Drastic Measures

Before

Today was "Summer Haircut" Day. The kids and I rode bikes to the haircutting place up the street and we all lined up and got new do's.
The kids got the same haircuts, just shorter. I went REALLY short and braved a new cut.

Sliding

We have slid firmly into Summer. Am I crazy yet? Well, the kids are alive and I'm mostly sane. We've gone swimming, to the library, two parks, and rode bikes. The only problem is that I'm utterly exhausted. I think that the kids are too.

The kids have been busy riding around the neighborhood, playing the Wii, getting dirty, and generally keeping themselves occupied. By the end of the day, they practically fall into bed. Not always happily, but they have been sleeping in, which tells me they are tired.

Today we went to a park and I didn't realize that it had "water" features. My kids were the ones wearing long pants and sweatshirts completely soaking wet. Thankfully, it was warm enough to get wet. I don't think that the kids could have resisted the temptation of getting in the water.

*I know that I'm rambling at this point. It's been a busy day and I still need to figure out what's for dinner. Frozen ravioli everyone?

A Little Mii Time

We got a new game yesterday. It's the Wii Fit. I was actually excited to get it and had to wait about 5 months until it came out. Michael pre-ordered it on Amazon and it was delivered yesterday afternoon. Normally I would wait and let Michael set up the electronic toys. I couldn't wait. Emma and I set up the game and started playing. It took two minutes to get the game set up, but it was a while to go thru the Mii set up. It's not pretty when a cartoon character has a little spare tire around the middle to simulate "extra" weight.
I haven't done very many of the strength or aerobic exercises, but the balance games are a riot. I managed to snag first place in the ski jump.



Jack is trying to head soccer balls and not get hit by flying cleats or pandas. So funny to watch.

Expensive Hamburgers

Since it was Memorial Day, it seemed befitting to have a BBQ. We didn't have a grill and thought this would be an excellent reason to go shopping. (I just need an excuse to not have to cook inside)

Hello Lowes. The store had a bunch of grill already assembled and ready to go. In fact, while we were in the store three associates were taking grills from the garden area to the checkout. It looked like a parade of grills.

Several hours later and a trip to the grocery store, we had burgers and hot dogs on the grill. Michael made the comment that this was the most expensive hamburger he's eaten. I was a little slow and went; "Huh?" Then it dawned on me; "Oh, because we had to buy the grill to cook the hamburgers." (My first thought was Kobe beef and how expensive that is.)

Summer Vacation

I think that last week sent me into a tailspin. School finished on Friday. I am not sure how we're going to survive Summer.

Emma had a great year, she's so ready for first grade that she wanted to start working on her workbooks as soon as we got home on Friday. Jack...well, we have a lot of work that we need to do over the Summer. Spelling and writing are NOT his favorite subject. So, guess what we'll be working on. On the up side, I talked to Sherri and got some great ideas on how to work with Jack.

Completely unrelated to the above topic.

We went for a bike ride on Saturday. We have some good trails in town, but haven't figured out how some of them connect. We put the bikes in the back of the truck and parked at one of the trail heads. It was such a nice day (not too hot) that we rode about five miles. It was a slow ride with the kids wanting to stop and explore. Lily was so relaxed that she fell asleep about the time that we turned around to head back to the car. Michael and Emma rode their bikes from where we parked to home. Emma managed to keep up with Michael and completed about 9 miles. Pretty impressive for a 6 year old.

Familiar Face

The other night I was watching a show called Bones, and one of the characters looks familiar. It was one of those "I've seen him before but I can't remember where" moments. Then I actually watch the credits and see the name Eric Millegan. Again, I have a slight moment of recognition. That's not saying much because I'm much better at recognizing faces, and horrible at remembering names.

So I check IMDB , Eric Millegan grew up in the same town as me. Then I start to remember him, we went to high school together. He was the "chorus nerd" (I was a band geek) and in all the school plays.

It's nice to see that all the work in high school paid off for him. I think my fifteen minutes of fame came and went when our High School Marching band was in the Rose Bowl Parade. Thank goodness it came and went so early, I'd hate to find out what I would be "in" famous for now.

