2012 Week 12

This week:

Kaitlyn had group photos at dance class.  Not my favorite thing to do, getting Kaitlyn all dressed up just to spend more than an hour watching the chaos for overpriced photos I had no intention of buying.  But Kaitlyn did look cute, and getting ready for the recital will be much easier now that we've had practice.

Tyler and I got a little silly the other day.  I blasted fun music and we had a Nerf gun fight.  But neither one of us actually wanted to get hit by the darts so we had our fight with the glass door of the dining room in between us.  Ty thought that made it extra fun. 

I have started in on the Spring Cleaning around here, oh boy (that's sarcasm, in case you were wondering).  Both kids were home on the day I decided to tackle the corner cupboard that houses all the small appliances and I told them to go outside and play.  Kaitlyn has spent almost all her free time outside, usually with friends but sometimes just to read or draw on the porch and she happily went off to play.  Tyler, however, told me "I won't annoy you.  I want to help!"  And spotting the crumbs left behind by the toaster he drug out the vacuum himself and started in on the cupboard while I wiped down the appliances.

And yes, those are shorts he is wearing.  It's been beautiful weather here - lots of rain but temps seem to hover in the 70s and 80s and we've changed out all our winter stuff for short sleeves, shorts, and flip flops.

Also this week Tyler and I made a quick trip to Audrey's house - so fun!  She had been telling me about these wonderful consignment sales they had and two of them were back to back.  So Sam managed to get the day off early on Thursday so he could be there when Kate got home (he's great sometimes - he even had night fire and could easily have told me it was a bad time) so after dropping Kaitlyn off at school we got on the road.  And since I had a stack of toys just sitting in the garage waiting for me to do something with them, I was able to consign some to one of the sales so we could go to the presale together Thursday night.  Once we got to Audrey's we dropped off the sale stuff then took the kids to the park to play until lunch time.  We had a lot of fun hanging out and the boys had tons of fun playing together.  Audrey got a babysitter that night so we could go to the presale without kids, then out to dinner on our own.  The next day we hit the second sale and did some more hanging out until it was time for us to leave.  In the end I made $91 from the stuff I sold - more than I expected!  And Tyler is now totally set up for clothing this summer, including an extra swimming suit and sandals.  Kaitlyn is pretty close to being all set too.  And I even picked up some fun surprises for Easter.

Kaitlyn and Sam had their own brand of fun while we were gone and went out to dinner and spent some quality time together.  Of course having been at Audrey's on Friday I didn't get my usual cleaning done.  Sam and the kids pitched in first thing Saturday morning while I did my workout, then I finished scrubbing the bathrooms and helped them put the finishing touches on their rooms and the playroom.
We found these notes outside our bedroom door later that day.  Folded into paper airplanes, as many of their notes tend to be lately.  Kaitlyn is such a sweetie, as I'm pretty sure it was her idea, and obviously she transcribed Tyler's note for him.

2012 Week 11

St Patrick's Day this week.  Tyler was excited to have a visit from a leprechan in his classroom on Friday.  And of course a leprechan or two payed us a visit on the 17th, leaving behind a treasure hunt for the kids, some treats, and a some sign of just how silly those leprechans can be!

2012 Week 10

The weather lately has been pretty fabulous, and this week is no exception.  It's so fun to see some green start popping up and the early flowers on trees and bushes.

I don't know the science behind it, but one day this week the gravitation pulls of the planets lined up and some of my online buddies were experimenting with getting their brooms to stand on end.  I was able to get ours to do it (hehe).  That broom stood up by itself in the middle of the kitchen for hours as I wanted to show the kids my little magic trick.  However, Tyler thought it was more fun to knock it down than to look at it, so the broom got put away shortly after he got home.

The week was pretty much spent catching up from the week before and working on things on my list.  Last minute, a friend asked if I wanted to share the space she got at the Relay for Life Yard Sale/Vendor Fair fundraiser.  It was supposed to be held last Saturday but was rained out and rescheduled for this Saturday.  As I had kind of hectically pulled everything together last Friday when I thought I only had one day to prep, getting ready for it wasn't too much trouble after that, which is good as I was still playing catch up from the trip.  Saturday was a sunny day, but the wind was chilly so it wasn't super fun to sit outside babysitting the table all day.  It also wasn't a good idea to combine a yard sale with a vendor fair as the turn out wasn't great and most of the people expected yard sale prices.  However, I did sell a few hairbows and may have some future orders from it.  And it's not entirely a bad thing to spend the day out in the sunshine chatting with a friend.

Sunday was another day spent outside (though this time with slightly warmer temperatures) as Sam had agreed to help one of my friends set up the playset she had purchased for her girls.  I went along as an extra set of hands and the kids went, well, because they couldn't stay home alone.  But they had fun playing with the 2 year old and all 4 kids (baby included) behaved much better than we could have hoped for.  Setting up the playset had it's share of frustrations (like the fact that some important pieces were missing, or the swing part that drove us all crazy as it didn't fit together quite right) but we did get it all together, and in a decent amount of time. 

The playset at 10AM

 And the playset at 5 PM

2012 Week 9

The kids did it!  They earned a trip to Great Wolf Lodge (by trying new foods) and this week we fulfilled our end of the bargain by taking them there Monday.  For 3 days and 2 nights we had a great time swimming and enjoying all the other amenities at the hotel.  The kids loved the wave pool (we couldn't get Tyler out of it most of the time) and the slides.  They also had fun with the Magi Quest (kind of a treasure hunt with a magic wand and interactive items set up all throughout the hotel), the arcade, story time, and a few other activities.

We reserved a room with a "kids cabin" with it's own little set of bunk beds and TV.  The kids loved it.

It was quite a fun week for the kids.  When they returned to school on Thursday it was only for a half day, due to Parent Teacher conferences (which neither of the kids' teachers had asked us to attend).  And the school celebrated Dr Seuss' birthday on Friday with fun activities for the kids.  Tyler's class even got to wear their pajamas to school. 

It was drill week for Sam, so to keep ourselves busy the kids and I went to the Dr Seuss party at the library.  They had an illustrator/artist there that did a fun little presentation then the kids got cake and punch.

Kaitlyn can be a real sweetheart when she feels like it.  We found a cute little drawing from her on our bed this week.