TGIF!

This has been a long week for a short week.

Princess didn't have school on Monday, and yet this week has drug on and on and on. I am still trying to shake this cough I have had for several months. Apparently the allergens that run wild in this city have chosen this year to attack me. Not really, but it feels like it. People with bad allergies have told me that they lived here several years before the allergens finally caught up with them. That must be what happened to me. I was up for at least an hour coughing last night. I am tired BUT I am still heading for the gym. :) More later.

TGIF!

The boys and I just got back from MOPS. It was a wonderful time as usual. The boys were really good and after the meeting we met MomOf2Boys outside for a picnic lunch. It was nice and relatively cool in the shade. The boys had fun playing and we had fun chatting. We don't got to Lifetime Fitness on Fridays. One week from today my Mom will be in town and we are counting the days! Princess will be home in about a half and hour so I better get back to getting the house in shape for the weekend.

Speaking of the weekend, we have been invited to play cards over at another family's house. We get together with them every once and a while. They have a daughter a couple of years older that Princess and a son who is a freshman in high school. The boys just adore him! Pitch is usually the name of the game but sometimes we can talk them into playing euchre, a game near and dear to my heart because we play it every time we go home.

Have a great weekend!

TGIF!

This morning was busy. We found out last night that Princess was going to be in her school's patriotic assembly this morning! Very cool!

Since she was in it, I took the boys over to the school this morning so we could watch her. They were actually very good! They acted up a little bit but they are 2 1/2 and 4 so what do you do?!

After that we headed over to the church to help out at MOPS. I worked in a classroom with 7 15-20 month olds. They were very cute!

When we got home, it was time for naps for the boys and house cleaning for MomOf3.

TGIF!

Friday Night, DadOf3's Party

We had a nice Friday night. Princess wanted to decorate for DadOf3's birthday and I thought, "what the heck"! It was a good chance for them to focus on someone else's birthday. DadOf3 got a call from his side of the family that night. Here are some pictures of the decorations.

Still Barf Free!

We are still barf free down here in FamilyOf5Land. Thank goodness! It was not the greatest day to head to the park but head to the park we did. MomOf2Boys was there with JW and JR.



<--Prince and Princess Digging at the park










<---MomOf2Boys six year old
















<---MomOf2Boys three and a half year old












<---Knight on the tire swing. He didn't want to get off today!















<---Princess is very strong and can do the monkey bars all the way across the playset!











<---Princess and Prince took turns pushing the tire swing!

TGIF, Park Day, Quiet Time

TGIF! It has been a good Friday here in FamilyOf5 Land. The kids and I headed to the park this morning and stayed for about 2 1/2 hours. It was a warm day, but the kids had lots of fun digging in the sand and playing on the playground equiptment. The Knight is getting more and more content to stay in one spot and play as opposed to running for the hills every 5 minutes. The Prince had a great time sharing the shovels we brought from our house. We brought 6 shovels for 3 kids with every intent of sharing, and share we did. It is neat to sit back and see how the kids work out a fair process for sharing things. We had 9 kids in our group and others not in our group wanting to share, and there were no fights over the shovels! Yee haw! The Princess, being the oldest of our group, made sure that everyone shared and everyone got a turn. A natural leader! This afternoon, the boys napped while Princess stayed up and worked on her new reading computer game. She is getting pretty good at it. I was hoping for a bit of a break but alack and alas that was not meant to be. The Princess also painted a bear mask. We hope to write a little play using the bear mask and videotape it for the Grandparents next week! That will be fun if it works out! Tonight after supper, DadOf3 and I took the kiddos for a nice, long walk. It was hot, and we had lots of complaining at first but after the initial whining, we were good to go. When we got home, DadOf3 lowered our basketball hoop so the Prince and the Princess could practice shooting hoops! They each made several shots and wanted to make more! That will be fun to do in the mornings while we have shade in the front yard! After baths, the kids are all now tucked up in bed and it is time for a little quiet time for MomOf3 and DadOf3. TGIF! It is hard to believe (because I am actually pretty tired tonight) but I only got 11500 steps on my pedometer today. That is far below my high of 23000+ last week. We didn't go walking the trails at the park because the mosquitoes were out this morning. Another day!

