Memorial Day 2012

We invited my sister and her crew and my mom and dad over for a pool party yesterday.

One thing that really helped keep us cool-- Jason bought another fan for outside that had a mister with it.

As in a spraying device in front of the fan. Misting water. For some reason, when I wrote that, I felt like that sentence read as though we had a "Mr." as opposed to "Mrs". Like we bought a fan that came with a man. Not the case. Just didn't want anyone to be confused. ;)

Pressing forward in the recap of the afternoon...

We had all snacks and drinks while the kids swam.

Caroline swam a little...

I didn't catch whether or not Kate got in, but she was ready at any moment. :) Noodle. Check. Goggles. Check.

Other pics from the afternoon...

After swimming, we ate burgers. We had a tent/canopy thing set up for the kids. The adult area was pretty well shaded by 6:30 so we were good. The kids played in the sandbox for a little while. Then we headed out front to the swing.

Jason was pushing the kids pretty high.

Then he introduced them to the "Tornado of Terror". He wound the swing tight. Round and round. Then he pulled them back high and let them go. So, not only were they swinging, but they were spinning. I'm not quite sure how we managed to not have anyone throw up.

It was hard to capture the Tornado of Terror digitally and do it justice.

This is one of my favorite pics. Jason was describing the Tornado of Terror to Alex. Asking him if he could handle it. Telling him it was intense. And Alex is just smiling away.

He didn't back down. He loved it.

Everyone went home around 8:00. I threw the kids in the tub and then they crawled into our bed to watch TV before they went upstairs.

Terrible pic. Sorry.

A fun day!

When the moon hits your eye,

like a big pizza pie, that's amore....

That was the song I was singing in my head because Saturday night was MAKING PASTA NIGHT. And that's the only Italian song I know.

(Ok. It's not really Italian I guess. But it does use both the word "pizza" and the word "amore". And those sure as heck aren't Spanish words.)

Oh, there was also this song from this show the kids used to watch when they were little. It was on constant loop in my brain as well. It goes...

Pepperoni and zucchini and a lotsa mozzarella.
Pepperoni and zucchini and a lotsa mozzarella.

That's all I know. Which is annoying, isn't it? Why are the songs that get stuck in your head the ones that you don't know all the words to? So irritating.

But this is not a post about songs; it's about MAKING SPAGHETTI. (Be sure you read "spaghetti" the way Giada says it. If you watch her, you know what I'm talking about. "Spaghetti".)

So not a lot of pics.

But I busted out the food processor and made the dough with Caroline and Sarah.

In this photo, you can see the dough wrapped in plastic, the pasta machine clamped to the counter, and the white tower so that Caroline would be tall enough to help.

From this point on, it was a floured-y mess. Mayhem really. Fun mayhem, but mayhem. All hands on deck. Jason, me, all of the kids. It was like how many idiots does it take to make spaghetti?

Answer: at least 5.

And I don't have a drying rack. So I piled it up on the floured counter. I need to buy a drying rack.

While the instructions said that a floured countertop was acceptable, it was impossible to get all of the extra flour off before cooking, which led to pieces that were pretty gummy.

But look at the yumminess... Pay no attention to the floral tablecloth. I feel like there's so much in the background of all of my pics that requires explanation.

And no, I didn't make the sauce... though I have new sauce recipes I want to try. I wanted to try making the pasta at home and nailing that one down before I added another step.

It had to be good-- it got 2 thumbs up from the pickiest people I know. (Jason and Sarah.) :)

We'll do it again sometime.

Hey, Moms, I've got Summer Activity info... some of it's free stuff for your kids!

This post has LOTS of links. But I'll also do a brief explanation of the activity.

Ok, so I can't take credit for knowing about this. All of the free stuff that I'm gonna share came from The Today Show this morning. But I know a lot of you were at work when it was on. I missed it as well, truth be told. But my mom called me and I went to their website.

Kids Bowl Free

You can go to the Kids Bowl Free website and register your kids to have 2 free games of bowling per week at select bowling alleys.

To get started, click on your state. Find your city or a city near you. You have to give your name, address, phone number, and email address. And you register your kids by giving their name and birthday. (They need birthday because this is only available to kids under a certain age. Age 15 and under I think.) Then they will email you a coupon/voucher each week for 2 free games per child. So-- my understanding is that you can go once a week, every week, until they stop emailing you coupons. Which is sometime in September, I believe.

You DO have to pay for shoe rental. But that's no biggie.


Bass Pro Shop

Apparently this weekend they are having a kids event free of charge. They will teach your kids how to put up a tent. They'll have arts and crafts. A metal detector treasure hunt.

