Tag-Archive for » thomas «

morning before school…

29 Jan 2010 by admin

i decided to try an experiment this morning. i would wait to see if thomas woke up with his alarm clock rather than me having to tell him his alarm clock was beeping. it worked!

then i waited to see if he would take a quick (or at least quick in thomas terms) and he did. but would he remember to then wake his brother up and let him know that it was his turn for the shower? yes! 2 points…

tyler asking for a t-shirt

awww…a strike. i had to remind them to eat breakfast. not a big deal.

i hate that there is almost no school transportation. it is impossible to plan anything other than within the school hours. otherwise, the boys have to sit at school early (as they did wed. for my dr. appt. at 7.45 am) or they have to hang out late afterschool (as they did when i had to take kaity to work). i understand that there is a budget crisis in california but this does not help. if i were to want to work, i would have to find a job that would start no earlier than 8.30 and finish by 2.30. not an easy prospect.

thomas waiting for his shirt to dry

california drivers are horrible by american standards. they don’t hold a candle to italian drivers but still horrible none the less. i can’t tell you the number of drivers that are distracted by their phones and wander into my lane. my horn is working over time. i know now why the laws against cell phone use by drivers is so important. yesterday morning there was an horrific looking single vehicle accident. it blocked the 3 middle lanes of santa margarita. thankfully, i saw a gentleman on the side of the road talking to a cop so i hope that was the driver and that he was ok. his vehicle was totaled and he took out a number of street signs.

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so i’m late…

26 Jan 2010 by admin

i know that i said that i wanted to do the 365 blog challenge but after sitting for the last couple of days deciding what it is that i should write about, i realize…i’m boring! no, really…i’m boring. sunday, i was sick and didn’t feel well so we hung out at the house, i watched movies, surfed the interweb and read my book. monday…didn’t feel well…again. hung out at home on the couch. thomas had his guitar lesson today (rescheduled from wed.) so i took him and then went to get michael from work.

now today was a bit more exciting!

the boys had a plc day at school (they get out at 12.35 instead of 2.55) so i picked them and took them for haircuts. they turned out really good so we may keep going to that place. i’ll post pics this afternoon.

after haircuts…we headed to target. tyler is on his second backpack of the year and it was in bad shape…worn and torn. so we decided to pick up back pack number 3. he wanted a roller pack but target didn’t have any in “big kid” style and he didn’t want a powder puff girls pack so he picked a neat orange one. thomas’ wireless internet card quit working (or so he says. i think he took it apart to see the inner workings and that messed it up.) so i got him a new one.

we got pizza hut personal pizzas for lunch from the target pizza hut so we were all happy with that.

and then home…i didn’t feel well again so i took it easy on the couch for a bit.

i decided to start dinner early because i hate rushing later. so i made salmon, roasted potatoes and broccoli. it wasn’t too bad. i tried frozen wild salmon this time but it wasn’t as good as the fresh farm raised that i usually buy. lesson learned.

i had to pick michael up from work and head to the chiropractor. michael was in usual form…teasing me and drawing dr. micah into it. it is fun though. my back is still sore often but dr. micah seems to be making a difference thank goodness.

thomas had mma tonight so that was my last job…

it was a busy day…not an exciting day. such is my life usually!

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saturday – almost the usual…

23 Jan 2010 by admin

as i may have mentioned (repeatedly probably), our saturdays usually follow a pretty well established routine. we deviated just a tiny bit yesterday. michael was pretty tired so although i was up at 5 (getting to be a routine thing) i ended up having to wake michael at 7.45 to let him know that we had to be at the chiropractor in 45 minutes. so no early breakfast at ihop.

as with most men…it took michael no more than 15-20 minutes to do all that is required to make himself presentable on a saturday morning. we were out the door by 8.10.

dr. micah was there today, thank goodness. i’m starting to feel a difference in my back. today for the first time in quite awhile (under no emergency circumstances) i ran up the stairs…several times. that in itself is a feat since lately i’ve been climbing the stairs in a most comedic fashion!

