Weekend

I am taking advantage of the down time I am having right now. Will and the 2 younger boys are taking a nap and the 2 older boys are watching a movie. It is so peaceful here right now. (Pausing so I can listen to the silence.)

Brodie continues to be sick. I have no idea what he has or where he got it, but he is really sick. He slept better last night but has been unable to eat anything still. He is so weak and just too tired to do anything. Drew started vomiting this morning but then didn't continue. So, I don't know if it was a fluke thing due to his acid reflux or if he is going to come down with what Brodie has. Everyone else so far has been ok (crossing my fingers).

I got some errands run this morning. I had to run to the bank and I needed to pay a bill and take some stuff back to the store. While at Wal-Mart I got some great deals on some clothes for Jake for next winter. I will post about that on my other blog. I was really excited.

We don't have any plans for the rest of the weekend. I have a feeling it will be a very quiet one. The older boys did lots of cleaning this morning. Saturdays are nice because they do the majority of the house work. Now I better go get my chores done while everyone is resting.

Update on Brodie

He had another rough night last night. He ran a high fever and was restless most the night despite the Tylenol/Motrin. Today he seems to be a little better. He has stopped vomiting thankfully. He hasn't eaten now for 48 hours, except for a 1/2 banana this morning. He has slept alot today and has done alot better at drinking liquids when he has been awake. Tonight he is still running a fever. Hopefully he will have a good nights rest tonight and be better tomorrow.

I have a very sick little child right now. Brodie has been down with a nasty bug for 24 hours now. I was up with him almost the entire night last night. He is still pretty sick this evening. Hoping he has a better night tonight and the rest of us don't get it. I'll keep you in the loop.

M is for Monkey

The boys and I started the letter M this week. We have had fun talking about monkeys. Brodie has always loved monkeys and I have no idea why. We have quite the collection of stuffed monkeys. They came in handy when we sat down to sing the "5 Little Monkeys" song. Each of the boys held a monkey in each hand and I had one. They would bounce them up and down as we sang. We also colored this picture to go along with the song. We also made this monkey paper craft. Of course Brodie had to show me his monkey face while taking the picture!

Sleepy

A good mom would have probably picked him up and put him back in his bed. However, I was just so grateful that he finally fell asleep I just left him!

Bowling Pictures

Almost everyone minus Rob, Jen, Dad and Anita. Sorry!

Jake

Aunt Jenny helping Drew

Opening gifts.

Brodie

Tony

Cleaning

Yesterday I was very productive. Well, at least in the morning. The kids were in no mood to sit and do much of anything so we just had a free day. I did lots of cleaning. I rearranged my kitchen a little. I even got down and cleaned out the pan cupboards and all the drawers. The kids were entertained by helping me pull everything out! I love having a clean kitchen. It is not my favorite room in the house. It is pretty small for our family, but it works. I always feel really good when things look nice. Even if it is only for a short while.Last night was a whirlwind. I had an apt. at 3:15, then I had to pick Jake up from jazz band at 4:30 and then Tony had to be at piano lessons at 5:30. Thankfully I had put in a roast for dinner in the morning so dinner was easy. I didn't feel the best last night and I went to sleep on the couch at 7:30pm! I haven't been sleeping well. I think I really needed the rest!

Plans

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. We did. As much fun as it was, I am happy to say that we are done with the older boys birthdays! With the exception of Tony having someone spend the night this Friday!

We had a good time bowling yesterday. It was a little chaotic but I think everyone had a good time. I will get pictures up as soon as I can. The boys got lots of new clothing which was greatly appreciated and needed. It was a great day.

I am hoping this week I can get myself more on some sort of schedule. Of course this will be a busy week for us in general and Will is on call so it might not run very smoothly. I am hoping to get some sort of plan for doing things on certain days each week. Such as cleaning, shopping, school time with the boys, and maybe trying to start going back to the YMCA. We have neglected that place for a long time. We will see how it goes.

We are starting the letter M this week. I have some fun ideas since Brodie loves monkeys. I will post about that as we get them done.

Happy Monday.

Happy Birthday Tony!

Today marks the 11th birthday of Tony! We had our usual birthday breakfast. Tony wanted donuts for breakfast. So, I picked up some donut holes and blueberry bagels. He was really excited about his gifts. The best gift, a Red Ryder BB gun. Jake got one for his 10th birthday and Tony has wanted one ever since. He was very happy! He was also excited to get the new Diary of a Wimpy kid book, Last Straw.
We are celebrating both of the kids birthday today at a bowling alley. Wills parents and sister and my dads side of the family will be there. It should be lots of fun.

