couln't wait until next blog post!

They started the pool today! The picture of zoe is from Tenille, she wanted to send you all something too. Have a great day. We are . . .we have steps!

wogoman weekly - volume 3 issue 40

So this is what I get for trying to plan ahead, and doing so while a two year old is running around the house with markers. The send button is right next tot he save as a draft button. So you all got the pictures . . minus the text. :) Oh my goodness did we have a fun filled week. Tenille got to feed a cow and chickens. She liked the chickens the most. She told me last night that she likes sheep over cows though so anyone got sheep we can see?

Then Tenille helped out with Cari's baby shower. The shower went great and Cari and Steve got some really nice stuff. Thank you for all the came. It is so awesome that we can tell Cari how much we love her. Tenille is very excited about baby squishy coming into the world. On that front, we have another addition to our Watson family coming this year. My cousin Steph just told everyone she is due in October. :) Everyone keep those babies comin.....takes the pressure off of me! :)

After the baby shower, Tenille and I went to Brie's princess party. Tenille got her first pedicure, makeup, and hair done. She looked so stinkin cute I wanted to squish her. The hair lasted for church the next day so that was nice. She HATES having me do her hair so I of course want that lady to come to my house every morning and do Tenille's hair now. On on that note I would like to tell you all how I got the "Mom of the Year" award. Friday, Tenille actually got up well so I let her pick out her own clothes. Then she was hungry so I let her eat powered donuts in the car. When I get her to school, there I am brushing her off when I tell her teacher, well she is a little dirty today. And do you know what response I get? "You do know it is picture day today, right?" Ugh! No I forgot. So I leave Tenille, run home, get a new outfit, and pretty bows and run back to school. I strip her down in the middle of her class, and get her ready just in time to have them go off for her pictures. I am so happy I have a student teacher because I didn't get to school until 5 minutes before the bell rings. So unlike me!

J got the shed finished! It is so awesome. I think we are crazy though because we all worked outside this weekend. I burned a hillside for three hours and I think I got 3 more feet of lawn. I found a broken pot and a plastic thing you wrap Christmas lights around. As I am raking and raking twigs from the last . .. I don't know how many years I am cursing the people that have lived there before us. Didn't anyone love this house? But if they hadn't of left we wouldn't be here now and this is SO the place we need to be. :) So thank you, I guess. :) Umm I think that is it. I am sure I missed tons of stuff because our week was so crazy. I did get my peas planted. So yippy for them. Hopefully I planted enough to actually get some inside. Last year Tenille ate them as fast as I picked them and J would only get one pod. At least Tenille left him that right? She is so nice about sharing. Ok, have a good week. Hopefully the pool people will be able to start this week because the weather will be nicer. :) 4 days till spring break!

wogoman weekly - volume 3 issue 39

Lesson of the week . . do NOT buy a bath fizzy blue robot for your daughter.

This will at first make her excited to use it in the bath tub like her other "little soaps" she is currently infatuated with. But when the robot starts to disappear it will lead to screams which then turn into hysterical sobs when there is now bubbles (which she hates) in her bath tub and no way to get the robot back. Being the ever creative husband, J fashioned a robot out of aluminum foil. Tenille stopped crying for about 3 seconds only to launch into big sobs when it wasn't what she wanted. Oh my! So if you want to start shopping for Tenille for her birthday . . little soaps are a hit . . .and robots . . well I guess they must be awesome too.

The porch is coming along so nicely thanks to J. He did a great job finding out what was underneath all that wood. I am not sure what we would do if he wasn't so handy. Lanny, J's brother, came out to look at the concrete that we have. After sanding it (I didn't even know you could do that to concrete) and putting some glaze or concrete on top and stamping it, our steps will look good as new. J Yeah!

