Humor - It's a Vivas Thing!

May 21 2009

Quotes of the Week

"Aunt Hope, pretty soon you're going to need a wheelchair."
My niece, 6 years, as I was putting her to bed

"Mom, can you unplug the car?"
B-boo, 14 years, apparently forgot that you turn off an engine, not unplug it.

"So mom, you're saying that 2/3 of us are dumb, 2/3 are untalented, and 2/3 are ugly."
The good-looking one, 21 years. (And no, that is NOT what I said!)

"I couldn't let him get it for me. He thought it was a beetle, like a ladybug. It was a cockroach. I couldn't do that to a 4 year old."

Friendly teen, 16 years old.

Conversation with a 4 year old

"Aunt Hope, you were five before?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"35 years ago."

"You're THAT old???"

May 20 2009

There has to be something said for talent, right? I mean, in light of our conversation tonight of My3Sons…the oldest is the good-looking one, the middle one is the talented one and the youngest is the smart one. We have great laughs about this…as in, tonight the oldest informed me that according to this theory, I have two sons that are ugly and untalented, I have two sons that are dumb and ugly and two sons that are dumb and untalented! Let it be known that I, their mother, have never ever said that! But, they, My3Sons, do like to get the funny jabs in.

That said, tonight, the talented one rocks! We have to have a family picture for some licensing we're trying to get. A family picture is not anything any of us looks forward to. Have you ever tried to get seven people all looking at the camera at the same time with the perfect smile and eyes open? It's not easy. Our last family picture, taken professionally, is only good, well, because, honestly, the photographer swapped heads! Swapped heads as in from several different photos and put them together on one…on the right bodies, I might add, just in case you all are now wondering! This photo was taken years ago!

Can you tell who's head doesn't belong in this picture?
(Man, I was skinny and young!)

We didn't even get a family Christmas photo this past year. The last non-professional family photo was taken in December of 2007.

Notice the middle son's face. He's the talented one, also known as the Brown-Eyed Handsome man. The only other option was the youngest son's eyes closed. The lovely blonde and older gentleman are my parents. Aren't they cute?

So, that is pretty much what brings us up to today! We needed a family photo. We forgot the camera on Mother's Day. Oops. B-boo had an awards ceremony thingy and so we were actually all in one place. Ok, I'll admit it, I forgot to tell the oldest son, you know, the good-looking one, about the awards thingy. BUT, I told him that I'm so in tune with him that he automatically knew that he needed to show up at the house at precisely the time we were walking out the door to go watch his sister. See…I AM a good mom, honest!

As soon as we all got home, I had the smart son pull out the tripod and set up my camera so that we could get a family picture. This, of course, brought on many groans. However, they were sorta willing to cooperate so that we could get it all over with quickly.

The rules were as follows:

Everyone had to be facing the camera.
No silly faces.
No hoodlum faces. (Ok, that one was a wee bit negotiable..they are My3Sons after all!)

And the result? It took one single picture! Can you believe it? Ok, it's not the BEST picture we've ever taken, but it fell within the guidelines!

I still wasn't thrilled with the background…and we'd already changed out of our nice clothes…but my talented son managed to do this in a matter of minutes.

In case you didn't know it already, my favorite color is purple. The Talented Son says that he'll fix the feathering on the Good-Looking Son's face tomorrow! He does have an image to maintain, afterall!

May 18 2009

Whirlwind of a week!

It's been one of those weeks. The type that totally exhausts you, but in a good way. After a week many appointments and months of planning this weekend, my mental status took a dive on Thursday. As always, God is gracious and has given me those amazing friends through whom He likes to show just how much He cares. My house was a disaster. A group of teenage girls were about to join us for the weekend. And we were about to spend an amazing weekend with 51 teenagers, some amazing adults, fabulous speakers, and an awesome band, Seraph.

Friday, three wonderful friends showed up at my house to whip it into shape! We dusted, scrubbed, vacuumed and windexed. And when I had to leave for yet another appointment, they stayed behind, took care of my kids and finished my house! A few hours later, I came home to a sparkling clean house. What a relief!

This sooooooooooo allowed me to have a fabulous, nonrelaxing, stressfulfree time with the 46 teens that showed up for our D-Now weekend!

Highlights of the weekend include:

Losing to 3 of the 4 high school boys that bowled against me. But hey….compared to the other 40+ bowlers I think I did ok.

A diabetic teen drinking sneaking a RedBull before going to bed.

Being awoken at 3:30 am because above teen has a high blood sugar count.

