Randomness

Thankfully the temperatures have crawled out of the singles digits and we were able to get outside and play a little bit the last few days. We all went sledding down the neighbors hill a few times. Brodie and Drew have more fun just sitting and eating snow.
We also decided to bury Will in the snow. Well actually I got buried first. Will and the younger boys buried me and then I thought it was only fair to return the favor. That red thing is his head :) We spared that.And of course in between piling snow on daddy there was more snow eating.I baked alot of bread this past week. I made 3 loaves of white bread. I am trying to find a good sandwich loaf. This is pretty close. As you can see they are all different sizes because none of my pans are the same size. I think I may be looking into new bread pans since I plan to bake a lot more bread. We will see. I also made some whole wheat bread.

And lastly, I know I post alot of pictures of the kids sleeping. It is one of my favorite times ! Here is Brodie the other night. He decided to sleep with his big bear. I love that boy.

Woodside Idol

Tony's school does a version of American Idol called Woodside Idol. His group sang Barbara Ann. Tony is the one in the middle with the bright orange shirt. Take a look/listen to the video. They did really good!

The Letter V

Over the course of the last week and a half we have been talking about the letter V. Vegetables has been our main topic. We have tasted veggies, painted with veggies, and talked about the different textures and colors of veggies. Here was the picture we did for our ABC book. I had the kids cut pictures out of magazines. We also made this craft that can be found here. Here was one of the funnest things we did this week (is funnest a word?). I think the kids thought I lost my mind when I suggested this activity. We painted with different vegetables to see what kind of shapes we would get on our paper. Drew's favorite veggie to paint with-broccoli.
Brodie's favorite veggie to paint with-carrots.
They also like swirling all the paints together to get different colors. Here is Brodie's letter practice. Our activities were quit sporadic this last couple weeks. Between sickness and broken bones! Here's to hoping next week is a little smoother!

Drew is getting over Croup and getting used to his new splint. Things are still a little crazy around here. Today we were gone most of the day running errands. I am glad I picked today to make multiple stops with the kids. The temp read -1 when I left this morning. Swell. I think I got the kids in and out of the car 5 times. Yes, that means buckling and unbuckling 10 times. Normally Drew buckles himself and I just have to check it, but it doesn't work so well with his broken arm.

We hit up some new stores I have been wanting to check out. Then we headed to the mall for the kids to play a bit at the indoor playground. Then off to the library and the grocery store. It was quit the productive day. I think we will be staying in tomorrow.

My focus with the younger kids has been on the letter V. We have been discussing vegetables. I will post some pictures of the few activites we have done. It has been very sporadic since this past week and a half has been so out of the ordinary. Hopefully we will get back to normal soon. Oh what am I saying? It's never normal around here!

Happy Birthday Tony

Monday we celebrated Tony's 12th birthday. He woke up telling me he felt so good, he felt 10 years younger! We had cinnamon rolls before he headed off to school.

After school he opened his presents. This year we got him a soccer ball and goalie net. He also got Bionicles and Halo action figures from his brothers. For his cake, I had to go with the Lego theme. He loves Legos more than anything and will spend hours building. He told me it was the best cake I ever made him (he tells me this every year :) ) He is so sweet. Tony, you are such a great kid. Your so thoughtful, caring and full of life. I hope you know how much you are loved by everyone. Happy Birthday!

Oh Drew...

"If it is going to happen, it will happen to Drew". I think I have said that at least 50 times. Well he now has another injury to add to the list. Next to the wasp attack, punctured eardrum and the stitches he can now add a broken bone. He broke his arm. Yesterday he was playing and fell off of something. Of course nobody knows what happen. Will and I were downstairs and Jake, Brodie and Drew were upstairs playing around. Next thing I know Jake is bringing me Drew who is holding his arm crying.

I really thought about taking him in yesterday but decided to wait it out and see how he did throughout the day. He never did get better. We iced it and laid low most of the day. This morning I had a very traumatic trip with him to the Pediatrician which revealed a distal radius fracture. This led to another apt. this afternoon to the Orthopedic doctor who decided to put him in this removable cast. I hope he leaves it alone, so far, so good. I was a little apprehensive about it at first but trying to hold him down for a cast would be near impossible. He needs to wear it for 4 weeks. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Getting Caught Up

I haven't posted for awhile as you can see. This was a really strange week for me. I was really sick with some sort of gastro bug for about 36 hours early in the week. That pretty much threw off the rest of the week. Moms aren't suppose to get sick!

We had a couple days where my table looked like this.We did lots of puzzles! I couldn't find energy to do much else.

We celebrated Jakes birthday on Wednesday. Finally I was starting to feel better and on Thursday I went and spoke at a Moms and Moppets meeting about couponing and money saving tips. That was pretty exciting. It was my first experience doing something like that and it went really well, even though I felt like I was rambling at times.

