I love it when...

... I accidentally wash two rechargeable batteries and a Kleenex.

... the boys open up a new box of Cheerios because they didn't see the whole box of Cheerios I just opened the day before.

... Unsupervised AJ chews a whole pack of gum, one piece at a time before placing each piece on top of each other in a big gum mound on the counter.

...Unsupervised AJ finds a Tupperware container of brownies and manages to pick the tops off of them all in very little time.

...I turn my back for one quick moment while making cookies to find that AJ has leaned over the counter and using only his mouth, gobbled up a whole scoop of just placed cookie dough.

I think I need to really watch that kid.

IOWA

By now, hopefully I am in Iowa. I won't have access to a computer while here, so I will be offline for a while. However, I do have a few posts lined up, so keep checking in. Continue to pray for safety and health for us while gone, especially since I am getting over a stomach bug... Yup - early last week, it was mere saltines & Sprite for me. And pray for Marc, that he will venture into the kitchen and not eat out everyday. I'm teasin', he can make a mean DiGiorno pizza.

I think I have the route and stops all planned out well. I am trully hoping the boys sleep. a. lot. during the trip. It should be fun week visiting grandparents, great grandparents and even Aunt Kristin.

Have a great weekend.

Requesting Prayers

Just a quick post to ask for prayer. I will be taking advantage of Andrew's spring break and my open schedule during the coming week and taking the boys to Iowa to visit Grandparents. We are leaving today around noon. Marc, however, will be staying home to work. I have never made the 8 (or more) hour trip before without another adult with me. I confess, I'm a little nervous. That's a loooong trip to fly solo.

Please pray that:

• The boys do well during the long drive and that they take amazing naps.
• I don't get bored out of my mind driving that long
• Traffic is smooth and there are no hiccups
• Safety on the road & during all our stops
• No carsickness
• That I find my way with no GPS (gasp... the horror!)
• Anything else you think of that I am not right now.
• Marc will have a good & safe/healthy week also while we are gone.

Then if you would, turn right around and pray again next Wednesday for us when we return home. I would really appreciate it.

Two Wheel Practice

It's gonna be a while before he gets it, but he loves to practice.

Never thought I would see this day...

So... now I'm listening to an "oldies" station. As if Marc doesn't have enough to tease me about.

In our town we have 4 different local Christian music stations. We are very fortunate as I know many towns maybe have one, if that. And these stations vary in their "conservativeness", tempo, etc... I tend to listen to one that I really like, however, according to Marc it is the "old people" station, as it's on the more conservative side of the spectrum. I really like the other stations, too... except they play commercials and the trade-off for commercial free radio is worth the lighter fare they play. Anyway, according to my hubby I listen to "old people music".

Now just Friday night, Marc and I were blessed by our neighbors. They took the kids so we could have a much needed date night. We went to Texas Roadhouse by default (least wait of all the places we tried... we were hungry!). By the way, I think I had the BEST burger of my life Friday night. Seriously. A simple bacon cheeseburger, cooked medium with a little worcestershire sauce. Oh my! I made myself eat it all, it was that good and not the point of this post what-so-ever.

Anyway, while there, at Texas Roadhouse, naturally there was country music playing which sparked a conversation between myself and Marc. I used to be a BIG country fan. It's all I listened to for a long time and I even completed my internship here at our local (but huge) country radio station.

In our conversation, we were discussing how I used to listen to country all the time, but now I don't (due to the "old people" music I now listen to). I made the comment about how country was the best from mid-eighties to mid-nineties. I miss songs like, "Shake the Sugar Tree" by Pam Tillis or "Young Love" by Wynonna, or "Be My Baby Tonight" by John Michael Montgomery, etc...

So, Saturday morning, while cleaning, I flip through our music stations (we reactivated our DirecTV now that we have income) and guess what I found?! A "Prime Country" station: the greatest county hits of the 80's and 90's. Oh goodness... my day was made. Amazing how great music can boost your mood throughout the day.