Park Day

Emma's class had a picnic at the park today. It wasn't too hot (in the shade), but I slathered on the sunscreen never the less. We didn't want any sunburns at our house.

This morning,, I didn't think about what Emma should wear other than her uniform. She was a little disappointed when she saw everyone else in "play" clothes. But she got over it pretty quick.One of Emma's classmates has two sisters pretty close in age and whenever they go out they dress in the same color. I got the memo that it was orange shirt day. Can you spot the oldest sister in the class photo?

Last Week of School

I am anticipating the end of school and yet dreading it. I've been in denial the last month and it was a lovely state. Let's face it, the last week of school is mostly fluff. I think the kids have a park day, a picnic, a movie day, and a board game day planned for this week.

The good news this week is that I won't be going through the homework negotiations with Jack. The bad news, I need to start organizing our Summer. (Is it too late for planning?) I will be going to Costco and perhaps the Dollar Tree to find workbooks. I have managed to get my kids excited about doing "workbooks" during the Summer. I told them that we'd have a Treasure box that they could earn things from. How many dollar toys can I bribe them with before they get bored with trying to earn them?

At least the weather feels like Summer finally. We worked outside on Saturday and all of us got sunburns. Guess I need to stock up on sunscreen while I'm at Costco.

Elfish Beauty

It's the end of the school year and we're participating in a class scrapbook for Emma's teacher. Admittedly I'm not the best at remembering to take pictures throughout the year, let alone get them printed. The page is due tomorrow and I needed to have a few pictures to slap down on the page. I took this picture this morning and I must say, Emma could be an extra in the Lord of the Ring series.

Pink

Last night we had an Enrichment activity at church. There were several crafts to sign up for, but I decided that the tutu would be the most beneficial for my household. After all, pink netting is the height of girlishness.
The tutu was advertised as a "no sew" project. Well, there was the sewing of the elastic, but I didn't even do that. I was able to finish the tutu in about an hour and that was while I was chit chatting. Unfortunately, I was only about to get one done...Emma and Lily both wanted the finished product.

So, I'll be going to buy more materials for tutu #2 this week. Emma and Lily shouldn't have to time share the tutu.

Awesome Possum

There are benefits to being the youngest. I cave a lot more with Lily then I did with the older two. When Lily saw this at the thrift store, she VERY excitedly asked; "Tan we get it?"

I know that this is a toy that will provide hours of entertainment or fighting, I haven't decided yet. Emma is still at school and Lily has the toy to herself. I suppose I should record the ensuing arguments tonight over the toy. For now, I'm going to enjoy listening to Lily play dress up.

Lily just yelled downstairs; "Awesome Possum." I have achieved cool mom status for the day.

A Few of My Favorite Things

The day after Mother's Day and the "salad plant" is still alive. Emma decided that should would continue her stellar behavior and get me a bouquet of lilacs. I love lilacs and they are in full bloom around here. I was kinda hoping that one of the bushes in the backyard would be a lilac, but I think that is not the case.

I was sorta on the fence whether I should put the salad plant in the ground, but the weatherman predicted possible snow tonight. I think I'll protect my little salad plant and keep it indoors for now. Or I could make pesto for dinner.

Clean Kids and Good Rooms

When I ask Michael or the kids ask us what we want for the impending holiday, the pat answer is "good kids and clean rooms." It should be an easy gift, but clean rooms are REALLY hard to accomplish sometimes.   Today I'm settling for clean kids and good rooms.  

Michael left on a business trip all week this afternoon.  Before he left, he pulled out all the stops for my Mother's Day breakfast.  I got to have Reese's Puff....in bed.  The kids had homemade cards and Jack even pulled off a gift.  He asked if I like salad.  I said yes.  He said, "Good, I made you a salad plant." (He planted a basil plant at scouts)

So, for a Mother's Day it was pretty good.  The kids are clean...and their rooms, well, they'll be clean tomorrow.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone.

Plan B

Plan A. I woke up this morning thinking that I was going to volunteer in Jack's class. They are having "Greek Olympics" at the park today. It sounded like fun and I could take Lily as well.