Friday the younger boys and I ran some much needed errands before the snow hit. Will and the older boys all took a mental health day from work and school and went out to lunch together and to the new movie Avatar. They had a good time and it was cool that they had that opportunity. Friday night we spent the evening with friends watching a movie and enjoying good company.

Today Will and I did some shopping for Tony, his birthday is Monday. 12 years! The we headed down and picked up my grain order. I am so excited because we have found a local family farm who grow and produce their own grains. I think I am going to start purchasing from them more often. I bought some 7-grain flour today and am going to try it in a loaf of bread tomorrow.

My other goals for tomorrow are to make some granola, get caught up on laundry, finalize my garden seed order and curl up with my book that is due back soon to the library.

Whew! That is my week in a nutshell!

Happy Birthday Jake!

Well it is official, Jake is 14 now. Crazy how time goes so fast. We celebrated his birthday in the evening this year, breaking the morning tradition. Here was the cake I made him. We all know the boy loves his video games.He was very excited about his gift from me and Will. A ticket to the Black Eyed Peas concert. We will be attending it with him in March. The T-shirt he is holding is letting him know we will also be buying him a real T-shirt as a souvenir at the concert! This will be his first concert, it should be quite the experience.Here is Brodie's reaction to the gift.Jake is such a bright spot in our lives. He truly is a great kid and we are lucky to be his parents. He is respectful, responsible and a genuine good person and I am so proud of him. I love you bud, Happy Birthday.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here is what I made for the kids. Stamped cards each with their own individual love quote. I had the boys read them out loud after breakfast. Then I made them each a baggie of teddy grahams with a little note attached.

I myself woke up to pink eggs, toast and cinnamon rolls this morning. All 5 of my Valentine's made me cards. Will gave me flowers and a box of Turtles (mmmm, my favorite) and Drew Bug gave me a box of chocolates too with a doggie on the lid! He picked them out special just for me!

Sometimes it's great being the only female in the house!

Valentine's Craft

I loved how these turned out! I actually decorated my wall with them because I thought they looked so cool. All you need is white paint (I used washable and added a tiny bit of water to make it not so thick), heart cookie cutters and construction paper.Just dip the cookie cutters in the paint and stamp on the paper. So easy!

This was not my decision.

Jake actually chose to get his haircut. I told him that he needed a trim, but he decided he wanted to cut it short. He wanted "something new". Here is his before shots.Are you ready for this?



Are you sure?



He looks alot different...
I really like it!! I can see his face again. The lady who cut his hair told me she thought he was gonna cry when he first saw it. You wouldn't believe the pile of hair on the floor! He wasn't too sure about it at first, but by the end of the night, I think he was getting used to it.

Is it really this bad?

Last night was haircut night at our house. Drew's hair was getting pretty long over his ears. I have been pumping him up for his haircut for a couple days now. As you know, he has never been a fan of haircuts. Well this proved to be no different. Even with the promise of a mini skittles package when he was done, he still was not going for it.I know he will probably hate me for this when he is older. Look at the picture below, his tears are actually on top of his eyelids from hanging his head up-side-down. Isn't that the saddest thing?Then there is Brodie. He doesn't mind the haircuts. Especially when there is food involved (yes, we bribe our children). Here is his before picture. His hair isn't long, but when the clippers are out, might as well do them both.Who needs the Flowby?. We made our own. (That is not a real gun on the counter by the way. We don't bribe like that! Jeesh. It is an airsoft gun that is going away for a loooong while because Jake snuck it outside without asking. He likes to pretend he is Jack Bauer.)Here is the after pictures. When I told Drew to smile he yelled "no!" Go figure.

Hearts, Hearts, and More Hearts

We finished up the letter "H" and are now working on the letter "N". When we talked about "H" I put together this heart File Folder game. There are lots of great File Folder projects found here.We also made the Love hearts that you see above the mirror. For those I just cut out hearts from cardstock and the boys used watercolors to paint them. We have been trying to keep ourselves busy inside since the weather has been so lousy outside. I think we have done every puzzle in our house at least 25 times this last week.

Even though it is snowing AGAIN, I am still in a good mood today. Even though I wanted to get to Fareway and get some lettuce and other good deals that I didn't get last week, take the kids to the library, and run a few other errands and now I can't because I am too paranoid to drive in this weather...I am still in a good mood. Even though I had a nice clean house yesterday morning and woke up to it being trashed again this morning, I am still in a good mood.

The big boys are getting out early due to the weather, Hubby will be home in a few hours from work, the little boys aren't napping. We'll see how long the good mood lasts.

Drew's First Stick People

At the top is our van. At the bottom is Drew, Brodie and Mommy. This was drawn February 5, 2010.