Watchful eyes

Matt got a camera for our home a long time ago. If he was traveling, he wanted to be able to see the boys when he called. He also just randomly checks out what's going on in the house while he is away. He watched Dylan tie his shoes for the first time from that camera and has chatted with the boys many times during breakfast as well. When he told me he got the camera, I was a little nervous about how I would know if he was watching or not. There is a green light on the camera when it is in use. Oh, ok. I'm not really sure why I was nervous, but when that light is on I am very aware of being watched. And you know what, I act better. Not that I am normally a horrible person, but I just try harder to be/act better.v Last week I was again reminded of being watched, this time at my job instead of my house. I was sitting at circle time with my class listening to the other teacher read a book and I saw a little girl out of the corner of my eye "secretly" watching me. Not only was she watching me very intently, she was copying me. Positioning her legs like I had mine, folding her hands like I did, sitting up nice and straight like I did, moving her legs when I shifted mine. I started to think about all the eyes that watch me; my students, my own children, people at the grocery store, my coworkers, my friends and family, strangers...God and I realized that being watched is a good thing. Shouldn't we all act like we are being watched, trying to do better, trying to set good examples for others to follow, acting in such a way that others can see Christ shine through us? Now I don't really check that green light as much because I know I am constantly being watched by someone and I am trying to do better and sometimes I fail miserably but sometimes, just sometimes, I don't.

The doctor girl

Grant and I were talking about what letter he would share next week. The letter is 'N', so we were talking about what starts with N. I said noodles and newspaper and Nancy and Grant said, "Yea, Nancy the doctor girl. The doctor girl starts with N." What? "Yea mom, we have Nancy the doctor girl in our classroom at school?" What? "Mom, you should come in my room and check it out". A few minutes passed and I finally figured it out, Nancy the Nurse, of course, Nurse, I get it:-)

Birthday wishes

Happy belated birthday to my dad! He's one of the best guys around and I love him very much.

Holy homework!

Can I just say that fifth grade projects are coming fast and furious around these parts?! And for some reason, Matt and I are more stressed about the deadlines than our fifth grader...Didn't we already complete fifth grade and didn't we already do all our assignments and turn them in on time (I'm speaking for myself here)? The colonial technology project had my shoulders in knots and my Tylenol bottle depleted. It is finished and even one day early I might add. The Science Fair project is beginning this weekend but has a whole separate folder full of deadlines and requirements...ahhh. And could I just ask that projects from different grades aren't due during the same time period especially when daddies are scheduled to travel?! The first grade teachers had the gall to add a 100 day project due at the same time as these fifth grade projects! I mean really?! (And yes, I do realize that the world does not revolve around my schedule, just venting). I had better go, I need to study up on kinetic energy and air pressure and temperature.........

Guilty

So here's the deal, the boys' school makes pillows and donates them to children's hospital. The parents sew most of them, the kids stuff and then stitch up the opening. It's a great service project and I have sewn the pillows for 6 years now. Last year they missed their goal of 500 pillows by one lone pillow, and guess whom screwed up that one lone pillow....yours truly! I scorched one piece of the fabric as I was ironing and had to ditch it! AHHH! The letter came out this year requesting help and reminding everyone of their goal of 500 and I signed up... reluctantly. The pressure was on but I am glad to report that the pillows are completed and not one single thread was scorched in the process. Can you see me smiling?


On a serious note, I tried my best mostly because I was thinking and praying about the recipients, the sick, scared children who will be comforted by these pillows. It makes me sad and happy all at the same time.

Letter

I found this letter in Jack's folder today upon his return to school.






How sweet is that? His class is encouraged to write letters to each other every day (three cheers for his teacher). He usually has 2 or three letters each day from both boys and girls. I love reading them. The topics vary from sitting beside each other at lunch or arranging play dates or admiring clothing choices. Is there anything better than getting a letter from a friend?

Valentine project

I put together a little valentine project earlier this week.


I hot glued the fabric heart to a burlap covered frame and then blanket stitched around the edges. I like it. I hung it here on my old door along with a lot of old family photos I've been collecting over the years (sorry for the blur, I can't get my camera to focus well without the flash on. I think it has something to do with the ISO?).

Guess what?

Fevers

Fevers are scary to me, always have been and are really scary for us now with Jack. Well a big fever arose Sunday morning for Jack and after a call to the doctor, off we went to the ER at Children's hospital. His counts were low when the first blood draw was taken (from the finger) so then he had to have more blood drawn for a blood culture and he got some antibiotics intravenously as a precaution. The nurses, as nice as they were, could not get that $#%* needle in his arm or his wrist (why try a bony wrist?) so they finally found a nice plump vein on arm number two and that worked great. I could hardly stand watching Jack hurting so bad, he was so brave. So home we went after four hours. We haven 't heard anything back about the blood culture which is pretty normal if everything was fine. The doctor, whom happened to share Jack's diagnosis, thinks that he has an upper respiratory infection. He is resting today still a fever...I am so sorry Jack isn't feeling well, but so grateful that we live so close to our doctors and a great hospital, grateful that this is the first time in three years that he has had a fever, and grateful that this is just a virus.

Random pics from today

That is AM up there and this is Grant:





Snowflake king knight,






Real knight, and





Iron man knight .

And this is the cutest dog on the earth:


Happy Friday!

Home today

I'm home today, Grant got up around 10:00 last night vomiting :-( Matt woke up today not feeling great as well. Both patients are sleeping right now and, I think, on the mend. The house is sanitized and I just found the Walton's on TV.

