D - Remember When?

Remember when you were a kid and got a brand new toy for Christmas? Remember how it was so exciting and you would IMMEDIATELY run off and start playing with it? Remember how you didn't have to wait 45 minutes while your parents used every sharp object in the house in their vain attempts at getting the toy out of the packaging? That's all I'm saying. Just remember.

M - Wii pajama bowling in Ennis, TX

We knew we were going to get a late start out of Oklahoma City on our way to Houston for Christmas this year. Thus, MammaBoz decided we should try to stay in Ennis, Tx, just south of Dallas. We have become quite the raging fans for Comfort Suites hotels and that's where we are as I blog this entry. We checked the room rates before leaving OKC and everything was around $85 (which is always more than I like to spend on a hotel). My wife is a hotel snob...I am not. My basic requirements are clean sheets and I can manage around anything else.

The great thing is that the whole Choice Hotels chain is running $59 nightly holiday rates through the end of the year. The fact that the rooms are always nice and hot breakfast is always free makes it a great bargain!

Since the Bosley's are now owners of a Nintendo Wii, we brought it with us and enjoyed a round of family bowling before bed. It was boys vs. girls and the boys came out victorious by a single point. Katie is curiously good at Wii bowling! Perhaps it's the little hop down right after the ball is released. This is something that requires more study.

Wii baseball is pretty cool also aside from the additional shoulder injury I incurred swinging for the fences.

Here's a shot vid from our bowling adventures last night. Listen closely and you'll hear some of the awful things my bride is teaching my daughter about girls ruling and boys drooling. Enjoy!!

D - Our Christmas Card

I need all of you to pretend for just a second that you just walked out to your mailbox for the day. You find yourself in total shock as you see an envelope from the Bosleys. What's this? A Christmas Card from the Bosleys? But they don't DO Christmas cards?!? Wow! They must really love us!

So, here it is - Our Christmas Card to you. (Aren't they cute?)

Wishing you and yours the very best this holiday season......

......Merry Christmas! Love, the Bosleys!!!

I know, I know. You're feeling really special now. Well, don't count on me getting my act together next year like I did this year. I'm not always this organized.

D - The Talking Wand

This story actually happened weeks ago, but since I still laugh every time I think of it I decided to share it with all of you. Hopefully I haven't already posted it........

Katie was playing dress up and wearing her Sleeping Beauty dress and tiara and carrying her beautiful new wand. While I was fixing her hair, she was playing and tapped me with her wand while pretending that her wand said something to me (can't recall what it was). A minute or so later, she curled up her nose and made a disgusted face while handing me her wand and saying, "Here. I don't like talking wands."

Once again I can see how this story won't be all that funny since you can't hear her tone of voice, but you'll just have to trust me that it was hilarious. Hopefully when I reread this years from now I'll still be able to hear it. That girl cracks me up!

M - A frigid day on Lake Hefner

Today in Oklahoma City we've seen the temperature drop from 67 degrees at 1pm to 23 degrees at 8:30pm. That's a BIG, FAST drop!

Last Tuesday we had another day like that and on my way home I decided to stop of at Lake Hefner to take a few pictures. The wind chill was in the teens and the wind was blowing around 30mph. The weather was slightly different than the last time I wrote about Lake Hefner on this blog.

This was definitely a tough day to be a gull!

The waves were unusually large and you can see the effects of them crashing up against the flag pole retaining wall at Stars-n-Stripes park.

The steam rising off the water added a nice effect. If the wind hadn't been blowing so hard it would have really been impressive. I love Okie weather!

M - Full moon at apogee

I hope you enjoyed the unusually large and bright moon last week. National Geographic wrote an interesting piece that the geek in you might find interesting.

From the article: "Although a full moon happens every month, the one that rises tomorrow will appear about 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than the other full moons seen so far this year."

This next picture of our backyard was taken about 2 hours after sundown. It doesn't seem like much except that the vast majority of available 'white' light was coming from the sun's reflection off the moon. I wish I'd gotten out there earlier when you could see the moon reflecting in the glassy water on the pond. This picture had a 20-second exposure.

The following picture was taken just after 0500hrs on Friday morning as the moon illuminated some clouds that were moving in. Again, realize that it was way before sunrise but with the long exposure, street lights, and Christmas lights, I had a lot of light with which to work.

