A little of this and that

-The other day Jack wanted a banana but the two we had were very brown so I told him we needed to throw them away because they had gone bad. In the calmest voice, he said, "You need to buy Debbie Myers Green Bags." After I picked myself up off the ground from laughing so hard, he said, "Seriously. They're on sale." I love it! Maybe he watched too much t.v..................although, he had learned many things from the likes of Dora, Diego, Between the Lions, etc. I also HIGHLY recommend these DVD's
-I am going on the record and saying that Weight Watchers works. And that's all I'm saying for now.
-Parker colored for hours last night. I could barely contain my excitement. I've been looking for a reason for years to buy one of those giant sets of 120 crayons and now I have it. He even went outside to see exactly what color our house was. Needless to say, a box of 24 crayons does not include the grayish/tannish/greenish color of our siding. But I bet that 120 box does!
-Travis is in Tunica on a golf trip so I have freedom from cooking and laundry.
-I worked in Parker's classroom yesterday. I just love it. I know I've said it before, but I just feel like the opportunity to be there is such a blessing. I try to treasure each moment because, of course, as they go up in grades, they need less help in the classroom.

Easter

The Easter Bunny left baskets for the boys. Then they hunted eggs at our house. Then we went to my grandma's and they hunted there. Brrrrrr.......... It would be so much more fun if it wasn't freezing!

Spring Break Surprise

We pulled off the big surprise. We went to Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg to go the the Lego Store which actually wasn't very impressive. Not a single Indiana Jones Lego in the whole place. Then we browsed Build-A-Bear and Disney and ate at the Rainforest Cafe which was definitely the highlight of the mall experience. They LOVED it. It was pretty cool in an overpriced, cheesy, touristy kind of way. They just didn't want to leave and asked to go back the next day. When we left Mt. Zion, it was 55 degrees and sunny. When we got to Chicago, it was 30 degrees and a blizzard. They ended up getting 5 inches where we were which is plenty to make things messy and crazy.
Then we went to the Holiday Inn in Elmhurst which has an indoor waterpark. Parker and Jack are not into water slides and getting splashed at all but they could ride the "lazy river" all day. They love it. (I do too.) So despite the fact that we had to wait in line for 45 minutes to check in and that we only had 1 towel in our room and although we asked multiple times, never received any more towels and they don't get the newspaper on weekends--we had a great time. And they took $100.00 off our bill for our inconvenience. I've never been so glad that Travis is a complainer! So, we had a fun time and I think we may have to make an annual event of it but maybe someplace different and we know to bring our own towels.

Deals

I love, love, love a good deal and today I got a really good one at Walmart. Walmart will put stuff on clearance in odd spots and if you happen to time it right, you can get some great stuff SUPER cheap. Today, I had perfect timing and picked up 3 long sleeve t-shirts and 2 fleece pullovers for $1 each. The shirts had cuffs so they will be Jack's next year and each get one of the pullovers. Best of all, I didn't just buy them because they were cheap--I liked them! Even better. Not that either of them need any shirts, but you can't pass a deal like that up. Speaking of deals, Tracy bought Parker 3 long-sleeved, cuffless shirts from Gymboree for a total of $12.93 cents. That's with tax! If you spend enough time at the mall, the deals come to you! Well, they come to Tracy anyway.

Bunnies and Chicks

The kindergarten had a "Bunny Bag" hunt today. All 100 kindergartens had matching bunny bags and they had to go find the one with their name on it. They couldn't tell anyone where their bag was and they could only touch their own. It was so cute and fun for them. I'm so glad to be a part of stuff like this and we had the most beautiful spring day for it. The second picture is Parker and his teacher, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Report cards came home today. Super job by Parker! (Of course it's kindergarten so there are no grades---just Yes, No, or Improving)


After school my dad got the great idea to take the boys to Rural King to see the chicks. So cute! Surprisingly, they both quickly agreed to hold one for the photo op. Usually they shy away from stuff like that. A nice sales associate saw us and came over and offered to let them hold one. And, by the way, it is against the law to sell individual chicks. You have to buy at least 25. And no, we didn't buy 25.




We have a surprise in store for Parker and Jack tomorrow so I will post pictures when we get back on Saturday. I'm hoping they enjoy it as much as we think they will!
I forgot to mention that Jack chose his clothes today. Enough said.

