When I taught my team use to buy all 100 of our kids a small gift.  Mostly we gave them pencils with their first and last name.  Yea that might sound mean but they loved them and when they lost their pencil we could almost always find it!  They also have lots of cheap fun gifts we would use for raffles and such.  I wasn’t sure if this was a site just teachers knew about.  Anyway here it is http://www.orientaltrading.com/

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I just bought Noah’s enitre class a gift bag and 3-4 treats for a total of $33.  Not bad!

In Gregg’s attempt to humiliate me he got me over 100 friends on myspace.  Now I don’t know what to do with them.  I feel bad because I don’t know how to make any one my favorites and I hate to exclude.  Oh well, I am having some great conversations with some of the people.

OK now on to Heroes………..  Who do you think are the two people that will die next episode.  I’m glad the Noah is alive.  I am sooooo in love with Suresh and was surprised when he shot Noah.  I started hating him but then thought of course he didn’t really kill him.  I’m glad Sylar killed the brother and can’t wait for the sis to get it.  I don’t know who is more in need of getting a clue….her or Peter.  Come on Peter how many people have to tell you Adam is a bad guy before you believe it.  The shooting in the back(Victoria) should have been a good clue.  Plus it was Hiro and Peter that saved the world working together last time.  Oh and I loved how they threw in the correct way to kill either a hero or just Adam.  A nice shot to the head!

Friends of ours own a business that make all of our announcements and Christmas cards.  Click here to check out their site.  www.2peas1pod.com

OK this is another one of my rants.  I am one of THOSE mothers who don’t really think that kid TV is that bad for them.  As a matter of fact I beleive that my son Noah has learned a lot from some of those shows.  His teachers always comment on his large vocabulary.  He is always trying out new words and trying to use them in context with a little help from me.  He keeps me in stitches when he throws out a word he heard on TV and I teach him the correct way to use it.  Now here is my big but.  That’s but not butt.

At what age do the TV executives decide it is OK to start using bad words in prgramming.  It seems like it is this remarkable jump from sweet shows to BAM…stupid shows.  I say stupid because those are words they use.  First Noah is watching Kipper, Angelina Ballerina, Dragon Tales, Dora, Diego and Caillou.  These shows use lovely language and have great lessons about sharing and being a good friend.  Then come the terrbile in between shows on Cartoon network and Nickelodeon.  Right away there are stereotypes, name calling, and bad words.  If that isn’t bad enough there is the bad behavior that is glorified.  The bad behavior is looked at as funny.

I just don’t get it.  How do we go from such great programming to shit programming!  Noah is getting to an age where PBS Kid Sprout, Noggin, and the Baby Channel aren’t going to cut it anymore.  Yet I feel he is to young for Zach and Cody(spoiled little brats) and other shows.  Whenever he watches a show with inappropriate words or behavior he will say, we don’t say that or that isn’t nice but how long until he gets the message that many people do say that and do act like that. 

Of course I am not expecting TV to raise my children and show them the proper way to act but I also don’t want it glorifying the stupidity either.  I just wish they would show the same care in prgramming for that in between stage.  I pay $10 a month for Baby TV and I would gladly pay another $10-30 for a commercial free Pre-school TV channel.  UUHHH Commericals that is a whole other rant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shannon’s post got me thinking.  Since we have been moving around it has been kind of hard to keep up with our teams.  Now College teams have always had turnover(graduation) but things can change quickly on the pro side.  I don’t even recognize the Red Wings.  The last time I saw the Piston’s there were a few players I didn’t know and then Gregg told me they were going to trade Rip and Tayshawn away.  I think the only team that I truly know are the Tigers.

All the teams mentioned above are pretty good.  And then there are the LIONS!!!!!!  I couldn’t wait to get away to root for another team.  I took the Cowboys, then in Philly the Eagles and now that we are back in Texas the Cowboys again.  The boys love the Cowboys so I guess we are going to be Cowboy fans.  It doesn’t hurt that they win too.

