Ten

I'm not sure when it happened but we went

from Elmo to Nick Jonas

from onesies to undershirts

from bald to beautiful blonde

from silly to witty

from "Goodnight Moon" to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid"

from Tarah Time to Taylor Swift

from tea parties to hotel slumber parties

from This:




To This:


in no time. You've stolen my heart, turned my world upside down and given me unbelievable joy.

Happy Birthday sweet Lydia! You're my favorite decade so far.

The Suite Life

This past Friday night I was faced with the challenge of throwing a 10th birthday party that would not be attended by anyone with the last name of Jonas. You'll remember that Kevin, Joe & Nick had initially agreed to play a special show in honor of this auspicious occasion only to back out with no warning and break the poor girl's heart. And who is always left to pick up the pieces when boys turn bad?

The Mom. That's who. And pick them up I did.

Friday afternoon the Party Bus (a/k/a RubyDooby's minivan) pulled out with the birthday girl and 4 of her peeps:

They rolled into the Embassy Suites in Cool Springs for the ultimate Girl's Night Out. Upon entry they found the hotel had a swanky fountain, a huge lobby with fancy chairs and a really fast glass elevator. They were really livin' it up.

Once inside Room 422 they all disappeared to the bedroom and began playing some elaborate game of pretend for the next hour. I know there was a talent show, a judge with a notepad and some talking mice. Beyond that I stayed in the living area and ordered dinner.

After stuffing themselves with the appropriate amount of pizza and Coca-Cola it was time for presents. She received a lot of cute stuff (Bath & Body Works, Clothes, Headbands, a gift card, a bottle cap necklace) but the hit of the evening was her very first gag gift courtesy of MoMo.


After consuming Gigi's cupcakes which have a 90-10 frosting to cupcake ratio they headed to the pool. Because I'm a very smart mother who knows how much energy a child can expend by swimming.


When we first entered the pool area it was full of kids. And by full I mean around 35 of them. At first I thought a few other Mom's must have been jilted by the JB's too and thought of rallying them to form some sort of support group until one woman called all the kids in her party out of the pool for a picture and 25 KIDS LEFT THE POOL. Fortunately, after they took the picture they left and it was Hot Tub Time for our girls.


I should point out that Handiman swam with the girls, and that was BEFORE the 25 Kid Festival left. He would really like credit for that. And I'm willing to give it to him because there was no way in the world I was getting in.


After 2 hours of swimming Handiman bid them goodbye and we all got ready for some party games. First up was the ever-popular Blindfolded Makeovers.

Next up was a crazy game of Headbandz. You have to ask questions in order to guess which card you're wearing on your forehead. Of course, everybody's favorite part is seeing how ridiculous everyone else looks.

For the final event, we popped popcorn and had a 10:00 showing of "Despicable Me". Then it was lights out at 12:00. I'm pretty sure I sat up about 30 minutes later and yelled "GO TO SLEEP GIRLS!". Then I passed out. I have no idea how late they stayed up talking. They could have snuck out of the room and gone downstairs for the manager's cocktail reception for all I know. I. Was. Exhausted.

The next morning was the best part of a Hotel Slumber Party. Breakfast Buffet! They all piled their plates with bacon & eggs and only one little girl wanted a donut. Any of my Peeps wanna guess which one? (To my credit, she asked for another one and I said no. What was I thinking? The poor girl is donut deprived as it is.)

After breakfast it was back to the room to pack up, but not before a quick game of Twister. Then it was time to say goodbye to the Hotel Slumber Party Extravaganza of 2010.

I have to say that this was one of my better ideas. Lots of fun. Loads of entertainment. And I didn't have to cook or clean one solitary thing. It also proved that you can have and awesome birthday party without even one Jonas brother in attendance.

Now, if they're reading this, I'd like to say a word to the parents of these young ladies. I spent 19 hours straight with these girls and not one fight broke out. Not one ounce of drama. Nobody was left out. Everybody shared. Everybody spoke kindly to one another. Everyone had impeccable manners. Everyone did as they were told. Nobody gave me any reason to frustrated or anxious. And that doesn't happen by accident. So thanks to you parents for raising such wonderful young ladies. I'm so proud of my daughter for choosing such amazing friends. (I like to think she gets that from me.)

