Say That Again?

As Scooter’s mother,
I’m quite proud of his taste in music.

Why?

Because (IMHO) he likes musical artists who actually HAVE TALENT.
Who actually sing… using their throats and voices,
who are not singing through their noses
or
electronically enhanced microphones.

And it doesn’t hurt that his tastes are so similar to mine!
 
Justin Bieb-who?
Jonas Whats?
Christina and Britney? I don’t think so.
Don’t even mention the word RAP to him… he’ll smack you!

However, he certainly knows who the
Bee Gees are.
And the Mamas and the Papas.
Olivia Newton-John?
He’s down with that!
Peter, Paul and Mary are some of his favorites!
(Among others. MANY others.)
And we can’t forget his current obsession,
Johnny Cash.

When we drive, we listen to my iPod and play, “Name The Artist”
and more often than not, he gets them right.
Keep in mind, that most of the music on my iPod is considered
CLASSIC.
It’s mostly from the 70’s and 80’s.
(I stopped listening to the radio in the 90’s when listening to music
made me want to slit my wrists.
Jewel, Alanis Morisette and Sarah McBarflin
howling about how awful life and the world was…
But that’s another post all together!)

However, I think that the naming game is getting old.
It’s gotten too easy.
When Leo Sayer starts singing,
”You Make Me Feel Like Dancing”
in his falsetto voice,
Scooter yells,
”IT’S THE BEE GEES!”

He grabs the iPod to “check” to see if he’s correct,
and then “confirms” it to the people riding in the car with us.

“See? I told you it was the Bee Gees!” he yells. Then turns his head and snickers.
He thinks he’s so funny!

This last weekend it was our turn to travel to Flatlandia to visit Flynn.
Belle came with us, and brought Chip too!
(He traveled like a champ! What a good baby!)

While we were there, Flynn introduced Scooter to two more great bands:
Creedence Clearwater Revival
and
Lynyrd Skynyrd.

A new fan has been born.
And he’s only 10 years old.

On our trip home,
we were once again playing, “Name The Artist.”
Again, Scooter was being funny and saying everyone was either
Bee Gees or
Olivia Neutron-Bomb (ha ha).

But then he threw in another band.

At first we didn’t know who it was.

And when Belle and I figured out who he was talking about,
we laughed.
And since it was dark, I had to video the moment.

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And just because I can….
(because I’m Granny)
here’s a little photo we took of Chip last week.

World Basketball Championship

Last Saturday was Scooter’s last basketball game of this season.
He has been playing on a city league.
We’ve struggled with consistency this season.
He missed several games due to the fact we were traveling to Flatlandia to visit Flynn.
And his team only practiced once a week.
Sometimes, we’d forget about practice, so he’d miss that too.

He’s not the most aggressive player, but he loves running up and down the court.

He loves jumping up and down.
And waving his arms.
And grimacing when someone on his team throws the ball out of bounds.



Sometimes he panics when someone actually passes the ball to him.
More often than not, he’ll pass it right back.
I think the hordes of boys running at him while he has the ball, freaks him out a bit.
Just a bit.
And when he shoots the ball at the hoop, he misses.
He feels good about taking that chance.
And we cheer and root for him no matter what.

But he has a blast.
That’s all I care about.

Saturday’s game was special.
A HUGE group of kids from the University came to cheer both teams.
The coaches and most parents knew they were coming,
but it was a surprise to the players.
The game had already started when 60-80 college kids came running, yelling and cheering into the gym.
The player’s eyes got wide with confusion and then wider with excitement
when they saw that the students were carrying signs that said things like,
“GO RED!” or “GO BLUE!”
The most exciting part was that several of the signs had the player’s names on them.
I could see the boys scanning the crowd, looking for their name
and then a big smile crossing their face as they saw their personal cheerleader yelling for them.

Speaking of cheerleaders, yes, there were cheerleaders there too.
Pompoms and everything.
And – at half time – they performed a little dance.
Just like you’d see at a high school basketball game.
A little over the top for a 4-5 grade boy’s game.

This final game was a massacre.
Scooter’s team was outmatched and outscored.
The opposing team was older,
MUCH more aggressive,
and taller.
Okay, I’ll say it – they were better players!
Thankfully, the boys were having fun in spite of the bad score.

At the end of the game,
the boys met the students who were cheering for them and they got to keep their signs.

They also got little medals.
I’m not sure why.
It was the student’s idea to hand them out.
(Shhhhh….. I think it’s silly.)

What’s amazing, is that this is the only game these students did this for.
The poor teams that were scheduled to play after our game were feeling confused.
It was anti-climatic for them to walk in, see all the screaming and cheering,
then watch all the excitement walk out the door.
I ran into some friends whose son was playing and they said,
“Geez! I guess you guys were playing for the World Title?”

It sure seemed that way.

Yes, my son who was on the losing team, even had a gaggle of girls
surround him asking for his autograph!

He’s 10 years old and had his own set of groupies?
Sheesh!

Watch out world, Scooter’s ready to make his mark!

