Today was the last day of school. On the way to school this morning, Ryan realized that he had forgotten his backpack. Again, how do you forget your backpack??? They were cleaning out their desks today so he really needed it so he could carry his stuff home. I didn't have time to turn around so I called Lauren and asked her to bring it to school. When she got to school the kids were in church. She felt it would be inappropriate to pull her baby brother out of mass to yell at him. Instead she dropped it off with the school secretary and asked her to pass on a message that his big sister was going to kill him when he got home. When I got home I noticed a big pile of papers on my dresser. Ryan had his award ceremony today and he had a large stack of awards, I was so impressed. Soon I realized that they all belonged to his friend Kyle. His family left for vacation last night so Ryan offered to bring his awards home for him. I should have known they weren't Ryan's, Kyle even got an award for being on time every day for school. I bet Kyle doesn't have a sister with one shoe or a decapitated St. Anthony project. Ryan got an award for always making the class laugh. Just what I wanted, the class clown.

Erin's high school played in the semi finals for the state championship in soccer. We won 3-1 woo hoo. It was pretty exciting. We play the final tomorrow night. It is a great experience for her. She is used to watching these games on the fan side. Sam won when she was a Junior and lost in the final of her Senior year. Erin said it was a lot more fun being on the other side of the field. The admission is $7 a person. Children under 6 is free. Maggie is going to be 5 all weekend. She may even be five next year too.

Tomorrow is the last day of school for Kelsey, Ryan and Maggie. Erin and Shannon are already bored to death and they are only four days into their summer vacation. I don't know how Shannon could possibly be bored considering she has been gone every day. I called home today to check in on Erin. I asked her what she was doing and she said "I'm just laying in your bed watching TV." When I got home from work I noticed a bag of potato chips on my bed. I asked Erin if she was eating chips in my bed. She said "Lauren snitched on me didn't she?" I said "no genius, you left the bag on my bed." Tomorrow I am going to leave a reminder note on my pillow so she remembers to roll over every hour. I don't want my little princess to get bed sores this summer.

Dave cut our grass on Monday after it rained. He loves his lawn as much, if not more than his wife and children. He bagged up all of the wet grass and put it in the garage. As a result our home smells like the back of a garbage truck. I take that back, the back of a garbage truck mixed with Febreeze thanks to Kelsey. I had Ryan drag the lawn bags out into the driveway so my neighbors could smell that instead of us. Maybe I can set them on top of the oil stains on the driveway from my van. We may have oil stains in the driveway and bikes laying around everywhere but we have the greenest grass on the block. Dave is turning into Bill Murray on Caddy Shack. I think he would prefer that his kids played in the street to protect the lawn.

The picture above is of Dave and a bald eagle. (no, I'm not making fun of his lack of hair again) The water company (Dave's work) teamed up with a couple of other company's that sponsored the release of a wild bald eagle that was found sick and injured. The bird sanctuary nursed it back to health and released it today. Dave said it was pretty cool. The bird in the picture is tame, that is not the one that they released back into the wild. If Erin eats chips in my bed again, I may be releasing her back into the wild as well.

We have been one big happy family now that my college kids are done with school. Erin and Lauren have especially been at each other's throats. Lauren claims that Erin still owes her $17 and she is getting tired of being put off. Lauren logged on to our online bank account and told
Erin that she was tired of waiting for her money and she was going to transfer the money out of her account. Erin threw a fit and I persuaded Lauren to leave it alone. Erin was upset because it showed that her savings account only had $100. She knew that she had deposited more money in her account. She came in our room a few hours later crying because she "hates " Lauren and she knows her account should have more money than it has. She still had one deposit slip left. I checked the account number against her savings account number online and sure enough, they didn't match. I explained to her that the money should be easy to track since we have the account number. Through further investigating I noticed that the account number on the deposit slips that she was using, matched Lauren's savings account. She had been depositing her pay checks into Lauren's account. It turns out she doesn't owe Lauren $17 after all. That is one crisis solved.

