Five

*Sigh*

My baby is five. I remember being sad when she was one and Xander was three. I thought their clothes were getting SO big.

*Another sigh*

She is now the oldest child in our weekly group of kids that visits the nursing home.

She's going to kindergarten this fall and can't wait.

She talks ALL DAY LONG. Seriously. It's no wonder she doesn't have any trouble going to sleep at night, she's got to be tired from all the talking. And if there's not any humans to talk to she'll talk to her babies and her stuffed animals. I've been told she gets it from her mother, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

She's such a sweet little girl and has friends everywhere she goes. I can't even imagine life without her.

We had quite the busy birthday week for Jordis. Her birthday was on Wednesday, but we have bible study on Tuesday mornings so I let her take birthday treats to share with her friends. She helped me make marshmallow pops and they were so cute and yummy.

For the next morning we took little cookies to share at the nursing home.

Jordis was so polite and passed them out to the residents.

Miss Kelly, the activities director, was so nice and had planned a party for her birthday. The residents made the cupcakes and there were party games to play. It was such an incredibly nice gesture and Jordis loved it (after she got over people giving her all the attention).

When Xander got home from school she got to open her presents.

I love that she gets excited about cute clothes.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl!

Seven

The little man turned seven two weeks ago.

*Sigh*

He was so excited when he got up and saw that Jason left him a note at the kitchen table when he got home from work.

I wasn't too horribly sad this year........until I washed all of the new summer clothes he got for his birthday. Apparently size 7 clothes have bigger neck holes and don't fit very well on the little kid hangers. I had to start putting the adult size hangers in his closet. THAT made me sad.

He opened his presents after school.

Then we took him for one of his favorites, a meatball sub, while Jordis attended a friend's birthday party.

He said it was a great day!

Being Blessed

Do you ever think about how blessed you are? Most of us count our blessings when it comes to having a home, healthy kids, food to eat, etc., but I find that most of the time I end up focusing more on what went wrong with my day instead of what went right. So today I decided to try and think about all of the ways I was blessed instead of all the things/people/situations that irritated me.

1. I didn't get a chance to eat breakfast before heading out to story time at the nursing home, and they had donut holes there for everyone. Yea!

2. The checkout lines at Aldi were really long and the lady in front of me let us go ahead of her because she had a full cart and I only had about 8 or 9 items.

3. I returned something at Target without being treated like a criminal. (This is a HUGE deal. I never shop at Target because they have always had such a difficult return policy).

4. I found all but one item I went out for today (plus some extra things) and Jordis cooperated with me the whole time, i.e. four hours of running errands.

5. When I told Jordis I only had two coins to put in the wishing well at Whole Foods, the gentleman next to us reached into his pocket and gave her 8 pennies.

6. I got the first parking spot at Trader Joe's.

7. I didn't hear anyone talk about Charlie Sheen today. Okay, crap, scratch that one. I made it until 10:45 without hearing anyone talk about Charlie Sheen today.

8. Xander hasn't been written up at school this week.

9. We got gas for $3.66/gallon when most places we saw today were up to $3.89/gallon. Score!

10. I got invited to my neighbor's for coffee and adult conversation tomorrow morning.

How have you been blessed lately?

CoCo Key

Jason took the week off when Xander was on Spring Break, so we decided to take a little trip to an indoor water park about an hour from home. It was actually my idea, which means I must have really needed a getaway because I'm not a huge fan of water. They were offering a great deal though that included two full-days at the water park, an overnight stay in the lodge, t-shirts for the kids, two arcade passes and a board game to keep. The lodge was beautiful and I'd like to stay there again sometime whether I went to the waterpark or not.

The kids were super excited when we got there and couldn't wait to go to the pool. They had on their new "croco-dude" shirts my mom and step-dad brought them back from vacation.

Tried to get them on the waterslide at the same time, but it never worked very well.

All day long this giant bucket fills up with water and then dumps out all over. You get a warning, but if you're in line for a water slide there's no getting out in time.

Xan was too short to do this properly, but he was able to get across as I coached him through some creative maneuvering.

We really enjoyed the water park, especially in the evening when a lot of the people who were just there for the day had gone home. We took a rest, got pizza for an early dinner, then went back down for more fun before bed. In the morning we ate breakfast in our room, then headed down to be early in line so we could get a table and chairs for our beach towels.

The kids love arcade games so they were excited to earn tickets before we left.

Look at this girl pull the handle. Watch out Vegas!

After leaving the water park we went to lunch at Bob Evans. Better yet, the kids got to eat for free with the coupons they get every year for their birthday.

So glad we had a good time!

Seriously?

So today is the second time in two weeks that we're supposed to have highs in the 70's with severe storms and then wake up to this by the next morning, if not before. At least my hyacinths are sprouting though. I'm SO excited about that. I bought them last year on clearance at the end of the season, planted them, and crossed my fingers. They're one of my favorite flowers. Welcome to Spring in Ohio!

Recently

I went WAY overboard on the food coloring for the kids' annual St. Patrick's Day eggs. I was going to tone it down with some yellow but figured I'd just be adding more food coloring, so I left it. Xander went to chess club at the library. He won his first match and the second was a draw. My "new" car hit 100,000 miles. It's had it's share of problems, but I've absolutely LOVED driving my Grand AM the past ten years. The only thing better would be if it had been available in a 5-speed. We've been going a little stir crazy waiting on spring to stick around. I became that mother I swore I'd never be, and I let Jordis go to the store in her pajamas. We needed something in particular like milk, it was the only day I had available to go, and I wasn't in the mood to fight with her about getting dressed for the day. So I just put her in the car the way she was. The world didn't even come to an end. Imagine that. Spring pictures were last week and we convinced Xander to get rid of the "mohawk" he's been sporting for awhile. And now it's April already.