Brighter Backyard

I love trees, and like natural yards just fine. However, we want to have a productive garden and need a lot more sun to be able to grow one. So, some trees needed to go. Danny's brother, TJ, owns a tree service in Williamsburg called Tiki Tree Service. He was in town this weekend and Danny convinced him to come and knock down a few on his day off! Thank you!

We thought it was crazy to see him climbing up the tree with spikes on the sides of his shoes. He wrapped himself around the tree too( can you see what I mean?) But he just climbs them with a chainsaw hanging at his side. Kinda crazy and creeps me out a little, but can I really be surprised? He is the brother that climbed and worked on 1000 foot towers with Danny.

Quick pose

Timber! Down goes the Holly tree

A little higher

The kids watched through the window. Victoria thought it was pretty cool to see them climb and work. She also liked seeing the sawdust falling like snow as they fed wood into the chipper. Christian, shook his head and was worried that TJ would fall and "die", but watched anyway. "What is uncle TJ doing? What is he doing? I don't think that's safe. That's not safe!"

We were glad that you were safe, TJ. And we really appreciate it!

They didn't have much time to work, so they only got a couple trees down, but already the yard looks brighter. If they knock down about 5-6 more then we might have enough sun to grow some veggies! Wouldn't that be nice? Every year we try, and the plants grow, but hardly produce anything. Maybe this year it'll really work! Wish us luck!

Air Ball!

So, Danny's activity for F.H.E. the other night was called air ball and involved balls and a leaf blower(one of TJ's that was still here.) It was us against him. Could we get all of our balls onto his side of the hammock without him blowing them back. It was silly, but a fun idea too.

I am special!

Joy School was here this week and the theme was individual confidence and uniqueness! They sure are cute, confident, and unique, huh?

Laurie, Christian, and Sam say, "We are Special!"

My special 3 year old!

Unique Shadows!

Today at JoySchool we made neat shadow pictures. I copied the idea from Carrie Andelin's blog. Thanks for the idea! They turned out to be pretty cute.

Christian

Laurie

Sam

I'm rubbing off on Danny

Danny came home yesterday with a pizza and a dvd for a Friday movie night and asked, "Guess how much this cost?"

"Nothing! You're rubbing off on me."

"Way to go bargain man! Where did you find those coupons? I'm going to take a picture. You make me very happy! Do you want to go to Rita's for a free Italian Ice for dessert?"


(To answer the coupon question- in his mailbox at work was a coupon booklet called "Enjoy the City: Richmond. It is produced to be sold as a school fundraiser, so they gave it to coaches and club sponsors to try to get them excited about using their fundraiser. I was excited about it. It is kinda like the Entertainment book and would cost about the same. It had a bunch of freebies and B1G1's in it- including a free Papa John's pizza and redbox dvd rental apparently. Sweet.)

Did you stay on green today?

When we ask V this question the answer is always yes! We are so proud of her for staying on green all year long. She hasn't had a color change yet. The other day we told her that she will earn a big reward if she keeps this up for the rest of the year, which I have a feeling she will. It makes parents very happy when their children behave at school! "Angels shout for joy when we decide to do right!"(It's a scripture scouts song) Way to go V! Keep up the great work!

Potato pets

How much fun can you have with a sack of potatoes?

Well, for my kids, the answer is plenty.

Victoria had an assignment this week to make a potato person or animal. She decided to make a lady bug potato. I asked her how she wanted to do that. She wanted a "round potato," "red paint," and "black sequins." She also knew she wanted black pipe cleaners, but called them "the legs we used when we made spiders?"Anyway, we got what she wanted and some googly eyes and got to work this afternoon.

Christian decided to make one too.

I helped Victoria by making holes to poke the pipe cleaner legs and antennas in. I also put dots of glue gun glue on and she pushed the eyes and sequins on with the back of a paint brush. It turned out pretty cute. But that wasn't it. It needed a home and a safe way to get to the classroom tomorrow. She made some leaves out of construction paper and gathered grass from our yard to put down in the shoe box with the lady-bug. Darling little project.V is pleased with it and excited to take it to school tomorrow. They are going to put their creations on their desks and then go look at their peers' potatoes in their room and the other Kindergarten classrooms.

Christian with his happy spider!

He did a great job with his and did almost all of it himself- cutting, drawing, gluing. The only thing I helped with was trimming around the smile he drew. It looks really cute. At first it was just the spider on the web(it's house). But then when V gathered grass Christian did too and added it for a "bed on the web."

Kids are pretty easy to please. Fun little afternoon activity.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We had a fun St. Patrick's Day yesterday. Not that it is a big holiday around here, but why not have a little fun, right?

We had green pancakes for breakfast. Danny's mom did that for their family and it seems like an easy enough tradition, so why not? They were good, but Christian wasn't too into them.

