2012 Blue Jeans Week 13

Spring is definitely here, and I was kind of worried that summer was already coming because we had two days in a row where the high was 90~  Way too early for that.  We survived the pink eye of last week.  I had kids home 4 of the 5 days last week with it, but all is clear now.  It is not fun, but if I had to choose between stomach flu and pink eye, I would choose pink eye :)  Soccer and track are in full swing now, and this month is going to be crazy!  People say that December is the craziest and busiest month of the year, but I think April/May top it easily.  Here is what we have been up to this past week. . .

Sunday:  3 of my kids stayed with my younger sister and her husband for part of spring break last week.  They had a wonderful time!!!  We met them and got the kids back today.  It was nice to have everyone home again.  The house had been too quiet :) 

Monday:  Lawn mowing season--let it begin.  I mowed the lawn for the first time this season.  I think this is the earliest I have ever started to mow.  My 6 year old took this picture for me :)

Tuesday:  Ben gave me some beautiful roses for my birthday last week, and they are so gorgeous!

Wednesday:  The youth in our church at practicing for a big regional cultural event with singing and dancing for the dedication of a new temple 2 hours from us.  Miss A and Miss O have been practicing a lot for it.  Tonight the local youth were practicing the dancing.  Miss A and her cute partner :) make sure they get the steps right.

Thursday:  Miss O and Ben practice their duet for their piano recital coming up in a few weeks.

Friday:  Miss E helped me decorate for Easter today and hang our Easter eggs in the front entry.

Saturday:  Soccer!  Miss E is the only one playing this year.  She had her first game today and did really well.  #10 is our girl!

Hope all is well with you!  Thanks for stopping by!

2012 Blue Jeans Week 7

It has been a pretty good week--lots of love, got a little bit spoiled, (which everyone should every now and then) and we enjoyed some fun family time.  Hope you all had a good week.

Sunday:  Valentine's Dinner is a very special tradition in my family.  It started with my great-grandma.  She was the mother of 5 girls (one of them being my grandma) and for Valentine's Day dinner she would decorate the dining room very fancy, finest china, and then no one was allowed into the room or to see it until dinner.  Everyone had to dress up for dinner.  In the middle of the table was a fancy box with small wrapped gifts.  Each gift had a string attached to it that went out to each place at the table.  When my grandma and her sisters were done eating dinner they were allowed to pull their string and get their small Valentine's present.  My grandma did this for my mom and her siblings when they were growing up.  My mom continued the tradition with me and my siblings.  Now the tradition continues with my kids--4th generation.  We are lucky enough to live by Nana and Grandpa, so I don't have to do the fancy dinner, we just go over to my mom's house :)  Lucky us!  So above is a picture from our Valentine's dinner at my mom's.  We were done eating, so Mr J and Miss E started to pull their strings.  So fun!

Monday:  Can you believe this is our very first snow of the whole winter???  It wasn't much of a snowstorm, and it lasted only one day.  The next day was sunny and 50, and it was all gone, so Mr J, Miss A, and Miss O tried to enjoy the one day of snow they had.

Tuesday:  Valentine's Day.  Tuesdays are usually crazy piano lesson nights, but because of Valentine's we had nothing tonight, so we had a special dinner at home--heart shaped meatloaf and potatoes with heart jello, decorated heart sugar cookies, opened our family Valentine's box, and enjoyed the evening.  Our kids got these cute balloon cars from their Grandpa for Valentine's day, and they had lots of fun racing them.  Thank you Grandpa T!

Wednesday:  Mr J practising his piano.  He takes it very seriously and works very hard at it.  Love my boy!

Thursday:  O happy day!  I got my birthday present today, even though my birthday is not for a month and a half :)  I have wanted a Blendtec blender forever, but they are pretty pricey, and I could never really justify it, but we were up in the city today at Costco.  They had them on sale, plus we had a nice Costco rebate and I begged and pleaded with Ben and told him it would be my early birthday present and maybe Mother's Day too, (but not Christmas :)  if he let me get it.  He is so nice, and said yes.  Boy, does he love me ;)  I am very lucky.  Anyway, we are in smoothie heaven here!  Yeah!  Happy Birthday to me! (a little early)  If you have some favorite recipes, please share!

