My birthday Boy

Thursday July 30, 2009

Yep, he is now 34 years old. He is still older than me! Ha!

We had a very nice day today. The kids and I baked Chocolate Chip cookies this morning and took them to daddy at work.


On the counter ready to bake.


Wait, we forgot our aprons that Teri got us for Christmas!


Nathan wanted to get him a lion (since he roars all the time) and Jessica framed one of her watercolors and we took them to work. Chris put the lion on top of his computer and his "masterpiece on the wall.


The kids helped me wrap his presents, yes they sit on the kitchen table and one day I am hoping they will be too big to do this!


All wrapped! Now Nathan get down!


When daddy got home from work, he opened his presents while we were waiting for dinner to finish cooking.


Jessica got him a storage card for his camera. She picked out exactly what she wanted all by herself.




We all got him a 10in digital frame so that he can start displaying more of his photographs.


They kids had to help open, if we would have let them, they would have opened all the presents!

Nice day and I think that Chris has a good birthday.



Last night daddy helped them set up their tent. Over the course of the day, they pulled every pillow and every blanket from all three beds and the couch and stuffed them their tent. It was so heavy I couldn't move it.

Ok, a couple of thoughts.

1. As Nathan woke up this morning and came out of his room, he suddenly looked taller so I measured him. Now, I measured both kids at the beginning of July when we got back from Arizona and Nathan has grown 1.5 inches in the last month!!!! Can you believe that. He is only three and half inches behind Jessica. My little man is getting so big.

2. I am not really using this as a forum for deep thoughts but I read this last night in James Dobson's book Bringing Up Boys.

"Raising children who have been loaned to us for a brief moment outranks every other responsibility."

Man, that brief moment as already been five years for my baby. I already see how fast it can go by. I strongly believe that everything we teach our kids and all the training we provide them, will help them to grow into responsible adults so that they can make their own way in the world. I fully expect them to leave after high school for college responsible, and capable with the resources to take care of themselves but it reminds me how important everyday is up till that day! At this point I can honestly look back over the last five year and not have one regret and not feel that I missed one thing in my kids life. Sure we have made bad decisions and learned from them and there have been times when I just wish I could do what I wanted when ever I want but this brief moment is now and putting that into perspective makes me appreciate even more what we have. It does outrank every other responsibility and this is the best and most rewarding responsibility I have ever had.

Swim lessons and Dentist

Wednesday July 29, 2009

You spend five years trying to get your babies to "sleep in" just a little bit, and hoping not to wake up at the crack of dawn every morning and just when they finally get it, I have to start thinking school and how to get two kids up and out of the house at 7am! Nathan slept till 8am this morning(8:30) yesterday and Jessica is sleeping later than that! How to you train a 3 and 5 year old that you sleep late on Saturday only now!!!

Today we had our last swim lessons of this session. Yeaaaa, Nathan is doing it all by himself!! He is not ready to take the swim test but I am sure at the end of the next quarter he will!


Nathan and his class.


Here he jumped off the deep end by himself. Of course Chris asked me how does he know it is the deep end, he can't touch anywhere??


Picture of him before getting in the water. I couldn't get him to stand still so I had to make him sit down to get a picture.



Here is Nathan going down the slide with his teacher Mary.



Jessica practiced with her flipper today so she could get the feel of the flippers. I think it made her go faster because she took off and the teacher was yelling for her to come back the other way!



Jessica going down the slide.

After Swim lessons we were off to the dentist for our teeth cleaning.


I brought wiki sticks to play with while we waited to be called back.


Nathan did awsome!! This was his first time and he climbed right up in the chair and didn't fuss a bit! He let her clean his teeth and let the dr. check him out. I was so proud of him!


Of course Jessica did great. She got to pick out her teeth cleaning flavor. She also got x-rays done which was a first.

She told me "Mom, the dentist is much better than 5 year old shots!"


Nathan with his sunglasses to keep the bright light out of his eyes.




Daddy surprised us and came by to check and see how we were doing and also helped while I was getting my teeth cleaned.


Jessica helped the Dr. check Nathan's teeth by getting the light just right.


Lastly here is a picture of Nathan and his geo tracks. He wanted them set up this morning. And mom, I don't think you have seen them all put together so here ya go!

Chris got home in time to eat dinner, play a little and read to the kids, it was a treat for them.

Tomorrow is daddy's birthday so Jessica and I have some surprises that we are planning.

My Gym Time!

Tuesday July 28th 2009

Nice day today and a perfect indoor play date set up because it started raining and rained most of the day.

We met up with our church friends and went to My Gym. They now schedule 1 hour time slots where groups can come and play and just pay $5 per child. They have two girls there the entire time and do some of the more special activities that you don't get to do on a normal visit.

I went ahead and signed up Nathan for classes starting next Tuesday. I hope that he will like them as much as Jessica did. Another friend also signed up for a intro class and hopefully they will like it and be able to have the class together!

