Naptime at the Grocery Store

This will be a super short post but just wanted to share a picture of my little guy that I took this morning.
Of course he didn't fall asleep until right before I checked out, I had to put up with Whiny Boy until then.

Pajama Day

That was what Zach and I had at preschool today so we got to wear our jammies to school. I had Megan take our picture this morning before we left.

It was kind of weird walking through the parking lot with pajamas on, especially with my bright red Mickey pants! But once inside I changed into my slippers and was oh so comfy.

As a treat the kids had pancakes for snack. Pajama day and pancakes, the kids should know their letter P after today. I don't know if it was the syrup that hyped them up or what but my two's were just off the wall. I was literally counting down the minutes until they left. I really do like them, they're a great group, but today...let's just say no more syrup for them!

As I'm writing this I'm still in my jammies and so is Zach, though he's taking a nap. Why not? It's comfortable and I'm not going anywhere. In fact after this morning I might even take a nap!

Another busy day

No school for the girls today so I had to keep them busy somehow. Our day started with Lauren's orthodontist appointment at 10:00. Her appointments are always quick, they even take her back early a lot of the time which is what happened today. So by a little after ten we were done so we hopped over to Longwood Gardens to explore a little. We had plans to go eat lunch with Paul which left us with a little more than an hour to check things out at Longwood. What a beautiful day it was too!

We headed to the conservatory because even though it was such a beautiful day it was still a little chilly out and this way we would be inside. At first the children's garden didn't have any of the fountains going, someone that worked there said it was being worked on and should be up and running in 10 minutes. Well, it's no fun if there's no water to play in so we left there to go see the rest of the conservatory.

Some of those rooms were HOT, it made me wish I was back outside. We found some neat waterfalls in the Cascade Garden (though you can't tell it from the picture.)Before I could stop him Zach had his one arm in the water trying to get the big rocks at the bottom. Half his sleeve was soaked before we even got to the children's garden to play.

Kristin was enjoying taking pictures of flowers with her cell phone. She would stop every few feet and take one. Megan was wishing she had a camera too so when she said she liked this flower I took a picture of her in front of it.
So finally we end back up at the children's garden and find the fountains all working.
It was crowded with more adults than kids but we did manage to see most of it, that is until Zach practically fell into one of the fountains. Lauren was standing right behind him, I think she pushed him. :) I made a beeline out at that point. After all it is still winter and we do have to go outside to walk to the car.

So we leave the conservatory and as we're walking out Zach spots this bench and says he wants another picture taken. If you think his hair is wet in that picture it is, he stuck his head in the waterfall fountain at the children's garden. (Yet another reason to leave!)So we walk a little farther and Megan is still saying how she wished she had a camera. I asked her if she wanted to take a picture with mine so everyone poses by the topiary garden for one final picture.

Can't wait until it's spring so we can go back and explore everything outside. Zach just loves it there.

Our day is not over because now we're off to meet Paul at work and have lunch with him. Depending on how we feel we either go out to a restaurant and eat there OR order food and eat in the conference room. Well today was an eat in the conference room day. It takes a certain amount of energy to deal with all of them out in public, a certain energy I was lacking today.

I guess it was a good thing we stayed and ate in the conference room or I wouldn't have gotten any of these pictures. Here are my goofball kids:

And this is why we only go have lunch with daddy once or twice a year!

Oh, I forgot to mention that before we ate lunch one of Lauren's new brackets fell off her teeth. I called the dentist and asked if we could stop by after lunch to have it put back on. No problem, they are so accommodating and nice. After eating we had a few minutes before we had to leave for her 2nd ortho appointment so Lauren went right to work helping her dad out. How sweet of her.

We finally get home to find that there was a package delivered by the door. Lots of huge bubble wrap inside that Lauren grabbed. She did share and give Zach one strip of it. I grabbed the camera but I haven't been having much luck with the video setting on it lately. I don't know why it's making that noise. I guess it's time to get a new camera?!?! Plus I was having a tough time with Movie Maker so I wasn't able to cut it down. Sorry, it's a minute and six seconds.

Oh but our fun for the day is not done yet, Lauren had an indoor soccer game that evening. Her team won with a score of 5-1 with Lauren not scoring but she did assist. Here's just a little of her playing, I wasn't able to cut this one down either, it's 49 seconds long.

So that was our day. I'll be glad when they're back in school tomorrow! Of course when they're off it does give me something to write about on here.

