Wordless Wednesday: "I'm a Ductor" (Conductor)

Think he's been watching Mommy at work too much?

Weekend Top Five 1/19/09

Another somewhat uneventful weekend. We have about had it with the kitten and have begun in earnest trying to find him a new home. Noah is very upset and I am not sure how to go about this without scarring him for life. More about that later.
The other non-event for the weekend is that a couple of weeks ago, we made a promise to Noah that we would leave the computer completely off on Saturdays. It made us show up at a restaurant on Saturday that wasn't open for another two hours, because usually we would check the website before we go anywhere new. But I think it is a worthy commitment to the boys and shows them that we really do think that they are more important than a computer screen

So here were the top five of the weekend.

5. Friday Lunch Mom

Usually when I go in for Friday lunch, Mrs. T does a little computer work and then leaves for lunch while I take the class outside for recess. Since they couldn't go out for recess, they had it in the classroom. Mrs. T left and the kids were a bit rowdy so I started a hangman game on the board while they were eating. They loved it and when they were finished eating, started getting out other games to play with me.

Mrs. T hadn't left after all and came back a few minutes later. I decided to stay anyway and spent the entire recess time teaching five kids how to play chess. It was quite fun for everyone and I felt bad when I looked up at the clock and noticed that recess was supposed to have ended five minutes earlier and neither myself nor Mrs. T had noticed. She was cracking up because the room was so quiet that she wasn't even watching the clock.

4. Friday Movie Night

I decided that if we are leaving for Disney in eight weeks, we should probably be familiar with Disney characters. I generally limiit Disney movies in our house. They really can be quite inappropriate for children. Violence, rude talking, scary situations, etc. and it drives me nuts. But nevertheless, riding a ride centered around a character would make much more sense if the kids are familiar with them.So we rented Peter Pan to prepare for Peter Pan's Flight.




3. Gymnastics/ Dance Class

Noah had the regular teacher this week and she kept them moving big time. They did all kinds of running, jumping, swinging and it was fun to watch Noah having such a great time.

This is my best shot from his class this week. I finally found a setting that works for these classes






I didn't really get great pictures of Aaron but he at least got to jump on the mini trampoline and hang on the bar before they went into their dance portion this week.


I did find out that the last class we will be able to come in and watch and take pictures of the little "routine" he is learning.





2. Saturday Library Program

The library has programs each Saturday until the middle of February. I think we will leave Aaron home for a nap for the rest of them because he was quite grumpy, but Noah loved it.

Each week has a different theme, and this week's theme was "nature." The boys made bird feeders from pine cones, peanut butter, and birdseed



Proud Aaron with hat head.












and they "planted" bean seeds in paper towel jars. I don't have a whole lot of hope for them growing, but the kids are enjoying imagining them doing so and I don't want to burst their bubble. It would be neat if they do grow. Maybe I'll have to report on them in a few weeks and let you all know.

Noah pouring his own water





And Aaron was excited to hang the bird food outside and sit on the porch waiting for the birds (that never came, of course)












1. Snowy Sunday

Steve had a singing performance Sunday afternoon and took the van so we stayed at home. It was finally warm enough to get outside to play for awhile.

Noah desperately wanted to make a snowman but the snow wasn't wet enough so he found our "snowman making kit" in the garage and made it his own way...using a snow pile on the edge of the driveway

snowman kit courtesy of Chris at Dad of Divas







and Aaron was happy to finally swing, even though the snow came all the way up to the bottom of the swing

















This week will be an interesting one. It may be Aaron's last week of preschool as he's the star of the week, which is one of the two things I was waiting for. Both kids are bringing Pumpkin for show and tell this week, as I will be feverishly seeking a new home for him and trying to find a way to ease Noah's pain along the way. We also will be getting Noah's report card this week.

As always, let me know if you played along this week.

Have a great Monday!

Photo Story Friday: Breaking A Parenting Rule

I read a study somewhere that if a family eats at least seven meals a week together, the likelihood of children finishing high school is astronomically higher. It makes sense, taking time as a family to talk about the day.




During the weekend, we do a really good job about eating together at lunch and dinner pretty much every weekend, since we're all home and budgeting requires us to plan our meals for the weekend ahead anyway.


We have a great prayer song that we have been singing since the boys were newborns and the boys get upset if we don't sing it before a meal.




The week is a different story:

Breakfast doesn't work. Steve is already gone, I am running around getting stuff ready (like backpacks, take home folders, and lunches) and the boys are sitting separate because morning is the time that they pick fights with each other, for some reason.

For supper, Steve is a single parent while I am teaching, but he does a pretty good job (most nights of eating at the table with boys. As far as I'm concerned, that counts.

Lunch is usually Aaron and me, and I too make an effort for the two of us to sit together and eat talking about how preschool went that morning. I think that counts too.