Wordless Wednesday

Wood vs. Wild

A few weeks ago The Ocho asked if we could go camping. I took a few moments to reflect on what that would mean.

Sleeping outside. Cooking outside. Eating outside. Doing everything else....outside.

The cooking, eating and sleeping I could handle. It was the everything else that posed a problem. So I proposed a compromise and made it sound like the MOST! FUN! IDEA! EVER!

We would camp in our backyard. We could pitch a tent, build a fire, and sleep out under the stars all the while having a heated, indoor bathroom only 25 feet away. And she went for it!

So this past Saturday night The Wood Family Camping Trip was underway. We traveled all the way across our deck to the rugged terrain of our backyard. There Handiman and The Ocho worked side by side to pitch our tent (which we borrowed from the Ellis family). Upon completion we stocked it with all the necessary supplies: Sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, flashlights, a teddy bear & Kit Kittredge.


Once camp was set, Handiman built a fire where we cooked our hot dogs and enjoyed some hearty chili.

Once it was good and dark we each took turns telling ghost stories. I told the tale of the lady with the yellow ribbon, Handiman broke out the classic "Where's My Golden Arm?" (and made The Ocho scream and jump to high heaven at it's conclusion) and The Ocho rambled off some story about Spongebob Squarepants and eating eyeballs. It wasn't very scary but it was rather disturbing.


After the stories were done we played an awesome game of Hide & Seek. We would each take a turn being "It" while the other 2 hid all around our house under the cover of darkness. (I would now like to apologize to the woman jogging down the sidewalk as I was perched behind one of our fence columns and to the neighbors driving down the street as I laid in the grass behind our berm.) I was certain somebody was going to call 911 an report suspicious behavior, especially when Handiman decided to hide in our next door neighbor's tree. He freaked The Ocho & me completely out when he started rustling the branches as we passed by. It was all kinds of awesome.

Next, we made the most delicious S'mores ever around the fire and retired to our tent to play a board game until it was bedtime. That's when our camping experience took a turn for the worse.

There we were, Handiman, The Ocho, Kit Kittredge, Checkers the Teddy Bear and Me, all crammed into a little tent sleeping on the cold, hard ground. And did I mention it was about 47 degrees outside? It only took Handiman about 10 seconds to fall asleep (How does he do that? I'm convinced he only needs a pillow and an opportunity and he's dead to the world no matter what the circumstances.) That meant it took only about 15 seconds for the Snoring Heard Round The World to begin.

I tossed and turned and tossed and turned and eventually dosed off. At around 3:00 am Handiman woke up, unzipped the tent letting all the cold air blast in and announced he had to go to the bathroom. I decided I should seize the opportunity and suggested that maybe we should all go inside and pile into our soft, warm bed. While Handiman thought it was an excellent suggestion, The Ocho did not.

"We can't give up now!" I begged to differ but relented to stay. So, Handiman returned and we all did our best to go back to sleep.

At 6:00 am The Ocho excitedly exclaimed "We made it!" as though we had just endured the greatest hardships known to man and survived. While that certainly wasn't the case, we were glad we did it.

We spent time together, made memories we'll never forget and realized something very important about our family; We are not campers. To learn that lesson we didn't need to look any further than our own backyard.

This, that and some other things

And now for a random post about nothing of consequence.

* Robyn emailed me after reading my last post to protest the use of the word "Fancy" when referring to her. She claims she is not fancy at all, which only goes to further prove her cluelessness. But we compromised. I can call her "Fancy Pants" if she can call me "Smarty Pants". I can live with that.

* The Ocho presented her book report on Abigail Adams this past Thursday. Not only did she have to read the book, write a summary and create a poster board timeline but she was also required to dress as the character. Being very aware of my limited capabilities when it comes to all things crafty, I did the sensible thing and ordered a Colonial Girl costume from Amazon.com. Here she is all ready for her presentation:


As an added bonus, our school is having Pioneer Day at the end of the month and everyone is required to dress up. That was the best $15 I've spent all year.

* My principal presented me with a new laptop this week to use for my classes at school. It's very fancy and makes we look way cool as I'm carrying it in and out of the building in my carrying case.

