Prom 2016

Before I begin this "catch up" post, I have two current complaints about my job.

And to be clear, it has nothing to do with my boss, my co-workers, my office, or even my actual daily grind except that I have to deal with these two things repeatedly in my daily grind:

1. The double meeting.  As in, can the Mayor participate in this event for us?  Yes?  Great.  We need a meeting to tell him more about it.

No you don't.  You do not need a meeting to tell him about the meeting.  Please just send me the information via email.

Thanks.

2. Entitled constituents.

We've all heard the rant about entitled politicians that only work for themselves, and that's true, they do exist.  However, I happen to work for a genuinely good politician who is in it for all the right reasons (and takes a lot of rebuke for it), so when I get a call from an angry constituent that goes something along the lines of, "I live in the County, I pay my taxes, I'm a voter, I refuse to speak with anyone else, I will not share my information with you, only the Mayor, and he owes me this," and they're speaking very heatedly and their words are dripping with contempt, then I just want to politely tell them that if they can't "help me help them," then there's really not much I can do for them, because frankly, paying your taxes and being a registered voter, does not enable you to be a pompous jerk.  Period.

And with that my rant is over.

I want to catch up on a post from prom. Prom from 2016 that is.  I posted about how Max asked Casidee here, but never followed up with actual prom pictures.

Seeing as Casidee will be attending Prom 2017 tomorrow, I suppose it's only proper to get Prom 2016 on the blog so I can move on.

We learned a lot about dress shopping last year.  That prom dresses cost upwards of hundreds of dollars (are you kidding me?), and every dress that caught her eye far exceeded the cost of my ( I thought) generous budget of $150.  However, we did eventually get tipped off to a cute dress "shop" that rents dresses out of a lady's basement.  The basement is packed full, and I mean full of dresses to rent, and all were $150 or less.

So there you have it, choose any dress you desire.

We went back there this year and they do not disappoint.

Max and Casidee have been good friends forever.

For. ev. er.

If you're missing the Sandlot reference, we can't be friends.

Max wanted to take someone to prom that he could just be chill and have some fun with.  It was perfect.  And they decided to have some fun with the flowers while they were at it.

It fit them perfectly.

They went on a hike, toured around downtown, took pictures, ate at The Roof, went to the dance, and then bowled.

And now an onslaught of pictures.

Dating In Kindergarten.

This post was originally written and posted on June 2, 2011.

"Mom! A boy in my class wants to date me!" Cali (age 6) exclaimed to me after school.

"Is he cute?"

"Yes, and he stands by me in line."

"Did you kiss him?"

"Nooo!"

"That's smart. You should just stick to standing by him in line."

Perhaps I should pull out her Valentine's teeth?

Beginning Orchestra

Once upon a time Casidee signed up for orchestra, even though she'd never played an instrument before.

We had an old hand me down violin from Grandma Julie that used to be Aunt Kristin's so Cas decided she'd give learning how to play it a whirl.

And she fell in love with it.

The teacher said that this years beginning class is way ahead of where the beginning class last year was.

They're learning things and playing songs in their first concert that last year wasn't able to do until the end of the year.

They replayed a song and let parents swarm the front of the stage to get better pictures of their kids.

Which I loved because Cas was in the middle so it was hard for me to see more than her shoes and the top of her head.

 And when it was all said and done her boyfriend, Max, showed up out of the blue with flowers.
And they were even green, her favorite color.

She hadn't even known he was coming.

I love that his family is teaching him how to treat his girl.

And in return I'm teaching Cas how to treat her boy.

Our kids need to learn these things.

Way to go Deeds.

Considering you've only been doing this for three months, I'm seriously impressed.

Halloween 2012

I've been spotty with the posts these last couple of weeks and I'm sorry!  Work has just exploded and with my own homework and then everything with the kids and just being a wife and mom, I've been a little short on time.

Hopefully I can pull it back together because I love posting and I have so much that I don't want to forget.

Can you believe that in a blink of an eye October is over? 

It always seems so surreal to me that with all the time spent prepping and planning for a holiday, it's just over with the snap of a finger.

We've gone from pumpkins and costumes to Chritmas lists and trimming the tree. 

We had a great Halloween.  I would expect nothing less.  I got up before the sun to help The Circus with costumes.  I watched them parade around their school, I slipped over to the temple for a bit of "me" time, and I made a surprise Halloween dinner.  I hung my witch curtains up on the porch and thought about Cas while she was at her first Middle School dance.  And then I sat on the couch with The Man while trick-or-treaters rang our bell and our kids ran amok through the neighborhood. 

Here's our pictures from the day.  Hopefully next week I'll be back on schedule with the posts.

Brynn the Purple Witch.
I love how she used the beads from a flapper costume to spice up the boring witch costume.  She looked great and I love purple for a witch.

Brynn trick-or-treated her way across the neighborhood to her friend's house so I had to go retrieve her at the end of the night.  I let her trick-or-treat on our way home by driving her from house to house along the way.  Cali was with us and it was a fun little bonding time.

Casidee the Vampire:
Who thought she was too cool to have the fangs drawn on her lips, but decided after it was all done that mom might have had a good idea after all.

Cas who went to her first dance at the Middle School on Halloween and came home looking like a train wreck.  Which meant that she had a lot of fun running around and dancing with her friends.
Oh, and her boyfriend Max was there.  You might recognize him from having some pretty nice dance moves in our front yard in THIS post.  They danced once. (Breathe Mom, it's okay). This picture is courtesy of my friend Natalie, who is Max's mom, who got it from Max himself. 

I also might add that this picture has not been Casidee approved, so we'll see what she has to say about it when she realizes it's here.

Tayler the black cat:

Who had to be twins with her best friend.

Cali as Sarah Sanderson (from Hocus Pocus):
I sewed that cape all by myself, without using the hot glue gun once.  I'm so proud.

Sean as the Mad Hatter:

Jayme as a dead Hula Girl.
She's had her heart set on being this for two years now so we made it happen for her.  I think her blue eyes are perfect for it.

How insanely crazy is it that we were sitting on the porch on Halloween night in short sleeves and bare feet?
It was the perfect night.