Go to their website and see if you can find out more about it. I went and didn't see anything to be honest. But I may not have been looking in the right spot. If it sounds interesting to you, then I guess you could always call.


Lowe's/ Home Depot clinics for kids

You're probably already aware of this, but every other weekend at Lowe's and the 1st Saturday of every month at Home Depot, there's a clinic for kids where they get to build something and take it home. I wasn't aware this was a FREE clinic, but according to the Today Show, it is.


On June 9th, National Parks are open for free. Just an FYI. I don't know if there's a national park near you.


Target sponsors free days at museums

Click here. Find your city. It'll tell you which museums are free and when.

If you're in the D/FW area, I'll save you the time and tell you that it's a museum of sculptures and some other museum I had never heard of. It may be the BEST exhibit and museum ever, but it didn't sound like anything kids would be interested in.

But I still thought I'd share.


Kids earn free books at Barnes and Noble

Click here. There are instructions to print out a reading log. When your child has read 8 books, then you take the reading log back to B&N and they will let your kiddo pick out a free book.

............................

Now, moving away from free and on to reduced price...

My tip here is summer movies for kids!

2 places that I know of offer them. Studio Movie Grill and Cinemark Theaters. They basically play the same movies, but the system is a little different.

Let's start with Studio Movie Grill.

Click here. Pick your city. Then click "family". Then there's a link for "children's summer series". Basically at 11:00 Monday thru Friday they play a kids' movie. The movie changes each week. One week it's "Muppets Take Manhattan". One week it's "Charlotte's Web", etc.

It costs $1 for each child ticket. And $2 for each adult ticket! That's a great deal!! I'm sure food is still full-priced. But you could order a pizza and split it for pretty cheap, and for me and my kids to get in, it would only cost us $5 per movie.

What I like about Studio Movie Grill is that you have the option of which day works best for your schedule. Not true of Cinemark.


Cinemark offers kids movies on Wednesdays at 10:00 am. Period. That's it. BUT if you purchase tickets in advance you can buy 10 tickets for $5! So that would get me and my three in to 2 movies. All 4 of us, seeing 2 movies, for $5.

It's basically the same lineup as Studio Movie Grill. A few changes. For example, I think Cinemark is playing "Winnie the Pooh" not "Muppets take Manhattan". But you gotta know which week the movie you want to see is playing. Because you have ONE shot to see it.

If you don't want 10 tickets, then you can always buy individual tickets for individual shows. In that case, however, each ticket will cost you $1.

But that's hardly breaking the bank!

Here's a link to their website. Find the link to their summer movie program.

At both places (Cinemark and Studio Movie Grill) tickets are already on sale. So if you want to get out your calendar and start planning some time to be indoors with your kids, you can.

.........

If I hear about any other deals, I'll post it. And please do the same! Summers can be very long and expensive when you're trying to entertain your children, ya know.

Uuuuggghhh

So I've found that when you treat Thursday like a weekend day, it makes it HUGELY disappointing when you wake up and realize that it's Friday and the week isn't over yet.
After I got home from the park yesterday, I went to a happy hour with my friend, Jenni. She had invited me last week. It was a ladies night out that benefited the charity she's involved with. Long story short, we ended up being there from 6:00 - 10:30. A lot of fun but I'm dragging this morning.
BUT long weekend ahead! :) Just gotta power thru today.
TGIF!

Six Flags pics

So the day was good. The lines were short. The weather, though hot, was also windy. And today "windy" was a good thing.

We did the carousel, the Yosemite Sam boat ride, the train, the Mini Mine Train, the trucks, the antique cars, a carnival game. You name it and we did it if they were tall enough to do it alone.

(At least one person had to be with Caroline so we couldn't both ride with the big kids. This limited ride selection, but the kids didn't care.)

While Caroline and I were on the carousel (one out of the 743,382 times we rode it), Sarah and Jack saw Sylvester.

Later (much later because we were obviously all much sweatier) we saw Tweety, and Sarah's comment was, "I've taken pictures with enemies today."

True. Funny how her mind works. But true nonetheless.

These trucks on the track were a huge hit with Caroline. She couldn't get enough of them. Sarah and Jack rode twice, I think.

[Such an awkward arm pose. There was NOWHERE else for me to put it.]

Then this bus thing went round and round like a ferris wheel. Caroline was too short for this one. And, taking a pic of the other 3 was challenging. This was the best I could do.

Lunch was slightly chaotic. And bathroom breaks with Caroline weren't fun.

Why does she insist on touching the potty??? Even when I'm holding her hands so she won't touch it. I could have her shorts pulled back up and we're leaving the stall and she'll turn around and make a trip back to the toilet seat, just to touch it. WHY??!!

