Ashley's 21st Birthday!!!

We will be celebrating two 21st birthday parties within one week.  I am laaaaazy, so they will both be picture posts with captions!

Before heading to the Legends for Ashley's birthday celebration, I went to Grace Cathedral in Topeka to celebrate Chad's service to the youth of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas over the past 10 years.  This is him and The Mustard Seeds playing music for us.

Kitty Fapp made a t-shirt quilt with the shirts from all of the events he served in the past 10 years.

Dinner at Johnny Carino's...

Dinner at Johnny Carino's...

Dinner at Johnny Carino's...

Dinner at Johnny Carino's... (and then we went to a comedy show at Stanford and Sons)

Ashley and I playing the anti-DDR.

Alan must have said something really funny!

YAY!

Aweeee, Mom with her grown up girls!

Fun at Dave & Busters

They are all posing for a picture for mom.

Ashley is sad?

Ashley could no longer walk and text, she had to stop and lean on the rail.

Wild Bill's is closed, so Ashley didn't get to ride Bodacious the Bull!  Steven stepped in to complete her birthday experience!

Aaaaaand, she got knocked off the bull in less than 5 seconds!  He pitched her over his head, very dramatic.

This is what Squish will look like if it's a girl!

This is what Squish will look like if it's a boy!

This is what Eric and Steven "mutually beneficial arrangement child".

Paul, Steven, and Eric with their "biggest alcohol bang for the buck" girly drink

 The boys playing Guitar Hero

More Guitar Hero 

Deb and I won tons of tickets on the "fun games" while the boys wasted tokens on the "boring games" that don't give tickets! 

Steven kept picking up Batmen, and then Eric would put them back upside down. 

Eric and Batman playing in the pod game 

Steven assisting Batman in flying down the escalator 

Flyyyyy!

Shannon's 21st Birthday Party!!!

We will be celebrating two 21st birthday parties within one week.  I am laaaaazy, so they will both be picture posts with captions!

Mom got Shannon her first full drink of the night - she sipped on a few beers, but actually drank the modified "Walk Me Down".

Mom and Alan at Old Chicago

Eric and me at Old Chicago

Shannon with her new World Beer Tour card and first printout

Today Squish is half baked!

Shannon drinking an amaretto sour at Louise's

Me pretending to drink a ginormous beer

Foosball shenanigans

More foosball antics

Steven and Shannon

Shannon playing on the pool cue

Shannon falling off of the pool cue

Brian smacked Eric's face into his knee, Eric bit his tongue

Brian being very serious about forcing Shannon to drink water

Shannon looks like a drunk model

"Loooook, my face is numb!!!"

"I found money!"

"Take the picture of me drinking water again, I'll close one eye!"

Chilling with Shannon in the booth

Whooooo knows?

Eric about to kick Steven

Eric kicking Steven

Eric reviving Steven

Shannon giving her first tip!

Straaaawwwwww!

Celebrate!

Jen jumped on Steven's back and he took of running...then he tripped and wiped out hardcore!

Steven had a scrape on his face, Jen lost a chunk of her glove from protecting Steven's face during the fall, and Steven cut his knee open.

Work Woes

Work has been pretty tough over the past few weeks.

Things are going pretty well for Eric - he recently got his first raise along with a holiday bonus.  He still likes his work, and only ever complains when he gets hurt.  Though it is a weekly occurence for him to get bumps, cuts, bruises, and strains.  Most recently, he slid on some ice on a cold morning, and fell out of his truck and bruised his bum - ow!

For me, I've just concluded that winter has hit the kids hard!  We lost 2 of our 3 paras within a week of each other at the end of November.  My students with behavior problems seem to be "flaring up" a little bit, and my students with academic struggles have had some slooooow progress lately.  The stress bar is raised a little higher when we've had 2 students with IEP's move into our school, 4 students referred to be evaluated for special education, and 2 IEP's allllll in the past month.  I love working with kids, but the paperwork side of the job is harder for me.

Then I've got my aggressive kiddos!  This is a glamour shot of a few minutes after a kindergartener head butted me in the jaw.  It was hard enough to get him crying, and to make me dizzy - yeowch!

Thanksgiving 2011

Eric and I drove out to Olathe this morning to have cinnamon rolls, juice, and bacon at my parent's house, aldong with Mom, Alan, Kris, Ashley, and Andrew.  After breakfast, we started working on all of the parts of the Thanksgiving feast!  In between baking activities, we watched some movies and took some naps.  Papa joined us for lunch, and then we played a few rounds of Apples to Apples.

