Summertime

Wow, I haven't blogged in almost a month! Can you tell I got a part-time job? It's definitely making my summer go a little faster than usual since I'm not here 3-4 afternoons a week. We've definitely been keeping busy.

The kids and I have had a few slumber parties on the sofa bed. The first time we watched "Because of Winn Dixie" and the second time we watched "The Karate Kid" (the original one). I let them eat popcorn on the bed which they thought was pretty cool. One night we also made chocolate covered bananas. They were yummy!

One day, right before school was out, Jordis and I took our neighbor on a little tour of some of the finer points of south Columbus. She is from Michigan and we've been discussing a little field trip since last year, so we finally made our way out.
We started at Schiller Park.

Then we stopped for goodies at Pistacia Vera. How I love their macaroons. Jordis had a delightful lemon sugar cookie. I forget what Nancy sampled, but it looked equally as tasty.

Next was a trip up High Street to the North Market. We checked out all the booths, grabbed some lunch to go (yummy mashed potatoes and mac and cheese from a local eatery) and continued north. Oh, and Jordis always has to take her picture with this cow whenever we come to the market.

Our final stop was the Park of Roses. It was a few days before the annual festival so the roses should have been at their peak, but it had been so hot at the time that they were looking a little pekid. We enjoyed them anyway. It's always fun to take someone there that has never been. You'd never know that such beauty existed in that busy stretch of High Street without someone showing you. It's definitely off the beaten path.

We've also had some creepy summer storms....

...made homemade donuts....

....been to the park.....

...and discovered silly string.

There's still 35 days until school starts, so I'm sure we'll have some more summer fun in the weeks to come.

Zoo trip

Shortly before the end of the school year I took Jordis for a day at the zoo. It's so much easier to take just one kid because there's no fighting about what to see, and it was a beautiful day, so I was looking forward to it. And Xander was going with his class the following week so I didn't feel bad about either child being left out

Jordis loves to climb all over these words in the Habitat Hollow, which is right next to the petting zoo. Those sweet animals have the most patience to let so many little ones run around and touch them all day.





The polar bears weren't out because their outdoor area was being cleaned, but we were able to go to the educational portion of the exhibit.

We rode the train

Enjoyed the flowers

And spent a lot of time in the primate area. They are my absolute favorites and Jordis likes them as much as I do. I could spend all day watching them and on this day they did not disappoint.



And it wouldn't be a day at the zoo if Jordis didn't make a trip to the reptile building. She was disappointed that they didn't have a snake out to pet, but she did like that this snake was looking at us.
Such a fun day getting one-on-one time with my little girl who's growing up way too quickly.

Catty

Typically, this is what people think of when they hear the word catty:

cat-ty

adj. cat-ti-er, cat-ti-est

1. subtly, cruel or malicious; spitelful: a catty remark

2. catlike; stealthy

But not at our house. Catty is our former caterpillar. The caterpillar my kids captured in their bug catcher late last summer because he was going to turn into a butterfly. He wrapped himself into a chrysalis and settled in for a time.

Then fall came, and there was no butterfly.

Winter was next and, well, you know.

I put the bug catcher in the garage for the winter. Our very.long.winter. Our very long, COLD, winter. The very long, cold winter that we all thought would never end.

(You get it, right?)

Once it was finally starting to warm up, the kids brought the bug catcher back out and sat it on the porch. I let them continue to believe that this pupa survived the winter and was still undergoing metamorphosis. I didn't want to break their little hearts by telling them that their caterpillar probably didn't survive for seven months outside in the cold.

But apparently the joke was on me.

Meet Catty.

Xander was outside playing one May afternoon and came running in shouting that Catty turned into a butterfly. It was a gorgeous butterfly at that. And the odd thing was that Xander had brought home a butterfly book that day for his reading homework.

The kids wanted to keep it, but we had to explain to them that it needed to be free, so we opened up the door and watched it for awhile.

Catty seemed to have trouble finding his way out, so Jason found a thick piece of mulch for him to hop up on and we brought him out of the bug catcher where he made his way down to the flower bed next to our lilac bush.

He stayed there for quite a bit, flapping his little wings. We thought he was learning to fly, but after a quick internet search I discovered it's how they dry off their wings after first emerging. And then he must have gotten tired of two little kids ogling him and breathing on him, and he flew away.

I hate being wrong, but I'm so glad my kids got to have faith in nature and see that some things are worth the wait.

I need a plan

It appears as though Thursday is the last day of school. That's two days from now. We've all been counting down the days. For different reasons, of course. :-)

I've known this day was coming for a while now, so I've had ample time to make a plan for filling our summer days with things besides TV, Wii and screaming children who like to fight all day.

I've done a LOT of research about crafts, events and local happenings in my community.

And this is the plan I've come up with.

I think it's going to be a long summer.

Mom's Day

So I'm a little behind. Almost a month. Geesh! But wanted to share a few Mother's Day pictures.

I woke up to find that the kids had gifted me some items in their Easter baskets.

(I know....Easter was two weeks before Mother's Day, the baskets should be back in the crawl space. Sue me.)

Anyway, Xander had made me a lovely book at school where he filled out on the pages all the reasons that he liked me. It was very clear by the end that he likes me because I feed him, as most of the pages said he like me because I make him XYZ to eat.

He also went and found everything he could in his room that's yellow and gave it to me since yellow is my favorite color. Then he chastised Jordis because her gifts were NOT yellow.

She had the last laugh though when she held up a family picture she drew......of Jason, Me and herself.

Those two crack me up.

Perspective

This afternoon, the little man came home from school with this new T-shirt. Apparently all of the first graders got one from a local business.

I guess I've never taken the time to figure out what year my kids should graduate from high school, so it was interesting to have it thrust into my face like that.

I'm not sure what bothers me more.....that my first-born is supposed to be out of high school in 11 years, or that in 11 years it will be almost time for my 30th high school reunion.

Hmmmmmm.........

Party #1

With spring comes the birthdays of the young'uns here in our household. I think about ideas for months in advance, start planning, and get excited about finding bargains for the parties. This year I was really focused on Jordis' party since Xander decided he didn't want one. And then a few weeks before his birthday he got up one day and announced he'd changed his mind. With limited time to prepare we told him he could have a set number of friends over for a Mario Kart Wii tournament. And this is how it went down......

Since I was working on a budget with two birthdays in the same week, I decided to fore go ordering the Mario Kart Wii party pack online, and went with a theme of primary colors mixed with the black and white racing checks. I made the place mats by just cutting up some fabric I found at JoAnn's (with my 40% off coupon) and the turtle shells were sections of an egg carton that I cut up and painted.

I used my Cricut and existing scrapbook paper to make a banner that hung over the dessert buffet.

The kids had an array of homemade Mario Kart themed desserts to munch on......sugar cookies with royal icing and fondant, chocolate cupcakes with butter cream frosting, brownies with royal icing and M&M's in the primary colors of the party theme.

My plan was to just have cupcakes, but Xander said he HAD to have a cake. So this is the cake that I slaved over lovingly made for him and he ended up eating a cupcake anyway.

I couldn't justify any sugary drinks with all the junk food we were having, so I jazzed up some water bottles and no one seemed to mind.

All the participants received a certificate and a trophy, with a little something extra for our tournament winner.

And goodie boxes on the way out.

The birthday boy had a great time and even had some love for his little sister.