Friday Night

TGIF once again! This is the Princess's last Friday of the school year. She only has 4 days of school left...wow! Where does the time go? I am so looking forward to NOT getting up at 6:00 every weekday! Of course the Prince will see to it that I am up by 7:00 every day but I may be able to bribe him into climbing in with me and watching a Scooby Doo or something while I catch a few more winks. :) The boys and I got groceries this morning and they were pretty good. The Prince asked if we could get a car cart and my answer was "Absolutely not!" I know, Iknow, I am a mean Mommy, but when the Prince and the Knight sit together in a cart, bad things happen. Someone ends up getting hit, kicked, or pinched. I stand by my choice because we made it out of the grocery store alive! The Prince had one meltdown but it ended up being kind of positive, at least for me. The Knight dropped a box of crackers on the Prince. It was a box of Townhouse crackers, nothing too heavy. Well, the Prince took offense and burst into tears. I waited for him calm down and then asked him if it really hurt all that bad. He wiped his eyes, thought about it for a minute, and said "no". We just kept on shopping. When we were done shopping and heading out the door, I had a lady stop me and compliment me on how I handled the situation. Hey! I will take it! Usually I get glares and sideways glances from strangers. A compliment to a mom of a 2 year old boy and an almost 4 year old boy is worth its weight in gold! A banner day, indeed!

Today DadOf3 came home for lunch and it was so beautiful outside that we had to take the boys out to play. DadOf3 and the Prince practiced playing baseball for a while and then we moved on to the backyard so DadOf3 could eat his lunch. Prince was not happy and threw a little hissy fit. After some negotiations, he decided that being in the backyard was better than going up early to nap and all was well once again.

Tonight we headed out to one of our favorite restaurants for supper. The kids were pretty good, despite the fact that I had to take kids to the bathroom three times. Oh well - when you gotta go, you gotta go!

Friday Night

We had a good Friday night. After the Prince, the Knight and I picked up Princess from school, we came home and had some ice cream. Princess fell asleep on the couch. She was just so upset about her flip flop and I think all of the crying plus the big, busy day yesterday wore her out! I wanted to add a picture of the fire truck spraying the kids with water from Track And Field Day and a picture of Princess asleep on the couch. What a busy day!

The Witching Hour

A friend of mine describes the Witching Hour at her house as the hour right before bedtime. For our family, it is the hour before supper, usually between 5:00 and 6:00. And let me tell you right now that it is not the kids who are in danger of turning green and taking a broomstick out for a spin. The trick is finding the right amout of snacks to give the kids without filling them up to the point where they do not eat their supper. The problem lies in the fact that I like to have us all eat together every night. DadOf3's job does not always let him get home at the same time every night. Some nights (like last night) he is home at 4:30. Some nights (tonight) he is not home and it is already after 6. The kids have been bickering and snipping at each other for the last hour. It is either feed them or put a call into the neighborhood black cat and dust off my broomstick! Bon apetite!

Friday of GrandmaOf4's Visit

Friday was a busy day for us. Princess went to school as usual, then I took GrandmaOf4 and the boys to MOPS. It was our last MOPS meeting of the year and our group brought hot food so I didn't want to skip. Plus, I was elected Secretary of the group and they were going to announce it on Friday. It was fun to have Mom there for that! The boys handled Moppets very well with no fussing or crying at all. Friday night we made chicken fajitas that Mom and I had made at Dream Dinners Thursday night. They were declared delicious by all of the adults and too spicy by all of the kids. After supper we went outside to play in the backyard and show GrandmaOf4 some of the changes that we had made to the backyard since she had last been here. The kids had fun playing on the tireswing and vying for Grandma's attention. After that, we went for a nice, long walk through the neighborhood. The kids did great! The Prince rode his trike the entire way. They were tired when we got home. It was good for everyone and I got over 15,000 steps on my pedometer! While on our walk we ran into the miniature horse that lives in our neighborhood. We do not know if he is friendly or not so we didn't get very close - just close enough to take his picture! When we got back inside, it was allowance time. The Prince and the Princess both spent their allowance money this week. MomOf3 had stocked the store full of some new items. The temptation was too great. The Prince and the Princess had a sleepover Friday night and they did a good job. The Princess fell asleep right away but the Prince came down a couple of times. I think he was just bored after the Princess fell asleep! The Knight slept like a baby!

