Preschool Open house

So, Tuesday night we got to go to Zoe's new preschool for an open house. Wow! It is a nice place. the teachers are super nice and the best thing is they even come out to your car to get them. Which is nice so I won't have to unbuckle Lexi and then take Zoe in and then rebuckle Lexi. I'm realizing that it's a lot more work to have a kid that can't buckle/unbuckle themselves. It's been too long since we've had to do that for Zoe I guess. It's funny the things we forget! I can't wait for her to go! Though I'll admit I am getting a little sad. She seems to be growing up soo fast. I mean preschool this year Kindergarten next year and then graduation from High School, college, marriage, kids... wow! Time really does fly. I know that most days I don't appreciate the time I get to spend with her and I know that once it's gone I'm going to miss this time together the most! So, I'm trying to spend more time with her one on one while Lexi is napping and it's been fun. I mean hours of Candyland, Strawberryland, Chutes and Ladders, fingerpainting and baking what else compares to the joy of spending time with my oldest daughter? I guarantee it's not cleaning and cooking and laundry and all that other stuff that I know I should be doing during Lexi's naptime, but I don't care, because the cleaning can wait as this little poem says :

cooking and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

for babies grow up we've learned to our sorrow

so quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep...

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep!

So, think of me on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons enjoying some me time and being a little sad that I don't have an excuse to not clean anymore.

Here is a picture of my beautiful little preschooler in front of her new preschool!

Photo Booth Friday

I've been slacking on blogging lately, and I'd like to say it's because I've been soo busy, but nope, just don't have much to blog about.

This week has actually gone pretty slow. Perhaps it was the rain, or the cleaning that I had on my to do list or maybe it's just a slow week. Anways... woke up one morning this week to a leaky closet- oh boy! Remember we have an attic- a finished attic, so for the rain to make it to our closet showed some serious persistance by the rain. Of course when it rains it pours in our house literally, so we also had some water in the basement, but really our house was built in 1929, I guess I can give it a break for the leakyness of it! We are learning to adjust! We should be learning to roof, but priorities...

Zoe started her second year of Awana Cubbies this year on Wednesday. yeah, a semi date night for mommy, daddy and Lexi! CheeburgerCheeburger for dinner that night with an amazing chocolate peanutbutter cup malt for dessert- wow!! Didn't know anything could taste that good!! I also signed up to be the snack coordinator for her class! That's exciting. I love that we get to just hang out while she's there so it's a real sacrifice to volunteer my 'date night' time for something there, but then again they are teaching my child and helping to socialize her so I guess the least I can do is call people ahead of time and remind them what snacks they are in charge of- no really, it's the least I could do... The other jobs they needed volunteers for took actual time during the Cubbies night! But, I've eased my guilt by signing up for something and I think it'll really help them out too!

So, that's about it for this week! And seeing how it's Friday, here is my Photo Booth Friday pic of the week!

This is my favorite picture of me and the girls. It was taken by a brillant photographer! I wish I had his skills! Of course it helps that the girls always smile for their daddy! I've noticed that most of the pictures don't have me in it as I'm always the one taking the pictures so this is a real jewell for me! I love it! It's not perfect and not really even posed, but that's what makes it special to me!! Thanks honey!

Spring cleaning in the Summer

So, Patrick likes to Spring clean, obviously in the Spring, and I mean deep clean not just the daily surface cleaning that I'm queen of, but this year I just wasn't up for it. Patrick also likes to occasionally plan a "deep cleaning Saturday"throughout the year of the two rooms that get the dirtiest- the kitchen and the bathroom, and well I like my Saturdays so I'm not going to waste it cleaning. I mean really, don't I clean enough during the week? I realize it might not look like it, but I do clean a lot, ok maybe a better word would be "organize". I organize the toys into the toy basket, I organize the mail and bills into piles, I organize the books on the book shelf, etc... there is a lot of organizing going on during my week. So, I struggle wanting to "work" on my weekends. This is an issue for me as a stay at home mom. I don't really get weekends off. So, when Patrick once again suggested a "deep clean Saturday" I immediately realized that either I was going to be "working" on the weekend or working during the week a little harder then I normally do! So, yesterday I decided that would be the day to clean the kitchen deeply! I started at about 11 and cleaned the counters- actually moved stuff off them and cleaned away. I cleaned the walls, tile, grout, sink, canisters, floors, oven, window, blinds, baskets (decorations on top of cabinets), even the ceiling fan, etc.... So around 3 I finally stopped and sat down for a minute. Wow! What a long day, and on top of all that I still didn't get to the microwave, fridge or actually inside the cabinets. I didn't realize our kitchen could get so messy, or I'd rather look at it as me being such a meticulous cleaner, that and trying to keep two kiddos occupied while I was attempting to clean. So, today I decided to clean the microwave. This should be an easy task and it was until I tried to use it after I cleaned it and pop... no power! I'm not sure what happened, hopefully something easy. Of course after all that cleaning I couldn't help but wonder if it was all for not..
Wonder of all wonders, I went back into the kitchen and the microwave was scrolling across it's little screen "set clock"... so the question is, did I hit a button and then blog to the world my blondness or did it hear the sadness in Zoe's voice as she asked "how will we cook dinner now?"