There were moments of exhaustion which equated to whining. And whining doesn't go over well with parents when money is being shelled out right and left to create a day of fun. I'm sure you can understand that. ;) So other than the one time that Jason had to walk away from Jack during our ice cream break so that he would avoid saying something he'd regret :), we all had an excellent time.

It was a long day. But a good day.

So happy, hot, and tired

Six Flags was hot! But tons of fun. After five hours, you can stick a fork in us. We're done.

Other guesses...

Playing at Mc Donald's
Visiting Aunt Kim
Swimming
Seriously? I must be a lame mom. They're HOPING the treat is playing at McDonalds??

Guesses so far...

So they've read their cards. They know we're going somewhere.
Jack guessed: Allison's birthday party
Sarah said that her party is on Saturday.
She guessed: Chuck E Cheese's
And the thing I love is that they would be THRILLED if we were going to Chuck E Cheese's for a birthday party. I know they won't always be so easily satisfied.

Tomorrow

So tomorrow is Thursday. The day of our surprise.

We're gonna take the kids to Six Flags. They've never been. Sarah has really wanted to go. So we're gonna skip school and go before all the kids get out of school for the summer.

But she doesn't know yet.

I made a card and wrote a little poem for her to read at breakfast tomorrow to let her know that she's not going to school, we have something else planned, but it doesn't say what we're doing.

I know it's just Six Flags. But we've never let her skip school and do something like this. And I thought she would think the card was fun. Plus I'm a dork.

And then I made one for Jack too so he wouldn't feel left out.

I think they'll be really excited! Heck, last night they were measuring the fireplace because they thought THAT was fun.

I had forgotten how expensive tickets are. BUT Caroline gets in free because she's 2 yrs old. And then I bought 2 boxes of Fruity Pebbles because they had these free children's tickets inside the box. (Free with the purchase of an adult ticket. Perfect!)

Since the trip is a surprise, I told Jack we were buying Fruity Pebbles to make Fruity Pebbles Treats. So we have those now too.

It's gonna be hot tomorrow, but it should be a really fun family day of junk food and kiddie rides. Which are exactly the kind of rides this "Don't want to climb higher than the 3rd rung of a ladder" girl likes.

Learning to ride a bike

My dad started helping Sarah learn how to ride a bike without training wheels last week. I have to remember that she's only 6. So even though it may seem like she should have been riding her bike without training wheels a long time ago, she's just now giving it a shot.

When I feel like my kids are behind on these kinds of things, then I tell myself-- Some kids are swimming and bike riding by age 3 and don't really start reading until age 6. My kids' brains work the exact opposite way. Reading was easy. We're just now growing into the whole coordination stuff.

Dad ran...

And ran...

And ran some more with her.

I was just standing around taking pictures, but it looked exhausting. I had sympathy sweat.

While they worked on the bike, I had these tagalongs.

This one who can reach her pedals now and really fights me on the steering. Luckily I'm slightly stronger than her.

And this one who was so proud of himself to be pedaling so well. It really has been a struggle for him to use his left leg on the bike. That calf is a lot smaller than the other one. But-- hey-- biking is a great way to build calf muscles, right?! :)

A lunch date

Caroline and Kate.
So fun to have cousins close by.

The Purple People Eater

Sarah's been learning how to ride a bike without training wheels. (Pics and post to come later.) And Elizabeth posted a pic of a classic bike with a banana seat to my facebook wall last night.

All this bike riding talk makes me want to get out the purple people eater (as I affectionately named it) and go for a spin.

Love a comfortable seat, no shifting of gears, no silly hand brakes to get in the way on the handlebars. Just cruisin'.... :)

Highs in the 90s... Already

I knew when we never got very cold this winter that the summer was gonna be a beast. And I guess it usually hits 90 degrees in May.. ??.. but it always catches me off guard.

Jason and I have a surprise for the kids on Thursday. I'll blog about it more then, but I will say that I wish it wasn't gonna be 94 degrees that day.

Date night cooking class

Jason planned a date night last week. My sister-in-law babysat while we went to a cooking class and learned how to make fresh pasta.

It was a class given by a woman who teaches at a cooking school but also offers cooking classes for small groups in her home. So it was us and one other couple. A young (I'm talking young as in graduated from high school in 2005! What?!) newly engaged couple.

The pasta making was so much fun! I'm buying a pasta machine to clamp to my counter top and make fresh spaghetti this week.

Apparently there's an attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer that makes it SUPER easy, but it's $200. Yeah... thanks but no thanks. I'll use a handcrank machine for $40 that I can get at Bed Bath and Beyond and use my 20% off coupon.

