Look at how cute he is!

I love rock and roll...so put another dime in the jukebox, baby

So for the last month or two, the radio in my car has been possessed. It would randomly turn the volume up or down or change the channel or turn to AM. I had taken it to the dealer to get fixed a couple times but they were unable to get it to act up for them and, thus, were unable to diagnose a problem.

I took the car in again to get my windshied replaced yesterday and asked that they check it one more time because we're getting ready to go on vacay and we'll need a radio for the drive. The service guy called me yesterday to tell me that the windshield was replace and that the repair guy was able to get the radio to act up for him. He said that the guy took my radio out and found that there were several (he did not name the exact quantity) coins that someone had shoved into my CD player/radio. Now I'm not gonna name any names but I think we all know who did this to my radio.

ARON!

We don't need no education

Blue corn chip...yum!
Ella has been participating in Safety Town at her future school this week. This is a great program for kids going into kindergarten in the fall to teach them all about how to be safe in the whole around them. So far, she's learned that the police are our friend and she made a crafty phone to practice how to call 911. We saw quite a few other kids we knew from story hours and pre-k. This morning, Grammie dropped her off because I had to work (boo). She said that she went to drop her off at the door and a girl walked up to her on the sidewalk and said "come on, Ella, let's go" and they walked in the building together. My Mom CLAIMED that she didn't cry at this sweet little sight. I'm guessing she was not being entirely truthful.

Awesome times!

I have pictures of the family picnic we went to on Saturday (but, again, I'm not sure how set up my photos yet. It's probably really easy I just haven't looked in the book yet.).

The highlight of the picnic was getting my grandma out of the nursing home for an hour to come and hang out. I think she had a good time. We fed her some tasty eats and let her drink of some fine spirits (it felt a little wrong to get her liquored up and send her back but she only had a few sips.). Go Grandma!!

Back in the saddle again

I missed you...did you miss me?

Sure you did. Well the good news is that we bought a new computer (yea!) and the extra good news is that we're able to, ahem, "borrow" a wifi connection from our neighbors across the street. I loves me a free connection!

The bad news is that I haven't hooked up the computer enough to be able to get pictures in the blog yet. I'm not sure when I'll be getting around to that. We have a busy week ahead of us. My car's in the shop (nothing too big--just replacing my windshield, fixing the roof a bit, and (hopefully) figuring out why my radio is possessed) so I'll need to pick it up tomorrow night after Aron gets home from work. After that, we're going to go and look at new cars (Woo! I think Aron may have finally decided to make a purchase soon using the Cash for Clunkers $). We want to have a new car picked out by this weekend.

My faithful readers

I am sorry to say that my computer of eight years has finally gone to its final resting place (aka The Dump). Technically, it's not there yet but it will be trashed as soon as I clear off the vital info stored in there (aka smash it to bits with a hammer). We're hoping to go out and buy another one over the weekend. I think Aron is reading over his Consumer Reports right now...

Stay tuned after this weekend for funny Luke posts...that kid...he's a riot (and by riot I mean he makes Mommy see red and want to drink).

My computer's on the fritz....

So, I'm using Robin's laptop for today.

I won't put any pictures in since I'm using her computer but instead I'll give you a little recipe for something we've been making quite a bit of lately...lemon shake ups! You know...those yummy lemonade drinks that you get at the fair. You can make them at home, too. They're easy and tasty.

Lemon Shake-Ups

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
3 lemons

Put your sugar and water in a pot on the stove. Heat it up over medium high heat until the sugar dissolves and let cool. This is also called a "simple syrup" and can also be used in other ways.

Pour your simple syrup into a pitcher and add about 2 cups (more or less according to your tastes) of water. Squeeze the 3 lemons into the pitcher and add ice.

Yum!

(You could get a little adult with this by adding some vodka to the lemonade)

Just keep swimming...Just keep swimming...Just keep swimming...

How cute are they??They're all the way down at the end. How cute are all those kids with all those floaties on their backs?

Look at that beautiful blue water!

Ella and Myles started swimming lessons this week. We were at the pool on Friday and noticed a sign up that said swimming lessons were starting on Monday so we signed the kids up. Luke is a little too young to start the class. When you're 3, you have to have a parent there with you in the water. I couldn't be at the class everyday so Luke didn't get to do it this year. (Stop your booing and hissing at me, people! There's always next year! Yeesh!)

They love it! At dinner each night, Ella has been practicing holding her breath. I have to keep telling her "more eating and less holding your breath!"

Something new

I really like this little guy but it was not the one I selected.

I decided to buy myself a little necklace the other day on Lisa Leonard Designs. Each piece is handcut, hammered, antiqued, and polished. I've been looking at these for quite a while now and kept wishing that someone would buy me one (I guess no one can buy you one if you never tell anyone, though, right?). I ended up buying one on Sunday. I'm not going to tell you which one but will show you guys when it gets here in a couple weeks.

Oh and he's got a girlfiend, too

Meet Alex

He knows this girl from Ella's ballet class. She's the little sister of one of Ella's classmates. They would play together while we were waiting for ballet to be finished. They were so happy to see each other at the school last week that they hugged. Twice. I think there was more hugging when I wasn't there, too. Luke told me that the one day she didn't want her Mom to leave and was standing there crying. He said he went up to her and gave her a hug to make her feel better.

He's so sweet....when he wants to be.

Houston, we have a problem

Look at Luke in all these pictures...he was dancing along to the music in his head... ("he's got the rad moves...the super super bad truly mad moves." "That's right. He's got the rad moves. The rad rad rad rad moves...hey!" Gotta be a Backyardigans fan to get that reference.)

