Today is the first day of summer vaction here. After some quick calculating, it’s been determined that the twins had been in school 4 1/2 weeks longer than the rest of their classmates by the time school ended yesterday. They didn’t, of course, realize this, thank goodness. I mean, they understood that they had been in school a LONG time, but not that they had been in school any longer than their classmates. They are just glad to be done for the year. They’ve been waiting to stay up late (so to speak). It also might help with them actually going to sleep, since it’s still quite light out at 8:30 and they weren’t too into going to sleep when it appeared to still be “daytime” outside.

In honor of school being out, today’s Thursday Thirteen is all the fun things to do on summer vacation (some of these Ryan brought home from school from his teacher).

Thirteen Things to do during summer vacation 1. Take a walk 2. Read a book (or two, or three…) 3. Have a picnic lunch 4. Visit grandparents 5. Go to the library 6. Go to the zoo 7. Go to the Children’s Museum 8. Go to the Science Museum 9. Have a backyard carnival 10. Go swimming 10. Build sandcastles at the beach or park 11. Go stargazing 12. Make a lemonade stand 13. Go on a hike

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen, memes, the kids | 1 Comment »

I approached today’s tackle a bit differently. I didn’t tackle something that had to be cleaned, but rather something that needed to be “set up” in anticipation of school starting in the fall. Yes, I know, I’m 2 months early. There’s just so much that’s going to change when we all (myself included) start back to school in the fall that I want to start now so that I’m not scrambling to get it all done in the last couple of weeks of summer. So, here’s the first of my “getting ready for school” tackles

This will be our staging area, where book bags and coats are kept in anticipation for the next school day. I also hung a white board so that I can write down the kids’ monthly schedules. I have a weekly one on the fridge, but the month-in-review will be helpful, too. It’ll give me a better picture of what’s going on that month. I think it will also help dh, since he’ll be the one home with them in the afternoons while I’m at school and will need to know, also.

memes | 4 Comments »

This post is taking part in Frenzied Friday!

This week wasn’t nearly as harried as last week. It seemed I had a bazillion appointments and conferences all lumped into last week. This week, I’ve spent cleaning the house. A little bit here and a little bit there. I’ve also decided to print out FlyLady’s control journal for the boys. With me going back to school in the fall, they are going to have to really kick it into gear in terms of doing their chores and helping daddy when I’m not home. They probably won’t like me, but oh, well. They’ll be better off for it.

I’ve also been experimenting with our new bread maker this week. Our old on, about 6 1/2 years old, was on it’s last legs and since I use it a lot, we needed a new one. I like this one a lot. I can make jams in it, even! I haven’t tried that, but I might someday. I think I may experiment with some fondant today, too, in anticipation of making my sisters baby shower cake. Mom wants to order one, of course, but I’m usually the type that’s hell-bent on making it if I can to save some money. Her nursery will be classic Pooh, which will be so cute! When we were there over Memorial Day weekend, sh had it painted a light green. It was beautiful. Hearing her plan for the rest of the room, I can’t wait to see it! So, anyway, I’m going to try to incorporate that theme into the cake. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, it’s just a matter of whether I’ll be able to pull it off or not. We’ll see.

This weekend, to unwind, we’ll pretty much just hang out as a family. Brian promised the boys he’d take them to a star show at the Planetarium tomorrow, so they’re looking forward to that. I don’t know what I’ll do while they are there, perhaps go to the library (alone!) and get a couple of books on my wish-list. Other than that, there isn’t much I have planned. It’s the last school weekend here, since the boys don’t get out until Wed. July gets busy for us, so it’s nice to have a weekend where we don’t have anything going on and can just relax.

That’s it for this week. See you next Friday!

blogging, memes | 2 Comments »

Shortly after we moved here, the boys started an organism unit in science. Zach’s class had earthworms as one of their organisms and his teacher sent home a note asking for vegetable scraps to add to their compst for the earthworms. So, now that the weather is a bit better (*ahem* warmer…sort of) I’ve been thinking a bit about starting my own compost pile. There’s some good info on the web about it, but I’d like to know if any of you have started one of your own and if you have any pointers? Reading the list of things I can include, I’m almost giddy. Since I’m a daily coffee drinker, you can imagine that I have quite a few coffee ground-filled filters, which I can include. I see that paper towel rolls (the cardboard part) can also be included, and I would assume that’s true for tp rolls. Dryer lint and hair are also ingredients I have a lot of (I cut the boys’ hair myself, and there’s always quite a lot). The only problem I see is in the grass clippings. Because we live in a townhome, we don’t have to take care of the lawn, so I’m not sure how I might go about getting some grass clippings. To my knowlegde, the crew who does the lawn uses a bagger, so raking some up isn’t really possible. How much of that do I need and is there something I can substitute for it? Also, is a bucket an okay place to store the compost pile, at least in the beginning?

Going green | 3 Comments »

Today’s Tackle It Tuesday was fun. Why was it fun? Because it wasn’t my tackle! And I had fun dumping out the toys for the boys to clean up. Yes, that sounds like I was being a mean mommy, but I went to the playroom looking for something and couldn’t find it. While their floor had been clean, they shoved things in places they didn’t belong; under, behind and next to places they shouldn’t have been. So, I dumped them all over the floor. The first picture was taken mid-tackle. It actually looks better than it was. I had dumped a TON of paper all over the floor, and by the time I had taken the pic, it was piled on the table in the back. They also have a toy bin rack along the side that you can’t see that I also pretty much dumped, but that was after the initial cleaning, so it’s not shown in the picture, either. And while it has been worse before (trust me!), there are are so many little things laying on the floor that you can’t see, like Lego’s and K’Nex. OY! Those things are EVERYWHERE!! And they manage to find their way into every nook and cranny…it’s maddening!