M - Foiled by The Container Strore

So we didn't quite make it to our destination of Allen, TX. Mommaboz had to make a stop at The Container Store. I'm not sure the kids even know we've stopped moving!

M - I missed Santa

Alright, so I was playing with one of the little ones and missed Santa's float. Bummer.

So now we're stuck in the masses trying to get back to the highway. It's worth it though...this is a great parade and our kiddos really enjoy it.

M - Rudolph makes an appearance!

M - always my favorite band

The Hardon-Simmons Cowboy Band

M - Dallas Christmas Parade

Nothing says Christmas like Mr Potato Head.

M - Live Blog from Dallas Christmas Parade

We are at the Adolphus Nieman Marcus Children's Parade again this year waiting for things to get started.

We have some great seats and it looks as if the folks in front of us are committed non-standers! That's a plus after last year's giganto experience.

I'll update again after things get rolling.

D - Sorry I'm Boring

Sorry for once again not posting for awhile. I guess I'm a little boring. We had a nice Thanksgiving with just the 4 of us, got all of the lights up on the outside of the house and the tree decorated. Over the course of about a week I managed to eat almost an entire pie by myself (thanks to Mary who made it for me when she got depressed by our holiday plans). I took the kids with me to visit my grandmother and my parents in McAlester for a day and did nothing there but eat more pie and play Skip-Bo with Noah and Katie and whoever else they could talk into playing. Fun times!

I thought of doing a post a couple of days ago showing Noah's before and after haircut pics, but I thought it might highlight the lack of excitement in my life if I did a THIRD post on my son's hair! It is short once again, but I'll go ahead and admit that it looks much better now.

Sadly, I guess that's all I've got right now. Thanks for tuning in to another exciting installment of the Boz Blog!

M - Stuck in traffic...

Here's a safely-made cell phone video of me safely not 'really' watching a movie on my GPS while safely driving/sitting in unusually HORRIBLE stop-and-go traffic trying to get home safely after work.

This movie is just tough to beat, don't you think?

Did I mention I'm being very safe even as I type this blog while driving with my knee?

...KIDDING! I'm at the stop part of the stop-n-go.

M - Backyard leaf play

Almost a year ago to the day, the kids and I were in the backyard playing in the leaves.

This year we continued our annual tour o' leaves and had a great time raking, piling, and jumping and then raking, piling, and jumping.

Shoeless Joe...

Attempting to tunnel through...and he STILL couldn't understand why we had to take a bath that night!

D - I Lose :(

Well, despite the overwhelming number of you who voted with me to keep Noah's hair long, it appears that this election is going to the other side. Mike protested unfair advertising in that I chose the only good picture of Noah since this whole experiment began. Hmmmmmmm.......he may be right. And apparently this election is determined by an electoral college in which Noah is California, Mike is New York and Katie is Texas. Since all of the rest of us are from Oklahoma, our votes are clearly not worth as much as theirs.

That, plus my son almost cried last night and told me he looks like a girl. Despite the fact that this is nowhere near the truth, I have conceded and will allow him to get his hair cut just as soon as I can get him an appointment. I'm not actually into scarring the youth of America - especially ones I love as much as this one.

D - Long or Short?

So, Noah's whole life he has had the same buzz hairstyle with Mike acting as his barber. He has a super-aggressive cow-lick (I've never actually written that word out. Is that right?) on the right-front, so when it grows out much, his hair really sticks up. We've always thought he looked good with it short, and it was free, so it worked for us.





This winter though, I've been doing a grow-it-out experiment. I have met with a great deal of protesting from my family so far with Noah being the most vocal because I actually have to comb it now. But I'm determined to stick it out.

So, what do you think? Are you, like his groupies above, in the "Keep the Buzz!" camp, or do you say "Go ahead with the experiment - it's looking good!"? I need your votes!!!

D - Little Miss Muffet

I have a rather sarcastic sense of humor and sometimes have to find ways to amuse myself when I'm home all day with kids who don't get my jokes. Yesterday one of the kids' shows made a reference to Little Miss Muffet, and I started entertaining myself by making up a story. Noah, however, is starting to understand what I'm doing and doesn't really find me all that funny. You tell me.

Me: You know, I know a Little Miss Muffet.

Noah: No, you don't.

Me: I do! She likes to sit on a tuffet when she eats her breakfast.

Noah: Mom.

