Fun for Iz and a Creative Girl

Here is IZ finger painting "B's"


He is not too into the tactile messy hands kind of thing! Do you see that face? It has eeew written all over it! But he did have enough fun that we also made a blue "fish" pic. It doesn't look much like a fish, but that's ok.

Later, I asked Curly if she would help me with an activity. I was supposed to imitate animals and have Iz do the same. I thought it would be fun for the kids to do this together. She led them in this and was soooo good at it. They imitated animals for about 30 minutes!! I NEVER would have thought of these ideas. Even the sounds were creative! My favorite was koalas. It was so cute!! My 13yo and youngest each held onto either side of a tree like koalas. Then, they got off and crawled "to the ark," She also paired them off two by two -- male and female.

Here is dd (bottom left) and her siblings being two octopus. The lower children would crawl while the upper ones walked. Notice, they have 8 legs (including all arms and legs):

Sweet Memories

I am truly a sentimentalist.
I don't deny it.
I think I even posted about this before. :)
Yesterday, my oldest dd was reading to the youngest. It was sweet. Book after book.
Then she pulled down my "Uncle Arthur" book. I am blessed to have a five volume newer Bedtime Story set that years ago my wonderful Ski bought for me. I would love to have the 20 volume set that I grew up with, but they are far beyond our price range. The Skibums have loved these books and read many of the stories growing up. I, myself, have fond memories of reading and listening to them at my grandmother's house. So, yesterday, Hannah pulls down a book and proceeds to read to Boo. Iz looked at me once the story was finished and I had tears streaming down my face. He said in a concerned tone, "Mama's crying!!" My dear sensible Hannah, who knows me well, puts up with my abundance of gushiness, and knows that she had just finished my favorite story from the set, said, "That's Ok. She can cry!!"
Thanks, babe!!!

Yo, CJ!!!! I Hung Those Curtains!!!

No......not THAT CJ!!!!
I am talkin' to Mamma Ski!

It took me forever to figure out HOW I was gonna hang 'em. I am the frugal chick and I was adamant that I was not gonna spend much more moolah on these curtains after that stupid beading fiasco. And I don't like those big fat pseudo stone looking sconce things. So, I was telling Ski about getting eye screws and screwing them into wood so I could paint them black. I had been looking for MONTHS for something I could use. I had looked in Lowes twice, in fact. Well, Ski walks into WalMart (the usual date night stop) last night and brings me these black plastic coated cup hooks. I was sold.

So, while the kids had lunch, I screwed them all in a voila!!

Freecycle green fabric, $1/yd tree print remnant (which explains the 3/4 length curtains, cheapo white tension rods, a can of black spray paint, and two boxes of curtain clips and about a year or so of time.......don't ASK about the trim!!

Girls' Afternoon Out

My three daughters and I just returned from a great outing together.

Earlier this year, Hannah read the play "Our Town" for school. I went to check my email this morning and discovered that not only was there a performance of the play today, but it was also FREE!!! Talk about wonderful!! I was debating whether to go or not when my son told me that by all means, we must go!! So, off the three of us went. Thank goodness for highways (which I usually avoid like the plague). We got there with a little time to spare. We had second row seats and the production was so good. We were not able to have lunch until very late, but we had a grand time!! We were so very pleased to have had this opportunity and for my dear self-sacrificing son who made it possible.

New School!!

My poor little 5yo IZ was bored to tears with his school, so I decided to try something new and different. I am doing a really simple preschool thing with him and when we are done, we will jump into the next book. It is only our first week, but I am loving it. Anyway, I learned something funny about Iz today. Apparently, he does not like to get his hands messy. :) He had to glue beans to the letter 'A' and he kept wanting to go wash. It took him forever to finish gluing because he kept picking the dried glue off of his fingers.

The only problem with what we are doing is that mommy wants him to show daddy some of what we're doing. This takes quite a bit of coaxing.

I did another funny thing today. The subject of food allergies came up and my dd said something about asking children what they're allergic to. I told her that it didn't always work. As an example, I asked Isaac. All he could come up with was peanuts and ice cream cones. We have talked about this before and I know that he knows what he is allergic to. But I decided to work on this. I made a little poster with Office Publisher with photos of foods and names of things that he is allergic to. I couldn't fit them all on, so I just did 6. The allergist has been on his mind lately as well so we talked about that. He isn't thrilled with going back and getting stuck with a needle. So, I explained the tests to him and the "why" of it all as we looked at the photos.