Let the teasing begin.

F.B.A. (Future Breakdancers of America)

Thanks.

Ok, those ladies who suggested "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. I am only 3 chapters into it and I am crying!!

Book Report: Twilight Series

I'm finally finished. I completed the "Breaking Dawn" Sunday evening. I feel like it took me forever to get through these books, but I don't think I can blame the author. I was just busy and felt like I was reading maybe only a chapter a day. But now... finally, I know what all the fuss is about.

This was a good series. I struggled a bit with the first book, as I mentioned earlier. However, each book got better and better. And while still not my favorite books of all time, I find that I, like many others I've read about, actually find myself missing the Cullen Family a bit.

I have to say that I would like to see one more book added to the series. I feel like some things really only started and I would like to see a little more New Bella. I liked her. And, of course, I'd love to see how things pan out with Jacob. (I rewrote the few sentences several times trying to convey what I wanted to say without potentially giving something away... not sure I did a decent job of either.)

Anyway, now I want to see the movie. It's in our cheap theater but I haven't been able to work out a time to go. And I know it's being released to DVD this weekend, too. So hopefully soon. Although, like I am with most books-to-movies.... I almost don't want to watch it, too. I can get more frustrated with them sometimes that I do enjoy them.

It's funny... when the movie first came out, it was so foreign to me. I had never heard of the movie or the books before. And never, in a middle years, would I have guessed that I would actually want to see it. I mean it is a vampire movie.

So - overall opinion. I am glad I read them. Glad I pushed past the first book to get to the other three. Thank you, Stephanie Meyer.

Lucky Me.

This was another one of our days off... where I am not babysitting and there is no preschool. But as an added bonus... it's 69 degrees outside!!! It had been a crazy around here the previous 4-5 days, so last night on the way home from Bible Study, the boys and I brainstormed about what we could do fun today.

We got up early (not by my choice, of course) and the kiddos got to eat homemade cinnamon toast for Toasty Tuesday while watching some Playhouse Disney. I showered and cleaned the house a bit. At ten, we went to the library for a while. The boys played and picked out "the coolest book ever!" (Spiderman Easy Reader) and I picked up a few books I had requested. (One of them being "Sister's Keeper" by Piccoult. I finally finished the final Twilight book Sunday night.)

We stopped at Aldi's for a few groceries. Let me just tell you an easy way to make two young boys' day. Spring for the $1.29 box of CARS pasta. Our macaroni and cheese dinner tonight will be amazing, I can tell already. We then slapped some of our just-bought peanut butter on some bread we brought from home for a quick lunch on the go and headed to the Gardens.

We saw the butterflies again. I forgot my camera, so I took a couple of pretend pictures of them. The boys thought that was great and took pretend pictures off all the butterflies. It added a nice new little twist to the visit. Of course, with the weather being so nice, we had to hit their Children's Garden at least for a little bit.

We are now home and they are both down taking late naps. I made the Amazing Mac & Cheese, so it's all ready to pop in the oven. I also made cutout cookie dough, so it's ready to be made after dinner. One the brainstorming ideas from last night was to "make Daddy cookies". It's sounds very sweet of them and not at all self serving, I'm sure. Anyway, so we are going to make shamrock cookies with green icing.

To top it all off, we have friends coming over to take a walk with us, stay for dinner, & maybe even make cookies with us when nap times are over. The boys don't know about this part yet as it was plotted only moments ago while they slept. Sneaky mommies. I'm so looking forward to summer when we have more warmer weather and more free time for days like this.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

The Highs & Lows of Five Year Old.

You know that we are doing the "ticket" system with Andrew...he can earn tickets he can then redeem for computer time. Last Thursday, he had quite a few tickets saved up because the computer had been unavailable for a couple days in a row since it's also Marc's work computer.

Seeing he had so many tickets and that Daddy had left the computer at home that day, Andrew made it his little mission to earn ALL the tickets (35 minutes worth) before computer time. So he was helping out in every way he could think of and constantly asking me what more he could do. It was really great.