The good thing about a tackle like this is that I can get rid of junk! I managed to get rid of a bookshelf, a small one that I put in their room to control the books that keep creeping their way up there. Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! And, I managed to take back two plastic bins that I can now use to store the massive amounts of winter clothes that just don’t fit in the two already-full massive bins. *Sigh*

Ok, enough rambling. Here are the pics:

General, memes | 1 Comment »

Dh returned home from work about 1:30 this afternoon. Around 2, we were eating our lunch (or in his case, dinner) and we were suddenly overwhelmed by the sound of jackhammering. Apparently, our complex decided to re-do some of the concrete around the area and our front doorstep was one of those areas. We, of course, had no warning that this was going to happen. This is what we are left with:

In other words, we can’t use our front door. Our unit is smack in the middle of the row, so it’s not an easy jaunt around the building, either. I don’t think I would be so peeved about the whole thing if we had known it was going to happen. We got no warning that this was going to happen. It’s going to be a pain for dh at 3 in the morning as it’s quite a step down and for taking the kids out to the bus, considering the bus picks up right in front of our house and we can’t use the front door. We won’t have new concrete poured until at least Wed., but they weren’t 100% sure about that, either. GGRRRR. It would just have been nice to have some sort of warning that this was going to take place.

General, blogging, life | No Comments »

When we took the boys to see Kung Fu Panda on Saturday (great movie, btw! Liked it better than Horton, and I really liked Horton!), I saw a poster advertising a family film festival. I wrote down the web address and just now decided to look it up. Regal theaters hosts a family movie festival for nine weeks, starting July 1st and ending August 28th (Roughly. It varies by city). The best part is, it’s free! The movies are all rated G or PG. Here’s the list of movies playing at each theater (though the schedules of which movies play which week varies by location).

Clifford’s Really Big Movie (G)
Surf’s Up (PG)
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (G)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (PG)
Charlotte’s Web (G)
Evan Almighty (PG)
Arctic Tale (G)
Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep (PG)
Curious George (G)
Nancy Drew (PG)
Wallace And Gromit (G)
Nanny McPhee (PG)
Everyone’s Hero (G)
RV (PG)
Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything – Veggie Tales (G)
Happy Feet (PG)
Mr. Bean’s Holiday (G)
Alvin And The Chipmunks (PG)

A few of these we’ve seen. Most of them we’ve not seen, as in the case of the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything movie, which did not run in Erie. I am looking very forward to taking the boys to the movies each week. One of them I’d like to see (Charlotte’s Web) we will not be able to see, as we will be on vacation that week. But, having something to do for 8 week out of the summer is going to be great! Well, something other than swimming, that is.

If you have a Regal theater in your area, I urge you to look into this family movie festival. You can check their website to see the schedule in your theater of choice.

Family, Media, Movies, Rochester, blogging, the kids | No Comments »

I often get inspiration from my kids. Sometimes I’m inspired to take pictures. Sometimes I’m inspired to do a scrapbook layout (which I haven’t done in forever, btw!). This weekend, however, I was inspired to do something completely different. It’s the time of year where I purge winter clothes, and sometimes summer clothes, that are too small, pack them away for later use when appropriate (in the case that they are too small for the twins, but will fit Alex in the future), or list them on e-bay. I also do the same for boots/shoes that are no longer in season or no longer fit. Since shoes are something I’m not able to hand down because, well, let’s face it. Kids, but probably specifically boys, are hard on their shoes. DH also had some shoes he’s not worn in a few years that needed to be purged.

My first instinct was to thrown them in the garbage. Then I stopped myself. *Insert inspiration from my kids here* Ryan had brought home one of those scholastic newsletters that his class gets a few months ago and I happened to read the back article. The story was about recycling old athletic shoes and what they do with the recycled materials. They, of course, us the materials for playgrounds and tracks. Erie had a playground made with this sort of material. It happened to be our favorite playground. I decided to look on the web and see if there were any such stations around here where I could take these shoes. There happened to be a drop-off location right around the corner from our house. Needless to say, I was thrilled! I intended to take a picture of Alex dropping the shoes in the barrel, but when we got there, it was overflowing with sneakers. How great is that?!

Alex is enraptured with busses. Big busses, small busses, trolley busses, etc. While we were driving around this morning (I also had to drop off dh’s dry cleaning), he spotted several, and pointed them out to me. We even followed an RMT bus for a short time. Most of the busses we saw were the yellow cheese boxes that transport our little crumb-crunchers to school each day, but we also saw some of the hospital busses. You know, the little mini-busses that take patients back and forth for treatments and what-not. Alex has coined those busses “piggy busses.” I’m not sure what made him equate the little mini-buses with piggys. I guess because they are short and little, and he thinks of piggys that way. Whatever the thought process was, it was cute. And it isn’t so much the coined term that is cute, it’s the way he says it, with that little high-pitched “piggy bus!” and that big ‘ol dimpled grin that I love so much.

My dad is right. I’m gonna miss this.

Family, Going green, the kids | No Comments »

Thirteen Things I love about summer! 1. Vacations! 2. Swimming 3. Less toys to pick up because the boys are playing outside! 4. Camping 5. Barbecues! 6. Grilling, rather than baking 7. Being able to sit outside and chat with the neighbors. 8. Pool parties 9. Watermelons! 10. Beautiful flowers 11. Sun Tea 12. Lemonade Stands 13. Fairs and/or festivals!

Thursday Thirteen, memes | 8 Comments »

fun, memes, pictures, the kids | 1 Comment »