K-I-S-S

Ok so at the risk of embarassing Alex. I have to share a conversation we had last night.

Alex asked me if he could have K over for a playdate on Saturday and that they would be in his room with the door closed so they could have some privacy. My reaction was the same as any sane mom of a 1st grader, playdate, yes, in room, no.

Then he tells me they would be in the basement, but they would still need privact so they could k-i-s-s. (yes he spelled it). When asked why they needed to kiss he said that she was his girlfriend and they needed to "get it over with". I guess it's the thing in his class for boys and girls to kiss these days. So, now I have to get to the bottom of the kissing thing. Not something I thought I'd have to deal with in 1st grade. Maybe 2nd, but never 1st. I'm so not ready for this.

Tackle it Tuesday - project update

Tackle it Tuesday - update

Well here it is. I got my closet cleaned up. All of my sweaters are packed away. This means no more snow allowed (ha!) I'm still waiting for Mark to get the tubs from the attic with the rest of my summer stuff so I can see if any of it will fit this year. Then that project will be done.

Doesn't it look so neat and clean. No big pile of stuff on the floor.

Mark did his own ironing last week. Just goes to show if you wait long enough they get desperate and did it themselves. Of course there's already a new pile, but it's much more manageable. Maybe later this week.

You can actually see my dining room table again.

I didn't manage to accomplish anything in the basement except pile up more stuff. Maybe next week. I do feel like I got a lot accomplished this week. Now I'm in full Hawaii planning mode.

Weeding, soccer, and rain.

Okay so you're probably wondering why the pictures of dirt. Well maybe not, but I"m going to tell you anyways. Ain't that sweet of me. We have this great, huge yard with tons of flower beds just waiting for us to get things planted and fill with colors. The problem would be my nemesis this year and last year to be honest. It's called Lamium. Now I know you can buy it in garden stores and it's very pretty, but it tends to spread and spread, and spread some more. Great when you want ground cover, but I'm more of a flower gal. So, I'm not so into the Lamium, that and every flower bed in our yard has copious amounts of lamium growing everywhere. Everytime I think I've got a bed cleared of it I'll go out and there's more coming up. It just won't go away.

This area is one that we didn't even tackle last year so I friday I decided to dig in. It was a beautiful sunny day and I dug and dug for several hours. And got a few teeny, tiny areas done. I haven't even made a dent. Now of course if I hadn't been so into what I was doing I would have thought to take pictures of Dylan helping me. This time he was actually helping. He quickly decided that the toy shovels wouldn't help so he went and got the good shovel and was working with that. He actually really did help as much as a 5 year old can. He even stuck with it for quite a while.

Clearly, I have lots more to do, but it's been raining since yesterday morning with no stop in sight.

I"m sure there will be plenty of lamium posts as the spring goes on.

A few other updates, yesterday was the first day of soccer for Dylan. He really loved it, but there are no pictures because it was raining and dad was in charge. Mark says Dylan did well and didn't even mind playing in the rain.

Alex just wanted to go to breakfast with mom. So much for watching my food intake. I was however down .4 lbs at WW on Friday.

We also had to do some shopping for the trip so it was off to Target. Then it was home and hiding out for the day praying for the rain to go away. And today, it's still raining. Ah well a fire in the fireplace will make it all better.

Maybe next week the sun'll come out again and play.

Losing weight, again?

What a week! I feel like I was gone for a month. And now I"m just trying to catch up with everything around the house.

It makes finding time to write a challenge.

Now, for a little whining. I'm so hungry! Marcella and I commited to keep each other on track in our weight loss efforts. We both had fallen off our plans in the last few weeks and wanted to lose a little more before we go to Hawaii. I've been doing fairly well so far this week, even with Easter chocolate in the house. Today, I've been hungry all day. There are just days like that and I"ve been trying to keep my mind off of it, because I didn't get my workout in today and I've used all of my points today. Maybe I"ll just go to bed early so I can start over tomorrow.

Tomorrow I go to my weight watchers meeting here's hoping I've been good enough this week.

Tackle it Tuesday - Project pile

Alright, my tackle today is not so much what I've gotten done, but some of the projects that I need to tackle in the next week.

Things have been accumulating out of control at our house and I can't seem to manage to get caught up.

I keep getting things started and then not having time to get them done or starting something else and not getting back to the first project.


Common in my life, but getting out of control lately.

So, to be held accountable. These projects will get finished by next week.

Mark's shirts are almost all in the pile of to be ironed. So I will do all of the ironing this week.




