Our nursing home friends

Jordis and I have been visiting Willowbrook nursing home every Wednesday morning for the past few years. They opened a new branch, Willowbrook at Delaware Run, which is closer to our house, so now we attend there. It's a much smaller group and the residents are a little more......attentive. Recently we've been inviting Jordis' neighbor friend, Xavier, and they've been having a great time together.

Miss Kelly entertains the kids with stories and songs.

They also did a craft.

This is Miss Lucy. She's a spry little lady. Feisty, Italian, and has a slight east coast accent. She also likes my tattoo. And she's one of Jordis' favorite residents.

We love visiting Miss Kelly and our Willowbrook friends!

Fall!!!

This is my favorite time of year and we've been able to do so much fun stuff! Jason took the kids to the lawnmower races at the fairgrounds.

Jason also took Jordis to the zoo one day while Xander was at school because he hadn't been to see the polar bears yet.

He also stopped to let her look at motorcycles one day.

We had a neighborhood block party. One of our neighbors is the fire chief and he arranged for a fire truck to come so all the kids could play on it.

Here's Jordis and her "boyfriend," Xav, at the apple orchard that had no apples. Since my friend and I took the time to get them there we still walked around since we promised we'd take them.

Jordis and her friend Alexis participated in exercises with the residents of the nursing home where we go for story time.

Jordis has also been sporting some serious fashion lately. Here is one of her outfits.....tie dyed shirt, capri pants with checks and neon green Halloween socks with black and silver spiders.

Now if Mother Nature could just decide what season it is.

Almost April?

I can't believe March is almost gone! I'm pretty sure it was just Christmas. Trader Joe's is out of my favorite hot chocolate so I guess it's as good a time as any to welcome spring. Hopefully. We had four inches of snow last week so even though it's *technically* spring you can't really hold your breath around here.

Here's a run down:

The kids requested green scrambled eggs for St. Patrick's Day since they liked when I made them last year. I was multi-tasking this day though, so they were a little burnt which made for an interesting shade of......putrid.

Jordis was excited to wear her new St. Patrick's Day hair band.

She also got to hold an instrument during story time at the nursing home.

I snuck up on her the next day. She hates having her picture taken so it's the only way to do it most of the time without it ending up blurry.

Then I got Lasik! It's incredible! I'm so grateful to Arena Eye Surgeons for giving me a 50% discount since my mom is an employee. I highly recommend the procedure even though my surgeon did his fellowship at LSU.

Xander had spring pictures and decided he wanted spiky hair. He also decided to wear a size 4 shirt and sweater vest that still fit him last summer but now barely comes to his waist band. I haven't made them try on spring/summer clothes yet to weed out the smaller items, so it was still hanging up. I was not a fan of the ensemble, but Jason reminded me that on fall picture day he wouldn't cooperate because he didn't like his outfit, so I let it go. Then he came home and told me he got to stand in the front row for the class photo. Great. I can't wait to see how they turn out.

We had a few warm days and the kids got to skate for the first time this year. Xander outgrew the skates he bought last year at my friend's garage sale, so he let Jordis have them. They are the kind you wear over your shoes. She was so excited and did a really awesome job of scooting down the sidewalk. Xander still has trouble with his rollerblades but I'm sure it takes time. He hasn't worn them but a few times and he's upset because he can't skate down the driveway yet. They both kind of walk with the skates on and call it skating. It's really cute.

March was pretty low key compared to what April will be. We're spending Easter at Jason's brother's, making a few fun stops on the way home, then both the kids and my mom have birthdays coming up.

Stay tuned......

Happy Independence Day!

Our July 4th activities kind of overlapped the whole week. The kids and I spent some time making stars for our friends at the nursing home using blue posterboard and red and silver glitter. Jordis liked passing them out to the residents and Xander gave his to Miss Connie, the activities director, who decorated the tables in the nursing home eating areas.

The next day we went back for story time that included a bike parade for the 4th.

We ate celebratory gluten-free/dairy-free waffles...

On the 3rd Jason was off so we contemplated going downtown for Red, White & Boom, but in the end decided against it. Instead we went and got dinner from our favorite Chinese restaurant and ate at home while letting the kids stay up to see the fireworks on TV. It ended up being a good idea because Xander fell asleep and Jordis got cranky. I noticed this guy standing outside the restaurant while we were waiting on Jason to get the food. I'm hoping he was an Elvis impersonator.

Jason picked up some overtime on the 4th but we were able to squeeze in a late lunch/early dinner cookout at my mom's to celebrate both the holiday and my step-dad's birthday. We had a little lunch...

...a little football...

...and helping Ba fill his bird feeder.

We can see the local fireworks from our deck so the kids and I got all ready to watch them when it started to rain. Then they started 20 minutes late, so the kids were kind of over it before things really started. I ended up watching them myself, cold and wet which is odd for July, then the kids dragged themselves out for the finale.

God Bless America!