Crisis number two, I woke up late today after sleeping in all weekend. I was running late so I asked Dave to drop the kids off at school. While Ryan was heading out the door he asked Dave to cut him a carpet square because today was the day he had to present his "how to" project. He chose to present "how to stand on your head and spin." Too bad Ryan, no time for a carpet square, I will give him an aspirin when he gets home. Crisis number three: Maggie only had one shoe this morning. They had 7 minutes to get to school and we live ten minutes away.We couldn't find it anywhere. Kelsey found an extra pair of Ryan's, I lovingly told Maggie to put them on, tie them, I told her I don't even care if they fit, just get in the car.

Crisis number four; Ryan lost a tooth on Friday and the Tooth Fairy has been on vacation all weekend. Ryan came down stairs and asked "Mom, now that Memorial day is over, do you think that the Tooth Fairy might come?"

My best friend Katie and her family came over today. She has a brand new baby, we have been trying to get together for the last few weeks so I could take the baby's picture. We finally got a few cute ones and I couldn't resist snapping a few of her one year old big brother. He was a little hard to work with, he moves pretty quick. He is awfully cute though.

Dave had some dental work done last week, he isn't exactly the toughest guy on the block when it comes to pain. He asked me if it was hard to make Jello and he handed me a box that he found in the pantry. I said "no it is pretty easy, go ahead and make yourself some." He said, "I don't know how, can you make it for me?" I said in the words of Paula Dean, "if you can read, you can cook." He decided to go hungry.

Kelsey called tonight to see if she could spend the night at her friends house. Dave hung up the phone and said "Kelsey is spending the night at Sierra's." I said "great babe, Sierra is Shannon's friend and last I checked, Kelsey was with her friend Sophia." He was so close.

Shannon's graduation pic's!!!!

Yesterday was our typical Tuesday, we had 4 places to be at 6:00. I had grandma drop Ryan off at his baseball game while I waited for Maggie's practice to be over and Kelsey's to start. Ryan called me to tell me to hurry up because his bat was in the back of the van. Dave called and had me meet him somewhere to give him his laptop and school books that he forgot that morning.(like father like son)I headed over to Ryan's game after Maggie's practice. While I was gone, Ryan had hit a triple. I guess he didn't need that bat after all. I did get to see him make an unassisted double play. His game ran a little late so I was late picking up Kelsey. She called wondering if I forgot about her. She must have had flashbacks of when we left her at the golf course last summer. Doesn't she know that I always come back for her.


Tomorrow is Shannon's last day of school. Last week she was pretty weepy, she is excited to move on to high school but sad to leave all of her new friends behind. She has only been at Assumption for two years but seems to have made life long friends. She is the only kid in her class going to Incarnate Word next year. I am proud of her for being so brave but sad for her at the same time. I took off of work to go to her award ceremony tomorrow, they get dismissed an hour early and parade out with decorated cars to go for ice cream. She has a foam hat shaped like a knight hat that says IWA red Knights (her new school) She said she is going to wear it tomorrow and her friends would be sooooo jealous. I think it is pretty safe to say that no one will be jealous of that hideous foam knight hat. I asked her if she thinks she will cry tomorrow since it is her last day. She said"no, everyone cries at Ihop." Friday is graduation with a reception and dance following. It is a tradition to go to Ihop after the dance. It seems it must be a tradition to have a scheduled cry at Ihop. We haven't done a practice session with her hair yet, it has been a while since I have done an updo. I may have a good cry on Friday if her hair is not working out.

I have been horrible at updating my blog lately. May is such a crazy month, between cramming all the rain outs for soccer and baseball and all the end of school field trips and picnics I don't know if I am coming or going. Dave went out of town this weekend with Ryan's soccer team for a tournament. I stayed at home because the girls had too many games and Kelsey had a team party that she didn't want to miss. We left Saturday morning for Kelsey's game, the sun was finally out. I asked my pasty white red head if she had any sunscreen on. She said "no I want to get a little color." I warned her that the only color she would get was red. Of course she knows more than me. The proof is in the picture, momma knows best. She has her eighth grade graduation on Friday. She is going to look like a human candy cane in her pretty blue dress unless her burn fades. She had her first high school cheer leading practice tonight. She was pretty excited, she was able to get in a "full" for the first time. A "full" is when they hold your ankle's above their heads and you pose up in the air. She was thrilled, it makes me a nervous wreck. At dinner tonight Shannon was letting her older sisters know that she was the first Murphy to make a Varsity sport as a freshman. Lauren said "congratulations Shannon, you will be the first Murphy to have your face slammed into the gym floor when they drop you." The love and support in my family sometimes brings a tear to my eye.