Now, I need to turn our attention somewhere else. But I'll get back to this in a minute, I promise.

We live in a pretty old and drafty house. We have had to make some adjustments to make it livable while our temps are hanging out in the single digits.

We have tried that plastic covering at times, but it doesn't seem to work too well and the kitten would probably rip it with 2.3 seconds of putting it up anyway.

We have a very large picture window in our living room. Since I hung curtains, the temperature in that room is comfortable, but we always have to have the curtains closed, which makes it always feel so dark and I muss the sunlight.









Our upstairs dormer room runs the length of the house with a window on either end. It is very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. We put blinds on the windows to try to make it a little warmer but it doesn't work that well.






( I just noticed this picture uploaded upside down and I already deleted the pics....it still gets the point across)








So if you open up the blinds, this is what you'll find

Yup, I have had to stuff a twin comforter in each window to attempt insulation. At least ice doesn't gather on the inside of the windows anymore. But once again, the bedroom is extremely dark, adding to the somber feel of our house.

But it is a little warmer.













Let's go back to the previous story now, shall we?

Remember how I was telling about how we have been somewhat good about family meals?

This is how my son has eaten his lunch every day this week




Never mind his clothes. It was pajama day at school









You want to know why?




That's ONE....TWO...
















THREE...FOUR...FIVE...









Five uncovered windows in our kitchen. In our little tiny house, we have a HUGE , bright, cheery kitchen. The happiest looking room in the house. (my pretty green paint job doesn't hurt either :) )

What else is it?

FREEZING!

This kitchen is easily at least 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house. I actually have blogged way less than usual just because my right hand seems to get frozen numb most of the time while I'm at the computer. My kids have not been allowed to do as many crafts as they want because I don't want them (or myself) to freeze.

I know the solution is to buy curtains for the kitchen, which would look nice and definitely warm it up, but with some outstanding debts that are seriously pressing, the last thing I can do is blow $50 on curtains.

So until it gets warm again, I am quite sure there will be many more "picnics" in the living room.

I console myself by saying, at least we're still all together.

Thursday Thirteen: Generic No-No's

I am cheap. No question about it. I need to save a buck wherever I can. But from experience I have learned that there are places you can and place you absolutely CANNOT go generic. Here are thirteen things that I will NOT go generic.




1. Cat Litter (Fresh Step, all the rest leave too much residue)
2. Macaroni and Cheese (Kraft deluxe)
3. Maxi Pads (Always with wings)
4. Deodorant (courtesy of my husband...he says generic falls apart)
5. Canned Vegetables (generic have yucky hard pieces)
6. Canned fruit (generic is too stringy)
7. Toilet Paper (Scott's 1-ply is the only one that doesn't clog out toilet)
8. Jelly (Smuckers Squeeze is the only low sugar one that has no red dye)
9. Peanut Butter (Jif is the easiest to spread on bread)
10. Yogurt (Yoplait Kids or Dannon Light and Fit are the only ones that have no red dye and are low in sugar)
11. Quaker Granola bars (the generic don't have low sugar versions)
12. Diet Soda (generics just tastes icky)
13. Pull Ups (Aaron has a big bladder at night)

Do you agree. Do you have others that I didn't list that need honorable mentions?



Thanks to Jenn at My Kids Are My World for doing this T13 post last week on new T13 headers.

Believer in Magic

Have you ever blogged a story just so that you had it for your own memory for the future? This is one of those special stories that I think is so beautiful but it may be only in my mind.

As you know, I have a six year old named Noah. He is in first grade and way too smart for his own good.

He always wants to know how things work and is a very concrete thinker, just like his mommy.

So when the discussion in school centered around the existence of Santa Claus, Noah came home and was very deliberate in his questioning as to the existence of Santa.

Before I had kids, I actually did NOT want to use Santa. But I got overruled by pretty much everyone and Santa has been given credence in our home.

Christmas 2005




So when Noah came to me and said "Mommy, S doesn't believe in Santa and her parents buy her presents, so why should I believe?" I told him that those who don't believe in Santa get presents from their parents and those who do believe in Santa get presents from Santa and their parents.

I figured from then on the only reason he believed in Santa was to get more stuff. Which was fine for now. At least he played along for the sake of his little brother.

Noah 2006

Then came Christmas morning.
(Now is when the actual sweet story starts)

When we put our Christmas decorations up each year, we put them on a timer to come on around 5:00 PM each night and go off around 11:00.

But on Christmas Eve before I went to bed, I thought it would be fun to set the timer to come on around 6:45 AM so the kids knew when it was late enough for them to get up.

Little did I know that my sneaky 6 year old was intending to get up and see Santa for himself.

Around 5:45 AM, Noah came into our bedroom (thinking it was still the middle of the night and that Santa hadn't come yet) and told us that he was going to sleep on the couch and wait for Santa. Steve did the same thing every year when he was a little boy so we gave Noah the go ahead to sleep on the couch.