Jessica is ready to do gymnastics as well and she can do the big kids now that she will be in kindergarten. But she also has soccer and swimming starting in August and I don't want her to be too busy. So I am trying to decide if we wait till soccer and swimming are over or if a one hour class won't be toooo much.


Kids getting their instructions before going in to play.


Nathan riding the zip cord!


Nathan on the balance beam. I think he was falllllling here.


Jessica on the zip cord.

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Bunch of kids playing. We had over 15 kids there.


Nathan and friends jumping on the trampoline.


Jessica in the balls.


Jessica and Nathan climbing!




Jessica and her friend!


Nathan riding the "roller coaster". The kids loved this!


Jessica riding the roller coaster.




Nathan climbing somewhere that he shouldn't be, but he was so cute once he conquered getting up there that I had to take a picture.




They did a puppet song at the end. Look at all our sweet kids just sitting there!!


They had to all lay down with no peeking and then they would bring out the bubbles.

Everyone had a good time. Then we headed over to Back Yard Burger for lunch. This afternoon a friend came over to play.


Nathan in his astronaut suit.


Then tonight I ordered a pizza for the kids and I and I taped Return to Neverland on Disney and we watched a movie before bed.


A couple of nights ago, I fiddled with ribbon for two hours and couldn't make a single bow come out right and gave up. Don't know if it is an inspiration thing or what but last night I started playing and got some very cute ones.


This is our school bow.


I think I like it with the loops better. Not sure.


So cute, Nemo fish. I did the orange and the Fish print and Jessica said "needs more color" so I but the blue loops in that match the bubbles on the ribbon.


And my favorite of all. Just when I don't think I can get any better at making bows I come up with something like this. It is sooo cute! Took me awhile to make this one though.

I took some videos at My gym today, hope that you can view them. I have to use quick time on my computer to see them???

Not much to say

Monday July 27, 2009

One week to official first day of school!!

Our Monday morning highlight - watching the garbage truck empty our garbage. It is one of the arm ones that picks up the whole garbage can and empty's it in the top. Nathan loves this and gets soooo excited. Jessica likes to watch but it still does not compete with Dora. lol.

I finished Jessica's school supply list and ended up spending $32.98. That was with using several items that I already had in the house like lysol wipes, paper towels and a 1 subject notebook. Thought it would be less than that but I bargained shopped as much as I could! Best deals were 2 reams of paper for $1 each(with rebate) from staples and a box of gallon size zipper ziplock bags for $1.50 with a coupon. Worst deals were the "jumbo"size glue sticks for $1.62 each and she needed 5. I could have gotten 10 of the regular size for $1 at target instead of spending $8.10. Heck, I could have given them 20 for $2 and you get the point. lol.

Still working on Nathan's list. Just a couple more things to get at Kroger that should be cheaper with coupons!

I am glad we got most of our school shopping done but it is not fun shopping with a three year old! Poor Nathan. I love him to death.

Not much for today. Pretty frusterating day of only shopping and staying close to the house. We are getting out tomorrow for sure!!

Yard sales and grocery shopping

Saturday July 25, 2009

We had planned to go to the ice day at the zoo but ended up going to yard sales instead. I got a few good deals and we didn't stay out that long.


Cool buy, I found these for .10 cents a piece.


I have been looking for a junior scrabble. This one was .50cents.


Books of course. I can't go to any yard sale without getting books. I paid .25cents for a couple of these but most were only .10cents and one was .05cents.


A barbie for .50 cents. And she was clean, and still dressed! lol.


Found 4 Dora DVD's for $1 each and 4 Taebo for $5. Figured I could easily get my money back on these if I decided to sell them later.


I am a sucker for puzzles too and this one was .50 cents.


Thought this was neat. Jessica has started listening to books on tape during quiet times. Found two stories for .50 cents.


An icee maker! It was only .50 cents. Still have to put it together and make sure that all the pieces are there.


We did our 5 minute clean ups which means that I mostly clean for 5 minutes. (5 solid minutes in each room) and amazingly I got the living room, kitchen and both kids room where you can see all of the floor! I am not afraid of stepping on something now. Then we popped our popcorn and headed to the bed to watch another movie tonight. I taped Ratatouille last night and we watched that. I got the laundry done and three buttons sewn on Chris's shorts while the kids and I watched. Pretty productive. lol.

Oh, and I got the grocery shopping done too. Was not as excited about sales this week but only had to spend $60 and I think I have enough grocery's for the entire week. In the am we are having french toast before church and I decided to do a crock pot of chili for lunch which should be ready when we get home.


And lastly my goofy son wanted a picture of his head! So here ya go. And yes he is naked again. He lost his clothes about 1pm and ran around naked for the rest of the day. I know my neighbors have to think I am crazy when he escapes out the front door naked to watch airplanes go by!