And instead of making a cake for Tone this year he got cupcakes. Pokeballs. He thought they were pretty cool!

Sisterhood Blog Award

This afternoon I was reading all my usual blogs and I was happy and surprised to see that I was nominated for the Sisterhood Award from a fellow bloggy mom Katie at A Listmaker's Life. I have been reading Katie's blog for a little while now. She has some wonderful crafty ideas, recipes and just feel good posts. She is also starting a new blog called ABC and 123. I believe this is going to be a wonderful preschool site. It will launch next month, you should check it out.
Now, it is my turn to nominate some "sisters" to join the club!

Julia@Wondering Knits...love ya sis.
Maria@Very Blessed Mommy...you are an inspiration.
Autum@Pennypinchin momma...you are always so positive and have great ideas.
Kate@A Simple Walk...I just love reading your blog!
Fishmamma@Life as Mom...I have been reading your blog for a little while now and just today I went to your blog and read your post "Time for Mom". It made me feel really good, considering the bad day I had yesterday and the post I wrote last night! Thank you.

The rules of this award are...
1. Add the sisterhood logo to your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 5 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Link to your nominees in your post.
4. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.

Ladybug Lapbook and Craft

I finished the Ladybug lapbook I have been putting together for Brodie. He really loves it as he does all the lapbooks I've made. Drew is slowly starting to get into them and is being a little less rough with them.I made up some of my own activities with this book. Brodie really likes it when the books have cards he can take out and lay on the table. It doesn't matter what they are numbers, colors, puzzles he doesn't care. So, I made this book with counting ladybug cards. I just printed the bugs off onto cardstock, colored them, cut them and glued them onto another piece of cardstock. I made 10 cards with ladybugs on them and 10 number cards to match. I found some other ideas here at Lapbook Lessons. They have all sorts of lapbooks and you can sign up for free. Here is another good site I got some stuff off of.
Here are some of the books we read. This is the craft we did today also.

Supplies
*Paper plates
*Red paint
*Black construction paper
*Black pipe cleaners
*Lg. hole punch makes it easier to punch large circles or just do it by hand
*Glue and scissors
*Googly eyes

Paint the back of the paper plate with red paint. Allow to dry. Punch circles out of black paper. Cut a large black circle for the head and glue onto plate. Glue the googly eyes on the head. Glue circles onto body. Stick black pipe cleaners into the side of the plate for legs.
To see what other people did that was crafty this week check out Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.

Back on Track

Well I am feeling so much better today. I got some cleaning done this morning which felt good, although as of tonight you would have never known the work I did.

The little boys and I have been working on the letter "L" this week. We made some lion crafts and have been talking about lizards and ladybugs. I have almost finished the ladybug lapbook I am working on. Hopefully tomorrow they will be able to enjoy that. I will post pictures of it when it is finished. We did make it to the library tonight and got some great ladybug books to read along with about 20 other books the boys thought we needed.

Tonight I got Jake's cake done for his party tomorrow. My inspiration for him this year was his MP3 player he got for Christmas. He doesn't go anywhere without it. So, that is what I made for his cake. I always try and decorate the cakes according to their current likes. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope he likes it.

No News

Nothing new to report here. I have been down with a migraine since yesterday morning. I finally started coming around this afternoon. Thankfully Will already took the day off so he was a huge help with the kids, getting dinner ready and chores done. Hopefully tomorrow will be back to normal and I will be able to be a little bit more exciting.

Happy Birthday Jake!

Well it is official. We have a teenager in the house. Sigh...

We decided to celebrate Jakes birthday last night. Traditionally we celebrate our birthdays in the morning during breakfast. However, since Will has to leave for work at 5:30am, we decided to move it to last night. Jake didn't complain :) He liked everything he got and was a great sport at letting Brodie "help" unwrap all his gifts.He did get donuts this morning and of course we decorated the dining area for him, We will have his birthday dinner tonight. He of course has requested steak and breaded shrimp! Then Friday night he is having a slumber party with 5 of his buddies. That should be fun! Looking at him it is so hard to believe he is getting so big. I guess that means I am getting old.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This wasn't from his mother, grandmother or aunt.
This was from a girl at school.