Aaron 2007




Our living room is very dark and there weren't that many presents this year so Noah didn't see anything under the tree in the dark, assumed Santa hadn't been there yet, and set up a little bed for himself on the couch.

I don't know if he fell back asleep or not, but around 6:45, MAGIC HAPPENED!

Suddenly, all of the Christmas lights magically came on and there were presents under the tree.

Santa had come right before his very eyes!


Christmas 2008




At bedtime Christmas night, when I asked Noah what was his favorite part of Christmas, assuming he would rattle off his favorite gifts, his answer surprised me:

"The best part of Christmas was that I got to see Santa"

He is now a full believer.

Storytime

Steve took some pictures tonight. I generally avoid the camera like the plague, given my current weight situation, but these pictures turned out so cute that it made me put a story together in my head.

Books and reading have always been an important part of our children's lives. We were those parents that read to our babies the day they came home from the hospital. We would always seek out books that babies would enjoy and Noah, especially, had definite favorites.








It got harder trying to read to two of them as they got older, but we always made it work.












Noah was always more interested than Aaron at sitting and listening and he would sit for twenty minutes or more WAY before he even turned a year old.

Aaron still takes a little more coaxing and after hearing the story once, he would rather "read" it himself most of the time.






And they can often be found sitting and reading together through no parental suggestion.












Bedtime has always included books. When I am home for bedtime, we split them for one on one reading, which I think both of the boys cherish.

In the last few months, I have expanded things with Noah. Lately, I have had him read a book to me, and then I will read to him. I hope as he continues to grow as a reader, he will continue to enjoy being read to as well.

So as he was reading his book tonight, Aaron came running out from his bath and interrupting, so I told him that if he wanted to stay in the living room, he needed to join Noah and me on the couch. So up he climbed.









And soon he was interested as I helped Noah with a difficult word in the story












Until he finally gave up and snuggled up with his buddy Elmo to listen












This last one will be my favorite one for awhile. Have a great day!

Weekend Top Five 1/12/09

Quite the uneventful weekend in our household. The boys are getting further and further behind in their sleep now that school is back in session. I think that's why they were so well behaved over break. We're still putting them to bed nice and early (lights out by 7:30) but they still don't go to sleep until quite a bit later most of the time, even when they have been yawning all day.



So for that reason, we really didn't do much this weekend...they're just getting too grumpy.
On top of that, Aaron has picked up a nasty cough so I am limiting his exposure to others anyway. So, for my top five, I came up with:

5. Friday Morning blast from the past

Aaron and I went to the mall for a quick stop and I ran into someone who used to be a pretty good friend and then as we went into store, I ran into a parent of a child that didn't return to Noah's school this year. It was weird running into not one, but two people from the recent past that I often wonder about. One of them I have even connected with on facebook

4. Friday computer woes

Speaking of facebook (above), it turns out that when that virus hit our computer, the hacker actually installed bad software on our computer. We got an email from Comcast saying our computer was sending out spam. It had to be completely stripped and reloaded. So I spent most of the afternoon Friday changing my email settings and reader sites to prepare for the BIG WASH.

3. Saturday gymnastics and dance classes

I decided to sign Noah up for an all-boys trampoline class through the Community Education program. I got a call saying that they didn't have enough kids so they would put him into a regular beginners class. He was a little more hesitant, but ended up loving it.

It's quite challenging to take pictures through glass with no flash, but I got a few that turned out okay. He is excited to go next week since they are going to be swinging on ropes.











He wasn't quite sure about crawling on the balance beam, but he really tried his best and I was proud of him












I decided that since we had to be there anyway, I would check to see if there was a class for Aaron at the same time. There was one for three and four year olds that was a combination of gymnastics and dance. He would be the only boy so I wasn't sure, but I went ahead and signed him up. He had fun, but I couldn't get any pictures since the dance part is done in a room with no windows and the window to the gymnastics part has a covering making it nearly impossible to take pictures. I hope they will let us in at some point to get some pictures before the class is over.

2. Church and Cherubs

I am quite upset that I don't have a picture from Cherubs singing this morning. Aaron decided to participate with Noah in choir singing in front of church and they both sang out amazingly. It was awesome!

1. Creativity

I know it's not a big deal, but I always seize the opportunity to share Noah's creativity. Since we were home most of the weekend, the boys had a lot of time to play in the house. I came into the kitchen from somewhere (I don't know where) and found him taping paper together and creating a landing strip for the transformer he conned Aaron out of. It is complete with a label for airport and a hospital (I'm not sure why)











I hope you all had a great weekend too. I don't know if anything interesting is happening this week to share. Possibly the joy of paying December's mortgage.

Have a great week and as always, please let me know if you post about your top five this weekend.