Now that we are in Texas for good I guess we have to pick some teams….Spurs vs Mavs……Rangers vs Astros.  No hockey down here.  The hockey section is after the highschool pages and in teensy print.  My rooting value is lessening as more of “my” players are leaving.

ON a side note…Has anyone seen the All Bran commercial with the construction worker.  I would like to nominate him/her for a Clio! 

NoahToday was Jersey day at the Henson Household.  We invited all the kids over for some football and cookie decorating.  First of all no I didn’t make the cookies.  I am a chef not a baker!  I bought a kit.  The kids had lots of fun.

Colin making his cookie

Taggert and Riley

Noah

Cooper

Gregg and Sarah.  Yes two parents made this!  Oh what a neighborhood.  Of course Gregg dreams of Sugar Plums(in his pants). 

Today was our first real drab day here in TX.  It was kind of neat.  It rained and was chilly so most people here stay inside.  We got a lot of errands done today.  Noah got a TO Jersey and Coop got a Cowboy uniform conplete with helmet. 

Gregg got out of hanging the lights today due to weather but we bought some haning lights for tomorrow.  Gregg is lucky that they people that were here before us have the clips all ready for the lights.  I guess this family went all out so everything is already primed for us.

I think McDonalds puts baby crack in their food.  Cooper screams for McDonalds every time he sees the restaurant.  It has to be the crack.

Speaking of crack…….We, or should I say I, just discovered Baker’s chocolate fondue cups.  The kids and I cut up some fruit and heated the tub of chocolate.  The tub is the size of the Kraft mac and cheese single serving cups.  However, once the chocolate is melted it only fills 1/3 the cup.  After eating the tub I decided to look at the calories.  The good news is there were only 80 calories.  The bad news is there are 13 servings in a tub.  What the hell????  Yea that is 1040 calories. 

Here’s to hoping Michigan makes it to the Alamo Bowl!  That is a trip I can make.  It would be great to see Wojo and Angelique again!

We took the kids to see Enchanted tonight.  Big guy Gregg tried to talk Noah out of it.  I guess it wasn’t macho enough for Gregg.  But I caught Gregg laughing out loud a few times.  Gregg was pushing hard for Underdog at the dollar show.  Maybe next time honey.  The movie was pretty darn funny.

Everyone is getting their Christmas on!  Mike and Shannon have already strung the outside of their house with lights.  Gregg is promising right now at this very moment that he will do our house tomorrow.  We shall see.    I love this time of year.  It’s so pretty with all the lights glowing.  It’s even chilly out.  Noah was almost crying because it was cold walking from the movie to the car.  Oh sweetie it is only 40 something.  I promised him it won’t get much colder than this and he was relieved.

OH I found the deal of Black Friday!!!!!!!!!!  Since no one is reporting in I have to share the one thing I found cheap.  I found Poinsettas at Home Depot for 1.50 a piece.  It was only 1.50 on Friday otherwise they go back to 3.00.  Hey that is a 50% savings.  LOL

I hope everyone else had a happy shopping day!

Well we managed to stay up til midnight.  Jess and I even got Shannon to come out with us.  That took some coercing.  She thought it was too cold(its and outside mall).  We were kind of surprised by the number of people at the mall already.  I wonder if it had been open a little earlier.  We were also very disappointed because we had hoped to find some deals.  I didn’t see anything that would have made me wait in the lines.  The Polo store line snaked along the inside of the building.  All the store lines were like that.  Miss Shannon checked out the KB Toy store and said it was true there too.  The Coach store must have had somethig going on because there was a line to get into the store and a huge one to pay too.  There were only two stores that weren’t open; Burberry and J Crew.  So we were home by 1 am and a little sad.  I think perhaps next year it would be better not to expect anything other than to people watch and listen to carrollerrs.

Anybody else find any deals worth getting out of bed?