According to You

Look how much Sebastian has grown! A few years ago we did an interview with him to document things he liked at that time. Back in October, we did another interview to update things a bit, and I just got around to putting the whole thing together on a layout. The kit I used is a new one by Traci Murphy at Funky Playground called 'All About da Funk.' It will be released tomorrow, the 30th.

age: 7

fav color: black

fav food: candy corn hershy kisses & hot dogs

fav book/series: hardy boys

worst food: fish & mint anything

fav movie: flicka

best friend: harley

fav sport: football

fav school special: technology

fav school subject: writing

something you like but don't do very often: fishing

best part of school: fun friday

worst part of school: nothing

what are you good at: drawing & making up stories

fav thing to draw: pokemon

fav vacation spot: cedar point

On the Go

Here are 2 layouts I did with a new kit by Ziggle Designs called 'On the Go.' The 1st one is of Sebastian on the day he was born. Wasn't he a cute little peanut! The second one is of the kids at Cedar Point last year. They got Grandma to go on the speedy race cars. They had a blast!

The Crunchy Ones

The other night, we ran out of pull-ups in our house. What to do?! So, I put Meagan in big girl undies for bed time, and covered them with the plastic water-proof underpants. Let's just say, she's not the biggest fan of the plastic pants. She says they're too noisy and crunchy.

Last night at bedtime, Lucas was getting her ready for bed. First the regular undies. Then the plastic ones. When it came time for the plastic ones, she went into full protest. "I DON'T LIKE THE CRUNCHY ONES!" she cried. Lucas responded, "As soon as you learn to stay dry, you won't have to wear them anymore." When that wasn't enough to settle her, he said, "Besides, your brothers had to wear these too when they were learning to stay dry at night."

Sebastian, who was standing nearby, and who hears EVERYTHING, throws his 2 cents in by saying, "Um, I don't remember EVER wearing THOSE THINGS!"

Thanks buddy, that's a lot of help.

She still wore them.

Today, however, we found them thrown away in the trash can in her bathroom. Nice try girl. It's gonna take more than that to get rid of the crunchy ones.

Slightly less broken...slightly

Well, we got the van fixed. However, now it creaks. So apparently, it still needs some TLC. We'll be looking into that tomorrow.

Yesterday afternoon, Lucas took it upon himself to repair the garage door, which eventually involved me holding the big bar that goes the full width of the garage while he tightened the cables... Only I couldn't reach, and I could get my hands around the vice grips (or whatever they were that I was using), so I was practically hanging on the thing to hold it... I'm sure that was quite the sight. Thankfully, there were no cameras around! We did eventually manage to get the garage door back into an operable state. We are no longer trapped in our garage, and Lucas doesn't have to lift with herculean might to push the door up.

We did manage to get more caught up (although not completely) on the laundry piles that were accumulating in every corner of every room in the house (not really, but it was starting to feel like it!) Plus, when we went to pick up the van the other day, we left the windows open, only to come home to a flooded kitchen & bedroom thanks to the storm that blew threw while we were away.... which meant that an entire basket of clean laundry that had been sitting under our window, just waiting to be folded, was DRENCHED! Do over!

So, our last three days have been non-stop doing and going. We've been working hard, and I'm thinking right now it's about time to crash! Hopefully the next few days will bring a bit of rest at some point, although we'll have to find time to squeeze it into our schedule between all of the t-ball / baseball / gymnastics practices! (Sheesh, I'm wearing myself out just typing this! I think we just need a vacation!) As for now, I am DONE for the day. I have a nice cozy bed that is calling my name! 'Night!

Pop Quiz

Tonight for dinner, Lucas & I had hot Italian sausage, while the kids had hot dogs. At some point during our dinner conversation, Lucas asks Sebastian if he knows what his hot dog is made of. Without blinking, Sebastian answers very matter-of-factly, 'Yup. Livers, hooves, and intestines.' So I asked him if he knew what that meant. 'Yes, it's stuff from your stomach, or stuff that's inside your rib cage.' Okay, so I guess he passed that pop quiz. And apparently he is unfazed by the contents of his dinner.


