"foxywoxypoopoohead"

babysitting. my awesome husband texted me yesterday while i was hanging out with my dear giselle and told me that a manager at his work needed a babysitter. i jumped at the opportunity, of course. "you get paid to sit on babies? ummmm...count me in!" obviously, that's not how it goes in real life...it's more like they sit on you. or pee on you. or beat you up. fortunately, in my case, the two oldest kids had just gotten off of a video game grounding, so they really wanted to play video games and eat pizza. i got them to go outside and play football with me and the others - did i mention that there were five of them? - for a little while. i was learning how to throw a football for the first time in my life. my instructor? an eight year old boy. it was great...until one of the older boys decided to push the two year old girl in the stroller as fast as he could and the darling two year old fell flat on her face, with the stroller still seat-belted onto her. the boy's eyes get wide and he says, "you're safe! look, cami! you're still buckled in, you're safe!!" *insert face-palm*. telling him to apologize, and cleaning up many tears and grass stains and mini "boo boo's", i managed to gather the kiddos back inside.
the neighbor boy came over and rang the doorbell, offering the kids skittles in return for their friendship. they inhaled the skittles and then all bounced off the walls until two of them complained about being hungry. their mom gave me money to order pizza before she left, so i went about awkwardly calling papa johns and repeating the address i was at about a hundred times while the kids talked loudly in the background. the pizza arrived, and the youngest boy lunged at the pizza man and snatched the pizza box from his hand. i apologized and gave the man the money and the tip that the kid's mother told me to give him. he happily walked away. would you believe that the two year old girl ate the most pizza? their little neighbor friend went back home after the garlic sauce and bread sticks vanished.
the dog kept going into the bathroom and drinking out of the toilet. in the end, i decided to close the bathroom door to keep him from accessing his "personal water bowl". i asked the two year old, cami, what the dog's name is. she mumbled something along the lines of "foxyasdfnlweflkanskdfklaksdfnheeeeeeeeaaaaaad" - which is how she talks: in gibberish with a few understandable words - and the five year old girl translated, "his name is foxywoxypoopoohead". the name of their dog should give everything away about this family. i like them. i asked their mom (when she got home) if that was really their dog's name, and she said the kid's uncle named it and they liked it so much it stuck. since it's such a long name, they just call him "fox" or "foxy".
i was in the middle of hooking up the youngest's "kindle" with "yo gabba gabba" (i even know the name now. she said it sooooo much until i could understand her. i'm a pro.) when i hear the oldest yell, "MISS RACHELLLLLLL!!" and i dart into the other room. i find him, standing there, pointing at a humongous leaf-bug on the wall near the ceiling. i felt a tingle up my spine when i realized he wants me to kill this thing. i looked around for something long so i wouldn't have to get near it or let it fall on my head. "are you scared?" i asked the oldest. he nodded and backed up. i realized that i had an audience. all the kids crowded into the room while "super rachel" flung at it with a fly swatter and smacked it on the second hit. it came fluttering down the wall and onto the ground. i proudly waved my swatter and put it back on the wall. the show was over, and the kids slowly went back to doing their own thing.
at the end of the night, i hooked two of the younger kids on UNO. i matched up with the five year old girl, and the eight year old boy was his own team. he stinking beat us: four to two. that little...little...champion. haha. it was a comforting scene, when their mother got home, we were all in the middle of the UNO "final championship" with the two year old scribbling on paper, the twelve year old playing his DS on the couch, and the ten year old somewhere upstairs on his DS playing pokemon.
i could so do that again. i wonder how she manages every day. the boys are so feisty, i can't imagine how she keeps them from tearing the house apart. in all, i'm really thankful for kids and i have a higher appreciation for mothers.

the shadow proves the sunshine.

ihop

i had the privilege this last Sunday to sing with my friend, Adam, at the International House of Prayer in KC. you can't imagine how thankful i was for such an opportunity. i have really missed singing, and so i was blessed to get to sing, especially with such a great team! thank You, Jesus!

on the other side.

the grass is always greener.

hair :)

can't wait to take it down!

so i finally caved and started using "pinterest". to my amazement, it actually came in handy. this hairstyle literally took two minutes to put up and then took maybe four minutes to blow-dry so it wouldn't stay wet. if you're looking for something easy and cute...come on! when you take it down....curls...voila! 

my week.