Finally, my other son's leg is healing. We still aren't sure what it is, but it was only on his leg. We think it might have been poison ivy since the boy is highly allergic to it. However, there were aspects that didn't fit so who knows..... Iz has bumps on his belly, but we are fairly sure this is an eczema flair and not related to the other son's bumps.

Boo's b-day

L had her 9th birthday in March. Here are some pics from the celebration. She still loves Care Bears but (thankfully) decided her huge collection was enough for this year. We stayed within the same toy family though and went to Build-A-Bear per her request. Several of our kids have at least one creature from Build-A-Bear (so much so that I have a "Stuff for stuff" rewards card from there).

She picked a groundhog (why, I really don't understand) and named it Grace. You can see Grace in this picture with L and C complete with pink dress and scarf. (Hey, when we buy a groundhog, we go, um, whole hog!)

Normally we have two cakes for our birthdays. One is safe for IZ. Both get candles. We also got her a coloring book, a little stuffed dog, some Littlest Petshops creatures (I think) and some party horns. She also got a watch from one set of grandparents and a shopping spree from the other. If I remember correctly she bought more Littlest Petshops toys from Target.

Enjoy the photos but try and stay away from that one guy who seems to like his cake just a little too much!

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity!!

Last month IZ and I went to visit Michael Waltrip Racing while the older kids were busy with standardized testing. I've been to a couple of racing shops (DEI, Hendrick, Gibbs). Most are free get in and you can take a step or two into a fab shop or watch a few rooms behind glass. MWR is different. You can get in the souvenir shop and see some uniforms and bio films for free but for 15 bucks ($8 for kids) you can see pretty much EVERYTHING. While the price was a bit much to take everyone, IZ and I were able to go for pretty cheap (I had a coupon too). It was GREAT!

I AM biased since Michael is my favorite driver. I don't know every detail of his life but I know he's goofy and likes to joke around. He also loves the Lord, his wife and kids (sound like someone I'd root for? YOU BET!!)

So this was pretty much racing paradise for me. You could watch them do everything from building shock absorbers to putting decals on the body. The REALLY cool thing was every half hour or so, they have guides that will also take you inside areas that you normally can't see. You can walk into the haulers (unless they're busy loading 'em for Sunday's race), watch pit crew practice (see the pics below) and pretty much see the whole operation. (even Michael's motor home and pickup truck!)

We happened to be there when Michael's pit crew was practicing out back. They have a small set of bleachers that you can watch them changing tires and gassing up from about twenty feet away. Very cool. Before they started, one of the pitcrew came over to IZ and gave him a package of earplugs 'cause they run the car into the pit space and tear out of there quickly (12 seconds or less). The practice car wasn't as loud as I thought but it was a very considerate gesture.

One of the things I learned was that the tires from Goodyear come with the lug nuts (yellow or pink --easier to see at night) glued on. When they got done with the tire change practice, there were lug nuts on the ground and they gave us some as a free gift! (sweet!)

Is it or isn't it?

We may be about to embark on a new adventure at our home. It is something that none of us have ever experienced -- including B & Ski!! I must say that I am not the least bit thrilled about the prospect, but nothing really can be done about it. Around 2 wks ago, I learned that a family in our church had contracted chicken pox. I found out on a Thursday and that previous Sunday, our children had been talking with this family. Hmmmmm.....I wonder. Now about two weeks since that Sunday, one of my sons told me today that he has itchy bumps. From what I have read, they look like them, but they are on his leg and not his torso. So the jury is still out. Now, all of my children have been immunized for chicken pox. We did that when the vaccine first came out. Back then, our insurance would not pay for Ski or me to get the titer and two shots required for adults. So, since we had lived in fear every year of our married life of contracting chicken pox, we decided to immunize our children. However, as many a parent can tell you, this shot is not the most effective. In fact, the children who contracted chicken pox in the family above were immunized. So, you see, we have no guarantee that our children will not get it. In fact, if it were not for the possibility of Ski and I getting it at the ripe old age of 40 and 41, I would have brought my children over for a tea party with infected children. I have had many exposures to chicken pox and shingles in my life and never had even a mild case. However, I feel like my luck is running out. But Ski and I have two shots so maybe we will be spared. So, if my now seemingly perfectly healthy son develops more itchy bumps, then we will have to cancel our responsibilities for Sunday morning and hunker down for what could be a very long time. What does not look so good is that one of my daughters is not feeling so great today. Hmmmm......... We will, of course, give an update and let you know the verdict.