I am going to have to do a post on our blog about all the construction pictures as it happens. After J took the porch off we found two more markings in the concrete. I am starting to feel like a detective for who lived here. First in the time line is

Alana 8-17-77

this is in the porch attached to the garage. So we believe that is when the house was going in. Then

Alana 1979

on the pool deck (sorry Alana but this part of the concrete is getting removed) Up until now the name was unreadable but when you see Alana on the porch you can figure out the pool deck. And then there is the one I want to tract down and go "what were you thinking?"

L.S. + G.S. '01

Is on the pad that they poured when they cut off three feet of our steps to put in a new slab for a . . . hot tub maybe? All I know is two things, 1) they left a huge hole in the steps which is currently leaking sand and 2)Hey, good news I found the steps! In a pile of rubble down our hill in the woods. Nicely broken up into head size pieces. Think I can put them all back together again? J Just kidding.

I do think I will go across the street and ask the lady that has lived here forever if she knows these people. I mean I know they have lived there longer than 33 years so I should be able to find out who these people are. J

Tenille must be growing because she is complaining about her legs hurting at night. Breaks our hearts. Then yesterday she comes home, upset because two of the girls at school were calling her a "shark" and she doesn't want to be a shark. Tenille says that they were being mean to her. She told J and me this story independently so it must have made her upset. So I talked with her about it and then I asked her teacher. Apparently the kids are really into pretending to be animals and Tenille didn't want to be the shark. Poor kid. I did ask her if she had bitten anybody yesterday and she said no so at least that is not why they called her a shark.

Other than that, we are all healthy and we are so excited about being outside again. I hope this finds you all well as well. Until next time . . .

wogoman weekly - issue 3 volume 38

Happy Pi Day everyone!

I am sure you all stopped what you were doing at exactly 1:59 and 26 seconds and proclaimed, "I love Pi!" OK, so do you know it is Pi Day. Pi 3.14 (March 14th) :) Catchy huh? My students were not super impressed about it, but they do love Pi, I mean pie, which is what they got to eat.

Tenille did a great job with her photo of the week. Do you like the look on my face? She is in the car while we are washing it. So silly.

Now the real question. Based on the photo of the current state of our porch . . does anyone have any good suggestions for what in the world to do with a porch that someone has torn off half the steps and covered it up with an odd assortment of wood. All the screws are striped and well . . . we are not sure what in the world these people did to destroy this porch but, they covered it up with paint and weird pieces of wood. Ugh. The pool people are supposed to start in two weeks and we have to fix this mess before then. So if you got any idea . . send it to J. We are all ears. :)

That truly sums up what is going around here. We had a great weekend of relaxing and hanging out as a family. We used up the last of the wood on the porch and even reaching 80 degrees in the house with out turning on the furnace. :) Ah the small joys. J did burn down the fields of grass and weeds along side the roads so we are good to go there. My garden is just calling to me :) I am going to try again to grow some plants from seeds. Didn't work out so well last year, but maybe this is different. You gotta hope right?

When asked if Tenille was human (we watched ponyo this weekend for the first time) she said, "no I'm not human, I'm a big girl." "Well that is true, you are a big girl" was all I could come up with. Well, ummm that is about it I think. . . enjoy the better weather and if you are Watson family and you are coming to Cari's shower . . RSVP me OK?

clairifcation on photos

I have already had some of you ask about the photos. . sorry I was tired when I sent them out. They are all from the children's museum that we went too. The first was this really cool wall that when you stood by in the "butterflys" landed on your head. So cool. Second, after two hours, Tenille was really tired and my mom found her laying down on this bench. It is outside the bathrooms, and yes that is supposed to be a guy reading the paper (the part is is laying on) and finally us on the really big chair. Don't we look funny? So hard to get up there. :) Tracy "To ensure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life." ~William Londen

wogoman weekly - volume 3 issue 37

Thursday, ok either my weeks are getting shorter or my time is FLYING by!

