Monday's Spring Break Adventure

Bowling!!

See our fancy shoes:

And the winner is:

DAD!

Ben and I were neck in neck almost the whole game, I pulled ahead right at the end.
I have NEVER scored over 100 in a game of bowling.

Yeah, I stink!

Hooray for BUMPERS!

To Sonic or not to Sonic?

What is the deal with Sonic Drive-Ins?

We have seen their commercial lately and I have read some blogs that talk about Sonic, but I am wondering if it is worth a 30-40 minute drive........it is just fast food right?

We have learned that there is a Sonic a few towns away from us and we might take one of our Spring Break day trips that direction.

Is it worth a little detour?

If you've been there let us know!!

Love it? Hate it?

Tell us, you could save us the gas money!

Dear Uninvited House Guest,

Please go away! Mr. Influenza A, B, C or whatever you are. You are not welcome at our house. I'm not sure how you got in; we wash our hands regularly and I always use those santizing wipes on my grocery cart. But somehow you snuck your way into our house and have rendered me useless. You made me miss out on all of the Easter festivites and even made me to sleepy to watch the Living Hope Easter Service on TV.
It is one thing to strike the mother, but simply another to take down her children. Oh, the nerve of you. Benjamin was looking forward to PE today because it was chin-up day. Do you not understand the joy it brings an 8 year old boy to try to beat his PE teacher in chin-ups? Instead, you Mr. Flu, have seized his body, making even holding his head up next to impossible.
Before you even think of taking up residence in Cooper or Dave, please remember that neither of them have done anything to deserve your visit. They are good people and do no harm to others, so please be mindful of that and skip right over them on your way out the door.......................
Oh Yeah, don't forget to take your little subjects: fever, chills, body ache, head ache, cough and congestion with you.

Sincerely,

The Mom

Yummy Lunches

A couple of weeks ago the "brown bag blues" made their way into our house.

I leave for work pretty early in the morning so Dave handles all the aspects of getting Ben off to school, including packing his lunch.

Well, a few weeks ago Ben had a couple of really rough days at school that involved a few bad choices, some disrespect, and a whole lot of crankiness. While discussing this issue it came out that his lunches had been lacking in healthy-ness during that time.

Now granted it was the week after his birthday and Valentines day, so we did have an abundance of treats and sweets in our house and I had not done any serious grocery shopping for a while so we were getting low on the nutritous fare.

Well, it seems that a few to many of those not so healthy, but

oh so delicious goodies

made it into the lunch box in place of the

brain foods

necessary to get any 8 year old through their day, much less one that suffers from

low-blood-sugar-stinky-attitude-disorder.

(I am certain this is a real disorder!)

I certainly do not hold my husband responsible for the

"brown bag blues"

that struck that week because I had not done my job in providing the nutritous ingredients.

So, my first plan of action was to

pitch the remainder of the sugar-laden treats

into the garbage.

Then I headed out to the grocery store with Ben in tow to help me decide on what good things he wanted in his lunch box. Then I typed up a list to go on my fridge with three categories:

Main Course, Fruits & Veggies, and Treat.

Now each day Ben is supposed to go to the list and pick one item from each category to put in his lunch box. Dave does help him with preparing the main course, but other than that, Ben is responsible for making sure that his lunch will get him through the day and

so far, so good.

He has not had any more of those tough days.

Now that's not to say that he doesn't still suffer from the

LBSSA disorder,

but at least now the crankiness holds off until he is in the car on his way home!

Here is one of his favorite main courses:

It's getting a little crazy around here......