Me: Once though, she got scared because this huge spider came and sat by her.

Noah: Mom!

Me: It scared her so badly that she ran away.

Katie: Maybe that's what this story is about!!!!

Noah: No, it's not. Mom's just silly.

D - A Very Merry Unbirthday To Them

Since I've not been the world's best blogger lately (thanks to blog-lurker Kelsey for noticing), I managed to miss discussing both of my kids' birthdays this year! So, despite how loooonnnggg ago they were, I'll post now for posterity's sake.

I'm not a big fan of throwing birthday parties, so we've gone to an every-other-year party plan starting at the age of 6. Meaning, Noah had a party every year 1-5, so Katie will get that too, but then we're trading off so I only have to have 1 a year. On party years, they don't get presents from us because the party is their present (and they get tons from their friends), and on their off-year we buy presents and they get to pick one (or maybe 2) friends and do something fun like White Water or a movie or something. We'll see. Anyhow, this was the last year that I had to do 2 parties. Yay!!!!

Noah turned 7 in July and chose to have a bowling party this year. He's really been wanting a trophy for a long time now and the bowling alley gives you a bowling pin if you have your birthday there. Exciting! Since that's as close to a trophy as he's gotten so far, that was enough to convince him that's where his party should be. It was a good time, but not my favorite party ever. He really enjoyed it though, and had a great time hooking up with some of his school buds that he hadn't seen all summer.

When trying to decide what to do for Katie's 4th birthday party in September, I complained to Mike that it was always easy to pick themes for Noah's parties because there was always something he was obsessed with at each year making it obvious what we should do. We have had fishing, swimming, bugs and monster trucks over the years - all things he loves. With Katie though (I continued my complaint), the only thing she likes is horses. Ding, ding, ding!!! That's it! After much searching and a last minute suggestion from a friend, I finally found a company that would bring a darling little pony to my house.

And she LOVED it! Most of the kids at the party rode the pony once or twice and then played in the back yard. Katie, on the other hand, did nothing but ride and get back in line to ride again. She has asked me several times when that pony gets to come back to our house. It was really fun to see her so happy.

Looking back on it all now, both parties were a lot of fun, and I'm really glad we did them. I can't believe my babies are getting so big! They are two of the most precious gifts God has ever given to me, and I thank him every day for the honor of allowing me to be their mother.

D - The Golden Boy & The Candyland Curse

Doesn't that sound like a great title for a children's book? Anyhow....

Noah is one of those people in life for whom things just seem to go right. He's cute, smart, athletic, positive, thoughtful, kind, competitive, and has a high self-esteem - just an all-around sort of great guy. You know the type. You love 'em, and you hate 'em. He's the kind of person who wins raffles, lotteries, etc. that you don't even feel the need to enter because you never win anything. Well, he does. I once introduced him to a former co-worker at a school function as the kid who WILL win the musical chairs game that was just starting with over 20 kids in the running - I was right. I just know in advance that he will always come out on top.

I say all of that to say this - The child is CURSED at Candyland. I can't even tell you how many times the kid has lost this game! He can be one square away from a win and get sent back to the front of the board every time. It is soooooooo frustrating for him (& for me who is constantly trying to find a way to throw the game). I keep thinking statistically he will have to start winning at some point, but I guess he must be saving up his wins to take out on his own children. Or perhaps the gods of winning are trying to school him in how to lose gracefully. He could definitely still use some work there.

D - Tired!

I guess Katie worked pretty hard at Sonshine School today. She fell asleep (HARD!) in the carpool line this afternoon while waiting to pick up Noah. The nap isn't entirely unusual, but this position was so I had to get a pic.

D - The Children's Museum

Last Friday, since Noah was out of school, I did something that has long been on my "To do with the kids" list and took the kiddos to the Children's Museum in Seminole. It was great! We have been big fans of Children's Museums ever since we went to Denver last summer and this makes our 3rd one to hit including the one in Houston. I really think this one is as well done as those in the big cities. It's smaller, but each exhibit is really great. The kids had a blast!

Here they are doing some excellent artwork:


Noah's favorite - the Bubble Factory

Katie's fav - Teaching Noah and I the ABC's in the schoolhouse.

Digging for dinosaur bones

Like I said, it was fun - give it a try!