after the doc, we decided to do a late ihop breakfast. i love it when you’ve gone somewhere enough times that they know what you like. without asking, the busboy brought us coffee with french vanilla creamers and ice water with lemon…i like that. we ordered our usual breakfast to share…pancake combo.

michael has started tanning again recently since his bone density came back worse than expected. the doctor said that this would help with the calcium deficiency. when he finished, i realized it was 10.10. tyler had a birthday party to attend at 11! yikes!

i tried calling home several times but when the boys sleep in…they really sleep. luckily, tyler is fast in the shower. he was able to make himself presentable and we were on our way. this was his first invite since we’ve moved here. dustin is apparently a nice kid and his parents seem nice as well.

we had a pretty chill after noon…michael and thomas played variously on the ps3 and their computers all afternoon while i cooked, cleaned and played on my computer.

it’s been chill evening too after picking tyler up. a quick trip to the grocery store, chili dogs for dinner, more ps3 time and now i’m headed to bed to read until i’m sleepy.

Category: california, family, michael, miscellaneous, shannon, thomas, tyler  Tags: , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment

thomas turns 14…

21 Oct 2009 by admin

i cannot believe how fast my children have grown. thomas turned 14 today! he’s just a hair shorter than me and that won’t last long. he voice is lower and nothing of a baby face remains at all. soon he’ll be taller than me, stronger than me and hopefully wiser than me.

thomas with his breakfast in bed

thomas with his breakfast in bed


a tradition at our house is to serve the kids breakfast in bed on their birthdays. thomas had presented me with his menu requests the night before. he had a VERY had time waking up this time.

thomas with his ghetto cake

thomas with his ghetto cake

love you thomas!

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aisz middle school fine arts festival

27 May 2009 by admin

this week kicked off the aisz middle school fine arts festival.  they offered performances in art, drama and music.

in previous years at aisz, all students HAD to participate in the drama production.  there was no choice and that caused a lot of anxiety and bad feelings in some children.  one of mine included!  i do have to give credit where credit is due though…both the principal of the secondary school and the drama instructor realized that it was torture to make my child continue so they made an exception that allowed for him to be a part of the production as a sound coordinator rather than on stage.  the other child…loved every minute of his elementary school production.

this year the school offered the choice.  so thomas chose music (shocking! but more later on it) and tyler chose drama (unhappy with that in the end).

ms. lana with thomas helping him get set-up for his performance.

ms. lana with thomas helping him get set-up for his performance.

thomas came to me one day and said he wanted to download a song from itunes.  the rule is, he has to ask and he has to pay for it.  i asked him which song it was and he replied “carry on my wayward son” by kansas.  this is not his usual genre of music so i was curious.  he told me that he was going to sing this song and play guitar in the fine arts festival.  WHAT?!?  this is the boy who didn’t even want to stand on stage in the background as an extra last year!  of course, i acted like it was cool and nothing out of the ordinary and said ’sure…but can you sing me a bit of it?’ which he promptly did and sounded good.  i was so nervous for him but he was awesome!  i know, i’m biased, but i was so proud of him.  what a great job!

tyler chose drama.  he took drama the first quarter of school and loved it.

an extra for now....later a brick wall

an extra for now....later a brick wall

his drama teacher encouraged him and said he would be great for the production this spring.  he was so excited and i encouraged that.  so he took drama again this quarter.  he ended up as a brick wall in shakespeare’s a midsummer night’s dream.  he had a few lines but he was majorly bummed.  with all of the encouragement and talking…he thought for sure he would have a regular speaking part.  i feel bad that i encouraged him so heavily.  he now wished he would have taken music so that he could perform and shine (or not) all on his own.  it was a learning experience for him.  i thought he was the best brick wall and delivered his lines wonderfully.

thomas during the "let it be" ensemble

on stage with ellie and alix

on stage with ellie and alix

thomas during the “let it be” ensemble
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