Do you remember?

I found a big bag of letters and cards at my parents house from 20 years ago. Most of them are letters that were written to me by my family and friends while I was at ISU. FUNNY, funny stuff. So, if you wrote to me 20 years ago and would like to know what was on your mind, let me know and I will give you the scoop. (Carmin, Heather, Michelle, Maureen and Tracy--I'm talkin' to you!) Actually, you may not want to remember some of the stuff! I know I don't!

Gas

My sister e-mailed this to me. It's interesting and easily done. I'm willing to try anything.

THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CANGET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON. This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of hisengineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gasprices, which will continue to rise this summer, take time to read thisplease. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE thanthe 'don't buy gas on a certain day' campaign that was going around lastApril or May! It's worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by this summer and itmight go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies justlaughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to 'hurt' ourselves byrefusing to buy gas . It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap.Me too! It is currently $2.98 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to thinkthat the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to takeaggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace ..... notsellers.With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to takeaction.The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hitsomeone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do thatWITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force aprice war. Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline fromthe two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices.If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobilgas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at thispoint ..... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millionsof people!! I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least tenmore (30 x 10 = 300) ..... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x10 = 3,000) ..... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth groupof people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then30 million people will have been contacted!If it goes one level further, you guessed it ..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION

Crime and Punishment and other stuff

- I read a blog the other day where the writer was saying that her 7 year old son had been getting into trouble at school (sent to the principal's office) so she took away his favorite Spiderwick Chronicals books and he had to earn them back by not being bad at school. Seems like a logical plan to me. BUT, a bunch of people commented about this issue and I can't believe what some of them said. First of all, most people thought she was doing the right thing. Several thought she shouldn't take away books since reading is a good thing. I commented, "Take away his favorite books. He will still read other books but he will really miss the ones he loves which is the whole point of punishment." However, and this is what get's me, a bunch of people said that it is probably the teacher's fault. That maybe this kid is bored. Maybe the teacher has spring fever. Maybe he needs to be challenged more. Maybe the teacher just doesn't like him. Maybe he needs a different discipline plan where he get's more chances at good behavior. Excuse me while I go throw up. MAYBE he's just breaking the rules and needs to be punished! Now, I am lucky because I have two kids who don't get into trouble at school. (Parker has had his bus moved 2 times this year for talking and to the best of my knowledge, Jack saves all his bad for home.) Boredom does not authorize you to misbehave. I know Parker is bored, but he doesn't start misbehaving--he doodles. Now, I know that every kid is different but making excuses for bad behavior is one of the biggest reasons for bad behavior. I hate it when people blame the teacher when a kid is breaking rules. Feel free to remind me that I ranted about this when one of my kids starts misbehaving at school and it's all the fault of their mean teacher.

We saw Horton Hears A Who last night and we all loved it. It has such a good message. I could see that Parker totally understood that the movie was about more than an elephant and the Who's. Cool. He's getting so grown up. I heard Jack describing the movie to my mom. It went something like this, "Horton was an elephant and he found a little thing that people were on and there was a mouse--super fast and he was blue. He was the funniest mouse. And the people said "HELP!" And Katie said "poop" and she flied. And there was a mean kangaroo. I don't know what that yellow thing was. I think it was a planet. There was a duck who flies and telled on the kangaroo. And there was a little guy at the end who was singing but he didn't talk." That pretty much sums it up.

We have a surprise trip to Chicago planned for this weekend to go the Lego store and an indoor waterpark so you know we will all get the flu on Friday morning.

Jack told me all about Jesus in the garden and how his friends fell asleep while he prayed to God. I would like to say that he learned that from me, but it's from preschool. He has also learned the same color songs that Parker learned in kindergarten. He's going to love walking into kindergarten in another year already knowing a lot of the stuff. He is way ahead of where Parker was at this stage. I always find it interesting that Parker just wasn't into the school thing until kindergarten. It's like a few weeks before kindergarten started a little light went on that said "GO!" and he hasn't looked back since.

Parker's school had an art fair last week. Parker made a visor for me that said, "MOM #1" I have a witness that it was all his idea. He is such a sweet boy. I wonder how long it will last!?