Friday:  Are you ever too old for a tea party?  Or kool-aid party?   Not at our house.

Saturday:  Snapshot of our lives--cleaning the house day.  Next to our weekly dishes job chart, this is the next most important piece of paper in our house.  We clean the house every Saturday morning, and everyone helps.  The kids rotate jobs.  Having a chart you can easily rotate makes a big difference.  This is just printed off and put in a page protector so we can write and erase it with dry erase markers.

Thanks for visiting!  Come back soon and have a great week!

2012 Blue Jeans Week 3

Hope you have all had a wonderful week.  Here is what we have been up to. . .

Sunday:  Our family really enjoys playing games.  Sunday evening we were playing Qwirkle--a shape/color matching type game that we all enjoy.

Monday:  No school today, and the weather was nice and warm but very windy.  Miss E and Mr J tried to fly a kite, but the wind was so strong it broke the string off--darn!

Tuesday:  Mr J was home sick today from school--no fun, but luckily it was a short duration stomach flu, and so far no one else has gotten it, which is something to be very grateful for in a house with 4 kids!

Wednesday:  My poor front yard--our water meter sprung a small leak, and they came to replace it and fix it today, but had to dig a huge, huge hole, so we know we will be planting new grass this spring after they level it :)

Thursday:  Once a month during the school year I get together with some dear friends, and we go out to eat and shop to different little towns near where we live --GLO (girls lunch out).  This is so fun and such a life saver for me.  What would we do without friends?  Sure love these ladies!

Friday:  Snapshot of our life--piano bags--all 4 of my kids take piano lessons--Miss A is going on 8 years, Miss O 6 years, Miss E 4 years, and Mr J is just finishing his first year of lessons, so piano bags are a big part of our everyday lives--practice x 4 in our house each day.

Saturday:  I am not and have never been a real "girly-girl," just not my thing, and my 3 girls have never really been into the princess "girly-girl" stuff either, but every once in a while it is fun to do their nails, and Saturday afternoon we had nothing else going on, so we broke out the nail polish and did toes and nails. 

Hope your next week is a good one!

Blue Jeans Week 35

A week to remember. . .

Sunday:  This is one of my favorite of the thousands of images from the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  I think the memorial is beautiful.  I went to NYC  as a teen and went in and ate in the basement of one of the Twin Towers.  I would like to go back now and see it again.  It is so important to remember.

Monday:  We have a big garden 50' x 50' and we planted over 24 tomato plants and none of those plants are dead, but we have not seen a single tomato yet either, but we have had a huge harvest of zucchini and yellow squash.  We can never get sick of zucchini, but I think my family has had their fill of yellow squash.  Miss O chops some up for dinner.

Tuesday:  Over 2 months ago in July, before we left on vacation, we had a strong storm, and it blew some shingles off.  Ben hurried and bought a tarp to cover the part of the roof that was bare, and we left on vacation hoping for no rain.  Well, waiting on insurance and contractors we have had this lovely blue roof now for over 2 months, and finally this week we are getting a new roof and getting rid of the blue tarp.  Thank heavens this was on the back of the house :)

Wednesday:  Homework, homework, homework is a constant thing at my house "Did you get your homework done?"  is probably the most common question asked after "Did you practice your piano?"  and "Did you clean your room?"  Miss A is quite comfortable doing her homework on the floor.

Thursday:  I snap pictures all the time, all the time, and my kids are used to it and just ignore me.  Ben is not so used to it :)  Gosh, I love that cute boy.  Today he was helping Mr J with his piano.     

Friday:  I actually worked and got paid for my work today--first time in almost 14 years :)  Being a stay-at-home mom is the best job in the world, but the monetary pay isn't so good :).  My mom is the librarain at my kids' elementary school, and today she had to be gone and her para also had to be gone, so she begged me to come work for her that day in the library.  Little did I know the paperwork and hoops I would have to jump through to help out my mom for 7 hours.  I had to get a TB test done and a drug test.  I thought--serioursly?  Oh my, but I had a fun day at the school library.  I checked out 186 books and shelved about that many.  I got to check out books to this cute little guy too--it was fun seeing Mr J and Miss E at school.