Having my wonderful hubby deal with the diabetic teen at 3:30 am!

Having my wonderful hubby deal with the cockroach in the tub at 7:30 am so that another teen could take a shower. (My 4 year old nephew offered to deal with it, but because he called it a beetle, she felt bad and couldn't let him touch it since he really didn't know it was a cockroach and not a beetle…or a ladbybug.)

Scavenger hunt! That was a blast, especially when we wanted to help a lady put her groceries away at the grocery store. She thought we were crazy…so much so that she told us we were scaring her! We finally convinced her that we were just some great church-going teenagers trying to be helpful and win a scavenger hunt so she relented and even asked if there was anything else she could help us with!

Seraph was an AWESOME band, as always! They don't just lead a great worship, they also hang with us!

Oh..and the Gorilla beats the man beats the gun tie you die song was crazy fun!

Sean and Natalie…what an amazing heart for missions and ministry.

And now? Well, I'll admit that I'm pretty exhausted, but it's a good exhaustion! Now, if only I could get everybody in bed by 8:00 pm, that'd be great!

May 12 2009

Laughable Moment #11

Four year olds are fun…or not. Ok, they are.

Last night as I was putting my nephew to bed he started talking. He likes to talk.

He talked about Jesus.

He talked about Jesus being in Heaven.

He talked about us getting wings and flying to Heaven and being with Jesus…and then he talked about us falling out of the clouds.

He talked about how big God is and is He big like a giant.

He talked about Jesus living in our hearts.

He talked about a big house. I wanted it to be purple. He said he wanted it to be blue. We both decided it could have pink, too.

And then we went to pray. He paused and said, "Aunt Hope, my tummy hurts."

Pause.

"Aunt Hope, maybe it's Jesus trying to get out of my heart."

I replied, "Maybe it's Jesus trying to get into your heart."

He said it didn't really hurt that much and so we prayed.

As I moved over to get up and walk out of the room, he asked me one simple question.

"Aunt Hope, are you getting old again?"

I'm seriously starting to get a complex about my age!

May 11 2009

Parks and Old Women

In staying focused on the blessings of what life has to offer, a recap of my weekend.

Friday seemed really bad, things weren't going great and to top if off I was rear-ended and the lady who hit me just took off and left me there! Once I surveyed the damages, I realized there wasn't much, but still…why can't people just be nice? And then, I came home to these:

You have to realize how special these are. They are from my older brother…letting me know he cares, all in His perfect timing.

(Please don't tell him that although Azaleas are one of my absolute favorite plants, I tend to kill them…I don't know why she swallowed the fly)

Saturday we had some time for this:

Spin Time

Monkey Time (including blisters)

Hang Time

Header Time

Down Time
(What ARE they talking about?!)

And then there was Mother's Day. Lunch was accidentally left out on the counter all night instead of put in the refrigerator to thaw. We figured food poisoning on Mother's Day was probably not the way to go, so instead we headed out to lunch after church. This can sometimes be pretty difficult, especially when you have children with food allergies. We have to find food that has no gluten, nuts, dairy or eggs. We also have a rather large family, so that alone can be intimidating for a waiter. We had unexpected guests join us…turning us into a party of sixteen…and it was awesome day at Chevy's!!

My oldest son showed up with flowers for me. (He's such a great son!) That'd be my laugh of the day, so you get a long short story to go with it. It began a long, long, time ago…A few years ago my son was attending a dance and needed a corsage. The corsage looked like it was made for an older woman (ah, like a Mother's Day corsage!), not a teenager going to a dance. Needless to say, definite fixing had to be done in order for my son to be able to save face with his date. (I find it funny that an older lady Grandma is the one that did the fixing!)

Yesterday, my son brought me these:

Please notice the flower below:

This is the *old lady* flower that he complained about. In other words, my son gave me flowers for an older lady….to me, not an older lady.

Which brings us right back to Saturday. A friend stopped by and shared a little story with me. (Honest, I'll try and keep it short.) She said that another friend had asked her to stop by a baby shower since she now lives out of state. She wanted her to say a blessing, give a word of wisdom…you get the picture. She wondered why the friend didn't ask someone else…and then it hit her.

She said to me,

"I realized, we are now the older, wiser, women! Hope, when did we become the older, wiser women?"

I'm not sure, friend, I'm really not sure.

By the way, today is my mother's birthday. She's not old either. Honest, my dad will probably back me up on that one. Those aches and pains are not from age, they're from over-activity, yeah, that's the ticket!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLD WOMAN MOM!
WE LOVE YOU!