In the afternoon, Eric and I took an extra dish of mashed potatoes over to his Grandma Karen's house for their dinner.  We tried to eat light at the lunch, but still had trouble eating a lot at dinner.  After dinner with the Van Booven family, we laid around looking at Black Friday ads and talking about life.

Eric, Shannon, and I left around 9pm to get in line for some Black Friday deals!  We passed Toys 'R Us because the line wrapped around the building.  But we got everything that we were looking for at WalMart!  I'm going to skip blogging about that part so nobody's Christmas surprises are ruined.

I did a terrible job taking pictures!

The Wenberg Thanksgiving spread.

 Andrew enjoying his dinner!

Haha!  Ashley playing "having a baby"!

I was craaazy tired at midnight, so Eric's sunglasses were helping me deal with the bright lights at Walmart.  I had the $4 waffle maker, but the barcode or something was wrong so I didn't end up getting it.  This was my "protective Mama Bear" stance as the crowd went nuts at midnight for the electronics sales.

November Photo Dump!

Squish has been making it incredibly difficult for me to sleep lately.  I started looking on Craigslist for a "Snoogle" pillow, which retails for about $60 - yikes!  I found one for $40, and offered the person $20 for it.  I was pretty surprised when the reply email came from someone I worked with last year, who had a baby over the summer!  Now Addy and I get sleep all wrapped up with pillow! 

Eric took me car shopping a few weekends ago, and I was pretty amused by this mirror. 

On Veteran's Day, Old Chicago gave everyone $5 of Foamer bucks on our World Beer Tour cards, so we asked Paul and Deb to come to dinner with us.  Along with that, they had a cardboard standup that you scan with your phone and it gives you a chance to win free food or drink.  Deb, Eric, and I all won something - I got cheesy garlic breadsticks, Deb got a big cookie, and Eric won a large pizza!  We could only use one, so we treated everyone to a Thai Pie pizza.  Nine beers, a pizza, and a fries basket ended up only costing us $14 - and (quite possibly for the first time ever) they let us pay for dinner! 

Brian and Jen hosted a Crock Pot Pot Luck party last weekend.  There were many interesting conversations, lots of great music, occasional dancing, and drunk people everywhere!  These parties are a lot more fun when I'm sober watching everyone else get silly! 

While we were at Mom and Alan's house last weekend, Chaos decided that the snickerdoodle cookies belong to him! 

Addy has been an extra large bum lately, cue "awwwwww" sound bit. 

I just about died laughing in the grocery store when I picked out the avocado for this weeks "Baby Green" picture, and then put it in the baby seat of the cart.  Seriously, I was beside myself. 

This is the countdown that I keep posted at work!  I accidentally mixed up weeks 16 and 17 (avocado and onion), but seeing as the foods relate to the length of baby, I think it makes sense that an avocado would come after the onion instead of before.  Oh well, I'm probably the only one who noticed my error :) 

 Last night, I decided that I wanted to have cinnamon rolls for dinner.  As the oven heats up, Eric decides he is craving pizza...so we made both!  This is what dinner looks like in the Green household!

Finally, a funny school story!  A few weeks ago, one of our paras was working in a third grade classroom.  The kids were told to cut out pictures of facial expressions and then to write about it in their journal.  The para noticed a kid cutting frantically, stuffing something in his desk, and then looking around the room suspiciously.  She asked him to give it to her and he tried to play dumb and give her the scissors, as she gave him "the look" he pulled the picture out of his desk and handed this gem to her.  Hilarious!

Halloween 2011 - Part 2

We wrapped up Saturday by hanging out at home for most of the night.  Steven and Grant went to see Thrice at the Granada, and we watched Netflix!  Yay for getting old and boring!  After they were finished at the show, Eric brought them home along with a friend of Stevens, and then we all headed back out to walk around Mass Street to ogle the costumes.  

Sunday, once we had eaten some breakfast, Eric told everyone to get ready for some golf!  We spent the afternoon at the driving range near Eudora, and then said our goodbyes so Eric and I could head to Overland Park for our Dave Ramsey class.  

It's lucky Steven has a key to our apartment!  Yesterday, he found a present for his dad - but Eric and I were already on our way to Overland Park when he realized that he had left it in our house.

Look at those golfing boys!

Steven with his trick ball. 

And I golfed too!