We have a winner...

Megan won honorable mention in her school's Reflection contest! She won it for one of her visual arts entries.

This years Reflections theme was "Beauty is..." There were 5 different categories that you could enter: literature, visual arts, photography, musical composition and film production. Megan had entered something in literature, visual arts and photography.

Her visual arts piece that won was titled, "Beauty is... a ladybug" and had a ladybug made out of felt on it. Here's her principal announcing her.

Megan is short and sweet when it comes to describing her piece. Some kids were going on and on, not my Megan! It was like pulling teeth to get her to say anything.

One of the many pictures I took of her afterwards. Zach and I had a great seat, right up front.

Everybody that won today will have their pieces go on to the state level and then those winners go on to the national level, it's a PTA thing in case anyone is wondering.

Maybe next year she'll enter the musical composition and film production categories too, they actually seem easier than they sound! The theme next year is, "Together we can..."

What an active child!

Oh my! Look what kind of child I have to deal with:

There was a commercial on that was playing music and he was doing this weird kind of dance where he would jump around and then flop on the floor then repeat it. Of course by the time I thought about getting my camera the commercial is over and the Flyers game is back on. It didn't stop him dancing though.

This past Friday we woke up again to snow. The girls all went to school on time though I think they should have had a 2-hour delay. Both Lauren's and Kristin's busses slid, Lauren's slid into the main road after leaving our neighborhood and Kristin's bus almost hit a car that was parked in one of the developments! Thanks to texting I knew what was going on. They both got to school safe though, just a very interesting morning.

After putting Megan on the bus Zach and I shovelled the driveway then played in the snow a little bit before going in and getting hot chocolate. After Christmas I had picked up a Lightning McQueen mug and Mater spoon that was on clearance. Coming in from the snow was a perfect time to try it out. We had some extra Snowman Soup so I gave one to Zach to try out.
He loved adding the marshmallows and Hershey Kisses to it.

He added the stir stick (candy cane) to it but instead of using it to stir he just wanted to eat it.

Finally it's ready to drink. Yum!

Zach enjoyed putting together his Spiderman bear today that Santa brought him. It's a bear that you have to stuff first then add the costume. I really don't know how little kids could possibly get that stuffing into the bears hands and feet since the opening was so small so I did that part. He just stuffed the main body of the bear.

Then we added the costume and voila, there was Spiderman.

One more video to end this. Sometimes I don't know why I bother buying toys, just give the kids a box, some paper or even bubble wrap and that can entertain them.

Happy New Year! (plus odds & ends)

On Dec. 31st we woke up to a coating of snow. I went out to clear the driveway and Zach, being the great helper that he is, came out to help too. He used his dollar store shovel like a pro. Maybe next year he can move up to the real thing.

That evening, New Year's Eve, we were invited to a party so Paul and I along with Zach and Megan went. Kristin was being a party pooper and opted out and Lauren wanted to spend the night at her friend's house. With Zach being with us we weren't sure how long we would be staying but amazingly he stayed awake and was good and we made it to midnight. He crashed in the car though and slept through getting his pajamas on. Here he is on our couch after being carried from the car.

Zach organizes the cereal
If we don't make anything for breakfast than Zach will usually eat cereal. He knows where it is and goes and picks out which one he wants. This morning he pulled out every box of cereal and lined them up on the floor.

Can't forget the ones in the back. He kept telling me to not take his picture.

Finally...a new fish

Zach's other fish all died, the last one dying a few weeks ago. Yesterday Paul took him to the pet store to pick out something new and here's what he got:

It's a male betta fish so there can only be one in the tank. I love the blue coloring of it. I don't know what he named it, when he gets up from his nap I'll ask him and post later.

Other miscellaneous pictures:

This is a picture from Kristin's last band concert. Her friend's mom took it and sent it to her.

In this pic Kristin had been awake for over 24 hours. She slept Friday night and woke up, let's say around 9:00 am on Saturday. There was a lock in at church for the youth on Saturday night where if she did sleep it was only for an hour or so. This pic was taken at 6:15 pm Sunday evening.

Another one of our desk drawers broke and Zach was being too cute saying he was going to fix it. He got a flashlight...

...then pulled the broken piece back up until it was even and said, "all done!"

Would've been nice if it had been that easy. He is interested in how things work so it wouldn't surprise me in a few years if he doesn't start fixing things for real around the house.