cheyenne and i went under the bridges and look what we found! a beaver..you can see the little guy barely because he is all the way under water other than his head.

a dear friend of mine bought and sent me this book series. you have no idea how excited i am to get to read these!!!

a most hectic day. well...not really. if you enjoy studying from ten in the morning until two in the evening with a few breaks here in there, it hasn't really been all that bad. i sat outside and read a book that i needed to read for assignments due this week. the weather, i daresay, is absolutely splendid. i'm scared of getting wrinkles, so i didn't sit out there for too long before i fled back inside to finish the portion of reading required. it's probably a good thing that i enjoy writing, because of of the courses that i am taking has quite a bit of writing that is necessary.
with all of that said, i can tell you a bit of the nastiness that just occurred. zoe [the dog] just threw up right next to my car's front right tire wheel. her owner asked me if she should just let it sit there or if she should try to put a box over it. ummm...hehe. bugs? lots of them? right next to my passenger side? no thank you! i suggested that she could at least pour the cup of water she was holding on it to see if it would wash it away any. it melted a tiny bit of it away, and then she decided to go and get the hose. phew. puke is one of those things that i am not very fond of. my other roommate said she was going to take an "hour nap" starting at ten, but hasn't yet resurfaced [and it is now two]. it's a beautiful, lazy, spring day. i still maybe have four hours of classwork to do, and i could probably do some of it tomorrow, but knowing myself, it would be best to see what i can get done today so i can actually have a day off once in a while from school work. oh. this is going to be my typical school load now until the end of the semester. sigh. nobody ever said it would be fun or extremely easy, but i'll make the best of it.

swing dancing.

my friend, jesse, and i dancing.

tonight was my first night swing dancing. i just have to say, i am on cloud 9 because i've never had so much fun being twirled, dipped, etc., in my life! i went with a group of ihop girls and a ton of ihop students were at the place we went. i probably got to dance 20 separate times. so tired or i would write more. it was darkish in the place, so the pics are blurry. cheyenne only took four pictures, and these are the only two that you can tell there are human beings in them. hehe.

snow and a little lunch.

weather

i don't even know what to say. yesterday it was 75 out, and my roommate was wearing shorts and a tshirt as we went on our walk. today the snowflakes are as big as dimes. spring tricked us all!

intruder.

yes. call scotland yard. there was an intruder in our house. but, before you actually pick up the phone and dial 911, hear me out. well...let me begin my story with the below info:
have i ever mentioned my particular distaste of insects? if you want to get technical, an insect is anything from an ant to a hissing cockroach...and everything in-between. ( yeah, baby. super technical definition. )
anyhow, this particular intruder was hanging out on our living room/kitchen wall. i was the first to spot "trooper" - why, yes, we did name him - he was kind of above our heads. our first reaction? panic and run around, half - laughing, half - crying.
obviously, we haven't had to deal with this situation before. we both argued about who was going to kill it. let me tell you, cheyenne has a pretty good aim. from across the room, we chucked pennies at it. amazingly enough, she hit the cockroach straight on, and it disappeared somewhere ( the floor? the table? in a book on the table? ). we eliminated everything one by one off the table by thrusting the broom onto the object and brushing it off the table vigorously. what had actually happened, was that "trooper" - rest his soul - was already halfway r.i.p. 'ed on the floor next to a chair leg.
i finally saw the critter, lying there in anguish, twitching a bit just to show his spunk ( hence his name. ). cheyenne took the honour of squashing him with the broom until he was finally not moving...then she demanded that i clean it up since she killed it. grumble grumble. i took an enormous wad of toilet paper and picked "trooper" up with it and threw both the toilet paper and sir le' cockroach outside. where they both are probably resting until the morning.
cockroaches always have a way of coming back to life. hopefully he won't try to come back inside our warm housey anytime soon, or i might have a good cry.

some friends and weekends.

this weekend, i had the privilege to hang out with laura and benita. we all did the internship in 2011 together, and it's wonderful seeing them on occasion. we are planning a sleepover sometime soon. i am so blessed to have friends that live within a few miles of my house. cheyenne and i have been biking every day since we realized we have bikes to use. we took laura out today to see the eagle's nest, then we came back home and made some tea that she brought from Ukraine and put tea and milk in it. she brought some pumpkin pie over, and we devoured at least 3/4ths of the pie within the amount of time she was over. every weekend should be as enjoyable as this one turned out. 

yesterday's course.

photos with chey.