I have a bunch of sewing and scrapbooking projects going and haven't finished many of them lately. So, I will clean up after myself and complete one project this week.



Again more scrapbooking projects. I have a lot of my grandparents pictures to be scrapbooked. I will either work on organizing pictures or clean them up and put them away neatly.








This would be the stack of things on my dining room table that I need to find a new home for. I will figure out a good place for them and get them put away.


And last, but worst. My mom bought me a bunch of new summer stuff for Hawaii and I need to start putting away my winter stuff so I have a place for the summer stuff to go. Mark is getting tired of tripping over my clothes. So I will get at least the heaviest winter stuff (since it snowed today so i clearly still need some warm things) put away. And I will get rid of the things that don't fit or I didn't wear at all this winter.


Alright so this makes me accountable. I will accomplish all of these things by next week. And probably have a new list, but ain't that life.

Weekend top 5 - Chicago

This weekend we had a crazy busy and exciting weekend in Chicago.

5. On Friday when we got there we walked over to the park right by their house. The boys love this park and pretty much know how to get there from all our trips over there in the last couple of years.

Cole loved riding the the car just like cousin Dylan.

Both of my boys love climbing on the tall tower. I tried taking the pictures from the ground under them.



I think they turned out pretty well.

Alex loves climbing and this was a pretty neat one. It was the first time he had managed to get all the way across. He fell off once when I was watching from far away that he couldn't see me. He just hopped back up and started over. I was so proud of him.

Doesn't this look like fun. We love this park.

4. After quite a while at the park we headed home and the boys played for a while.

The basement is a great place to play and the boys always have a blast. Alex wasn't feeling real well so he was pretty grumpy all afternoon. Dylan and Cole however had a great time playing together. They really played nicely and Dylan shared his webkinz. A major change for him. Max (one of the cats) was always within arms reach of the boys. THey couldn't get rid of him.

3. Later we walked to "The Ale House" for dinner. Alex complained about the whole walk, but it was a gorgeous night for a walk. Of course it was all good when we discovered that Marcella's favorite ice cream place was open and we would stop on the way back. Which we did. Dylan kept telling us it was the best ice cream ever "It's so creamy, and it goes all the way to the bottom, I love this ice cream." Over, and over, and over. It certainly made the walk back easier.

2. On Saturday morning we went to the Arboretum. Sorry can't remember the name or spell tonight either. The boys LOVED it. There was a huge children's garden. With slides and climbing.

Waterfalls to play and splash in, yes that's my Dylan getting all wet in the water.

Streams to wade in. It was a gorgeous warm day, but the water was still a little cold. Just ask Alex

A frog pond to jump from stone to stone.



No shoes and socks, just in case.

This would be right after Dylan stepped into the water and got his shoe a little wet.

After that I had him take his shoes and socks off. Good thing to because not two minutes later he was up to his knee in the water. If you look closely some of the other pictures have him with his pants rolled up so the wet was on the outside.

He actually handled it pretty well considering how he doesn't like being wet or messy.

Dylan and Cole loved playing with the froggy fountain together. They just got along so well this weekend.

There were also lots of things to climb on. There are several treehouses with rope ladders, bridges, lofts, and everything else monkeys like these 3 can imagine.

After we played in the children's garden we had a picnic lunch. Then we went for a hike. Brian and Marcella wanted to try out their hiking backpack to see if Cole would stay in it. He loved it!

Alex loved walking through the woods.

Dylan had a rougher time. He kept getting mulch in his shoes. I'm hoping to find a better pair for him for Hawaii.


The mid point of our hike was called the Big Rock. It weighs between 12 and 14 tons. The boys loved climbing up and jumping off.





Alex's favorite part was seeing the pictures of himself jumping off.

Cole needed help jumping off, but loved it as much as the big boys. Or maybe just loved being like the big boys.

Dylan was on the rock at the end of our time there and really didn't want to leave. He loved being up high.

Dylan having a blast on the hike.

Our one good picture of all 3 boys together, of course on the rock was the best place to take one.

Cole went to bed talking about the Big Rock and woke up talking about it too. A first for him.







1. After all of the excitement of the morning we rested at home for a while before heading for a new park (at least for my boys) for a little wile. Alex made some new friends and was running around with them the whole time. Dylan and Cole did some more climbing then it was time for a quiet dinner at home and straight to bath and bed. When Alex woke up on Sunday morning (at 9:00, the latest in a long time) his muscles were really sore from all of the running and walking yesterday. Uncle Brian taught him some stretches to loosen up his legs.

Well that was the end of our spring break. It was a great weekend although it was nice to get home.