A Member of the Club

I joined a new club last week.
The club of grandma-hood.

I tell myself I’m the youngest member of this club.
After all, I’m not a typical grandma:
gray haired, wrinkly with baggy stockings.
I’m only PLENTY-NINE YEARS OLD!
(Okay, I’ll admit a: I color my hair, b: I have plenty of wrinkles and c: if I wore stockings I’m sure they’d be baggy.)

Most women who are between the ages of
PLENTY-FIVE AND PLENTY-NINE
are not members of this club yet.

Uh huh.
Sure.

Then I get on Facebook,
and I see some people that I graduated from high school with have 2 or 3 grandkids.
Some even have more.
(Honestly, I don’t know how that’s possible, but these women claim to have them…
and even post pictures to prove it!)

So much for the “I’m too young” theory.
Who am I kidding?
I AM old enough to be a grandma!
Grandma’s these days aren’t gray haired and wrinkly!
The grandmas I know are fun, active and cool women!
I hope I can fit into the club and be cool like them!

Well, whether or not I am in denial with the fact that my offspring are having offspring,
I simply can’t refute it anymore.
My beautiful daughter gave birth to a beautiful son, last Friday.

What a day!
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words,
so my post will mostly be in photos.
(Probably overload!)

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The night Belle went to the hospital to be induced.
She and her doctor decided to induce on her due date.
They felt the baby was big enough and didn’t want him to get too much bigger.

This next pic is BEFORE the epidural.
My poor girl labored all night and no one knew!
She was put on Cervadil to soften things up so she could be put on Pitocin in the morning.
She is one in a million.
Even though Cervadil is not supposed to induce labor,
IT DID!!!
By the time the doctor came to check on her at 7 am, the baby had already crowned.
EVERYONE was incredibly surprised!
The person you see in the back right side of this pic is the anesthesiologist prepping to give
her an epidural.
I was quite surprised that they would offer her this procedure this late in the game.
But everyone in the room was so glad they did.
She wasn’t the most pleasant person.
(Okay, we all agree she was MEAN!)
After the epidural took effect,
my daughter – who everyone was calling SYBIL –
was called by her real name again.

Beast got the courage to cut the cord.
He wasn’t sure he could do it.
I’m so glad he did!

I love this picture so much!
It’s a testament to the peace an epidural gives.
My daughter smiles calmly at the labor nurse.
You can’t tell that Sybil Belle had been yelling profanities at this
poor nurse just two hours before.
(The nurse was VERY PATIENT and forgiving of my daughter.)

HE’S HERE!
7 LBS 12 OZ
19 inches long
Squished nose and cone head
but incredibly beautiful in spite of it!

Quite possibly the world’s youngest Elvis impersonator.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Baby
who shall be known as CHIP
(keeping with the Beauty and the Beast theme)
is looking for work as a
YARD GNOME!

 

 

 

 

Even though we like to tease Belle about the little outbursts directed at the nurses,
I am incredibly proud of her.
She labored for about 6 hours without the benefit of an epidural.
That was NOT her birth plan. And was NEVER her birth plan.
In spite of it all, she handled the pain and discomfort until her hero, the anesthesiologist showed up.
Belle, you are MY hero!
There’s NO WAY I could have done what you did!

Poor Scooter is only 10 years old,
which left him 8 years short of being able to visit Belle, Beast and Chip IN the hospital.
(Due to the high RSV risk, no one under the age of 18 was admitted into the baby area.)
He was pretty disappointed.
Until we figured out a way he could still see his brand new nephew!
We pretended we were going to see a baby the old fashioned way:
through a nursery window.
Only it was 32° for those of us viewing the baby because
we were standing on the sidewalk OUTSIDE the hospital window!

This guy makes me laugh --
when I’m not threatening to kick him out of the room.
One day, I swear, he’s going to get us ejected from a hospital.
Dang, he’s cute though.
Isn’t he?

Chip isn’t fond of
a) being put down
b) having clothes put on

Uncle Bean loves singing to Baby Chip to help soothe him when he cries.
The song of choice is
Peter, Paul & Mary’s version of
Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word
(Papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, our hearts have been stolen by this little guy.
He is an angel.
Such a good baby.

I never knew being a grandma would be so much fun.
Seriously,
if I would have known this,
I would have had him first!!

Email

Scooter is at it again!

We gave him Flynn’s very old outdated iPod Touch
and Scooter figured out how to put his email account onto it.
(I still haven’t figured out how to put my email on my iPhone.)

The other day I got this email from my son
(who is very excited to be an uncle, by the way):

This email cracked us all up.

Really, where did this kid come from?

Oh, and I guess it needs to be said that Scooter is insisting that his nephew will call him….

Uncle Bean

More Instagram

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again,

I LOVE INSTAGRAM!

Seriously.

Facebook irritates me.
There’s so much junk on my newsfeed these days, it’s hard to see what people are saying.

That’s if I can see what people are saying.
Half my friend’s status updates don’t show up in my feed at all.
But how can they, with all the “shared” posts
and “liked” posts
and advertisements.
I find it hard to weed through all the junk.

