An Afternoon At The Beach

We went to the beach while Jane was here. She loves the beach and my boys were only too happy to show her ours. I should have put them in swimming pants, but I was sure I was only going to let them gets their toes barely in the water. Needless to say, that did not work and we took home two little boys with wet shirts, wet pants, covered in wet sand, and GREAT BIG SMILES!

Little Artist

Kenny love to draw. He is very good at it for a child his age. When he creates a picture, he usually fills the entire paper with color- no white spots left anywhere. And he draws everything- a logo he sees at the store, something from t.v, or a memory he has running around in his head. Good thing he gets his artistic ability from his Daddy. Ken is a great artist, whereas I never progressed past about a 2nd grade level. Kenny (and Nathan) have their own art table set up in the corner of the dining room. It is always filled with papers, drawing, and paper models of toys that Kenny has made. We are doing anything we can to encourage him to develop his talent. If he never become a famous artist to support his parents in their old age, that's okay. At least as an adult his kids won't laugh at his pictures and give him a complex.

Where to begin...

A run down of my week- event details to be posted later when I have time and I find the camera.

Monday- Grandmama, Eppie, the boys and I went swimming. Got home late and went to bed.

Tuesday- We all went to Pappadeux's Seafood for a little fine food and fresh sea air. We ate outside and listened to the waves. Very fun, but home late again.

Wednesday- Grandmama, the boys, and I went to the beach. Got home late.

Thursday- The boys had their end of year program at preschool. Very cute! Afterwards, we went to Chili's to celebrate Kenny moving on to public school. Got home late.

Friday- Grandmama left but sister and her family came. I spent the afternoon in housework mode and we spent the evening with the family. Got home late.

Saturday- I got up early, fed the boys, bathed and dressed them and myself. Took Nathan with me to the pet store, the mall, and the dollar store for a few errands and pick-ups. Came home and had a actually person-to-person conversation with my hubby for about 15 minutes. He got ready for work while I ordered pizzas for the family for lunch. We all went over to my mom's for lunch and swimming. After several hours in the pool, I abandoned my kids at Eppie's while I went grocery shopping and she fed them dinner. I went back and picked them up and dealt with putting an overly tired and screaming his head off 5 year old to bed. Since then I have made myself dinner for tonight and a completely different meal for Ken to have at work tomorrow. I have vacuumed the entire house, sweep the kitchen and entry way, folded two loads of laundry, loaded the dishwasher, washed the table and counters, fed the animals, and dusted the living room. And now I am sitting here, typing away about my crazy life. I still have a busy weekend ahead of me. especially as I head into the last weeks of school but my summer vacation is a mere 9 working days away.

The good news...I've lost 12 pounds since May 3rd. Yeah!!

It's funny how sometimes life moves so slow and you have more than enough time to do everything. Then all at once, you have a million things to do and no time to get any of it done.

Life funny that way.

Sidewalk Chalk

I remember loving sidewalk chalk as a kid. It wasn't something we got to use very often, but it was awesome. Drawing huge pictures on the ground, getting colored dust all over your hands, rubbing the dust on your cheeks and pants- good times.

Of course, with the techno-babies we have nowadays, Crayola decided plain sidewalk chalk just wasn't entertaining enough. Now you can buy chalk (as pictured) that draws normal flat pictures, but when viewed through a special pair of glasses becomes a pop-up 3D image. And it really works too! Pretty cool.

Man, our children have cool toys! Thanks Eppie!!

Sorry About the Hiatus

I have good reasons for my long absence from the blogging world. In fact, this is the first day I have been on the computer since last Sunday.

We found out that Visa froze Ken's checking account debit card on Monday because someone tried to withdraw $17, 000 dollars . Visa thought it was a bit fishy and would not let the transaction process and froze everything. Turns out, we had a computer virus that got our account number. So, I did not even turn on the computer until the virus was completely taken care of.

Since Ken is the one who cleaned of the computer, I had to wait until he had time. Which is not something he has a lot of right now. My amazing sweetheart has a full time job, is a full time university student, a flight student, and he works a second job as a photo editor for boat pictures. On top of all that, he does everything he can to help and support me and be the best father and husband he can be. I can't even begin to say how much I love that man and how much I appreciate him!

