, and it was super cloudy and foggy this day.  I tried to get creative and find a moon shape anywhere I could, but nada.  No entry for this day.

March 24 - an Animal.

March 25 - Breakfast

March 26 - My Name

March 27 - a Key

March 28 - Trash

It really is so much fun!  If you have an iPhone and are interested in taking pictures at all, I urge you to join.  I'm looking at things differently when I am on my way to work, around the house, or out to dinner!  This photo challenge is all about taking pictures and sharing them!

XOXOX

NH

Draw something

This game has taken over the family. Completely. Have you seen it? It's like mobile pictionary. The kids love it! The can play on their kindles and I play on my phone.

Morgan has some mad drawing skillz. Don't you love her bank?? Soo cute!!

XOXOX

NH

Complete Parental Victory

Remember when I posted last month about the new chore system I found on Pinterest?  Well, it's going very well.  My kids are more motivated by money than I thought.  I need to share something that happened in my very house this morning.

Setting:  Main floor of my house.  Kids are in the living room complaining about how early it is and how we don't have anything good for breakfast.  I'm in the kitchen scrambling to remember what day it is, find something "good" for breakfast, and make myself a breakfast shake.  I'm trying to think of whatever I'm forgetting.  Do we need gym shoes today?  The trumpet?  Money for lunch tickets? Field trip permission slips?  Did I sign Andy's planner?

So Morgan had showered last night (I wonder if we'll EVER get to the point where that girl will be able to shower in the morning.  At this point, I kinda doubt it.  Sorry Morgs, you know I love ya!) and Andy had just gotten out of the shower 5 minutes earlier.

Me:  Did you both put deodorant on this morning?
Kids:  grumble grumble grrrr raaah grumble.
Morgan:  No, but I will.
Andy:  Hey Morgan, since you are going upstairs, will you bring me my deodorant?
Morgan:  Well, I will but only if you promise to bring it back upstairs RIGHT AWAY and not leave it on the coffee table that I just cleaned off last night.

I stopped dead in my tracks and wondered if I was in the right house.  And then, when I realized that what I just heard really did actually happen, I wanted to high five myself, do a happy dance and shout PRAISE JESUS at the top of my lungs.  Instead, I quietly smiled to myself and celebrated my victory by myself, in my quiet kitchen.

And now, at 8:49 PM, as I'm sitting on my couch blogging, I glance over to the coffee table...

and see Andy's deodorant sitting on it.

Well, it was the right idea Morgan. 

:)

XOXOX

NH

PeeWee A State Hockey!

Last weekend we made the trek to Alexandria with the Hermantown PeeWee A team to battle for the state title! We were so honored that they asked us to go along as their backup goalie! It was such a fun experience for Andy.

Our first game on Friday, and the adrenaline was a'flowin!

Intros...

Blondies on the ice!  Let's go team!

Gettin in the zone!

We did what we could do from the stands, but the team did the real work on the ice.  We won our first game 9-1 and advanced to the semi finals!

Warmups for game 2.  We knew this game would be harder.  I don't often get to hear what the coaches say to the kids, but coach Buckley held a team meeting including the parents the night before and went down the list of things the kids needed to do if they wanted to win game #2.  Forecheck.  Backcheck.  Make the short passes.  Good goaltending.  Most important?  Have fun.  It was very cool to watch him talk to that team.  It was very apparent that those kids look up to and respect him very, very much.

The game wasn't looking good right from the start.  The other team scored first.  And then they scored second.  And then they scored third.  Two long periods crept by.  Then the third started.  4 minutes into it, we finally scored a goal!  And then, that team decided it was time to really start playing the game, so they went on ahead and scored 4 more, just for fun.  My throat kinda hurt at the end of that game.  :)

Winner winner, chicken dinner!

We were going to the championship game!  Of the state tournament!  The stuff these kids have dreamt of for so long!

Heeeeere we go!  I am certain there were more nerves in the Hockey Mom section than there were on the ice.

Warmups...

And we even got a cool light show for intros!

The team skated their HEARTS out!  Unfortunately we did not come out on top on the score board, which is what the rules say you have to do in order to win, I guess.  The team doesn't look all that excited here, but man, second place in the STATE is absolutely nothing to hang your heads about!  What an awesome season and tournament!  Great job team!

Now, I did not keep track of how many hockey games Morgan attended this year.  But when she had to miss birthday parties both of the last two weekends because we were travelling for hockey, I knew I needed to do something special for her.

Friday afternoon we snuck away from the group and headed to the spa.  Morgan got a mani/pedi and I got a pedi.  I got to drink cucumber water while I was there.  My toes are a gorgeous shade of teal/minty seafoam green.  I wish I could remember the silly OPI name of it.  It was something beachy, which is perfect because it reminds me of ocean water.

Morgan chose an awesome shade of neon pinkish-orange that is perfect for her.  We had a GREAT time being girls doing girly stuff.

It was a great weekend!