After we made fettuccine, ravioli and pappardelle, each with their own sauces, we sat in the dining room to eat. And we talked with the other couple. But it quickly became a conversation about how old we are and how much life changes after you get married and have kids. We were the BIGGEST downers. EVER. I don't know how that happened.

I became aware of this after we had talked about how Jason used to be a triathlete when we dated and hasn't worked out since we got married. How we want to get a dog but we FINALLY got our last kid pottytrained and now the last thing we want to do is take on more responsibility. Jason mentioned how we don't have the same taste in music and something else... I forget what. Anyway... basically I felt like we came off as a tired, old, fat couple with nothing in common except the kids we're raising that are wearing us out. And, after hearing Jason say how his knees and his back hurt and how he can't do this or that anymore because he's getting older, I felt the need to tell them that I'm 6 years younger than Jason. A few different times.

Maybe we had had a bad day that day. :) But we were giving off the "Are you sure you're ready for this?" vibe.

Thankfully Jason saved the day by telling stories about his folks' dogs in Meridian. He's got some pretty funny stories. So we ended the night with everybody laughing. Loudly.

I really appreciate Jason's planning the night, and I can't wait to make pasta! I'll let you know how it goes.

And in the meantime, I vow to stay away from impressionable nearly-weds. ;)

End of Year Program

A couple of weeks ago Jack had his graduation and end of year program for preschool. This is the one where he recited his "V" verse. Perfectly, I might add. ;)

For the graduation part, each student wore the graduation cap and received a diploma and a New Testament. They were also asked what they wanted to be when they grow up.

Jack said, "A teacher like Mrs. Carol."

[makes my heart feel all warm inside]

But then later he said, "My second choice was an entertainer."

A change in perspective

One of my rare, more serious posts...


Thursday was Jack's last day of preschool. Which reminds me-- I need to post pics of his End of Year program.

When he got in the car after school, he started to cry quietly to himself. I only noticed because I looked in the rear view mirror, and he said, "I sure am gonna miss my friends, Mom. Can I call them sometime?" :(

Some of his buddies from preschool have been his buddies since he was 2 and in Mother's Day Out. And some of his friends live in Frisco or McKinney and won't be going to his elementary school. They don't go to our church. He has a feeling that he'll never see them again, and, unless we invite them over to play, he probably won't. That's the sad truth of it.

Last week I had my Mother's Day lunch with him at school. One of the moms, Julie, told me how sweet she thinks Jack is and how he's so nice to her daughter. Of course you know cynical me. I said, "Probably because he's willing to play tea party with her or something." And Julie said that wasn't it. She can tell he has sisters because he treats girls nicely. Not that the other boys are mean but Jack wanted to be friends.

I thought, "Great. Cries easily. Friends with girls. I'm a terrible boy mom. I don't know how to make him tougher."

Then last night I was in Jack's room looking for something, and I passed by a prayer I had written out for Jack a few years ago. It's framed and in his room. Each of the kids has a different prayer I've prayed over them that I've framed and put in their bedrooms. For no reason other than I want them to know that I pray for them.

I've walked past it hundreds of times in the last 3 years. I reread it for the first time yesterday. And part of it said, "Lord, let him live with purpose. Don't let him be swayed by influences that would bring him down... Let us teach him how to obey authority, treat girls with respect, do work with integrity, and honor You above all. I ask that you give him a tender heart turned towards You."

I had forgotten that I prayed that he would have a tender heart and that he would treat girls well. It's like God took that moment to remind me that Jack is being molded and shaped into the person he's supposed to be. The person I've prayed for him to be. I started arguing a little with God and saying, "When I prayed for a tender heart, I meant more like I wanted him to be ruggedly compassionate. :) Not crying all the time. And when I said I wanted him to treat girls with respect, I meant more like opening car doors one day."

And again, I just felt this reassurance that Jack's heart is tender and easily pricked. He's 5 years old and doesn't know how to control his tears, but he'll mature. Having a heart that feels something is a good thing. If he were to pull out a girl's chair in his preschool class, that would be really weird. If he's nice to them and willing to play with them on the playground, that's not a bad thing.

And then there was this feeling that if God is listening when I pray and I can already see evidence that He's answering my prayer, then I have faith that Jack will also live a life filled with purpose and integrity. In other words, I expect God to be just as faithful in answering the rest of my prayer for him.

I'm not saying that I'll never have a comment on facebook or the blog about Jack driving me nuts with his crying. Because I will say something again at some point I'm sure. I think it can be a little ridiculous. BUT my perspective was shifted yesterday. I'm not ultimately in charge of who Jack is or who he becomes. And there's not a part of his personality that is accidental.

We have got to remember to put OFF on Caroline

She's a tasty treat to mosquitos apparently.
She scratched the one on her face til it bled. :(