* I just started reading Mary Beth Chapman's "Choosing to See". It's been a really good and interesting read so far. But I know what you're all thinking. Why would I do this to myself, especially at this time of year? Because misery loves company. And in some strange way it's comforting to know that somebody else relates to those feelings so distinct to the heart of a mother who completely trusts God but shakes her fist at him at the same time. Beth Moore wrote the prologue and had me in tears halfway through. One quote in particular got a tearful and audible "Amen" out of me:

"...after decades of interacting with women, I knew that the name of every lost child is sacred to the grieving mother. A person is wise to use it with great care and caution because the stab of pain it will invariably cause had better be worth it."

* Last night, Handiman and I went on our first date night in ages. We formulated a plan to eat dinner at a nice restaurant that didn't serve food that might incapacitate Handiman (a/k/a Mexican) and didn't have napkin dispensers on the table or a serve yourself drink station. Then we decided on a movie we both wanted to see and visited Fandango right away to ensure our tickets. Doing this, however, locked us into a deadline. Our movie was at 7:30 and we left our house at 6:00. If you live around here you're doing the math and have already concluded that our aspirations of eating somewhere without napkin dispensers was highly unlikely. You would be right. But that didn't stop Handiman from trying. After 3 stops to inquire about a wait time we decided to cut our losses and head to our old stand-by, Las Palmas which offered both Mexican food and a handy napkin dispenser on the table. I am, however, happy to report we didn't have to get our own drinks. And we made the movie on time! We saw "Secretariat" and it was outstanding.

* Tonight our family will embark on an adventure unlike anything we've ever attempted before. I'm participating partly at The Ocho's request but mostly because it should make for an entertaining blog post. We'll see.............

Fancy turns Forty

Meet my friend Robyn. She's fancy.
And a fancy friend deserves a fancy birthday.

The Fruit Bowl takes our birthday parties very seriously. Maybe that's why Oblivious Rob called us in to handle this one. After all, Dave called them in to handle mine and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED.

Right away, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Robyn, after all, is the most complicated of the Fruits. While she is kind-hearted and generous, she is also extremely competitive and a very sore loser. She is a vegetarian who never drinks soda, never eats donuts and considers granola bars junk food but her fast food joint of choice is Taco Bell. Her house looks like a 6 page spread in Southern Living without a spec of dirt around and she is a germaphobe but yet she's always to first to volunteer to babysit for anybody and everybody. She is a fashionista who's made only one grave error in fashion judgement since I've known her (which resulted in the greatest practical joke of my career). Her body temperature is so low that she considers a 70 degree day reason enough to wear gloves and a scarf and yet she loves to snow ski. She's a former metal head/beauty queen/child bride. She takes her Fantasy Football league almost as seriously as she takes her Sunday school lesson. And she's fancy. Really fancy.

So what kind of party does one throw for such a complicated creature?

Well, for starters we did for her what we NEVER do for anybody else. We got all dressed up.

We started out with a nice dinner in downtown Nashville at Sole Mio. We chose this place partly because they offered Manicotti on the menu. (While playing a party game a couple of years ago we were listing our favorite comfort food. While the rest of us wrote stuff like Krispy Kreme donuts, fried chicken and Little Debbie snack cakes, she wrote Manicotti. See what I mean? Fancy.)

A tradition at Fruit Bowl parties is, of course, the inevitable song and dance routine. Robyn knew this and it was fun to watch her throughout the evening nervously waiting for us to break into song right there in the resteraunt. We even orchestrated a mass exodus during dinner. All the girls got up one by one and went to the foyer while Robyn was left alone with the guys wondering what was going on. We waited about 5 minutes then marched back to our table single file just to see the look on her face. That's the kind of stuff we like to do to Robyn. Her gullable nature takes a real beating around us most of the time.

The song and dance was coming of course, but not until we met back at CoolShellyT's house for some carrot cake (her fave) and a sweet slideshow put together by Oblivious Rob. Then, it was time for The Fruit Bowl to get into costume and spring into action.

I composed a song called "Robyn's World" to the tune of "Jesse's Girl", one of Robyn's favorite 80's songs. The song reflected on all the different aspects of her personality and each of us was assigned a "Robyn". I called dibs on Red Dress Robyn early on. She's my favorite.

Here are all the Robyns from left to right: Rockin' Robyn (Shelly), Competitive Robyn (Andrea), Red Dress Robyn (Me), Vegetarian Robyn (Angela), Clean Freak Robyn (Trisha), Freezin' Robyn (Tracey), Beauty Queen Robyn (Ashley) and Child Bride Robyn (Nicole).