My mother's day started with Maggie at the foot of my bed at 7:30. She said, "mommy, I have something for you in the kitchen." I asked groggily, "can't you bring it to me?" She said, "no, you have to come in the kitchen." I rolled out of bed, walked into the kitchen and saw my mother's day present. A bowl of whole grain Total. I'm more of a fruit loop kind of mom but the whole grain Total that has been in the pantry for about a year was great. I took a couple of bites and told her how wonderful it was. Dave and I decided decided to go look at cars, I am getting tired of paying $110 to fill up my big van. The kids cleaned out the van for me, Dave vacuumed it out and found enough change in the seats to make the first car payment if we get a new car. We drove around looking at cars that we can't afford and used up all of the gas that we can't afford in the process. My college kids came home for dinner, Lauren brought me a nice gift, it is kind of nice having kids with jobs. Sam brought me a nice card and two packs of Rollo's that have mysteriously disappeared. Ryan lost the card he made me in school so he made me one at 9:00 at night, he tied a dollar to the card with dental floss, he said he couldn't find any string. Maybe if he actually used the dental floss I wouldn't have spent $242 at the dentist for him last week. Now that mother's day is over, things are back to normal. Erin hates me again. She broke the screen on her second new phone . I thought it was insured since I upgraded my phone that was already insured. I just put her sim card in the phone that I got for my upgrade and kept my old phone, I figured the insurance transferred to the new phone. Apparently the insurance is for the actual phone, not the phone line. If I had an extra $300 laying around collecting dust I might actually replace it for her. She has her old phone that works perfectly fine but that is just not good enough. I'm considering hitting her over the head with a hammer when she falls asleep just so she will shut up about it. Lauren is getting ready to buy her first car, she has a hard time parting with her money. Dave took her to the dealership and she test drove a car. We are friends with the dealer so the process is pretty painless, not too much haggling. She is acting like she is going to die because she can't part with her money. She went through her old graduation cards from two years ago looking for checks left behind that she hadn't cashed. She would have had better luck finding old money,had she cleaned out the van.

Today is one of those days that I can't wait until it is over. It has been a rainy, dreary day, work was extremely slow and we didn't have any games or practices tonight. I couldn't wait to get home to take a nap. Shannon decided to stay after school for math review. (There goes my nap) I got home and thought at least I can lay down for 20 minutes before I have to turn around and pick up Shannon. Erin called, her game was cancelled, she needed me to pick her up. There goes my 20 minutes. I need to just accept the fact that my napping days are gone until my last one leaves the nest.

I skipped boot camp on Tuesday, I woke up and my whole body felt like it was falling apart. I decided to sleep in instead of going back for more abuse. I am sure that I will pay for it tomorrow when I go in.

Kelsey and Ryan were in a soccer tournament over the weekend. Saturday the weather was terrible. I sat in the van for the second half of Kelsey's game and watched Happy Gilmore with Maggie instead of watching the game. I am more of a 70 degree kind of soccer mom. We went to 5:00 mass on Saturday. I knew it would be easier with all the games we had on Sunday. Our Saturday mass is usually pretty crowded. We got there just a few minutes before 5:00. The church was pretty crowded. We wandered around looking for an open spot. The usher directed us to the front of church. We always sit in the back. They had some open spots right in the front row. Shannon, Kelsey, Ryan and Maggie sat in the very front row, and Dave and I were directly behind them.Everything was fine until our priest started his homily. Maggie kept leaning over onto Kelsey' s shoulder and the next thing we knew Ryan's had was bobbing up and down, he was sound asleep. His head kept falling over. I don't know who was more fun to watch, Ryan "the human bobble head," or Dave, "Mr. uptight." Oh my God my kid is asleep in the front row of church. Dave tugged on Kelsey's pony tail to get her attention so she could wake up her brother. We decided that maybe church at the end of a long day was maybe not such a good idea after all. Sunday we had a little free time in between games since we took care of church on Saturday. I had time to clean my bathrooms and my hardwood floors. Dave was outside doing yard work. He asked Kelsey and Ryan to pick up all the dog poop before he cut the grass. I went outside and Kelsey was standing there with an empty plastic bag. She said "is he kidding me, how am I supposed to tell where the poop is?" We had our yard aerated the weekend before, picking up poop was proving to be quite difficult. Sorry Dave, it will have to be extra fertilizer this week.