***

Broken

Broken. That one single word describes way too many things at our house right now. Today was a day dedicated to mending the broken. First off, Lucas took the day off of work today, for 2 reasons (other than just wanting/needing a break). First, we had to take the van to get the front end fixed, and I needed someone to go with me to drop it off to bring me home. Even more than that, though, our garage is in need of repair. A few days ago - Wednesday actually - when Sebastian and I got home from his 1st baseball practice of the season (which, by the way only lasted about 15 minutes because it started raining/sleeting out of nowhere), I pushed the garage door opener so I could pull the van in. Only the garage door only opened about a foot off the ground. Then it closed. So I pushed it again. Same thing. Again. Same. You get the point. I thought Lucas must have been messing with me, until I saw his feet and hands appear at the bottom of the garage door. At that point, I realized he wasn't messing with me at all, but he was actually trying to help get the door open. Anyway, the spring had broken. The funniest part of the whole story is that I actually had to call him home from work Thursday morning because I COULD NOT get the door open. Meagan and I were trapped in the garage! LOL!

So anyway. Today, after we dropped the van off, we headed to Bob's for breakfast. Then went to Menard's to look for a spring for the garage door. In the process, somehow, we ended up picking out a screen door for the front door. BUT they didn't have the one we wanted in stock. We checked Lowe's next with no luck. At that point, we headed out and made a few more stops. On the way home, we happened to pass another Menard's, so we decided to stop and see if they had the door. They did! So, we came home with a screen door. No spring for the garage door yet, but a screen door. I must say it is incredible to have such a good cross breeze coming through the house today. I am a big fan of the new screen door!


Going back to the theme of broken....

After hanging the door, Lucas busted out the lawn mower to cut the grass. Can you believe it? The wheel on the mower busted. Aaaah! Still functional, just a flat tire of sorts.

However, today was a milestone day for Sebastian. It was his first time ever that he mowed the yard! He did a few lines going from the front to back. Then it was time for dinner, after which Lucas just finished it up. So Sebastian didn't really do a lot of it, but he seemed to really like it, and said he wanted to do it again. (I think Lucas has been looking forward to this day for the past 7 years!!! LOL)

To wrap up the day, we had a family DQ ice cream picnic. Sebastian & Lucas were the Blizzard Boys. Meagan got a strawberry sundae. Isaac got the biggest boat of a banana split (and ate it all!!). And I got the yummiest turtle sundae in a chocolate dipped waffle cone bowl.... YUMMMM! It was a nice way to wind down from a busy day of fixing all things broken.

***

As Promised....

I am totally operating off of the "Better late than never" slogan right now! Here are our Easter Pictures... only one week after the fact!

We attempted an outdoor photo session. I didn't consider the fact that it was early morning, and the sun was going to be RIGHT IN OUR EYES. No matter where we went, or what angle I faced them, it was just too bright, and they all struggled to keep their eyes open. But I still think the pictures turned out pretty cute...


So as to try to get a few pictures without squinty eyes, I took them all back inside for some pics on the couch. However, by this time, they were all feeling a little ornery, and the silliness ensued. You can see it first in Meagan's eyes, and then Isaac's, and pretty soon, a whole Bunny Ear battle was under way. It was funny to watch, and they giggled so hard I thought for sure Isaac would burst! I love laughter like that...it's infectious!!


The kids each took turns taking pictures of me with someone else. There were a lot of blurred shots on my camera, but a few turned out okay.


Finally, after church, we did an outdoor egg hunt. We only hid and hunted the eggs that we had decorated the day before. Nothing fancy. But it still was a ball! I think it was a good thing we only did a few eggs, because it took a good 45 minutes for them just to find those. And that was with some heavy hinting at times! LOL!

***

.....