And weeding irritates me.

That’s why I don’t have a garden.
Because the weeds come in and take over all the good things.
BECAUSE I DON’T WEED!!

Here are some of my recent favorite Instagram pictures.

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Scooter got in this shower at Home Depot.
He stood there like that as strangers walked by.
I don’t think he thought they could see him.

Playing with glow sticks.

This was a foggy morning in town.
We have a family joke about fog.
I’ll spare you the details (this time)
but it was a fun shot.

Scooter wanted to play a game on his computer,
but the TV is in the same room as the computer, and Belle was watching Glee.
Scooter and I HATE that show,
and Scooter refuses to even be in the same room when it’s on.
I’m proud of him for sticking to his principals.
But in the meantime,
he couldn’t play on the computer.
So he and I had a quick, fun game of Battleship.

Today, Belle and I went to get pedicures.
I labeled this one,
”Due date pedi’s”
It’s good to pamper yourself when you’re 40 weeks pregnant!

This is a bridge about an hour away from Flatlandia.
I love how the picture turned out!

Jack Frost visited and left his mark on my windshield.

Another of my favorite photos.
We took this at the Supernacle
(Conference Center)
in Salt lake.


And finally,
I just don’t know what to say about this picture!

Lellowstone

It has been a
LOOOONG
COOOOLD
Winter.

Do you know the last time we went to Yellowstone was the end of September?

It has been
164 Days
since we were there.

Or…
5 months, 11 days.

Or…
23 weeks.

That is unacceptable in my book.

Thankfully I’m married to the very handsome Flynn.

This same Flynn,
who back in June or July of last year said,
”I think this winter we need to take a snowmobiling trip to The Park.”

And believe me,
once he put it out there,
I wasn’t going to let him forget he said it!
(Bonus: He DIDN’T forget!)

So, as soon as Christmas was over, we started planning our trip.
We invited a few people.
Some accepted the invitation.
YAY!
Other’s had to decline.
BOO!
We included friends, family and co-workers.
(Sadly, it was the friends who were unable to come with us.)
It was a nice mix.

There are decent snow levels this year, which is a good thing,
since we couldn’t go until the end of February.
There’s nothing worse than a snowmobiling trip when there’s no snow.

It was also risky because the excursion was only a week and a half before Belle’s due date.
It would have been terrible if the coolest events of the year (so far)
both happened on the same day!

But we got lucky!
Plenty of snow and no contractions!
Whew!

Another good spot of luck happened when I called the company to reserve our little trip.
The government limits how many machines can go into The Park each day,
and we got the last 6 machines that were available.
Yeah.
Can I get a huge WHEW!
If we had needed one more machine, I don’t know what we would have done!

The weather wasn’t great.
We had heavy snowfall all day… some called it the “Blizzard of ‘13”
which was cool!
But the wind… oh the wind….
It wasn’t so cool.
The wildlife stayed in the protective cover of the trees.
That definitely wasn’t cool.
I was hoping for a semi-close encounter with a bison.
Or an elk.
Or a wolf.
Even a coyote.

Didn’t happen.

But…
▲ We did see some beautiful scenery!
Seriously, Yellowstone in the winter
takes your breath away!!
▲ We were the only people in our group,
so we had a little more control of where we went and how long we got to stay
▲ Our awesome guide told us how to avoid the lunchtime crowds at the Old Faithful restaurants
(which we tipped him handsomely for).
▲ And we got to hang out with some pretty cool people.

It was a great day!
I can’t wait to do it again!
(Some pics were taken with my DSLR and some with my iPhone)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flynn and my Dad. The two favorite guys in my life!       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our group listens to the guide tell them scary stories of
people who fell to their death in the boiling waters of geysers.

 

 

 

My Sis, Red, and Scooter wait for Old Faithful
to erupt.

 

 

 

If you could have seen my hair, you’d understand
why I was wearing a hat indoors.
Seriously. It was scary!

Look closely at the entrance.
I think it’s giving us the
“PEACE”
sign.

Yes, we only went for a day, yet, I felt compelled to make sure we were prepared for all contingencies.
We carried food, extra (dry) clothing and lots of water in packs we wore or strapped onto the machines.
Seems excessive, doesn’t it?

This is the Old Faithful Visitor’s Center.
I included this picture to show how much it was snowing while we were there.
But I’m not sure the picture does it justice.
There was a TON of snow coming down!
(Click on the picture to see it better.)

I took the wrong lens, so I had to use my iPhone to take a picture as Old Faithful was going off.

In a fun moment between father and son,
Flynn took Scooter and threw him into a snowbank
(this may have happened more than once).
Flynn takes a moment to relish his conquest.
Scooter is a happy kid and didn’t mind.
He even tried to get his dad back by throwing him into a snow bank.
Scooter’s 60 pounds was no match for Flynn’s muscular brawniness.

I’m already dying…
CAN WE GO BACK TOMORROW?!?!