Wild and crazy soup

I made a WILD rice soup tonight from tastefully simple. The boys were already served and sitting at the table when Matt came out for dinner and asked what we were having. Dylan's response: CRAZY rice soup, dad;-)

The weekend

Saturday was a pretty laid back day (sorta). We had basketball practice in the morning, Matt spent the day cleaning out the garage and preparing for an evening meeting, we had two extra boys over to play, I went to Marshall's (yea), completed some projects that I've been wanting to do for a long time, and started an incredibly hard puzzle at the kitchen table.


I re-covered that lamp shade, oh yes I did, and I love it.









I made a pillow out of the same fabric which again, I love. and




Fixed up a wreath I got on clearance, sorry for the picture.

Then....Sunday morning at 3:30 am two carbon monoxide detectors went off in our house! We grabbed the kids, pillows, coats and dog and headed to my sister's house, it was 1 degree outside, brrrr! Matt and a friend went back to the house Sunday with a meter and did not detect any carbon monoxide and bought all new co detectors and smoke detectors. The good news is the detectors are all reading 0. The other news is that the furnace guy just submitted our estimate for a new furnace which will be installed this week...
AND after we got home last night and put the garage door down, all the springs broke on our garage door! AHHHH!

Results

9 to 28, not in our favor :-( Dylan did really well though, even though he is at least 12 inches shorter than most of the boys, he hustled and did a good job calling out plays. The other team had really good defense and Dylan's team just couldn't get to the ball to complete the plays. Only one game in, so there's time.

Our point guard

Dylan's first basketball game is tonight. He's the point guard. 'The most important position on a team,' according to him as he was explaining to an audience of younger kids at our house today :-) Update after game.

Cowboys, paper plates and wooly men

At preschool today, a little girl presented me with some gifts.





It was a picture drawn on a napkin, an old purse that "she didn't want anymore", some artificial lillies of the valley, and a box...





Containing two dimes and a plastic lemon. It just tickled me so. How sweet. I can't help but wonder what in the world she was thinking when she gathered up all these items. It just makes me smile whenever I look at my special presents. It was a nice way to start off the day.
After Grant and I got home, I begged him to play. He wanted, begged, to have his second cousin Isabella over for a playdate. The only problem is that she lives in new york :-(. Eventually he agreed to play with boring 'ol me but he couldn't decide exactly what to play...finally he decided we should be cowboys. So we were cowboys, we hunted down bad guys and loaded our guns with 'fire bombs.'











In the end he took a shot to the gut, ughh!





The boys came home and played some baseball on the wii, then we made some paper plate animals.

















Penguins, circle lions, and cheetahs. Dylan went to basketball practice while we worked on the animals and played some cards and listened to some music. Jack was singing along, "wooly is the man". I just laughed and then told him the words were "worthy is the lamb" :-) He takes after me that's for sure. Dylan got home and told us all about practice, he is the appointed point guard for his first game this friday. He scarfed down some dinner, took a shower and then we watched some game show where contestants have to preform tricks in 60 seconds for money. It was pretty intriguing. The boys reluctantly had to go to bed before the show was over and I was told to finish watching and give a full report in the morning.
Pretty good day overall, except for the fact that Matt is gone :-(

Tuesday

Tuesday- 4 lunches packed, 3 snacks packed, 1 thumb slammed in drawer, 1 staff meeting, 1 new 'challenging' student, 1 doctor appointment, 3 farts let out by son during doctor exam and on elevator (no shame), 1 son at after school tutoring, 1 son missing (he walked home, we went to pick him up), 2 teachers looking for lost son, 1 principal paging one son, 2 parents happy to answer phone call from son who was at home, 5 people traveling across town to sign closing papers on a rental, 600 papers signed at closing, 1 crock pot of bean soup, 3 bowls of spaghetti o's, 3 boys taking showers, 215 dishes washed, 28 points scored against Arkansas so far (go bucks!), 3 boys in bed, 1 dog asleep on my feet, 2 parents finally sitting down and watching some buckeye ball in peace :-)

Christmas finale!

Today was our final Christmas party at Matt's Aunt and Uncle's house. They had a full house, delicious food, puzzle relays, and a visit from Uncle Roger, I mean Santa. The kids all get gift bags, filled collaboratively, until they graduate high school. This was Casey's last year to get her bag and it was a little sad. Time just goes by so fast, doesn't it?





Notice Dylan's big slice of chocolate cake :-)





Mary made the kids a fort in her bedroom, it was so cool. Grant was convinced it was made especially for him, "Look what Aunt Mary made me!" She draped big sheets of paper over a card table. She painted fantastic scenes on each side (fireplace, bearskin rug, stones, window and door) and even made a roof out of newspaper and guess what, I didn't get a picture of it:-( I think Matt did though so check out his blog.
So we are officially partied out. We have our final day of vacation tomorrow and I think we will just hang out and play. I definitely don't do that enough and I so desperately want to. 2011 is here and I am renewing my goal of "being present".

Christmas, part three..

The Sunday after Christmas we headed up to the farm to celebrate with matt's parents. After some sledding, feeding, tractor riding, and kitten chasing it was time for presents.








We had dinner and then off to see the lights at the fairgrounds, Christmas Wunderland!



And finally a little mousetrap before bed.


The next day, Matt's cousins were passing through on their way home to New york and stopped for visit. It ended up being a big gathering and lots of fun. They have three girls who hit it off marvelously with our three boys, who knew? The kids spent the day sledding and playing on the barn. It was cold but they didn't care. When we left they wanted to know when we could go to New York to visit their cousins :-) We revisited an old tradition of singing the 12 days of Christmas which was so fun the kids requested we do it over three times.

















I took these last couple of pics out the window of the farmhouse. What a beautiful scene.








A beautiful place to make memories with family and friends!