I didn't fall off the face of the earth. We've had some STINKY Internet problems - like dropping service all over the place for no reason. It's been VERY aggravating! I think, however, it may finally be fixed. At least it hasn't done it for about 24-48 hours. Hoping our online streak continues!!

I'll be back tomorrow (hopefully) to post some pics from Easter. I know the grandparents have all been itching to see the kids dressed up in their Easter outfits.


***

The Process...

Our big excitement for the afternoon was coloring eggs. I bought a dozen eggs for each kid. After cooking them (the first time), one was cracked, so we decided each of them would have 11 eggs instead of 12 (to make things fair). Lucas decided he would eat the cracked egg, so he cracked it open, only to find that the centers weren't fully cooked. Yuck. So I stuck them back in the steamer for a bit longer...hopefully that worked... if not, then we've wasted $3 of eggs... not the biggest of deals I suppose, although I hate to be wasteful.

Anyway, after steaming them all a second time, we began to prepare the coloring tablets while the eggs cooled. We had 3 boxes of tablets - each box had 6 colors. I figured with 3 dozen eggs, it might go a bit faster with more colors going at the same time. So, we decided to do one set of tablets in vinegar (to make bright colors), one set in lemon juice (to make medium colors), and one set in water (to make pastel colors). Sebastian the science kid made this observation about the way the tablets reacted in each of the 3 liquids: they 'explode like fireworks' in the vinegar, they 'fizz like fizzy bubbles' in the lemon juice, and they 'just sort of sit there and don't do anything' in the water. Funny stuff that boy is.

Once the eggs were cool, the tablets were ready, and the table was covered, we moved our show to the kitchen table and got ready to color. I thought the easiest way would be to line them up by color and by liquid base and then keep track of whose eggs were in which cups... I know that sounds a little over the top for egg coloring, but trust me, without a method to keep track, I would totally lose track, and chaos would ensue... 'no MINE was in that blue one!'... you get the point. Anyway, it worked REALLY well, and the whole thing took us only about an hour at most to color and complete 3 dozen eggs. Now we're just waiting on them to dry so they can put the stickers on.

***

Misadventures of the day before Easter

This morning, almost as an afterthought, I decided to double check to make sure the clothes I bought the kids for Easter actually fit. I'm glad I checked, because Sebastian's shirt was huge on him. So, we loaded up in the van, and headed back to Old Navy to make the exchange. For a special treat, and in the interest of skipping a step at home before being able to leave, we stopped at Speedway and got some donuts for breakfast...(Karen, if you're reading this, you can scold me later). We also got the kids each a bottle of milk, which took one of them all of 30 seconds to spill in the van before we even left the parking lot... sheesh. Other than that, there were no real mishaps. The only real problem was that the mall was packed, then Target (our next stop) was even more packed, and the roads were busy. So it wasn't a bad trip, it was just a congested trip. And it seems that congestion and business makes my kids (and probably me too) a little more tense and uptight than normal. So they were kind of picking at each other, and they were melting a little more readily than normal. It was a bit irritating, but we made it through okay. Our last stop (because Target didn't have what we were looking for) was Wal-Mart, which was the busiest of all. We got 3 packs of Easter egg color tablets, some stickers to put on the eggs, and some ribbon (for Meagan's hair for tomorrow, as she has changed her mind on which dress she wants to wear, and we didn't have ribbon to match her new choice...she's such a girl sometimes! Although, I will say, her new selection will match the boys much better than her initial choice - her dress is blue & green, and they each have a blue shirt and a green shirt. I didn't plan that, but I can't say that I mind).

***

Visitors

Yesterday (Friday) we had some visitors in the afternoon. Some friends of ours came over after lunch and hung out with us until about 4:00. They have 2 boys and a girl, although the age range for their 3 kiddos is from 10 down to 2. The boys all play really well together, and Anna and Meagan have a ball together. So they played - everything from Polly Pockets to kitchen, to legos, to sand box, to wii, to sword/light saber fights. It was a great afternoon of just hanging out and kicking back. Love that. Then, last night we went to Applebee's for dinner. It was the 1st time I'd had Mt. Dew in over a week. Yum. Plus, the food tasted extra good last night because I didn't have to cook it!! Love that, too!