Here are the Robyn's gettin' our groove on:

After the performance we put together some games we knew she would enjoy (ie. games she COULD NOT LOSE). We called them the "Robyn's World Series". Everybody's favorite was the bow making competition which pitted Robyn against Price & Dave.

I should point out we also had a "All About Robyn" trivia game and "Name that Vegetable" game, both of which she almost lost. Seriously.

The sweetest part of the evening was when we presented her with her present. It was all CoolShellyT's idea. She gathered pictures from all of us including old family pics from Rob and made her the most beautiful photo book. There were pics of all our kids together, every party we'd ever had and every pyramid we'd ever built. We laughed. We cried. We all hinted that we'd all really like one for our next birthday.

In the end I think the party was alot like Robyn. It started out fancy but the later it became, the sillier it got. And when it was over we felt like we'd received more than we'd given.

It really is fun to live in Robyn's World.

Manipulate. Humiliate. Whatever it takes.

I will look back on this weekend with a sense of accomplishment. And not just because I completed the annual 3 mile trek around Vanderbilt with Abigail's Angels for the AHA.


It was a fun time with my Peeps and I was especially proud of The Ocho who set a personal fundraising goal of $200 and met it. She took my advice and started with the easy targets first; the grandparents. Then she moved to Uncle C. But the true test came when I challenged her to solicit some teachers at school. I suggested she go to the ones that she was confident really, really liked her, so she did. And she hit the jackpot.

But the Heart Walk isn't where my accomplishment was found. Nope. Mine was found in realizing the capacity I have to manipulate and, if necessary, humiliate people into doing exactly what I want them to do. All with the written word.

It started with one small, simple plan for getting The Ocho to finish her book report on Abigail Adams before the Oct. 7th deadline without all the frustration and tears that usually accompany such a project. So, as I was making out our dry-erase monthly calendar which is displayed on our fridge I simply wrote down a due date of October 4th. And boy, you should have seen her get to work on Saturday afternoon! She was writing and erasing and rewriting and revising and sweating and writing some more like nobody's business. Then, once it was complete, I erased the due date and moved it to October 7th.

Sure, she rolled her eyes, let out a heavy sigh and said "What???? You said it was due on Monday??!?!?!?" Yes I did. But had I left the due date on Thursday all the sweating and erasing and rewriting would have been done during the 30 minutes of free time we have on Wednesday afternoon between school and church. And oh how the tears would have flowed. I've got no time for that. So I did a little dry-erase manipulation. And it worked like a charm.

Once I unearthed this power, I decided to unleash it on Handiman with my little blog post about his failure to repair my garbage disposal in a timely fashion. And would you believe that by 8:00 pm on Sunday night I had a new one?

Of course, Murphy's Law of Home Ownership took effect this morning at 6:00 am when we discovered that our refrigerator was defrosting everything in our freezer and the ice maker was leaking water onto our floor. I am, however, pleased to announce that my husband dispatched a repairman by 9:30 to fix it. Perhaps it was out of love and a sense of husband-like duty. But I tend to think he was anticipating today's blog entry "When husbands choose watching football over providing well-chilled food for their family".

But the real stroke of genius came when I snapped a simple photograph at The Heart Walk. I sweetly suggested to my friend Robyn that I take a pic of her family since they're usually so busy that day they never get one. She thanked me profusely and they all smiled for their beautiful family portrait.

Little did she know I was formulating an evil plan.

You see, waaaaaayyyyyyy back in January The Fruit Bowl gave Robyn a 40th B'day party and Robyn brought her fancy camera to the event. She snapped picture after picture of us. There were pics at dinner. Pics of all us girls in our fancy outfits. Pics of our husbands in their suits and ties. Pics of our song and dance routine.

I was really excited about them and even went out and bought a new frame for one of them to display in my newly redecorated Great Room. So after months and months and months of begging and pleading with her to send me the pictures.......nothin'. Big. Fat. Nothin'.

So, I figured I'd hold my little family portrait as ransom in exchange for the birthday party pics.

And look what I found in my email Saturday afternoon.


(I think she was assuming that if she waited 9 months to send them to me I wouldn't blog about it. She should know better than that. Tune in tomorrow.)