As I mentioned before, the kids went to a vacation bible school last week. Every day, I cringed a little as I dropped them off because you just never know what's going to come out of Luke's mouth. On Friday, I got the kids out of bed, tossed their clothes at them and told them to get dressed while I made breakfast before VBS. They both came downstairs a short while later, had breakfast, and we started out the door.

(As a side note, Luke's a skinny little thing. He's got no butt and no hips so keeping shorts up can be an issue if they don't have an adjustable waist.)

As Luke was getting in the car, I notice that the one side of his shorts were falling down and that part of a bare cheek was exposed. I told Luke to "Freeze, Mister." I then asked if he was wearing any underwear. He said "Nope. I don't wanna. Like to be free."

I CANNOT SEND YOU TO BIBLE SCHOOL WITH NO UNDERWEAR ON!

Why...why...why...why...why...

Lookee at the skilz, Mary. Lookee at the skilz

It's rare...but it happens. Right, Mary?

Check out the killer penmanship!

I recently found this paper in Ella's stash of junk....whoops...I mean stash of TREASURES that she stores under her bed. She puts all her "valuables" under her bed as a way of keeping Luke out of them. Pretty sneaky, already, isn't she? I love it.

Anyway, you can see by the paper that she enjoys copying things from various materials that she runs across. She cracks me up!

I almost forgot...

Luke was at vacation bible school yesterday. One of his teachers, my friend Kortney's Mom, took him to the bathroom. He was taking longer than she thought he should take so she called out to him "Luke, you about done in there? You ok?" He said he was fine. He then proceeded to give her an anatomy lesson of what parts girls and boys have. You know, like that little boy in Kindergarten Cop...

Yup. That's my Luke....always the educator.

Can you take me higher?

The kids are attending a local VBS (vacation bible school) this week. They're having a blast but I always worry just a tad when they're out of my sight for long periods of time because you just never know what's going to come out of their mouths. And by "their" mouths I usually mean Luke's mouth (P.S. See me for a PG rated story about what came out of Luke's mouth the other day when we visited Aunt Annie and Uncle Kevin. I'll not ruin my G rated blog image by posting it here. I think I've told most of you but let me know if you need a chuckle. No, Kortney, I'm not going to make you sit through it a third time even though you were ever so polite and denied having heard it a first time on the phone tonight. I realized after I hung up that I had told you already).

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Anyhoos, I digress.

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I've decided I'm not pleased with what they're teaching my children at VBS. Am I morally opposed to something they're teaching? No. Has one of the teachers spoken harshly to one of my children? Not even close. However, they have been teaching my children that they should be getting paid for doing chores around the house so they can collect money for their missions project Project Linus (BTW, this is a really awesome project to participate in...click here for more info).

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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

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Prior to this I'd been enjoying a wonderful FREE service from my children of helping me put away the laundry, take dishes off the table, working puzzles by themselves, etc. Now the kids want PAID for it. Not only do they want paid for chores, they want PAID FOR EVERY THING THEY DO! They want paid for going potty and remembering to flush the toilet. They want paid for eating all their breakfast. They want paid for no whining. They want paid for remembering to cover their mouth when they sneeze. They want paid for not making Mommy feel like she's going to burst veins in her neck while yelling in a fit of rage and then "cry sad tears" and want to drink "Mommy juice" until she passes out in a heap at the bottom of the stairs because she couldn't make her legs be coordinated to work those dang steps (who made these dang things so hard to maneuver?!?!).

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Plus, this also means I have to have a steady flow of coins on hand to put in their cups on a regular basis. This is a whole lotta pressure for someone who tends to never have cash on her/never remembers to follow thru with things/never remembers anything in general!!

Plus, this makes my kids steal. They're running around the house picking up coin after coin to plop in their little cup. I even caught them taking coins from my car. Would they have turned to a life of stealing/crime without Vacation Bible School? Maybe. Who knows. What I do know is this: I don't like what I'm seeing. I. don't. like. what. I'm. seeing.

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WHAT ARE YOU TEACHING MY KIDS, VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL?!

He's kinda like Sasquatch

You just can't get a good picture of him no matter how hard you try...

Oh the games we play...

(I think my camera erased like 50 pictures. I could use that as an excuse for my lack of blogging but, quite frankly, I've had nothing to blog about.)

I'm a paranoid parent. There. I've said it. No denying it now. I'm continuously afraid that my kids will somehow get separated from me while out walking and they won't be able to find home again. (Paranoid, isn't it?). As a result of this craziness, I've invented a new game (I call it "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore") for the kids for when we're walking around town. It goes a little something like this...

I walk randomly around town with the kids for a little while. Then I ask them "If you were by yourself and not with Mommy, which way would you go so you could be home again?" I let the kids take turns being "it." Ella can almost always find her way back home. If nothing else, she can usually at least figure out which street to take to get her back to a main street to get her home. Luke has a little more trouble (can you blame him?) so I keep things simpler for him.

Parnoid? Yes. Potentially handy? Also a yes.

A sibling to this game would be " Can I cross the street?"

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The premise of this game is that they need to know how to cross the street because we're Townies (yes, yes, I realize our town only has like 3500 residents but it's still a town, darn it.) and the kids will need to have these skills when they start walking to school. I stand with the kids at the side of the street and say "If you were all alone without Mommy here, would you think it's safe to cross the street now?"

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Dorky? Yes. Potentially handy? Yet again, I go with yes.

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Let's just not tell anyone bout it, mmmmm-k? Shhhhhhh! It'll be our little secret.