When computer time came, he was only one ticket shy of having ALL the tickets, so rather than jumping on the computer, he again asked if there was something nice he could do for me. It was so sweet that I let him have the final ticket and told him it was for staying so good during his quiet time.

So now... for the first time since we started the ticket system... Andrew had all 35 minutes of computer time! Glory day indeed. The other three boys were fast asleep... no one to bother him while he raced his Hot Wheels around the virtual track.

Only 10 minutes into his time... Daddy came home... to get the laptop. He needed to leave again with it for work. Before Marc could tell Andrew that he needed it, Andrew excited explained the whole ticket day, how much he helped me, how excited he was, etc... Marc felt awful!

Marc then explained the best he could how proud of Andrew he was for being so helpful and how sorry he was that he had to take the laptop for work. Then to make up for it in the true "daddy" way, he gave Andrew a couple cookies, turned on a "show" for him, and promised him he could finish his computer time this evening (Andrew never gets computer time in the evening.)

This seemed to work. Marc found Tom & Jerry on. Yea... Andrew actually asked us, "Who's Tom & Jerry?"... don't we feel old. Anyway, Andrew LOVES Tom & Jerry. I have never heard that kid laugh out loud so much over a show before. It's hilarious. I'm in the kitchen working, just laughing with him because it's so contagious. I just might have to start recording more Tom & Jerry shows for him.

His bags are packed, he's ready to go...

For the last several days, AJ has been on a vacation kick. And not just any vacation... it's "Vacation with Gideon" (his cousin). No kidding... out of nowhere, (we haven't been talking about vacation at all) that kid has talked non-stop about his vacation with Gideon for the last 4 days.


Many times a day he asked when we are going on vacation with Gideon. Then today, he found his backpack, loaded it up with toys, and wore it around the house for about 2 hours because he was packing to go on vacation with Gideon.

Little Celebrations for a Big Boy.

It all started Saturday. My parents came up and took Andrew shopping for much needed jeans and shoes. Then he got to pick out a present from the toy aisle. He picked this amazingly cool styrofoam remote airplane that he flies better than any of us adults.

We weren't necessarily planning on having a party-party... but that what ended up happening.

Then Sunday, we sang him "Happy Birthday" and ate cake after dinner time.

The Playworld Cake.... excellent. In fact, I had to ask where they got it, it was SO good!

Monday was his actual birthday. 1:00PM to be precise and he had a fun day planned. He got to take pumpkin muffins for a snack into school. It's the one day that he is allowed to take something sweet and very unhealthy to school and trust me, I tried to talk him into rice krispy treats, or brownies, or cupcakes with icing, or cookies with M&M's... something that's says, “celebration!” But no, he wanted to bring in pumpkin muffins... the same snack he's wanted to bring in the last 3 times it was his snack day. What can I say, it's his birthday.

Andrew and his friend, Gabe at the fastfood playland. Andrew was wearing his birthday crown from school.

AJ and I then surprised him, by taking him and his friend/classmate out to fast food/playland after school. The plan was to have one of his favorite's for dinner... enchiladas. However, when 5:30PM rolled around and the middle was still frozen, we scrapped that idea and went to Chili's for dinner. There he got to open all of the cards he had received in the mail. Finally, the evening ended at Bible Study where we brought cookies for him to share with his friends.

Opening up cards (that sing!) at Chili's.

Tuesday was our free day... meaning no babysitting and no school. So we got up and out early to head to the Gardens to see the butterflies. However, on the way the "Hot & Now" sign was up at Krispy Kreme. We couldn't resist. We visited the butterflies and the turtles and saw the new artist's exhibit before heading home later that morning.

Slideshow from Gardens

On the way home, we made a small side stop at a local university that has a walkway over a busy road. We parked and walked the walkway (the boys have always wanted to walk it, we just never had).... “squishing” the cars as we “jumped” on them. I'm sure we were a sight to oncoming traffic.