***

Playtime

Here are two layouts I did using the Playtime Collaboration Kit at After Five Designs.

Journaling: Meagan, when you smile, your face lights up, and your eyes sparkle with joy. You have the ability to bring such joy and happiness and laughter to a day of mundane happenings. You can lighten a mood with a look or a sweet word or a gesture. It's such a precious gift from God to be able to brighten the world the way you do. I truly hope that as you grow up, you will begin to share more smiles and less sass. You're like a real-life pocket full of sunshine, and I love that!

Journaling: What I love most about this day was how hard we all laughed trying to get our kites to fly!

Spring Break Updates

I thought as I'm sitting here eating lunch, I'd give a quick update on our Spring Break week. The kids have been pretty good, all in all, as far as attitude goes... although Meagan still insists on fighting me on everything. She can be exhausting!

The boys did their trial class of gymnastics, and LOVED it! They both did really well, actually, and caught on very quickly to the skills and such. Isaac's focus was a little all over the place, and he did lots of bouncing around in between turns (he and Meagan are a lot alike in that respect... neither one of them can seem to sit still... ever!). Other than that, though it went really well. They came home and found ways to practice their vaulting and floor exercises in our house. Of course.

We did find an Old Navy that's not too far away from us - maybe a 30 minute drive. So we got the boys each an Easter outfit for this weekend. And the kids saw the Easter Bunny at the mall. We didn't have time to stop to get pictures taken, but the Bunny did give them each an egg with prizes inside... that was worth the 30 minute drive, as far as the kids were concerned!

Bits and Pieces

Let me just start by saying that it is almost 11:00 at night, and all three kids are still awake. Church at 9:00 in the morning is going to be interesting.

Anyway, we survived April Fool's Day with no known pranks....well, other than Isaac telling us that he bought a cow, and then shouting 'April Fools!' before I even had a chance to process what he had said to begin with. That was pretty cute.

Yesterday was the kids' last day of school until the Tuesday after Easter, so I am bracing for a shift in attitude and behavior - you know, the kind that inherently comes when they get out of routine...say, like being awake at 11:00 at night. We don't have any really big plans for break, because I am still working Monday and Thursday, but a few small things. The biggest excitement that the boys are looking forward to is a free trial gymnastics class this Tuesday. They've been asking for months now to join gymnastics, but I haven't been able to let them because of the timing of the beginner boys classes...there's just no way we would make it there on time without the boys missing a big chunk of school every Tuesday...not for gymnastics. But, since there is no school, missing school is not an issue. They're pretty pumped about it actually.

Other than that, we may have to go Easter outfit shopping for the boys - and regular clothes shopping for me, as my pants are all rapidly developing holes in inappropriate places...EEEK! Meagan and I did ran some errands yesterday, and we stopped at the mall to go to Old Navy, only to find that Old Navy no longer exists in our mall. So we ended up making an over-glorified potty break at Barnes & Noble, and then leaving...pretty pointless trip actually. So I have to go online and see if there's an Old Navy still in existence anywhere near us (I'm only hung up on Old Navy because I have $75 of gifts cards that I want to use up).

In other news, Meagan has been making big birthday plans for the last few days. She is having a Tinkerbell party. We have already gotten the decorations, the plates, the cups, and all the other party necessities. She has decided she wants to have her party at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and she wants to have a big giant pizza, or maybe hot dogs, for her food. Really, she just wanted to have cupcakes for her food, but we finally settled on actually feeding people something other than cake. So anyhow, she wants cherry chip cupcakes because they're pink. And she wants green icing with purple sprinkles because her decorations are green and purple. And she has a list about a mile long of things she would like to have for her birthday. That girl is not lacking for a wish list, that's for sure.