XOXOX

NH

P.S.  I'm done writing about hockey for a while.  hehe.

Yarn saves the day!

So, we checked into our hotel last Thursday night and all was well. We got there later than most, so Nate and I grabbed our bevies and headed to the party room where the other parents had congregated. We stayed up and drank with them for a while and headed to bed. When I got back to our room, I noticed the toilet was running. I tried to wiggle the handle, and it was loose, like the chain was not connected anymore. I removed the top to the tank and found that the chain had indeed come off the little rod thingy. I stuck my hand down into the freezing cold grody hotel toilet tank water and pulled the chain up and tried to slip it over the end of the little rod thingy. It didn’t seem like it would stay there, but there really wasn’t anything I could do about it at 1:00 AM. So the next morning, Nate reported it to the front desk, and the lovely woman working told him that there wasn’t anyone onsite that could fix it today. We could either move to a different room, or wait for someone to fix it the next day. We decided to wait it out since it wasn’t like we absolutely couldn’t get the toilet to flush. Well, it only took about 5 more times of sticking my hand down into that grody tank before my mind started to churn. If I could take a bobby pin and rig it through that first link on the chain and bend it around the little rod thingy, maybe that would keep it there until tomorrow? I had to try. I got the bobby pin bent into a shape I thought would work, and got it threaded through the link on the chain. When I went to try and bend it around the little rod thingy, the little rod thingy snapped right in half where it was so corroded. Oops. Hmm. Just need something to tie it to the now-shorter little rod thingy. As any good knitter would do, I went to my knitting bag, cut off a foot of yarn from the end of a skein, threaded it through the chain and tied it to the little rod thingy! It totally worked. Morgan and I high-fived and I said, “THAT, Morgan, is how you jerry-rig a toilet that won’t flush properly. Yarn saves the day again!”

XOXOX

NH

No place I'd rather be

Chocolate mud mask facials.

Little House on the Prairie on TV.

The Bachelor finale on in 45 minutes.

A glass of wine.

Working on a quilt now together.

The only thing that would make this night more perfect was if I had checked the settings on the camera before I gave it to Andy to take our picture...

OOooops.

Loving where I am right here, right now.  There is no other place I'd rather be!

XOXOX

NH

Yep, I'm still alive.

I'm sorry.  The last week or so has been crazy busy.  When I finally get 5 minutes at home, blogging was at the bottom of the priority list.  I will hopefully be better about it now.  Here is a recap of what I've been doing.  Can you guess?  I'll give you a hint.  It starts with HOCK and ends with EY.

Andy's team did not advance to regions this year.  They gave it an AWESOME effort, but unfortunately they only took the top 3 teams in the district, and sadly, we came in 4th.  Those boys played their hearts out and improved so much this season!  I'm very, very proud of each of them.

We were very honored that our PeeWee A team invited us along with them to their region tournament as a backup goalie, since they had advanced and only have one goalie on their team.  So last weekend, we traveled to Grand Rapids with the team.  They won all three of their games, and advance to state, which is next weekend!  We are so excited to be a part of this experience.  Just to have Andy suit up and be on the bench is such a cool thing for him.  We will travel next weekend and cheer loudly for the PeeWee A's!  Here are a few pictures of the win securing the teams spot in the state tournament:

The cellie around the net!

I love this picture.  The girl on the team has more important things to worry about than getting in the middle of that stench.

Andy congratulates his fellow goalie!

Yes, the team went blonde for their trip to regions.  Derek's mom has nicknamed him Marilyn.  You should see his sick flow when his hair isn't all sweaty.

Champions!

Way to go team!

Two days later, we were off to our next adventure.  Our High School team advanced to the state tournament with an undefeated record, so we traveled to St. Paul to cheer them on.  Four days of hockey, friends, and a little too much fun.

Mini donut sugar lips.

I guess I have a thing for taking pictures of goalies.

A pretty view from our hotel room.

Have I mentioned how I love Instagram on my phone?

Yes, I believe I have.  Sooo cool.

We cheered, painted faces, shook our pom poms, but ended up losing in our championship game.  With a record of 30-1-0, our HS boys had an AWESOME season!

So, now we are back home, with one day to calm down before another short work/school week before heading off to state with the PeeWee A's.  I'm so excited for the upcoming weekend!  Please keep us in your thoughts that we come out on top of it all!  Since this team has adopted Andy as their backup goalie, they have urged us to become part of the team.  I couldn't say no.

It's just hair, right?

Must get glasses straightened.  Ugh.

It's a little orange, but that's ok, we'll see how long it lasts before I make him get the buzz cut.  It's almost summer, right?

So again, here I am apologizing for yet another post about hockey, but you can be assured there will be another about next weekend too.  We have a dance show coming up in a few weeks, so hopefully the blog posts will be changing gear for those of you who couldn't give a rat's behind about hockey!  I happen to like it quite a bit.  :)

 XOXOX

NH