Valentine Making

Today we have spent the day making Valentines. I cut up cards for the boys then set out an assortment of things for them to glue, cut out paper hearts, felt hearts, stickers, foam pieces, and some glitter glue! That was pretty entertaining. I think Drew sat for almost half an hour! I even got Valentines made for Will and all 4 boys.It is now snowing like mad outside right now. While it is pretty to watch, have I told you lately I AM SO READY FOR SPRING. I can't stop thinking about when it will be nice again and we can go outside everyday. It's hard to believe it was 60 degrees here a couple days ago. Now it looks like this.
I hate when Mother Nature teases.

We don't have any big plans for the weekend. Jake has a band contest tomorrow. And then we might be going up to Colo for the evening. My MIL has graciously offered to watch all 4 kids for the night. Will and I may end up just staying up there and playing cards. We haven't made up our minds. I figured everyone will be out tomorrow night. It is always fun staying up late and playing games with Wills parents and sister.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend.

Here it is...

When I am not parenting, cleaning or sleeping...this is what I am doing.
It came like this and Will turned it into this.

New Computer!

So my new computer is up and running! How exciting. Will got it all put together by himself. It is fun to sit here and play on the computer with Will right next to me playing on his. I know, we are nerds. Hopefully in the next few days Will can get some more programs on for me. Also, tomorrow I will put up a picture of what it looks like.

Love you

This was the scene this morning as Tony went down and waited for the bus. Both little boys always run up and demand hugs and kisses from him before he leaves to catch the bus each morning. This morning after he went down, they stood at the window waving and saying "Bye Tone, love you" until the bus finally came.

Lesson on Hearts

Last week we took a break from letters and did some Valentine activities. Here is some of the things we did.

We decorated cardboard hearts with scraps of pink, red and white paper. Then we hooked on pipe cleaners so we could hang them up and decorated them with glitter glue.

We also made big red hearts from construction paper and colored them with chalk. (sorry no picture)

For lunch we had heart pancakes.
Then yesterday we shaved up a bunch of pink, red and white crayons with a pencil sharpener. We emptied them into a bowl and then Brodie and Tony each got to spread the shaving onto wax paper. I ironed them and we cut them into hearts. Then we hole punched them and tied them with ribbon. You can see it hanging in the window below.

This week we are back to letters. "K" is the letter of the week.

Our weekend

We have had a good weekend. I have gotten alot of things accomplished although I feel like my list of things to do is never ending. I did get my basement cleaned up a little. I made my first cloth napkin! You can read about that here. And the most productive thing I got done was I cleaned out Jakes dresser and our big dresser and we swapped them. This is because we needed a smaller dresser to make room for the desk we got for our new computer! Yes, we are adding a new computer to the family. It was long due since the oldest four of the family are always wanting a turn on the sole computer. This will be much easier and it will be referred to as "moms computer". I am so excited!! It should be here hopefully tomorrow and then Will will need a dew days to build it and get it up and running with all my programs.

Last night Jake had a friend over. After the little boys went to bed Tony and I went to the store for a few small items. Then I surprised him with a trip to get icecream. I let him pick where we could go. Then we ended up wondering around Target before heading home. He was so thrilled. It was good to get out and spend some alone time with just him.

Today has been quiet. I took Jakes buddy home a little while ago. The little boys are laying down (not sleeping yet, may I add) Jake is watching TV and Will and Tony are outside doing this.
Target shooting with the BB gun! I have been so grateful for a few warmer days. It is weird to look outside and see the snow almost all gone. I have been laying out my garden for the year and I can't wait to get out there and start digging.

Haircuts!

Before...
After...
Now, if only we could figure something out with those cowlicks!

Jake had his schools version of "American Idol" last night. All the chorus kids participate. Why didn't you know about this you ask? Because he came home from school yesterday and told us. Nothing like last minute notice. So, obviously only one parent could attend since it really isn't something I would expect the younger two boys to sit through and there was no time to get a sitter. So, since I went last year Will went this time. Tony went with him and they all had a good time. Jake did really well. He sang "Live like you were dying" by Tim McGraw. Here is his picture. He is the third in from the left.

We told him last night that we were going to put the video Will took on the blog and he wasn't too happy with that so I will just give you the picture!

It is hard to believe that in 11 days he will be a teenager. I have no idea where the time goes. Last night when he was talking to me I realized how grown up he sounded. He is almost as tall as me now, just a few inches to go.

What can I say?
Sometimes our life is a little CrAzY!