Jack must have caught some stomach bug and he didn't keep his breakfast down. Bummer for him. (We'll be washing hands like crazy so it doesn't spread)

Plan B. Take Emma for a bike ride before Michael heads to work. Work in the yard while the girls find bugs. I've been ignoring the weeds on the side of the house for long enough. During the great dig, I did find that several strawberry plants survived the winter. I'll be surprised if they actually manage to produce fruit. I should ask my neighbors what they plant, but I think that this will be the year of experimentation. We might have to blog the successes in order to remember what to plant next year. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. First I need to get plants. That might fall under "Plan C".

Do You Know the Muffin Man?

Last night as I was putting the kids in bed we nearly had meltdown. You know what I mean; yelling, screaming, fighting, tears, etc. Emma kept yelling at Lily to put her "place mat" back. I had no idea what Emma was talking about, but I had to intervene in the war of the sisters.

Fast Forward. This morning I come down stairs and the place mat reference makes much more sense. Emma and Lily made place mats for everyone to sit with at the table. Lily decided to bring hers to bed and Emma had (let's call it) a strong reaction to her idea.









Emma went all out on her place mat and lost a little bit of her creativity by the time she got to Jack's.

In the interest of having a good morning, I went ahead and made the kid's favorite breakfast. They love mini muffin and I let them eat as many as they want. They feel like they are eating a lot, but they usually only manage to eat 6 or 7.

Homework

I hate Mondays! I graduated college, I shouldn't be doing homework. Doing 2nd grade homework just proves that I didn't listen to my teachers or I'm getting Alzheimer's. It's now 8:00 pm and we're still working on homework. (Granted I took the kids swimming after school for an hour and a half) It was a downward spiral as soon as we left the pool.

"I'm hungry!" "Can we stop for food?" "What are we having for snack?"

Ugh. We left the pool at 5:00pm. It's dinner time and my kids are heckling me for food. I swear that I feed my children, but if you were to ask them...well, just don't ask them.

The kicker this week is that as I was picking up Jack from school, his teacher handed me an empty packet and said this needs to be turned in by Friday. ??!!(&^%@#&^% What? This in addition to his regular homework? It's a "ABC" book about Japan. So far, I forced Jack to write A thru K. Anything Japanese related L thru Z would be greatly appreciated.

Yardwork

I can't say that I love weeding, mowing, and trying to keep plants alive, but when it's done I feel pretty good about it. I guess my motto is "Do no harm." We'll see if our yard makes it through the summer with that in mind.

Yesterday I finally got around to starting up the mower. Surprisingly it started up after two tries. This is the mower that we bought a week after we moved here and realized that we were in charge of our own lawn. We found the mower at a yard sale around the block for $11.00 and walked it home. Anyhow... I got the lawn mowed and I'm not sure that I actually cut any grass. Parts of the lawn still have the ugly brown winter look to it, while the edges seem to be long enough to hike thru.

About a month ago I decided that bushes needed to be trimmed. I'm still hoping that the plants recover from the shock of getting flat top haircuts. The rose bushes seem hardy enough, they have leaves on them finally, but there are a few bushes out front that might have decided to die on me. I also have a tree out front that seems to have given up. That one is not entirely my fault, it looked sickly when we moved in.
The good news about the "gardening" that goes on around here is that Emma is all to happy to to help. Sure I need to teach her the difference between flowers and weeds, but that's just in the details. Emma has been putting up makeshift "bird feeders" for the birds. I guess we need to work on a real birdhouse.

What's in Your Wallet?

Yesterday, Lily and I ran around like crazy after I dropped Emma off at school. I usually try and do errands while I only have one child with me. Lily was being unusually cooperative and I was able to go to four stores. She actually kept saying; "One more store?"


At the fourth store, they had a bin of "free toys." Lily kept finding purses and then stuffing the purses with more and more toys. I had to tell her "ONE" free toy per child. I finally managed to get Lily to decide on one pink animal print purse. She loves it!

This morning she played "What's in your wallet?".
Jewelery, wild animals, and treats are the necessary items to go in her pink purse.