Spring Break at Lakeside

It's been a great week in OH! We've loved spending time with grandma and grandpa. It's been so relaxing and the boys have had a great time. We're not ready to go home yet, but the time has come. Tomorrow we head to Chicago to spend a couple of days with Cole before heading back to the real world. Grandma and the boys walking to see if the daffodils were blooming. No luck yet.

Dylan was having a blast jumping on Grandma's neighbors stepping stones. Today was the first day that we had sunshine and warm weather. It was so nice to enjoy time outside.

Alex and grandpa played ball. Unfortunately by the time mommy got outside they were wrapping up.

Dylan had a great time "helping" grandma sew. Hewas putting the pins in the pin cushion and watching her work.

Here's grandma showing Dylan how the sewing machince works.

Before deciding to help grandma Dylan was playing his game under the bed.

It was terribly cold and windy, but the boys wanted to play mini golf so we headed down and let them play while mom and I bundled up using the golf hut for a wind break.

Doesn't it look like fun? Oh well at least the boys had fun.

We also made our first trip to Train-O-Rama this time. Can you tell how much Alex liked it? They have over 50 trains running and all kinds of different scenes. The boys loved it.

Look at all those different scenes. The best part was watching where the trains would come out of the tunnels.

Look There it is!

Thursday Thirteen -

Here's my Thursday Thirteen -the Thirteen things I would have blogged about had life not interupted lately.


13. Alex went on his first sleep over on Friday night the 4th. Yes my baby went on a sleepover. I had a really hard time with it, but he had a total blast. He went to his best friends house and they stayed up too late, and got up too early. Hence a very tired boy that day. However, he's already planning to do it again. HOw can they grow up that fast?

12. Palm Sunday - Alex's choir sang with my choir for services on Sunday morning. He's loving singing in the "big" kid choir. It was fun to sing him up there singing his little heart out.

11. As is usual for holy week I was in church Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, and Sunday. What a week! Alex sang for the Maundy Thurs services. Of course on Thursday morning he woke up with a nasty cold, but he was not going to miss singing in church on Thursday.

10. Good Friday. For GF we do a Tenebrae service. It is a service of candles and reading. It's based on the 7 last words of Christ and for each word we have an old testement reading and a new testement reading, then a hymn or anthem. After the end of each word one of the seven candles is blown out and the lights are dimmed. By the last word the lights are completely out, my co worker Karen and I sing Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Pie Jesu" An exquisite, and extremely difficult piece of music. After that with all of the lights out the pastor slams down a book to symbolize the closing of the tomb. Wow! It is so powerful and I cried my way through both services (yep there are 2) This year we took the boys for the first time and they really enjoyed the service, especially ALex.

9. Easter Vigil on Saturday night. Another very neat service. This one starts in the dark and we light the Christ candle and I do this whole long chanted thing all by myself (pretty poorly I might add, but it has no accompaniment so nobody really notices). Then we turn on the lights, put out some easter flowers and move to Easter.

8. Then of course we had Easter. I did 2 services 7:30 and 9:00. Trumpet and choir. I love Easter and our church does it up with all the formality and pomp that I'm used to from growing up.

And my first picture is of our family on Easter Sunday in front of the stained glass windows.

7. The Easter bunny also visited the boys and brought them bags of candy for the trip and snorkle sets for the trip to Hawaii.

6. Oh yeah did I forget to mention that I woke up on Easter Sunday with a nasty cold. Hmm guess who shared? Then we got into the car at 10:30 on Easter morning. Just me and my boys to head to OH for some much needed RR. It was a long trip since I was really sick, but we got here safe and are now hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.

5. Easter Egg hunt. Mom had hidden eggs all over the

front yard. The boys had a blast hunting and it helped them to burn off energy from being cooped up in the car all day.

4. Shopping! Mom took me shopping on Monday night and dad kept the boys. It was nice to get out and mom bought me a bunch of new stuff for the trip. Yippee!

3. Babysitter. Mom got a babysitter to watch the boys last night so I could go to rehearsal for their concert this weekend. My folds are singing in a community choir (a very good group) It was nice to see them sing and be away for another evening.

2. Naps, naps, and more naps. It feels so good to be away from home and have a break this week. I've gotten several naps, the boys have slept in and so have I, and until tonight I've been going to bed early. I actually feel rested for the first time in weeks.

1. Help with the boys. It's been so nice having mom around during the days to dealwith some of the stuff with the boys and giving me a little bit of a break.

So this is some of the stuff we've been up to. Hopefully tomorrow I"ll get some current posts done. Happy spring break!