Friday Funny - Riding in the Car with Kids

 Sunday Morning Look of Love :)

Spring Break, day 1

We spent most of yesterday morning in the backyard, ripping out what I not-so-lovingly refer to as our "jungle vines." All sorts of interesting plants down here in our semi-tropical climate... Anyway, after those hours of hard labor, followed by lunch and showers, I set the kids loose with a bag of mini marshmallows (I even splurged on colored ones - thank you 99¢ store!) and toothpicks. They had a ball, and amazingly enough arguing was kept to a minimum. Now THAT'S what I call a successful project ;)

This afternoon I will cement my position as fun mama when I have them make these marshmallow poppers and send them outside. Fun fun fun!

random catch-up

Much to catch up on, so I shall fall back on the good ol' bullet list

• Son failed his hearing test at school back before Christmas. Followed up with our primary doctor and then off to the specialist, where we discovered that he had a cyst on his left ear drum. Scheduled for a CT scan and discussion about surgery (where they'd remove the cyst and patch the ear drum, but there was concern was that since he's had recurrent fluid issues he may end up blowing out the patch and there'd be scarring issues). Much prayer over the situation, and way more drainage than normal over the following week. CT scan a few weeks ago, and back to the specialist this week... where we found out that cyst was GONE. So very thankful for this amazing answer to prayer! He does have confirmed hearing loss in both ears for no apparent reason, and there's still some fluid built up so we're still dealing with some other minor things, but did I mention the cyst completely disappeared?!?
• There is so much sickness going around. Strep and flu, mostly. Yesterday was the last day of school before spring break, and D woke up with a fever of 102.7. Delightful. He's better today, although still not 100%. Hubby and I are both a bit achy and congested. Happy spring break!
• Speaking of spring break, we don't have any visitors this year. First time since we're been down here that this is the case. I'm planning to spend a day in each kids' room (purge/organize clothes since they both have this annoying habit of outgrowing their clothes, plus evaluation of toys and their storage situation). Thursday is supposed to be 86, so we're going to turn the heat on in the pool and have open swim time for our friends in the afternoon. Fun! We're also going to see Cirque du Soleil on Saturday. Hubby and I saw Alegria last year, and this year it's Dralion. I scored a major deal on the tickets way back on cyber Monday, so this time around the whole family is going -- I'm looking forward to seeing the kids' reactions. I'm not looking forward to seeing what their attempt at acrobatics will do to our already battered couches.
• There was a kidnapping at our local McDonald's. The one right by our Wal-Mart, Target, Chick-Fil-A, etc. Talk about bursting one's "safe" bubble.
• Our pastor's cousin is headed to the Olympics for shotput. Way cool!!
• My craft pile is still, well, a pile. I plug away at portions of it, but then something else comes up and my "fun space" gets pushed back down on the priority list. The current plan is to attack it on the Mon-Tues after spring break.
• Last weekend we bought not only a new lawnmower but also a toilet. Yeehaw. Our son is seriously excited to use HIS lawnmower, though. Here's hoping that excitement carries him for several years ;) I'm just excited to have a functional toilet upstairs again so I'm no longer being woken up in the middle of the night by the kids coming down to use ours.

And finally, as a reward for making it through all the drivel, I present the.most.annoying.song.in.the.world. You're very welcome.

Friday Funny

A friend had loaned us a couple God Rocks CDs so I could check them out to possibly use in our children's ministry at church. Our kids looooooove music, so of course they happily acted as listening guinea pigs, and I was patting myself on the back as I listened to my kids walk around the house singing scripture - because seriously, that's just awesome, right? And then I really listened to what our son was singing:

"Don't let anyone tell on you because you are dumb"

Ooof! (that's the sound of reality smacking Mommy) Just a reminder that we need to take an ACTIVE role in making sure our kids are learning things properly.

(Sorry about the lousy quality on this video, but you can at least hear the proper song)

Happy Birthday!

Sometimes things don't go exactly according to plan -- and sometimes that's a good thing. Our daughter turned 6 earlier this month, and we had her birthday party yesterday. We invited all the girls from her class, but no one RSVP'd (not unusual down here). Anyway, I planned a fun afternoon of girliness, games, and snacks knowing that her 2 good friends were coming, and figuring that at least a couple more from her class would show up. Well, I was wrong - it was just the three little princesses... and a fabulous time was had by all!