I can usually handle the craziness, but I am getting a little concerned for myself. You see today I kind of volunteered to coach a soccer team for 4 and 5 year olds. It all started so innocently. I have been wanting to get Cooper signed up for Parks & Recreation soccer, but I procrastinated and the deadline passed. At first I though, "oh well", then I realized that I really wanted to give Cooper the opportunity to play a sport since he has had to sit through endless practices and games watching Ben. So today I call the parks & rec office to see if by chance there was still an opening for soccer. The answer was "no, but we have a waiting list and you would be second on the list." So the next word out of my mouth were "well, what if I coach a team?" Huh, did I just say that out loud? To which the P & R gal replied "that would be great, I'll have you talk to Heidi, please hold." Oh no! Heidi, the P &R coordinator gets on the phone and in no time at all Cooper is on a team and I am the coach! She gives me all the details for the coaches meeting tomorrow evening and the team meeting on Saturday, I pick out our jersey colors and the conversation ends. Just like that I am now the coach of eight four and five year old soccer players (if you can call them that). The good news is that the coaches kid get's to play for free!
That in itself would not constitute craziness, but that added to the fact that Ben is playing baseball right now which is a 3 day a week committment and he recently started swimming with a swim club, which is 2-3 days a week, I still have 3 1/2 months left in my PTA treasurer duties, I play on an indoor soccer team on Wednesdays, and Cooper has swim lessons on Wednesday mormings! Fortunately Dave is handling most of the baseball duties (I just go watch the games) and Cooper's swimming lessons....otherwise I'd be headed for the loony bin. As it stands I'm just headed to the poor house because of gas prices!

What a difference a week makes...

Last Sunday morning I was driving myself home from Urgent Care with severe case of strep throat; this morning I ran a 5k!

My sister Kris and I (along with about 5,000 other people) ran in the Shamrock Run. It was my first 5k and I had so much fun! Being sick all week did take it's toll on me, I am still not quite back to 100%, but was able to finish the run just a few minutes over my original goal time. I think I am now hooked on running and am looking forward to my next 5k.

Oh yeah......Kris also gave me a haircut today. This morning I had hair down past my shoulders!

My tonsils look disgusting!

I have the worst case of strep throat that I have ever had (and I get it often!). I was going to take a picture of my tonsils to show them to you all, but I really only want pictures of nice things on my blog. So take my word for it, they are nasty looking. The only reason I am able to hold my head up right now is because I have added a controlled narcotic to my ibuprofen cycle, which has allowed me to swallow my first calories since breakfast Saturday morning. That controlled substance is kicking in right now so I must go lay back down. Please pray that no one else in my family catches this because it is awful........

I {HEART} Patrick Swayze...... and other RANDOMNESS

Yep, it's true. Patrick Swayze was my first heart throb crush. If my mom would have let me buy Tiger Beat magazine when I was a preteen I would have skipped over all the pages of the New Kids on the Block and Ricky Schroeder in order to get a glimpse of Patrick Swayze.

I mean, what teenage girl did not wish that they were Jennifer Grey, when he muttered those famous words; "Nobody puts Baby in a corner".

(my mom would have sooner let me buy a Tiger Beat magazine than let me see that movie. She doesn't know that I snuck out with my friend Niki to see it. sorry Mom!)

Sad to hear that he has cancer. But did you know that the guy has been married to his wife since 1975?

Seriously, a 33 year Hollywood marriage!

See, what's not to love?


This is what is in my fridge this week:

and Ihave had to refill it 3 times since Sunday.

Hello, do my kids not know that this is healthy?


This has taken up residence in the boys' bathroom:

And it is actually very funny. Did you know that Hobbes is a stuffed animal that only comes alive to Calvin? I didn't know that.

I have been enlightened by having boys who LOVE comics.

And truthfully, I am starting to love comics too!

(ssshhh......don't tell the boys)

Look What Cooper Can Do

We have had a couple of weeks of really great weather here. God knew that I needed a little blue skies in order to get me though the next few rainy months. We have had two weeks of mostly sunny days, with just a little rain here and there, so we picked up right where we left off last fall; at the park~

We took the training wheels off his bike last weekend, and I held on for exactly two steps then he took off on his own!

Last summer he preferred to hang out in the "baby swings", now........he's jumping off the big swings!

Another newly acquired skill!