Last week Jack washed his Leapster. I mean soaked it. I took it apart and dried it but it still didn't work. After about 24 hours it magically began working again. Thank goodness. That thing is his best friend during the day.

I've been making lots of paper flowers because I am hoping to sell them. I think they are so fun to look at. Just a little spot of sunshine perfect for a desk or counter.

Hmmmmmm.......

When someone leaves a comment on this blog, I get an e-mail alert. The last message was strange. It was from Brazil asking me (or anyone else) to go the their blog which is about laptops. Kind of weirds me out so I'm signing off until I decide what I want to do.

a few pages

I scrapped these pages while our computer was down. I need to print some new pictures so i can start up again. I'm in creative overdrive right now. It must be the spring air.

Nothing

I'm being a bad blogger. Just nothing much going on so nothing much to write about. Although I will say that I read quite a few blogs and their authors are from all over the U.S. and one thing seemed funny to me recently. Practically every person said something like, "Typical (insert the name of their state here) weather. One day it's 70 degrees and sunny and the next day it's snowing and it's 29 degrees! You know what they say about (insert the name of their state here) 'if you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Does any place in our country have truly consistent weather anymore? I think it's safe to say that mother nature likes to keep us all on our toes. It keeps things interesting.

Spring, where art thou?

These dinosaur molds have been getting lots of action lately. That's good because they were one of those "We haaaaavvvveeee to have these!!!!!" kind of toys that never got played with. Until now that is. You are supposed to use them in the sand. However, thanks to my neighbor Patti's suggestion, the boys want to make Jello molds with them. Thanks Patti.
I caught these two playing nicely together long enough for me to get a picture.
We enjoyed a nice break from winter and played outside in the sunshine this weekend. We are all ready for spring. Unfortunately, the forecast is calling for 7 inches of snow today or tomorrow. At this rate, they will be digging for Easter eggs in the snow.

Parker is all about posing for the camera lately. I love that. Lots of scrapable photos. I have the perfect paper for this shot!

One final peeve of mine. You know how when you are at a store standing in a line and there is only one register open and then a new clerk comes over and says, "I can help whoever's next" and the last 2 people in the long line move over really quickly? I really hate that. I think it is the height of rudeness to do this. Today at Hobby Lobby, I was next in line (behind someone with about 400 floral stems which take forever to ring up) and the a new clerk came up and said, "I can help the next person in line." Out of the corner of my eye I saw a few people in the back start to move over and I very loudly say, "Thanks! I'm the next in line!!!!" And I trampled over a few people to get into the new open lane. It was exhilarating! The moral of the story is: Offer the open lane to the person who is first and line and you better watch out if it happens to be me. ;-)

I went to the mall on a Saturday

I went to the mall today. It was not pleasant. I hate going anywhere on a weekend. Being a stay-at-home mom has me totally spoiled with shopping at times when most places are not crowded. When Parker was a baby, he would wake up at the crack of dawn so I would just get up and get out to Walmart or the grocery store (open 24 hours). It would be empty and we would have our errands by 9:00. I miss those simple days.
Anyway, the mall always gives me a lot of fodder for blogging. Such as pet peeves:
- pajama pants worn in public. By anyone. Any age. Especially awful with slippers. Come on folks. There are plenty of comfortable pants that can be worn in public. Sweat pants come to mind.
- when people mix their seasonal wear. Example: I saw a girl with crop pants and flip flops paired with a wool coat and scarf. This time of year is always ripe for the mix ups. Even though it seemed warm today after months of freezing cold, there is still snow on the ground so it wasn't exactly flip-flop weather.
- the Easter bunny. When your kid sits on his lap, does he ask the Easter bunny to bring him something? Or is it just a photo op? I've never been really clear on this.
- when people are in a dressing room but they don't lock the door and then they act all disgruntled and violated when you open the door. Sorry. Lock the door next time. I do a quick check for feet, but in some dressing rooms, you just can't see.
- Sales with three pages of fine print. If I have to take a final exam just to get 20% off, it isn't worth it to me. And I'm always in search of a deal.
- I was going to write some stuff about how teenage girls (of course I don't mean all teenage girls just 90% of the ones I saw at the mall today--of course the other 10% were wearing pajama pants and slippers) dress these days, but I am still sewing blindfolds for my innocent little boys so I don't have time for that.