Field Trip Fun

Samantha had a field trip on Friday to the post office and then to eat at a restaurant called "Rosies Diner." She was SO excited and was asking for days and days how much longer until it was time. She told Adam that morning: "There are three parts to my field trip. The post office, Rosies, and the bus. Well at least I think the bus is a part of it, it is for ME!" She was practically bouncing out of her car seat on the way to school. Luckily Adam was home that day so I was able to go with them. I had a lot of fun watching her with her friends and listening to their silly jokes. By the way, 5 year old jokes are only funny to other 5 year olds.

Her and her cute friend Ava on the bus

Hannah, Samantha, and Kallie at lunch

Can you tell how much fun she's having?

The whole class!

We're goin' to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

I decided that the Samantha was "sick" on Monday so that we could go take advantage of the free day at the Denver Zoo. It was a cold day with a high of 35 or something so I debated about whether or not it was worth the drive. I am really glad we decided to go. It was virtually empty even though it was a free day; typically on a free day it's a zoo...ha ha ha. Okay, I'm not that funny. There were also enough indoor exhibits that the kids were able to warm up and we really weren't that cold all day. 

All day Paul kept saying: "This is the best day ever. I am having so much fun! This is awesome (he pronounces it awe-sim)"  It was fun to watch them having such a good time. Even Lily did great, she didn't cry at all. I would take her out whenever we were inside so she could look around, the rest of the time she was all bundled in her stroller. We were outside and I started thinking it was about time for her to take a nap, I looked down and she was already asleep with out a peep! She thought the monkeys and Paul were funny and got a big kick out of watching them jump around.

Little Miss Lily with her too big hat.

Paul at lunch, he thought it was SO funny that I was taking pictures while he was eating.

 He was cracking up.

Samantha wanted to be in charge of her sister at all times. She is such a mom.

How could you not love her?

Sledding

We got a solid 2 feet of snow last week so we decided we needed to get out there and go sledding. Our past attempts have resulted in a lot of tears and not a lot of fun. The only kind of sledding the kids seemed to enjoy was the kind down our driveway. That involved a lot more pushing than actual sledding. Again a lot of tears and not a lot of fun (those times the tears were mine). My kids must have reached the ages where sledding is now fun because at the end of our day both Samantha and Paul were asking if we could go again the next day and if we could stay longer. We went to toboggan hill with Chris and his family. It was fun going back there as I have a lot of memories sledding there when I was a kid.   

 Poor Lily was done by  the end. I thought it was because she was cold so I kept adding more blankets. Turned out she had pooped and I couldn't smell it through all the clothes/blankets that I kept piling on. Oops.

More...

I remembered a few more funny things my kids have been saying...

• When Samantha talks to Lily she keeps saying "Oh for cute heavens. You are just so cute I could die." I think she means, oh heavens she's cute or something along those lines. 
• Paul is sick and he came up to me yesterday and said "I keep needing to bless you (sneeze) and my nose keeps leaking and leaking and leaking!"
• Samantha will come up to me and ask if she looks "fashion" She will also tell me that I look stylish. I may be in trouble.

Funny, Funny

I have been saving some of the funny things my kids have been doing/saying over the couple months. There have been tons more that I wish I had saved, but forgot to write down in time. Oh well, this is at least a few.

• Samantha to Paul: "Hey Paul, can I tell you a secret? You're a boy, I'm a girl. Boys get drinks for girls."
• Paul had to fill out what he was thankful for for preschool. I couldn't undertsand the word he said (I thought he said teachers) so he started describing the person. "He is a guy with a blue hat. He took care of the dinosaurs. No, he's not on t.v. He lives REALLY, REALLY, REALLY far away. No we can't visit him. No we don't know him. Yes I've met him, he took care of me before you were my mom. I finally figured out he was talking about Jesus (blue hat?). It was sweet that that was what he wanted to put down that he was thankful for. Only Jesus and Lily. No the rest of our family was not included.
• We were doing a family home evening on gratitude and Samantha was in charge. I helped her make a turkey with a lot of feathers. The feathers were to write things we were grateful for on. When asked what the lesson was on Sammi responded, "finding feathers to put on turkeys." I think she missed the point a little.
• Paul was not listening the other day when it was time to eat lunch. He kept getting off his chair and messing around. I finally got frustrated and said "Paul, for the love, would you get on your chair and eat your lunch?" He responded..."I WILL eat my lunch you mean mom."
• On my birthday Paul told me "Mom, Lily's really cute, and I'm cute but you're not cute. You're old. You're like thousand, but I still love ya." Nice.

Back in the Game

Ever since the new year I have finally felt like my life is smooth enough that I can start getting into more crafts/doing more than just trying to keep up with the laundry. All of my Christmas crafts felt like a lot of work and were things that I felt I needed to get done rather than things that I just decided to make. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that just before that Lily started sleeping through the night. That means I don't feel like I need to nap during nap time anymore and basically just have a lot more energy. One thing I'm trying to do in addition to just making more is having 1-2 fun, out of the ordinary, activities a week. One this past week was "frog night." We had frog apples, PB&J on frog bread, and frog treats. The kids loved the apples and treats but I think the bread kind of freaked them out so they wouldn't eat it! Oh well, at least they had fun.

The apples

The bread, yes it is totally deformed, but that is only partially my fault. The tutorial that I saw MONTHS ago that I wanted to try was taken down the day I decided to make this, so I just had to make it up as I went along. I needed the instructions.

The frog treat. I think it looks a lot more like an alien than a frog, but you get the idea.

A dress/headband I made Lily out of an old shirt of mine that had a hole in it.

A black version of the same dress (I had two of the same t-shirts both with holes).

One of the many bows/flowers I have recently made for Lily...there was no way I was paying someone else $10.50 to make that. It only cost me $0.37

93

We had my grandfather up last weekend to celebrate his birthday...93! He is amazing and I can only hope that I am in half the shape he's in when I'm 50. He went out to California recently to visit his daughter and her children/grandchildren. My cousin remarked that he went on rides at Knotts Berry Farm that even she wouldn't go on. His goal is to live to be 100 and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he makes it. In fact, he is part of a program at his church (similar to home teaching/visiting teaching) where you are assigned to visit some elderly people who are in need of company. He is not one of those that is visited, but rather the one giving the service (to an "elderly gentleman of 87" he tells me).  Anyway, he has always been enthralled by my kids, especially Samantha. When we would visit when she was a baby he would tell me over and over "she is so alert!" Paul has also taken a shine to him and even when he was shy of EVERYONE..to the point where he would lie on the floor and scream in the grocery store if anyone tried to talk to him. When we would go down for lunch he would take Granddad's hand without any prompting and would sit and talk to him. Well, he has recently taken quite a shine to the newest addition to the family. He adores Lily. Every time she would smile he would talk about how he couldn't believe she would keep smiling at him, and how she was just the happiest baby.  It is always nice when someone loves your kids as much as you do, so it was fun to watch him interact with her. Here are a couple pictures from the night (as well as one old one thrown in of he and Samantha playing at his house about 2 years ago).

Sammi and Granddad playing on his porch.

The picture doesn't do it justice