our coolness factor

WOW! I almost forgot to post today and that would have ruined my goal of posting everyday for 2 weeks. Part of the reason it almost slipped my mind is because we did some brief traveling. We left yesterday after school and headed to Indiana for an overnight stay. Our brother-in-law was in for a short visit from overseas so we got to see him and hang out with all the Horn clan. A good time was had by all. It was a very, very good trip for us. I did learn something about myself though. I've become old and uncool in my kids' eyes. Well, at least my girls' eyes. On the way there, Joe and I did our normal road trip routine and spent about 30 minutes "jamming" in the front seat. Normally our children enthusiastically join in. Not this time--the party poopers were in the very back and we couldn't even convince them to smile (although I suspect that there were some grins when my back was turned). Honestly, we didn't really care--we were still cool in our eyes--despite the odd looks from all the truckers.

recent happenings

What's been happening lately:

Sara went on her field trip yesterday to a local museum yesterday. She's growing up--they didn't ask for any parent volunteers. I was a little sad.

Ashley reached her 100 books read mark for the year and got to go out to eat with her teacher at McDonalds

John is super, super, duper into his Legos. He's going to be bummed when he finds out that the pirate ship to go with all his pirates that he was going to buy with his piggy bank money costs $100

Nathan has decided to go through life forehead first. He has three very distinct, comment provoking bumps & scratches on his head. They are from three different incidents. How do you scratch your head on the ultra safety McDonalds playland?

I was just downstairs in our playroom in the basement and there were 10 Barbies laying on the floor--all very naked

Joe & I have become work out junkies the last few weeks. We're kind of dangerous when we go and do the treadmills together at the local gym. We certainly can't let the other one go further or faster than we are. I almost ran a mile this morning just so I could keep up with him. (I HATE running!)

I gave Sophie a bath yesterday (that's our dog for those of you who may not remember). It's a big day for all of us. This is the first time that we are leaving her with someone since we got her. I had to resist the urge to write out detail instructions for her. What's been running through my mine all morning..."repeat after me, she's just a dog!"

I've been busy playing in the dirt lately. Watch for pictures to come...

It's time for Thursday's excuse...

It's mopping Thursday, but I decided not to mop today. Wanna know my excuse? I clean too much. Yep, sad, but true fact according to my middle daughter. She brought me home a Mother's Day card. She filled in the following blank: I know my Mom is smart because she cleanes. Yep, she thinks I'm smart because I clean. I decided to spend more time reading to her today instead of mopping. She also filled in this following blank: I love my Mom because she works so hard at moping. Not really sure why she said that because I don't really mope very often. I'm sure she didn't mean "mopping"....

Hints of summer

Ahhhh, some of the Horn's favorite things--hot dogs and s'mores

This one comes with a warning

(Why have a blog if you can't be honest--so WARNING--great honesty ahead). I've been a horrible blogger the last few weeks--at least I feel as though I've been a horrible blogger. To be honest, the Horn house has had a difficult last few weeks. That happens sometimes when your job is ministering to people. A wise man once said to us "hurting people hurt people". With that you can get into a devastating cycle of pain and that seems to be what has happened here. We are now on our road to recovery and in the spirit of "recovery" I've made a goal (remember how I like goals?). My goal is to blog something everyday for the next two weeks. I was going to say a month, but then you get into vacation and summer and, well, I need to be realistic. So how is it that blogging something everyday is in the spirit of recovery? Blogging tends to adjust my attitude. I don't generally enjoy posting "downer" posts so I'm forced to view life through a different lens. So now you have something to look forward to--or not--who knows what kind of cheesiness I may come up with in order to find something to post.

the killer lizard

Overheard from my boys' room yesterday morning:

John: "No, Nathan, you absolutely cannot kill a deer with a lizard."

Glad he has an older brother to teach him these things.

Why I plant a garden

Why do I have strawberry plants in my backyard? We ate 4 pounds of strawberries in 2 days—actually only a little over 24 hours. Good thing I bought 6 pounds at the grocery (they were on sale!)

Divine Justice?

Joe & I have recently taken up watching 24. It came with my DVR. Prior to the DVR I refused to get attached to any show in which you had to watch weekly to understand because the chances that I would be home and available to watch it each week were slim at best. With the DVR it doesn't matter if you are home or not—the magical computer records it for you. On Sunday night we started our 24 marathon. We were behind at least 3 episodes and I was starting to hear things about the ones we had missed so we needed to watch them in order for them to be still entertaining and not ruined. We didn't get through all the episodes on Sunday night because "someone" started dozing off—the morning bird in our relationship—hey! I'd been up since 4am so I thought I had a good excuse. The night owl was ready to watch the last one. In any case, we decided to finish the last one on Monday—just in time to have another one air and be recorded. We settled in—me on the couch, Joe folding clothes! Yep, I was being completely lame. In addition to being lame, I decided to comment on how impressed I was that he could fold clothes and watch 24 at the same time. He stated that I should be impressed by his multi-tasking. At this point I couldn't resist to "one up him" and let him know that not only would I have been able to fold clothes and watch 24, but that I could also do it while talking on the phone and disciplining the kids. Remember—I'm still sitting on the couch doing nothing but controlling the remote. We decided to start the show and through a serious of very, extremely, unfortunate events, I somehow managed to delete the last episode that we needed to watch. Evidently I can't multi-task quite the way I thought I could. Pride comes before….

Maybe I like my new Word after all

When I had problems with my computer a few weeks back I had to take of my entire Microsoft Office and reload it. Joe thought it would be nice if I had a newer version of the software on my computer, so he loaded it for me. I've not been a fan mainly because it is different and I've had to relearn how to do some things (like open a document!) I'm not a computer genius, but I'm fairly fluent so I think the learning curve on the new software should have been a lot less than it was. (interpretation: they shouldn't have changed it; seriously, it took me five minutes to figure out how to view my slide show in children's church on Sunday when we were getting ready to sing) Anyway, this morning I realized by complete accident that I could post to my blog directly from Word. So this is a test post. If you are reading it, then it worked. I don't think I can do pictures, but it certainly opens up some options concerning fonts, etc.

I've been dreaming of going to the beach lately so I'm afraid you are going to have to put up with the palm tree in the background for awhile.