Family Night

Well tonight I was suppose to make 3 Cheese Baked Spaghetti for dinner but we decided to change our plans and make homemade pizzas instead. The kids always enjoy making their own pizzas and they are so yummy!We also watched Toy Story with the little boys. I just love that movie. When that was over the big boys, Will, my step-brother and myself watched The Day the Earth Stood Still. Wasn't much of a fan of that movie. It was nice to have a nice relaxing evening.

It was a gloomy, rainy day here. I am ready for the sunshine again. I did get outside this morning with the little boys to play before the weather got cold and yucky this afternoon. I got some rhubarb planted that my MIL gave me. Hopefully in the next week I can get some plants in the garden. My strawberries seem to be doing well after the transplanting even after the 5 inches of rain that fell on the the next day.

Marvelous Marble Mania

The kids have all really enjoyed the collection of marble maze pieces we have accumulated. While I am not very good at making mazes Brodie always reassures me that "you are great at this mom"! However, my greatness at marble maze making was outdone by Daddy who made a very awesome maze using almost every piece we own.

Week in Review

We had a huge week this past week. The weather was great though so that always makes everything a little better!

Here are some pictures I snapped of Jakes track meet on Thursday night. He ran the 800 in the distance medley and also ran in the 4 x 400. I was very impressed with how well he did. I was never a long distance runner, so I was really amazed.Also on Thursday my wonderful father-in-law came down and tilled our garden. I am SO excited about this. I can't wait to get planting. I did relocate my strawberries so those are back in the ground. Brodie thought it was really awesome watching grandpa work and even helped out a little himself!After tilling the garden he and Will cut down the huge tree by our shed that was dying. I was a little nervous about that but they did awesome and it came down right where they wanted it to. They cut it all up for firewood and Will got that all cleaned up today. It looks really weird not seeing that out there now.Wednesday was Earth Day and we went on a picnic over at the park and then cleaned up trash. The kids all did such a great job. We really did have a good time.We have a relatively quiet weekend planned. I am hoping it doesn't rain the whole time, so I can get some more yard work done.

Drew Bug

I just had to share this picture of Drew that was taken at Will's cousins Family Shower last weekend. Drew always amazes people with his table manners.

Update on Tony

Sorry, it is late and I had good intentions of posting tonight but it has been a long day and I am pooped! I did however remember that I forgot to post about Tonys Dr. apt the other day with the Neurologist. Everything went ok. They are going to be treating him for migraines. They think the numbness and tingling that he has been experienceing may be associated with the really bad headaches that he has been having. We return in 1 month for a follow up apt. so we will see how things go. Thanks for thinking of us.

Earth Day Treat

This will be our snack this afternoon or maybe for dessert tonight if we can wait that long! Rice Krispie Earths!

Cute Strawberry Snacks

Strawberries are one of my favorite fruits. I was so excited to see that they are on sale at my local grocery store this week for $.88 lb. You can read more about that here. I found these cute snack ideas from Family Fun and thought I would share.

Strawberry Lady Bugs
Strawberry Mice

What's Been Happening

I guess it has been awhile since I last posted here. Things have been busy.

Jake is enjoying track. He has practice each night after school. He has quite a few meets coming up. He had a band competition this past weekend. Both his group band and jazz band performance went really well. They got a 1. 1+ is the best, so they did great. Jazz band is done now for the year.

Tony has had some medical issues. He has been experiencing some random numbness and tingling sensations that have landed us in the Drs office and hospital this past week and weekend. We go tomorrow to see a neurologist. I will update everyone on how that goes tomorrow. For now, he is busy with baseball. They play 25 games this season. So most of our time is spent at the ball field.

Brodie and Drew are doing well also. Busy as usual. Their attention spans right now don't even exist so I am constantly trying to find new things to do with them. The only real enjoyment at the moment is anytime that is spent outside playing on their bikes!

Will has been busy with different projects. He is on call this week for work so that always keeps him pretty close to home. I did snap these pictures the other night of Brodie and Drew helping him change the plugs on the van.Tony playing with his remote control car and Brodie chasing it around on his bike.We also did get some more bird feeders made this past weekend.I have some fun stuff planned for Earth Day including some "Earth" shaped rice crispie treats for dessert. Today I was trying to talk to Brodie about the earth and he kept saying "I want to go there". I don't think he ever got the picture that we are already there!

Earth Day

Earth Day is April 22. I have been thinking alot about this day because I think it is important for my kids to be aware of our earth and take steps to help take care of it. I was thinking that we could do something special as a family on this day. And since it is going to be family night (Wednesday) it will work out perfect! My thought right now is to go to the park next door to us and pick up trash as one activity we can do together.

I also found some great websites of things to do with your children. From crafts, to songs, to coloring pages there is lots of things to do. Here are a couple of sites you can check out if your looking for things to do.

DLTK's Earth Day Activites
Enchanted Learning
Making Friends (craft ideas)
Kaboose
About.com

What about you? Do you have any plans for Earth Day? I would love to hear about them.