First stop was the makeup station, mostly consisting of sparkles for the eyes and cheeks, but also including bright lipstick so they could all kiss the frog :) We painted princess sun-catchers, had a Royal Ball Freeze Dance, decorated tiaras, colored custom castles, pitched pennies, snacked, and laughed. I don't know who had more fun - the girls or the moms! And what was originally going to be a 2 hour party turned into an impromptu BBQ (with additional family members invited over) going well into the evening. Truly, it was a delightful day.

Funny side story: the junior ROTC was conducting a canned food drive in our neighborhood, and I answered the knock on the door without stopping to consider how I appeared. The poor young man in uniform probably be telling his friends about the crazy lady who was wearing 2 crowns, a pile of necklaces, and plastic gems stuck on her cheeks :)

First Day of School

And there is my 2nd grader and Kindergartener. Guess who's more excited? :)

(And yes, I know I need to wash my car!)

Vacation Videos

Come, have a seat on the couch while I set up the slide projector (cue evil laughter...)

Seriously, though, I still haven't gotten through all the pics, but did want to share these couple videos. Sorry about the wind noise on them - nothing I could do about that.

The first one was shot at the campground just outside Red Lodge, MT. Our daughter had gone to the bathroom, and was there a long time. I went to check on her, and thankfully had the camera in my pocket. Obviously she liked the acoustics of the facilities - and doesn't it make for great background music for the majestic scenery?!



This second one is when we were at Old Faithful. The kids were both excited to see the "big" one - and their reactions (fast forward to the end) are hysterical. And yes, that's our son yelling, "It's gonna blow!" at the beginning. Classic.



Later!

Works for me Wednesday - Displaying Kids' Artwork

Our son & daughter both manage to crank out a lot of art projects. They, of course, are proud of their creations and want them on display... I want to encourage them, but also have a hard time getting excited about accessorizing every room in our house with construction paper.

My solution: the art wall! This space is in our dining area, right by the back door. We spend a lot of our time here, but it's not the very first thing you see when you walk in our house. The kids know that this is where stuff has to fit - and if they have a new masterpiece to share, then we need to decide what will be coming down. All it took to create was six nails, a few feet of jute twine, and some clothespins. I considered decorating the clothespins with paint, ribbon, or patterned paper, but in the end decided to leave them plain because I didn't want to detract from the kids' creations.

Click over to get some other great "works for me" tips!

Just add water!

So what do YOU do with cranky kids on an unseasonably hot day? :)

The Real Meaning of Easter

We had MOPS earlier this week, and our daughter's class made a little craft with jelly beans. As we were driving home, she was telling me that Jesus died on the cross for us. She chatted about this a bit, then paused to do some serious thinking. Her next words: "That must have really hurted."

Leave it to a 4 YO to sum it up so well! But seriously, it was a good reminder for me. I was raised in a church, and Jesus' death is something that I sort of take for granted. But what a wonderful thing to be able to talk about it with our children, to tell them that yes, it did hurt, but Jesus loves us so much that he chose to die.

We talked a bit more, and her final thoughts on the matter are that she is looking forward to living in heaven because then she won't get any more boo-boos ;)

Sharing Some Christmas Cheer

Caught this clip last night, as our little one was singing part of the song that her class performed on Sunday. We had read a book we'd gotten from the library (Little One, We Knew You'd Come) and she started singing as she was looking at the pictures. Of course when I got the camera out, she started playing shy (which is why you'll hear me humming a bit at the beginning)


Jesus was born on Christmas day
Mary laid him in the hay
So little boys and girls could pray
"Jesus, Jesus"
Baby Jesus, we love You!

On a side note, I know that we all already have a ton of things going on, but I thought there were some neat ideas HERE to celebrate Winter Solstice (which is Sunday). Don't know how much we'll manage to squeeze in, but we can definitely dine by candlelight!

Halloween Recap

Our family really doesn't do a whole lot for Halloween - I really dislike all the "spooky" and frankly rather evil aspects of the holiday, but we do let the kids dress up and trick-or-treat on our street. This year we even decided that they should have new names for the day... so I hereby present "Sir Strongheart" and "Lady Lillianna"

Hamming it up, while waiting for big brother's school parade to start

The knight was quite excited to take part in the festivities


I would love to say they'd gotten into tainted candy at this point, but I'm afraid that's just pure goofball coming out!

Friday Funny

Just a little silliness, courtesy of the kiddos. They really like the show Word Girl and A in particular likes to do the Captain Huggy Face dance (although her brother was more into it this time around, simply because he knew I was filming)

First Day of School

Can't believe my little boy is at Kindergarten right now! His teacher seems very good, and he's super excited, so what am I worried about? His little sister, though, is having a hard time of it. The pic above was taken as we were walking home - and she's pretty much been sniffling non-stop. Yeah, it's hard being without your buddy! We're off to run a couple errands now, though, so hopefully that will get her back on the right track.