Hmmm... other than that, we've been kind of going about life as usual. Lucas is actually not working this weekend, so he decided to work on the van instead. And as for me, I finally got around to getting groceries for the week, so we don't have to survive on the randomness that we've loosely called meals as of lately.... like the night we had a combination of cereal (for the kids), tuna sandwiches (for Lucas...definitely NOT for me), and cheese and crackers (that was mine) ... after which we had completely run out of milk (the reason I didn't also have cereal with the kids), cheese, tuna, and bread. Nice, huh?

Just Married

I almost forgot to post this layout! How could I??? This is one of Great Grandma & Grandpa H.'s wedding pictures... as they drive off into the sunset (LOL). Aren't they cute?!

Credits: {Matahati Designs} - Vintage Charm

M{eagan}

Another Meagan layout using another new kit by Bren Boone - the kit is called Power Crafter.



These pictures are also from summer vacation last year. I may end up using them again on another layout because I really like them!

Fun Is Good

Here's a layout I did over the weekend with a new kit by Bren Boone that comes out tomorrow...'The Best Thing Ever.' These pictures are from summer vacation at Grandma & Grandpa H.'s last summer. Grandma took some AMAZING bubble pictures. I know the layout doesn't do the pictures justice, but I liked all of them so much I had to include them all...thus, they're a little small. Oh well. The quote is from Dr. Suess's One Fish Two Fish. "If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good."

Staying Afloat

Every now and then - maybe once a month or so - the school has a 'swim for $1.00' day. After school, instead of coming home, the kids get bussed to the aquatic center for about an hour & a half of swimming. Last Wednesday was that day for March.

I went to pick the boys up a little after 5:00. On the way home, as they were recounting their adventures and fun, Sebastian said, "Mom, I wish I could swim in the deep end, but I'm not allowed to yet." As I talked to him about it a little more, I found out that one of his friends in his class has passed the swim test to be able to swim in the deep end. Sebastian, however, is great at swimming under water, but cannot swim on the surface very well.

This led to conversation about past swim lessons, and led Isaac to offer his two cents on the matter. "Well, I know how to swim because I learned in my swim lessons. I just move my hands and feet around really fast so they're floppy....it usually works, only sometimes I go under water. But I almost always pop right back up."

LOL! I love that kid. He has such a great outlook on life! I guess it's all in the technique (and in hoping you resurface quickly when the technique fails you!)

Needless to say, I believe we'll be getting them some more swim lessons this spring or early summer. I think Sebastian might be looking for something a little more definite than floppy hands and feet.

Fever in the moring...

Over the weekend, the kids developed a bit of a cough, but this morning, Meagan woke up with a fever. Bummer. Poor girl, when I went in to get her up to get ready for school, she said, "Mommy, I just want to stay in bed and keep sleeping because I feel sick." I picked her up to carry her downstairs (for the sake of making some form of forward progress), and she felt pretty warm. So, while she was nibbling on a banana and some yogurt, I checked her temp. Not bad - around 100 - but it still qualifies as a fever, so no pre-school for her today....which meant taking her to work with me.

We packed a bag of coloring books, Polly Pockets, DVD's, and a few snacks, and headed out. She actually did rather well...especially considering the wide open potential for all things Meagan! We really only had a few moments of Meagan-ness, and all but one of those were pretty typical 3-year-old goodness. For example, she tried to pour her own water from the water cooler...had a little mishap, so we ended up watering the plant in my office with the overspill. Another example...we were having the carpet laid and finished today at the church, so we were laying out these carpet tiles to find where we wanted to place these accent tiles. Well, Meagan wanted in on the fun, so she picked up the tiles and moved them around a few times. The only incident that made me bust out the full-name, mom-is-serious side of me was when she used my PAID stamp and a black ink pen to decorate a check that I was getting ready to mail out. Needless to say, I had to void that check and rewrite it. Really it was no big deal, and it was my fault for setting all of those things out and then leaving her in my office for a few minutes without supervision....really, what was I thinking?