M - Hangin' in the attic

Here's another post directly from my phone (geeky, right?). The kids and I are hangin' for a little while in the attic this Saturday afternoon. Noah has been BEGGING me to let him go through my foot locker full of football cards. I have many many many thousands of cards collected since the mid-80's.

I even found a few bubble gum packs of Desert Storm 'trading cards' from the first Gulf War. How odd is that?!

M - "As Is"

From my morning devo...

Psalm 11:6 - If they could be made God's people by what they did, God's gift of grace would not really be a gift.

"To whom does God offer his gift? To the brightest? The most beautiful or the msot charming? No. His gift is for us all - beggars and bankers, clergy and clerks, judges and janitors. All God's children.

And he wants us so badly, he'll take us in any condition - "as is" reads the tag on our collars....

He wants us NOW."

Having a GREAT time at the OU game!

Posted from the bleachers after yet ANOTHER OU touchdown!

D - My Condolences

Unfortunately for me, Katie LOVES imagination play. As a really boring, left-brained thinker, this is torture for me. But since she loves it, I do my best.

Her usual scenario that we repeat daily (many, many times daily), is that she is some sort of animal who suddenly appears at my house. She may be a dolphin, a horse, a puppy, a unicorn, a kitten - regardless of the animal, she is always newly orphaned and must come live with me due to the recent, untimely deaths of her parents.

Well, yesterday I was out running errands with a unicorn named Princess. She is 6 years old and the boss of her brother (named Noah) who is a mere 5 years old. When we stopped the car to get out, she tried to climb out of the van with her deedle-dee (her blanket for any of you who may not know that). I told her she had to leave it in the van, and she replied, "But my mommy always lets me bring it in."

I had to laugh out loud and give a very guilty glance around the parking lot to make sure I was not overheard when I caught myself saying out loud in a rather put-out voice, "Well, I'm SORRY that your mother is dead, but you have to leave the blanket in the car." Yikes! I was soooooo glad no one was around to here me. That might have been hard to explain.

D - It doesn't fit!

I may have blogged this before, because I KNOW I've ranted it in my head before. So forgive me if I'm being repetitious here.

BUT, explain to me, please, the multiple-sized blankets that are out there now. I'm currently making my bed with a Full/Queen blanket. Am I crazy, or does this just mean that it properly fits neither a full nor a queen sized bed????

D - In Mommy's Shoes

And I quote,

"These really do fit me, don't they? Do you want me to have them?"

M - A wish for Disney

Noah wrote me the following letter after returning from Houston and spending the night at his cousins' house in Allen, TX.

See what happens when you let your kids hang out with those high-fallutin' digital cable TV havin' folks?

Click on the image below if you can't read Noah's letter.

M - Mayor Cornett drops by

Mayor Mick Cornett dropped by Beam's Industries several weeks ago to help promote our Wellness Program. He's every bit as nice as you would expect him to be. I've heard him speak on a number of occasions and he is a fantastic communicator. He was very gracious to drop by just on our request and help us out.

Here are a few pics of his visit.

M - When kids fly...

Here are some great pics of Noah and Katie doing their best (with Dad's permission, of course) to further wear out our already old and raggedy couch!

Great job, don't you think?

You know you want to do it too, right? :-)

D - Soccer Mom

Soccer Mom. That's me. I'm not even sure how it happened, but somehow I have grown to LOVE this sport. Not so much watching it on tv when adults with lots of talent play, but I love, love, LOVE watching my kids play. I love practice; I love games. I love it when it's hot or cold. I just LOVE it!

It all started 3 years ago when Noah joined a team with the YMCA. Here he is in one of his first couple of seasons. It's always been one of my favorite pics.

He was actually pretty good! That little bit of success was all it took for me to be hooked. He's still pretty good. I won't go crazy and say he's the best on his team, but I think he's got some talent! He definitely has a competitive spirit and really loves to play. Just look at this look on his face!

This has been the first season for Miss Katie to play. She ran out and scored a goal on her very first quarter of her first game, but came off the field crying and never wanting to go on again about 3 minutes later when the other team scored. Here's a pic of that first game. So sad!

I actually had to run up and down the field with her a couple of weeks ago just to get her to play. She did really great though the next week, and we didn't even have to bribe her to play! She now thinks she knows a lot and likes to give Noah pointers. Oh my, does he love that!

I love to make her look as girly as possible for the games. Don't you just love her skirt and hat?

Doing a little coaching of her own....

The team!