After a lunch of Chili's leftovers, we had mandatory nap time. It had been a couple days since either boy napped and with the time change, the company, the festivities... they were running on fumes. Fortunately, they both crashed this afternoon and I was able to clean and wrap presents in peace.

Opening gifts.

Tuesday evening, we went to PlayWorld as a final celebration with a couple other families. The kids played hard, we ate pizza and cake (surprisingly very good cake) and Andrew opened presents. He got some cool gifts, too. But grand finale for him was a new bike. A huge 20” bike. (Hard to believe he had completely outgrown the bike we got him for his birthday just last year).

Andrew trying out new "roller shoes". I bought them 1.5 years ago for $10 at Aldi, totally guessing on size. They fit perfectly.

Slideshow of Playworld Fun.

These last couple days have been really fun. Shouldn't everyone have four day birthdays?

Looking for book suggestions...

All right... I'm calling in my resources. I know I have readers who are on my same wavelength as far as books go.... Amie, Andrea, Dawn, Shannon... to name a few. But I'm calling for help from any and all of you.

I am almost finished with the Twilight Series. And I'll comment on those when I've finished the final book. And usually, I already have my next few books that I want to read lined up. But not this time.

Oh, I have a few authors that are my standbys, and I have a few paperbacks laying around I've never gotten to - I can always go pick up one of those, if needed, but I'd love to hear from you.

I will be taking a road trip later this month to visit Grandparents and will probably have down time. I want books to take with me (even though there is usually an endless supply of books at their home). If I need to put any titles on hold from the library, I need to do it soon. So... if you've been a reader of mine for any length of time, you know what I read. Not too sappy, suspense and plot twists are good, I'm all for a good series, real thinkers... etc...

Help me out.

Five.

Andrew – today you turned five years old. I can not believe it. I truly cannot and I will confess that I felt a little sad last night before bed as I hugged you and mentioned that it was the last time I would hug my four year old Andrew. You, however, could not be more excited to turn five and have been counting down the months, weeks, days, and finally hours for the last 6 months.

I think you were expecting this whole birthday thing to run exactly as last year and even told me how you were going to hit your pinata this time. We had to sit you down and tell you that not all birthdays are the same each year. And instead of one bigger party like last year (even though it was totally impromptu), we were going to celebrate a little at a time. Hopefully when all those little celebrations are over, I will post again with pictures of the birthday boy.

• You are totally into exciting descriptive words and your vocabulary seems to grow everyday with more of them. It's not uncommon for something to be the “Most totally coolest thing ever times one million!”


• You love anything “Hot Wheels” related. The cars, the computer games, the clothes, the gear, the music.


• You love preschool. You are not quiet a willing to give me the play by play of your day any more, but sometimes you pull something that you learned from school out of nowhere and blow me away with it. The last two weeks you learned about space and took a “Space Trip” and this next week you are learning about plants and seeds.

You and AJ wearing your "Space Helmets" in your "Spaceship"

• You love your computer time. In fact, it is what we hold over you use to motivate you to complete chores and help out with no grumbling and complaining. Your standbys are PBS.com, PlayhouseDisney.com, and of course, the current favorite, HotWheels.com.


• You love playing with your classmate/neighbor, Gabe. You see him every school day and now that the weather is nicer, you've been able to ride your bike with him the days in between, too. It's fun to see you in an environment with “peers”.


• You have lots of energy. And sometimes that energy gets a little out of control and you become a wild man. You need to work on being aware of your surrounding a little bit more... but I'm sure as a five year old... that will get better. I'm thankful for your energy – and I know all those bruised heal eventually.


• You love your brother. And while he does pick on you and antagonize you sometimes, you are still great friends and for that I am so very thankful. One of my favorite sounds is hearing you two play together... planning very seriously or giggling uncontrollably.


• You still aren't a fan of fruits and veggies. You will give us your obligatory bite, but you otherwise stick to peeled apples and carrot sticks. Although due to a recent preschool week on nutrition, you are at least more aware of what's healthy, what's not, and why you should or shouldn't eat something.