Friday Night

Every Friday night is allowance time at our house. The big kids each earn $0.25 per week. DadOf3 and I have put together a little store of items that they can buy with their money or save it until the next week when there might be something even better in the store. The Princess has become quite a wealthy young lady lately with all of her toothfairy money! At $1 per tooth, she has been able to buy some neat things like a jump rope, a pair of goggles, and some candy. The Prince likes to save his money and just buy bubble gum. The Knight is a little too young for allowance. We started the Prince after he kept his pull-up dry every day during nap time. That was about 3 years old. We had a pretty laid back kind of night Friday night. We turned on some music and DadOf3 and the Princess took a spin or two around the living room. See DadOf3 dipping the Princess? It just melted my heart. :) TGIF!

Heading out for some fun - TGIF!

The Prince, the Knight, and I are heading out for some fun this morning with my MOPS group. We are heading out to a little park that has cow statues and a pond with ducks. We will bring some old bread and feed the birdies. It will be interesting to see how the Knight does with this. He tends to migrate towards water and then directly into the water. I had better bring a change of clothes now that I think about it. I'll bring the camera and let you know how it goes. (BTW, I did get 20000 steps in on Wednesday! Woo hoo! A new record!) It is going to be another gorgeous day here - 80 degrees and sunny. We had another rough morning with the Princess. She does not like to have anyone awake when she wakes up on school days except me. She gets mad at the Prince when he comes downstairs early and basically tells him to go back up. Well, we amended our Behavior chart to include early morning behavior too. She was moved to OOPS this morning after not being kind to the Prince. It made for about a 40 minute fight which left about 20 minutes for her to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush her teeth, go potty, and put on her shoes. NOT a fun way to start the day. We had no time to read which really bums me out. The Princess is actually reading! She is not even 6 years old yet. I love to hear her read to me. On a good day when we get up at 6:00AM, she is done getting ready by 6:30 and we have an entire 1/2 hour to read together. Days like this bum me out because I feel like she missed out on some good reading practice. We are going to keep up the reading over the summer. I am going to have her write letters to her friends, cousins, and grandparents through the summer to keep up with her writing. After the Princess got on the school bus, the boys and I settled in for the day. They have had breakfast and are now watching Cars. I wanted to get a picture of the Prince this morning with his beloved tractors. It took me three tries to get a good shot. I was just going to put in the good one but then I thought showing the entire process could be amusing. Have a good day!

At the Lady Bug Picnic!

Wow! What a day this has been! After MOPS this morning, I brought the boys home and then put them up for naps. After 15 minutes to change out of my nice clothes to jean shorts and a t-shirt, DadOf3 came home to relieve me. I headed out to the school and started tying Ladybug wings onto Kindergarteners! Aren't they cute? They put on their wings and we headed out to parade through the school. The Kindergarteners weaved in and out of classrooms, the gym, the halls, and the cafeteria. They made their wings fly and laughed all the way! Afterward, they headed outside to eat some aphids (grapes) because that is what Ladybugs eat! They sat around a little table just like the Ladybugs in the video clip I added yesterday. After the Princess ate the aphids, I was able to bring my little girl home for the weekend. DadOf3 had a meeting at 3:00 and we got him there on time. DadOf3 is going to have to be out of town one day next week. I cannot complain too loudly because he only has to travel about once every year. Princess had a fun time being a Ladybug

MOPS and the Lady Bug Picnic

Hello again! We have had a busy morning. The Prince, the Knight, and I went to MOPS this morning. We saw MomOf2Boys there. We were only able to chat for a few minutes but it was nice to see her nonetheless! Today was MOPS Tea and Treasures. Three women got up and talked about their walk as Christians. It was very moving. I am always awed by the struggles some people have to face in their lives. That they came through it so well speaks volumes for them. The Prince and the Knight had fun at MOPPETTS. This is where the kids go while their Mommies go to MOPS. When the Prince was little he would scream and cry for almost the entire 4 hours we were there. I would send MomOf2Boys down to check on him. The Knight fussed a lot earlier this year but then when he turned 2 something just seemed to click in him. Both at MOPS and at Sunday School it was as if he realized that he was just going to play for a while and then we would come back for him. He went right in today. Niether boy cried or fussed and a good time was had by all! DadOf3 is coming home today to watch the boys while I go to the Princess's Ladybug Picnic. It should be fun! I will come back with pictures and stories I am sure!