(BTW, you can click on any of the pics for a larger view)

Friday Funny

Thought I'd just share a couple hysterical things our son has said this week (the first of which literally had me laughing until I was crying)

- He saw part of show on Monday in which a young girl was writing in her diary. He was very excited to tell me about it, and how cool the girl's diarrhea was. (Is it bad if I didn't correct him?)

- Tuesday for lunch, I made the kids sandwiches. He wolfed his down and asked for another; his sister, meanwhile, had only taken a single bite of hers. I asked if she was going to finish it and she said no. I told D he could have the rest of hers - he reached for the quarter that she'd nibbled on (I had assumed that he'd go for one of the other 3 squares that she hadn't touched), took a bite, and promptly tossed it in the trash, announcing that it tasted like his sister's mouth. Not quite sure about that one (insert eye roll here)

And lastly, here is a pic that was taken during lunchtime today. The kids had grapes, and decided to have a cheek stuffing contest. Ah, the adorable little chipmunks :)

Loud Kiddos

Well, I can now report that standard packing tape is not an effective weapon in the sound wars :)
(A pulled a roll out of the junk drawer and started playing around, and of course her brother wanted in on the action!)

Summer Craft Time

Took a trip to my favorite candy store - oops, I mean the craft store - with the kiddos and let them pick out some foam stickers. Today's project was covering their very own water bottles and also spelling out their names (with GLITTERY stickers, no less) on some art boxes. Hopefully this will help us corral some of their drawing supplies. There were tons of cool art kits there, and I know that in a couple of years we'll really be having lots of crafty fun together. In the meantime, though, we'll just be getting ourselves into lots of sticky situations (and yes, both kidlets have been threatened with dire consequences if I find a foamie on furniture or walls... we'll have to see how that works out).

On a funny note, A was very insistent upon wearing a skirt today. She came down dressed in this cute floral number - except she'd paired it up with a light blue striped shirt. Her reasoning? They "matched" because they both had green in them. Um, guess we need to discuss color theory. Oh, and you'll also notice that the photo is strategically cropped because our darling little girl wasn't exactly being ladylike :)

Ready for her close-up

How much cuteness can one post contain?!?

On a side note, I really need to take some time to play around with the flash settings on the camera. I know that it's tough to get nice face shots with the hat, but she just looked so adorable :)

Rainy Day Activity

What to do when it's drizzly and miserable outside? Why, spin yourself silly on the computer chair, of course!

House Happenings

Thought I'd share some recent cuteness. Fuzzball adores Woody, although she calls him "Parker" (which is how she said "Partner" after she first saw Toy Story, and somehow it stuck). She's starting playing with barbies a bit more, too; she never was really into baby dolls, but adores people figures of all sorts. Yesterday she was carrying them around like this... guess she's going to be a proponent of baby-wearing :) Oh, and like that bruise on her cheek? She tripped and banged into the base of the computer chair. Ouch! Someday she's going to be bruise free for a couple days in a row and I'm actually going to get some nice pics!




This pic is from just a couple minutes ago - she and her brother are "playing house." My favorite quote of the morning:
"Hon, where did you put the Diet Coke?"
Hmmm... wonder where they've heard that one?!?

No pics of big brother, but you can be sure I'll have quite a few soon - we're having his birthday party this weekend. The nice thing about delaying it six weeks is that we can actually be outside, and roasting marshmallows has been added to the list of festivities.

And just to add something of "value" to today's post, thought I'd share my favorite go-to breakfast recipe. I like to serve it when we have overnight guests, and it's also great to take to MOPS.


Breakfast Casserole

1 can crescent rolls (I generally use the reduced fat variety)
8 eggs
1/2 c milk
breakfast meat (sausage, bacon, pork roll, whatever!)
shredded cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Unroll crescent rolls and press into bottom of 9x13 baking pan. Sprinkle pre-cooked meat over the dough. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs & milk, then pour over meat. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, or until eggs are completely set.

For our little family, I'll often make it in my round baking dish (love that Pampered Chef stoneware!) with 6 eggs and 1/3 c milk with a brown & serve sausage. You can also add veggies (we like broccoli or spinach). I've also added onion, garlic, basil, oregano, chopped tomato & Italian sausage to make a hearty lunch. Yum!