Now, I should go on record as saying that while I threatened to hold the Ellis family pic hostage I didn't actually do it. I sent it to her before she ever sent me her pictures. The lesson here is that even idle threats work sometimes.

I know the power I have is great and I fully intend to use if for good instead of evil and only when necessary. Which around here will probably be every hour on the hour.

Back by popular demand

I haven't blogged in 2 months. And if the hundreds of emails, letters and calls I have received from my many fans begging for me to "Please for the love of all that is good in the world post something about the Little Ocho & Handiman so this empty longing in our lives can be filled!" are any indications then......not many of you have noticed. Because, quite frankly, only 3 people have even mentioned it. And one of them is my mother.

But it's no matter. I've decided to take a little time today and catch all 3 of them up on what's been happening on our little corner of The Hill. (That's short for Spring Hill and saying it makes me feel a little bit like a character on an MTV reality series as opposed to what I really am which is a character in need of a reality TV series.)

What's Handiman been up to? I'm glad you asked.

He's spent most of his days improving the quality of people's lives through superior home service consultations. (That's code for selling them stuff for their house). In the past few weeks some of those people have included some family members and close, personal friends like the Ellis family and Gena a/k/a "The Chief". In fact, when her garbage disposal broke she called him and it was repaired within a week. Of course, my garbage disposal broke around the same time and I'm still waiting for a new one. I've given him until the end of the day to fix it or I'm going to call his company's service center and put in a formal request. I'm not even kidding.

I suppose the demands his job make on his time aren't all bad. He's still charming the little old ladies. Friday he came home with a freshly baked loaf of banana bread. I would have preferred he come home with a brand new garbage disposal. Oh well.

What about The Little Ocho?

Well, she's been very busy being a 4th grader which includes things like studying for tests, writing book reports, enduring the playground drama of the day, rolling her eyes when I mention one of the boys in her class, practicing the recorder (oh the blog post that will come the day after her first school performance! Simply. Can't. Wait.), giggling over how cute Nick Jonas is and answering every question I pose to her with one word answers like "Good", "Fine" and "Yes".

How was your day? "Good" How did the history test go? "Fine" Do you plan to ignore me like this until you turn 25 and have your first baby and have no choice but to ask for my help? "Yes"

Now for Molly's status update.

Molly the Chiweenie has been busy doing what she does best. She naps. She eats. She pees. She naps again. However, she has managed to take time out of her busy napping schedule to escape the Fortress Fence 2 times in the past couple of months. The last time was this past Friday morning at 6:00 am. The sun was barely up, it was freezing cold and I found myself traipsing around the neighborhood in my bathrobe screaming her name. Actually I was screaming "Where are you, you stupid animal!?!?!" Fortunately, Handiman found her resting comfortably on a neighbors front porch. Molly and I had a long talk about how the next time she pulls a stunt like that she's on her own. I'm not sure why she's compelled to leave. I think she's got a pretty sweet deal. Comfy bed, free food, giant grass toilet. And The Ocho still talks to her.

What about me?

I've really been enjoying my 3 days on, 4 days off work schedule. And the whole no car line duty thing? Totally rocks.

I've enjoyed redecorating my great room thanks to a generous gift of some new furniture from Ruby Dooby and decorating tips from my friend Robyn.

I've been busy planning parties for our 4th grade Sunday school class.

I've been reading "Radical" by David Platt. Oh. My. Word. Dude is seriously all up in my face.

I've been spending alot of time working on choir music (we've done a live recording, started Christmas music and are practicing for another recording at the end of them month). And I love every minute of it. Until we're on the 4th hour of recording on a long Sunday afternoon and somebody in the tenor section gets the same phrase wrong 5 times in a row. Then I don't love it so much.

I've been exercising with Jillian. I did take a few months off to nurse a shoulder injury (not a joke by the way. Totally happened) but now I'm back at it. And now that "The Biggest Loser" is back on I feel a little more inspired to keep at it. If those poor people can endure her for hours at a time surely I can deal with 20 minutes a day.

Speaking of which, I've been watching TV. (Still love "The Office". Really into "The Good Wife". Sad that "Friday Night Lights" is almost over.)

What I haven't been doing is blogging. But I'll try to do better. I hope that makes the 3 of you very happy.