Christian's buddy, Sam, came over to play in the morning. They had fun together. When they were eating a snack that Sam brought, they kept putting food near their ears and saying funny things. They were cracking each other up! We had to go to the grocery store while he was here and probably 8-10 people commented on the "cute twins" and a couple hardly believed me when I told them that they were only friends. They were very good at the store and here.

At lunch, we ate some green fruits and veggies with some not green pizza. Grant tried yellow squash baby food for the first time. He liked it OK, but loved the taste of green pepper. The tears in the picture are because I tried to take it away. OK, you can have it back!

And this is who came off the bus in the afternoon-

a funny little leprechaun!

And guess what? She said that a little leprechaun left gold coin chocolates in her classroom! She was nice enough to share them with Christian and I. She also let us all try on the hat and beard she made. Very cute!

When Danny got home he taught the kids a little about St. Patrick and let them watch a video clip about it on the the computer. I probably could have learned a little myself, but I was busy making a traditional Irish meal. So, we are wearing green to symbolize Catholicism, right? We told the kids a little about St. Patrick- that he was a good man and a great missionary. He was forgiving and faithful. It really is a pretty good story to go back and teach the people who enslaved him.

And for dinner- I said a traditional Irish meal ;) Well, maybe halfway?

Corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, Americanized Irish Soda bread, and green jello. It doesn't look too aesthetically pleasing or palate pleasing, but really it was pretty good if I do say so myself.

Hope you all had a good St. Patrick's Day too. And I hope you wore green. I don't like my friends getting pinched.

Sorry!

I am long winded, love pictures, and want to be fully understood. At least I know it!

Jump for Heart Week, Trying, and Family Fitness Night

Victoria's school had some cool stuff going on this week. It was Jump for Heart week. The kids collected money for the American Heart Association. We aren't so into having our kids ask people for money, so don't really go all out for fundraisers. It is a good cause though.

The most exciting part for me was, I got to go to P.E. with Victoria on Thursday! Thank you V for being excited about me coming! Thank you, Mom, for watching the boys so I could participate. There were all kinds of jumping stations set up- steps, springboards, hula hoops, hopscotch, pogo balls, low hurdles, jump ropes, skip-its (a homemade version), jump ropes for "Blue bells", a jump rope for "snakes," jump ropes to jump over, and probably another 1-2 stations. It was neat and I was glad to join V in the fun. She and her classmates are so cute!

V has been practicing jump roping quite a bit this week. I told Victoria a joy school story after I taught the other day. It was about a girl named Sally who wanted to jump rope with the other kids at recess, but was afraid to try.

Basically, Sally told her mom that she really wanted to jump rope and her mom told her that she needed to try. She got in line to try the next day, but when it was her turn she was afraid and got out of line. She came home and laid on her bed and cried and cried. Then she noticed a little spider hanging from her ceiling on a silver thread. She saw the spider trying to climb up to his web, but he kept falling back down. He tried several times but kept falling. Sally cheered for the spider and told him he could do it. Finally, he made it! Sally thought that if the little spider could try so hard and do it, she could too. So, the next day at recess she tried again. She missed the rope a few times, but no one laughed at her. It was fun and she was glad she tried!

It was a cute story and the kids liked it because we put a spider web on the ceiling with a spider on some yarn hanging from it and we could move him up and down on the string. So, after the story Victoria asked,"Was that story about me?" I told her that it wasn't. "It was about Sally. It was from the lesson." "Oh, OK"

Well, the timing of the story must have been perfect for her because when we went outside to play that afternoon, she brought out her jump rope. She said, "Jump for Heart day is on Thursday and I want to be ready." When we were there a couple of her friends told me that they had tried jump rope at recess too. I'll add in a picture of V with one of her jump ropes here after I take some.

I love it when my kids try. A few other things we have tried lately:

Grant-sitting!

He's tried rice cereal a couple times too. That is not what makes him so chunky though.

We are hoping that he will try sleeping through the night soon too.

Green eggs and ham! Yum! Making PBJs(Christian)

Peeling carrots

Christian is the one who has been learning about the "joy of trust and confidence." A huge part of the confidence part is trying. I love to see that the "joys" that we are trying to teach are sticking! I have heard him say "I want to try" so many times in the past two weeks! He has tried pouring his own milk, folding laundry with me, and making and flying a kite just to name a few. Yea! "It's fun! It's fun to try!"

And, back to the prior subject... To culminate the Jump for Heart week Victoria's school had a really cool activity for families! I wish we brought our camera. Last night, we all got into our sneakers and workout clothes and went to the school for a family fitness night. We put Grant in a back pack carrier, which he likes and didn't mind sleeping in. There were stations and we rotated through with a lot of the other kindergartners and their families. The stations were gym(a lot like the other day), Aerobics(which included Zumba-yea!), Aikido, hallway fitness(walking the halls), tae bo in the library, and heart health(coloring our favorite healthy foods and writing why we liked exercise on a heart.) Afterwards, there was a drawing for door prizes and Christian won a t-shirt. Very exciting for him, but not so much for V. She actually handled it very well though and I was proud of her. Afterwards. I told them they could take turns wearing it because it was actually my ticket.