• Your favorite foods are still cheeseburgers and french fries, pizza, and of course pumpkin muffins.


• You claim your favorite song is still the “Oh No” song, by Matt Redman; but recently we've had to listen to Toby Mac's “Lose My Soul” quite a bit on YouTube. I catch you singing it around the house all the time.


• You love your Bible story at the end of each night. I'm so thankful you do. And while I think that some stories might just go over your head, I am surprised about how much you really get. I love listening to you pray. I can't describe it, but it's beautiful.

Andrew, I'm baffled at how fast the last five years have gone. Well, maybe the last four years... that first year was a doozy and felt long due to lack of sleep. But the rest has flown by. I'm so thankful for your silliness, your goofy faces, your sense of humor, your logic, you faith and so much more. Happy Birthday, Buddy.

YouData

I wanted to share with you a way that I make a little money online. I'll let you know, that it's not much and it won't make you rich. But it is legit. You do not have to wait until you earn $50 before you get paid and you get paid to your PayPal account weekly.

You are simply clicking on links that take you to websites they want you to check out. And since you fill out a profile (giving them as much or as little info as you want), the links are geared to what interests you (most of the time.)

Just to give an idea it's "potential", I've made $16.79 in the last 3 months. Like I said, nothing huge, but considering you are not doing hardly anything, it's a nice little reward.

It takes next to no time at all (seriously) and it pays for an occasional eBay purchase for me. Like I said, it's not huge money and I won't be making huge money (possible $1.00 MAX per person) if you sign up under me, but I did want to share it with you if interested.

Here is their official blurb:
I found something that I think you will like. The company's name is YouData (youdata.com). They are trying to convince consumers like us that we should be the ones controlling our own data and selling our own attention, not third parties like broadcasters, newspapers, and spammers. By creating a MeFile at YouData.com, I now control what ads I see and when I see them. Best part - I am selling my attention directly to interested advertisers, for real money. That's right, I get paid for giving them my attention. I can use the funds to buy music and video online, donate to charities, give to my favorite blogs and websites, or keep the change myself and do whatever I want with it. It's real. They pay. You should check it out.

If you are interested, feel free to click the icon above, to the right, or this link.

Good thing he's still four...

Andrew got to have his quiet time on the couch... unsupervised.

A five year old would never do something like this.

Bouncing & Shrugging

It's time for another bad-blogger, update post. To reward you for suffering through these, there are at least some pictures of the kids sprinkled throughout.

Well, we are gearing up for Marc to take his second trip to TX tomorrow. It's been a busy week. Last Friday we went to a surprise party for a friend of ours. It was his 40th and we were able to leave the kids with our neighbor, so it was a nice evening out.

The weekend entailed of replaceing our broken TV with a new one and all the wires, set-up, removal, etc... that goes with that. Surprisingly it was much more involved that I thought it would be, but I'm thankful we had a friend around who know much more than we did about what he was doing.

Sunday we went to Andrew's preschool's church to listen to him sing. It was funny. He has been singing the songs for me at home, very animated, using the hand motions, etc... But went he got on stage, he really barely sang. Mostly he bounced & shrugged. But he did a good job. I just went with my neighbor/Andrew's classmate, so that we wouldn't have to put our other kids in an unfamilier class.

Monday was preschool, errands, work around the home and Bible Study in the evening. I watched our neighbor's kids a bit on Tuesday. And today I babysat. It was SO nice outside. I was able to get the boys in the backyard for a while this morning, which seemed to make the whole day better. We also were able to take a nice walk/bike ride tonight. In fact, we lost track of time a bit and ended up eating a late dinner. Oh well. Leftovers nuke quickly.

Tonight we are just relaxing a bit, pulling things together for Marc's trip, and getting the house back in shape. I babysit again tomorrow, Friday is preschool/errands, then my parents are coming up this weekend to celebrate Andrew turning FIVE on Monday.