Iowa and the Cousins

Wow! Finally some time to sit down and blog about our weekend trip to Iowa. My sister lives in Des Moines, 4 hours away. Not a bad trip- if you are adults or at least not 4 or 1 year old! Now, Zoe has made the trip before, but it's been a while. I admit I was a little worried as they both are ready to be out of the car about the time we make it to KC and then to have to go 3 hours past that.... hmmm.. Well, the drive up wasn't too bad, though I'm starting to think that Zoe gets carsick as we had to stop a couple of times so she could get out and stop her stomach from hurting!

Finally we made it and had some lunch then we went to the Zoo! What a great zoo they have there! It's not too big like Topeka's but unlike Topeka's they have a ton of different animals, a great play place and a wonderful petting zoo too!! We had a great time despite the 100 degree temps that day!Here are a couple of favorite pics from there.... All the cousins feeding the goats at the petting zoo, Zoe and Nathaniel at the waterfall and Zoe giving the lion a high five!

On Sunday we went to church, lunch and then stayed indoors due to the torrential amounts of rain. So, we watched Bolt and helped my sister get some things done around the house!!

On Monday, our last day there, we went to the Science Center. What a blast! They had some live animals, a great "tornado", an Egg Drop- You wrap an "egg" up and then put it on a conveyor belt that goes up and then drops the egg from about 20 feet up and then it measures the force of the drop to see if your egg would crack or not!... lots of hands on activities for the kiddos!! It was fun, as you can hopefully tell from the pictures below!

Then we grabbed some lunch and headed to the local park! There parks there are amazing. All over Des Moines at the public parks, they have these little wading pools! They are great, and Free!!! Complete with little water fountains and 1 foot 2 inches deep water!! Perfect for the girls!

After that we packed the car back up and headed home! Why does it always seem to take longer to get home? It took us about 5 hours to get home as we had to stop for about an hour to eat dinner and shake our sillies out so we'd all make it home alive! What a trip!! It was soo much fun and as always a great time getting to see my sister and spending time with the cousins!! But an even better time getting to come home to see Patrick! Boy did we miss him!! Maybe next time he can come with us instead of working! We'll see!

Craft and music time

So, as a stay at home mom I somtimes feel inadquate. I mean you see all these other moms out there who have a strict schedule, its even posted, complete with snack time, nap time and even craft time or music time. Now I can't really carry a tune in a bucket and as far as being crafty I'm not much better, but thank goodness for Google right? So, I bought these Fruit Loops in the hopes of actually doing a craft with them. So, after eating half the box I figured I should actually attempt a craft. I was just sure there were a ton of crafts to do with said fruit loops, even after we've already done the fruit loop rainbow and necklaces. So, I went and googled "fruit loop crafts". Wow! There really are quite a few crafts to do. So, today we chose to seperate each color loop in a different bag and then smash it to smithereans! I mean any craft that involves smashing stuff is 4 stars in my book! Then we used said smashed fruit loop dust to make a "dust bottle" You know like the ones you can make at craft stores or fairs out of the different colored sand? Well, here's Zoe's finished masterpiece on the left. On the right is just some "glitter" that we used to make butterflies, flowers,grapes, birds and such on paper!

At this time though I didn't know what to do with Lexi, so I just gave her some magnets with a cookie sheet and after that got boring we just gave her some Fruit Loop "dust" to play in too! Good way to learn about texture, or as the case was a midmorning snack! Fun times!

Monday nights are not always that exciting for us, but as I was flipping through channels I can across an hour special on the band Sugarland! I've liked them for some time now and was thrilled to get to watch them "live." I don't know about you all, but in this house we love music! Just can't get enough of it and the best thing about music is getting to dance to it! Really though we dance about as good as we sing here, but that's ok as long as we are having fun, so here is just a little video to help pass the time and maybe make you smile as much as it makes me! Have a good week! sorry about the one on the left. Thought that the camera would change it automatically but apparently it didn't! Good to know now! The other one should be better!