The little boys have been very anti-crafts lately so you will be seeing less of our craftiness I guess for a little while! I have lots of little projects planned but they seem to be against anything that has to do with being artsy! Sooo, we have been spending the last couple weeks or so just playing cars, legos, make believe cooking and so on and spending lots of time outside.

I suppose this is just a phase right? Has anyone dealt with this with their little ones? I always have these great ideas (or at least I think they are) for a craft or something fun to do and they show no interest. They would much rather throw the cushions off the couch and wrestle...

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Lapbook

Here is another lapbook that I made for Brodie. I am getting quite the collection!
I printed the cover here. The top left is a shadow matching game and a cookie matching game. Under that on the bottom is a picture of the anatomy of a mouse. On the top right I have a paper plate that I cut out and it is a "how many" game. I cut out little cookies and I will write down a number and Brodie will have to count out the number of cookies and place them on the plate. Under that is a story wheel of the book. If you are interested in this lapbook you can go here to find the files. There are other things you can add to this book as well. Your not limited to just what I have showed you.

Is it Monday Already?

I can't believe it is Monday already. We had such a busy weekend, I feel like we need just one more day so we can rest! I hope everyone had a great Easter. I know we did.

Friday we had our friends over for dinner. It was great to spend some time with them and of course their little boy who is now almost 8 months old.

Saturday we started off the day nice and early. Tony had opening ceremonies for baseball at 9am. Then pictures followed and then he had 2 games, one at 10am and then one at noon. There was 10 minutes in between games for him to eat lunch. It was crazy. So we spent about 6 hours at the ball park Saturday afternoon. We came home and Drew took a quick nap while Tony, Brodie and I made it just in time to see the Pony Express go by. Bad mommy didn't have her camera but I know my SIL did so maybe she will get some good pics to share. When Drew woke up we spent the rest of the afternoon decorating Easter eggs.We spent the evening outside and Wills sister and parents came over for dinner. They brought the kids some kites, so that was a great activity. We played cards and had a great time until Brodie woke up suddenly with a horrible croupy cough at about 10:30pm. He was so bad he was unable to catch his breath. We took him into the steamy shower and then outside twice and he did show some improvement but I was still worried that he seemed to be struggling so much to breath. I called the oncall nurse who directed us to the ER. There he got a dose of steroids and is now doing so much better. We didn't get home till about 12:45am. Thankfully Wills family was there to stay with the other kids.
So, with little sleep (about 3 1/2 hrs) we woke up Sunday morning to excited boys. "The Easter Bunny came!!!" rang loudly throughout the house. The kids made a mad dash outside to pick up eggs, candy and find their baskets. Unfortunately I never did get a good picture of Drew bug with his basket. He got a book and squirt gun too just like his big brothers.
I thought this picture was funny of Brodie sorting all his treasurers into piles.The rest of Sunday was spent quietly. Both the little boys were pretty miserable with coughs and runny noses. I was just plain tired so I took a nap. Daddy played trains with the 3 younger kids and watched a movie with Jake. Sunday evening we spent at my moms with my brother and sisters family eating a wonderful Prime Rib dinner. We headed out early to get the younger kids to bed. It was a pretty eventful weekend. Hopefully our week will be quieter, but I am sure that is wishful thinking!

I will be taking the remainder of the weekend off to enjoy some family time. Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Easter!

Photography Session

The other day I had a headache so I laid down when the little boys did in the afternoon. Brodie has been phasing out of napping for about the last 6 months. I still have him have "quiet time". He usually sits in my bedroom and plays with his cars. Well on this particular day I fell asleep and of course he didn't. While I was asleep he decided to try out his photography skills. He took about 25 pictures on my camera. Here are a few...


He got his favorites covered. His cars and his beloved bear!

Family Night

We had a really good family night tonight. For those of you who don't know we have a Family Night every Wednesday night. Nothing can be planned on Wednesdays, this day is devoted to spending time together.

This afternoon was really nice out so Will got the compost bins put together. He did a really good job. I think they are going to work perfectly. Once we got them all staked in the ground we decided to move it. I guess I didn't think about the possible smell and animal attraction so we moved it away from the garden and over to the woods. So other than that small set back it went pretty smoothly!We had pancakes for dinner. I made them from scratch and they were really good. After dinner we headed out to the Carney Marsh for a walk. It was really cool and the boys had a great time. We feed the ducks and the swans. Apparently on the other side of the pond was a sign that read no feeding the wildlife. Oops. Now we know.We were surprised to find this egg just laying on the gravel next to the marsh.Here is Drew, as always, walking forwards but looking behind him. No wonder the kid runs into everything. I really thought he was going in the water tonight on multiple occasions but we made it out of there with just wet shoes.We ended the night with pumpkin bars for dessert. One of my favorites. It was nice to be out enjoying the evening. Will commented that we need to do this more often. Now that the weather is finally starting to get nicer, I think we will.

Easter Egg and Chick

Here is yet another craft we did with this chick. I cut out large egg shapes out of construction paper. The boys decorated the eggs with markers and some stickers. They colored their chick and then I cut it out for them, cut the egg in half and glued on the chick. I think this will be the last chick craft. The boys are getting tired of seeing him!