Where is spring? Have you seen it at your house? I finally saw a robin at our house. All the other robins I have seen elsewhere. The flowers are starting to come up but we still have snow. And to Jason happiness (that is sarcasm) the turtle doves have found our house. I am not sure if it is the noise they make that drives him crazy or the fact that they have followed us from our old house. (I'm sure it is the same birds) J Either way, you can hear them inside our house in the morning. I love it, J . . . not so much.

So our big trip to visit my brother Mark changed when J came home from work looking like he got hit by a truck. He was sick, sick, sick. He ended up with a temp of 103 degrees and slept most of the weekend. He didn't think that he would be very good company so Tenille and I left for Chicago . We took my mom so I could have help with Tenille in the car. Why would I need that you ask? It took us 5 hours from the time I left my house to get to Chicago . 5 hours! Now that she isn't in diapers when she says she has to pee, she has to pee. I brought her potty for the car but she didn't want to pee in there. So we had to stop twice and once we ate because she was hunger. On the way home she passed out and slept. . . no stopping, no problem.

We went on the L in Chicago and Tenille loved the "train". She really liked looking for shoes that were on top of some of the buildings. We also took her to the Chicago Children's museum. So cool. What is also cool is that I get in free because I am a teacher, J would get in free because he is a fireman, and Tenille got in free because it was the first Sunday of the month. J There were rooms with water and a room with bugs. There was a tree house room, and she got to dig for dinosaur bones. When she found out she was uncovering the head of the dinosaur she yelled, "It's going to eat me" and then ran to the other end. The tail is much safer I guess. After that we had lunch and then built a bear with Uncle Mark. So much fun. It is green and she named in Corduroy. We have been reading that book so maybe that is where the name came from. She is attached at the hip to that thing.

One funny comment on her that she will hate me for later but was so cute, yesterday she wanted to go potty by herself. So she went and when I asked if she was done she said, "No, I gotta poop like a dog. I can poop like Sasha Mommy." Oh our two year old! Have a great week.

wogoman weekly - volume 3 issue 36

:: Friday! Friday? When did it get to be Friday?::

Oh time goes by so fast! Tenille has been well . . Tenille. She "crashed" twice this week. Once she was running at daycare and fell into a piano (so she says). Secondly she was playing by herself yesterday and fell and hit the floor. Now her nose is all starched up. She told me this morning that if she ate all her oatmeal (she ate two bowls full) that her nose would be fixed and not hurt any more. She was so sad when she looked in the mirror while she was brushing her teeth and saw that her nose was all boogered up still.

We are going to visit my brother Mark this weekend in Chicago for a night. Tenille is so excited. We put a sticker on the calendar to mark the day we are leaving. It helps calm her down when she wants to go RIGHT NOW to see Mark. Oh that girl. Last night she took a bath and said she wanted to smell good for Uncle Mark and then when I told her she had to put P.J.'s on instead of clothes she was beside herself. Now we will see how excited she is when she realizes how far Chicago is. J Aunt Heather has already saved the day and sent two new movies for her to watch. Oh she is already excited about that.

We have been fighting "the cold" at our house. Tenille was kicked out of daycare for having a temp of 100 on Tuesday. I took her home and no temp. She had no temp the next day either. So back to school she went yesterday. Heather was able to watch Tenille on Wednesday so J and I could both work. So nice of her, right? We are so lucky to have family so close.

We have hit the "stretch" at school. No breaks until spring break in April. I know I am not getting any sympathy from most of you but, high school teenagers before spring break is like living with . . with . . teenagers . . but I have 180 of them!

We had so dirt delivered the other day to try and level out the area of our shed that we are getting so that we can put the pool pumps in there. April 1 is coming fast. J Yippy for a pool this year.

Well I think that is about it. Enjoy your weekend. P.S. Have you seen the robins? spring is here my friends. I took a walk about on our property today and was amazed at how everything wintered. Flowers are coming up, trees are begging to be trimmed. ahhh so exciting!

I know you are wondering about the photo of Eddy. I found the picture on my camera. Tenille must have taken it. I guess Eddy looks pretty big from way down there (Tenille height.)