Saturday:  This is one of the big trees in our front yard.  The kids love to play in it and under it and around it.  It has a tree swing in it.  We were so sad to find out that the power company is putting in a new powerline down our street, and it looks like our trees are going to have to be cut down.  We are so sad and just sick about it.  Makes me want to cry.  Of course they say they will pay us for it, but how do you appraise the value of a tree?  I love trees.

Confident

In May my newly turned 6 year-old started piano lessons.  His teacher is the same one I had lessons from in junior high and high school.  She is awesome.  When new little kids start she likes to have a parent there for the lessons so they know what the kid is supposed to be doing, and she will make specific suggestions to help them with their technique and such.  It has been fun to go with him.  But a few weeks ago I couldn't stay, and Ben was still at work, so I told Mr J that he would have to have his lessons alone today.  He looked at me very calmly and said, "It's okay Mom.  I can handle it."  Then he hopped out the van and ran to his lesson.  I had to laugh, but luckily he was out of the car so he couldn't hear me. 

I am glad he can handle it, and I hope that confidence stays with my boy.

Blue Jeans Week 27

Finally got a little rain and some cooler-only 99 instead of 104-temperatures :)  so we are doing good!

Sunday:  Miss E reads to Mr J.  Love it when the older girls read to their younger brother.  So sweet!  Of course 5 minutes after they are done they are fighting with each other, but at least we have a few minutes of peace when they read to each other :)  We will take what we can get. 

Monday:  Went to the city today, and whenever we go we hit Costco--our favorite store.  They always have such pretty flowers, and today they had these awesome pinecone type flowers--don't know the name--the girls were so impressed with so Miss A took a picture.  Anyone know what they are called?

Tuesday:  The library was having a Spiderwick mini-camp this week.  Miss E is making her fairy/sprite house.  Love the library.  Love that the mess is there and not at my house :)

Wednesday:  Summer fun--swim in the pool to keep ourselves cool

Thursday:  It seems like in our house someone is always on the piano--with 4 taking lessons.  Got a shot of Miss O getting her practicing done today.

Friday:  Had a church camp out this weekend.  Mr J and his friend enjoying their meal in between their swimming in the lake they camped by.

Saturday:  Ben and Miss A enjoy the lake on the camp out. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Blue Jeans Week 25

We had a great 4th of July weekend.  Didn't do too much, kept it low key, watched fireworks from our back yard, went swimming, BBQ, Ben slept with the kids in a tent in the backyard, and enjoyed being together as a family.  Hope you all had a good one!

Sunday:  Our kids really like paying games--board games, card games, etc.  This afternoon they played PayDay with Ben.

Monday:  For part of our 4th of July dinner Miss E made patriotic strawberries dipped in white chocolate with blue sprinkles.  They were yummy!  She saw them in Family Fun.  Ben was her helper :)

Tuesday:  I love to fly our flag.  So grateful for our country, freedom, and the men and women that work so hard to keep it that way!  God bless them and their families!

Wednesday:  Nana taught Mr J a duet that they can do together.  Having a sucker in his mouth must have helped him play better :)

Thursday:  Like I have said before, we love the library and are there lots in the summer.  For each pound of books the kids read they get to donate a penny to the library for new books.  Mr J adds his 10 pennies for reading 10 lbs this week.  He is up to 100 lbs for the summer so far--super reader!

Friday:  Classic summer shot, I am watching the kids in the pool--love summer time!

Saturday:  Got up to a city and a Toys-R-Us to get these Poptropica toys.  My brother is a web designer for the kids' online game (he does the people and scenery), and they just came out with some toys from it.  My brother designed these toys.  The kids were so excited to get their Uncle's toys!  If your kids aren't Poptropica fans, they should be, it is a safe, fun online kids game, and so much fun!  All of my kids ages 6-13 play it.  Check it out  http://www.poptropica.com/

Hope you all have a great week!  I am getting caught up on my paper Project Life this week.  Catching up on my journal cards and putting photos in.  Love it!