So, Danny and I were talking last night after the fitness night, which we all loved, and we talked about how we want to always do fun active things together. Not to be a judgemental jerk, but honestly, there were a lot of really overweight people there and it is not good! (Ignore my many run on sentences please.) We don't want to turn into that and we want our kids to value health and fitness as well. I am not back to thin yet, by any means, but I am working on getting back into my pre-baby shape. It's tough since I have gained so much with each pregnancy! Uggh! But, I know I can do it and am having fun and feeling good about myself for making the time and trying. Danny is in great shape and works out regularly and I am proud of him for it. I think he's going to look like Abinidi when he's 70!(or at least the painting of him)

We have fun when we play sports or work out together. In fact, that was something that really helped Danny and I fall in love with each other. When we were dating we did a lot of active things together. In fact, he proposed to me at before 6:00 in the morning because he knew that I would be up and ready for my morning jog with my friend, Jen H. When we were first married we used to throw and catch baseballs and footballs, and practice kicking field goals together. We used to ride our bikes a lot too. We talked about how we always wanted to be active and in shape.

Well, I let us down a bit. Since becoming a mom, I haven't really stayed in shape. I got back into shape after a lot of effort after V, but not after Christian. Unfortunately we haven't done as much together in the way of physical activity as we should have, but we had fun talking about some of our fitness goals for the future.

This isn't a new idea, but we talked about running the Race for the Cure together this year. One of Danny's friends from work had breast cancer and so a huge group from his school is participating on her behalf again this year. We talked about how it will be fun to support our kids in their sports and activities and about how fun it will be to go hiking and camping when they grow older too. We have talked about hiking portions of the Appalachian trail for vacations and how awesome it would be to keep track and eventually hike the whole trail. This would be a long way off, but was fun to think about. Yea for trying and yea for family fitness!

Tacky people and tacky games

So, I love theme parties and especially like to dress up. Danny and I had fun trying on funny things to wear. He even made up a special dance to go with the outfit he would have worn called, "the purple sweat pants dance." I had fun sporting bright blue eyeshadow and a side ponytail.

About the tacky games(they are really fine games, just normally for little kids birthday parties)...we played pin the tail on the donkey and musical chairs first. They turned out to be pretty funny.

Jeff playing pin the tail on the donkey and Jen, the spinner, laughing since he is nowhere close! I love when Jen laughs because she throws her head back and slaps her legs.

OK, poor Rudy. Jeff moved the pin the tail on the donkey board and Rudy wandered everywhere trying to find it. Not quite. Pretty funny though. Elder was pretty off too!I think they got Melissa back, by moving the board again.Musical chairs was pretty competitive. Jen and Meya actually broke that chair!I think Rudy won.

After these two games we did the Electric Slide and played a few other songs. Then we played a bit of dodge ball, which was unplanned, but a good idea for the group. Lastly, we played a pictionary type game with tacky things to draw. It was pretty funny too.

A picture of our winners-pin the tail on the donkey winner, tackiest couple, tackiest man, tackiest woman, and tackiest food. Kelly brought Salisbury Steak TV dinner style. (They are good, but kinda tacky too.)

Drea, Jen, Me, and Melissa
Thanks to those who came and made it fun! Maybe we'll do it again sometime!

Tacky food

The next few entries will be about a Tacky Party that I planned with the help of the Activities Committee at church. It was so easy and so much fun to plan! So, basically we invited everyone to dress tacky and bring something tacky to eat. Not too many people were able to make it, but I think that those who came had fun! I did. (By the way, Danny wanted to come too, but had to stay home with Christian. He has had the flu and still had a fever last night. He didn't today, but we didn't want to expose the other kids in the nursery since it hadn't been 24 hours yet.)

Yummmm! Tacky potluck!

Tacky food isn't normally too healthy, but it was good. People were pretty creative about what they brought. So, it was funny to look at everything.

Cereal and milk, 2000 Jello, Desert-PB and chocolate chips sandwiches.

I always love a fly swatter centerpiece.

Popcorn and Cheetos

Tater tot casserole and PBJs with toothpicks

Salisbury Steak

Not photographed were packaged cookies opened before we ate, Ramen Noodles, Hardee's fried chicken, Cheetos and more! Of course we drank Kool Aid and used mismatched paper products.

Hurray for Snow Days!

Snow days are particularly special in our family because I don't have to go to work. There are a few perks to being a teacher and snow days are one. These are the first snow days in a few years. It's also the 1st real snow that Christian gets to play in. Grant seemed to enjoy it too.

Here are a few pictures of each of the kids having fun. I like Grant making a snow angel (although he didn't really enjoy that part).

Christian being himself.

Victoria's happy to be out of school.

I'm happy to be out of school too!

Brooke is good at making Grant smile.

Brooke is also great at making hot chocolate post-snow fun.