It is also the end of the school year and for anyone who is a teacher, you know how crazy things can get as the year winds down.

We also have company. My mother-in-law, Jane, got here on Tuesday and will be here until next Friday. We love having her visit.

So, we've been busy. Please forgive us.

Here is a picture of Grandmama with Kenny and the 3D model of Lightening McQueen that Kenny made all by himself.

And thank you Elisa for the shirts! They LOVED them! Wore them to bed last night and all day today.

Happy Mother's Day

The three best looking guys around- and they're all mine!

I'm quite a lucky woman!

Oh Kenny, Kenny, Kenny

Conversation in the car today.
Kenny: "Mom, if I don't pretend to be a spider and don't bite you, can I play the Cars XBox game when we get home?"
Me: "Um...are you asking for me to reward you with a video game for not biting me."
Kenny: "Yep. That's the deal."
Me: "Well, how about we don't play games today because I already told you no and you don't bite me because you're not a heathen."
Kenny (long pause): 'I think I like my deal better."

He has been extra imaginative lately. Today, he decided to make a time machine. He brought me all the little pieces he had cut out of paper and a stapler. He then directed me how each piece should be stapled to create a 3D model of the machine. We do this for him all the time when he tells us how to make Star Wars ships, but we have always used tape. A stapler just couldn't hold the seams in the right way. I tried to explain that to him, but you can guess how that conversation went. So here I am, taking directions from a 5 year old to maneuver a stapler in a way that it was not designed to be used. I finally finished what I think he wanted done and handed it to him. He looked at it, then looked at me, then back to the machine. Finally, he shrugged and said, "I guess that's good enough. You did try your best and let your heart be true."

Well, thank you son, that means a lot.

Is This A School Or A Daycare For Monkeys?

Oh....my class was HORRID today! Biting, punching, talking back, flat out disrespect. It takes a lot for me to lose my temper with my class, but I had to walk out today for a 5 minute break by about noon. I know it's the end of the year and we have had a lot going on with kids practicing Cinco de Mayo dances right outside my non-existent classroom door and wall, but that does not give those kids the excuse to ignore everything I say and run around like a bunch of two year olds. I normally have a really good class. Other than the normal two or so "high maintenance" kids they are awesome. But aliens must have taken over their brains last night because even my good kids lost it today.

Now I feel better.

But let me tell you, tomorrow is not going to be a fun day in my class. I'm going to have to get be very strict on rules and consequences for a few days until they stop testing the boundaries. Wish me luck.

What On EARTH Are You Doing?!?

Stupid me. I thought I could fold a load of laundry. I was only gone about 15 minutes and I checked on them every 5 minutes. Apparently during the last five minutes interval, Kenny got this brilliant idea.
That is MY gardenia flower bed with a big whole where plants used to be and dirt flung everywhere! We have two rules about outside time: 1- stay in the yard and 2- do not touch Mom's flowers or bushes.

Apparently, they forgot rule number two.

When I asked why they would fling dirt everywhere, Kenny said he had a good reason. You see, there was a bird hanging out on a branch of a tree. Since the bird was not actively searching for worms, Kenny assumed it was a broken bird and he needed to take it upon himself to find worms for it.

This is one of those moments when I wonder why we want to have another child.

That's right boys! Start cleaning while I go get the broom!

I love to watch Nathan play. It's so innocent and playful. I caught him crawling around the backyard smelling the weed flowers in the grass. I didn't catch it on the video, but he would stop and wonder in amazement at every little bug and variation in the grass. He just melts my heart.

Chores

Kenny has finally figured out that whining isn't going to get him out of helping around the house. He's actually gotten very good at cleaning his bedroom, the toy room, washing all the mirrors, anf vacuuming the living room.

We try and get Nathan to clean, but it usually doesn't go very well. I can't tell if he honestly doesn't understand what I'm asking him to do, or if he is just playing dumb to get out of it.

There is one job they both love to do- Windex the outside of the oven door.

Looks pretty good, huh.