So, now we're home. We had a late lunch, and a late nap. She's upstairs laying down, and coughing like a maniac. I'm not feeling like the cough medicine is doing so much good, so I have a call into the doctor as of now. Hoping for a good rest (although I'm not holding my breath), and maybe a good night of sleep! Also, hoping no one else comes down with anything. Yuck!

tidbits

While our breakfast blueberry muffins are baking (which we're having primarily because we're out of almost every other kind of food), I thought I'd post a few stories that happened through the week.


SHOPPING WITH MEAGAN:
Meagan and I played hookie from story hour. She wasn't in the mood to go, and, truthfully, neither was I...I figured in those circumstances, it wasn't really worth the struggle. Instead of going to the library, we dropped of recycling and then headed to Wal-Mart to get 'a few things' (does anyone else have those trips when you go for two things and you walk out with several bags? it was one of those days for us). I can't even really remember what we went there for, it was so boring, but as we walked past the clothes section, a dress caught Meagan's eye. She grabbed it off the wrack, hugged it to her, and said in the sweetest little voice ever, "Oh momma, it's the most perfect thing ever!" Uuuuh, how do you say no to that? Anyway, as we went in search of the right size for her most perfect dress ever, I realized that they actually had quite a few really cute dresses and clothes priced really cheap. So, we ended up with probably five or six dresses, a pants/jacket outfit, and a Tinkerbell shirt for Meagan, plus bathing suits for all three kids. And a few other things snuck in for birthdays or Easter.


OVERHEARD:
Last weekend, Sebastian went roller-skating again, so Meagan and Isaac were the only two kids around. It was a beautiful, warm and sunny day, so we got out the cars (at their begging and pleading) and let them have an open derby in the yard. They played outside all afternoon, and seemed quite happy. But Lucas said he overheard Isaac at one point having an interesting conversation that went something like this:
(In a nice, not-at-all mean tone of voice) 'Meagan, could you just not talk to me for a while. Sometimes I try to get through the day with nobody talking to me, but it's just like everyone always wants to say stuff to me. I just want to be quiet and not talk.' (Is that Lucas' child, or what! LOL)

CLEAN-UP:
Yesterday was the kids' second Friday in a row that they did not have school. Last Friday I gave them the day off to do whatever they wanted, so yesterday I put them to work. For the first part of the morning, they weren't too on-board with the cleaning plan. They SAID they were going to help, but when it came to it, they really just played and tried to look busy. After a little 'talking to,' we had lunch and then continued on with our chores (I had been hoping we would have been done by then, but I had told them that we were going to work until the job was done, no matter how long it took). So back to work we went. I'm not really sure what brought about the change of heart, but they were VERY helpful. They got all the toys out of the living room. Sebastian vacuumed the living room floor, the couch and chairs, and even took the edging tool and vacuumed around the edges of the walls. Meanwhile, I gave Isaac and Meagan a bucket of soapy water and two cloths, and they scrubbed the entire kitchen floor, the cabinet faces, and the closet door. Nice. The also made their beds and picked up their room. Even after we were done and I had released them to playtime, they were still being helpful and NICE to each other. They were sharing, they were helping each other with problems, and they offered to help clean up after dinner!

WHAT DID YOU SAY?:
I don't think I've told you this yet... sorry if it's a repeat. During Super Bowl, I noticed something that struck me as odd. When a commercial came on that caught the kids' attention, they all stopped and watched it....then Isaac cracked up laughing and repeated what he thought he had heard. But whatever he said was nowhere near what had really been said. His repeat words sounded like gibberish.

So the next time I talked with his teacher, I asked her about doing another hearing screening for him. Well, about a week ago, we got a notice from the health department that he had not passed his hearing tests (they did two tests on separate days to see if they get the same results). So yesterday we had our follow-up with our family doctor, who then referred us to a specialist. We go to see the specialist sometime in April. We'll see what happens then.