Yesterday was our school picnic to Six Flags. We were supposed to send the kids to their classrooms and go to mass as a school then they would hand out the tickets. Kelsey's friends decided to not go because the weather forecast called for thunderstorms. For an additional $10 you can trade your ticket for another day. Dave took the kids to school so I could get ready. I told him to ask around to see what the majority of the families were doing . I didn't want to get out there and be the only family walking around Six Flags in the rain. Dave called me around 9:15 frantic, he wanted to know which kid I sent the ticket order form through. Like I would possibly remember which kid seemed to be the most responsible on that particular day, 8 weeks ago. To make a long story short, they figured out our tickets were in Kelsey's backpack sitting at Cracker Barrel twenty minutes away. This went over like a turd in a punch bowl with my less than patient husband. This years school picnic had the potential of being the day that mom killed daddy because he can't handle stress. He left to go get the tickets from Kelsey and we finally hit the road around 10:30. We were cruising along and then traffic stopped, the highway was shut down because the president was in town. Could anything else go wrong??? We finally arrived at Six Flags at around 11:45, we took the scenic route. The kids had a great time and the weather held out. I do have a favor to ask of any readers out there who have junior high age children. If your kids ever go to any type of amusement park, please make sure they wear extra deodorant. When they ride these roller coasters, they get so nervous that they sweat and then they stink and I have to smell them the whole time I am in line. Not pleasant!!!I survived the day and headed to pick Shannon up from her eighth grade Mystery Trip. They all had a good time as well. When we got back in the car I found out from Ryan that Shannon broke up with her boyfriend. If I remember correctly, Ryan was the one who told me she had a boyfriend in the first place. I swear, Shannon and I are practically soul mates. I guess she feels sharing the fact that she cut of the foot of the frog in science class and kept it, was more important than sharing her love life with me. After all, I'm old, what could I possibly know.

Kelsey called me from school this morning and asked me to try to get a hold of grandma to bring her homework that she left on the kitchen table up to school. I had an afternoon dentist appointment so I only worked a half day. I had to get all of my old fillings replaced. They are doing one side at a time. We started with my right side. Lucky for me they only had to replace 6 on that side. Yes I said six. I have been taking Advil like candy, I feel like someone punched me in the mouth. I have to go back in three weeks for the other side. I think my dentist may be getting a new car when he is finished with me. I had about an hour to kill when I got home before I had to pick up the kids. My neighbor came over to tell me that he saw a 7 foot snake in our back yard when he was doing yard work. He said the snake slithered under my deck. Great, I have the equivalent of an NBA player living under my deck.

Ryan came out of school carrying nothing but a straw. He forgot his backpack this morning. How do you forget your backpack?? I asked him why he had a straw. I am sorry that I asked, he proceeded to demonstrate how he used it to make fart noises with his armpit. Sometimes the talent that my children possess simply amazes me. Tomorrow is our school picnic to Six Flags. It is supposed to rain. Maggie and Ryan have never been there so they are pretty excited. Shannon has her eighth grade mystery trip tomorrow . She is mad at me because I wouldn't let her spend the night at her friends house tonight. Reason being, the old cell phone bill came today. She has improved a bit, she only had 3000 text messages this month. I'm thinking that she may not be going to high school with a phone if she doesn't at least cut that number in half.