Slip and Slide / Pool day

I spent the entire weekend in my house, sulking in pain. I had a sore throat and a fever, so when Monday came around and my meds were kicking in, I was more than willing to host the playdate I had planned before my sickness. The pool was a tad chilly for me, despite the temperature reading telling me it was 81 degrees. But the kids didn't mind much and had a lot of fun playing it in. Then we busted out the Slip and Slide Sydney had gotten for her birthday. It was quite enjoyable since I mixed in a little warm water with the cold :) Well, I didn't really get to enjoy it, but the kids had a good time. They each had their own unique style of making the journey down the long slide.


Some walked cautiously...

Zack geared up and did a crazy run, and slid into the puddle of warm water that was forming at the end.

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The bigger kids took a running start and slid on the body board.

Jacob had to show us how it was really done.

This picture of Jack was my favorite though. He was just so darn happy!! so cute :)

8 things about me

My blogger friend Paige (Happiness Is) happened to tag me on this, so I thought I would jot something down. Yes, I really am supposed to be working right now, but I need a little diversion...

8 Things I Look Forward To:
* Our trip to Cancun in August!!
* Being able to read all of the magazines piling up in my office someday
* Our next camping trip
* Spending a whole weekend hanging around my pool and having a cookout
* Getting a tan
* The morning my kids will get ready for school on time, with no tears or drama!
* Spending the rest of my life with my wonderful husband
* Any night that I don't have anything to do!

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
* Worked out at the gym
* Went grocery shopping
* Cleaned the bathrooms
* Vacuumed only part of the floors (didn't have time!)
* Went to the library with the kids
* Spent about a half hour on the computer
* Worked on another 365 scrapbook page
* Read lots of books with the kids
(can you tell it was my day off?!)

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
* Be independently wealthy
* Stop cleaning my house
* Keep up with a monthly meal menu
* Keep my focus on one project at a time (haha!)
* Sit down and work on those random scrapbook page ideas that pop into my head
* Run a marathon like my hubby
* Deal with whining better (sorry Zack, I'm always trying to work on this one)
* Get more sleep

8 Shows I Watch:
* Survivor
* The Apprentice
* Jon & Kate plus 8
* House Hunters
* The Soup
* What not to wear
* Any home makeover show that is on
* Pretty much any reality show

So now I challenge my dear friend Jennifer (Our Corner of the World) to give me some insight into her life.... :)

Pico's nature area

Pico needs something to look at, so we finally got motivated enough to finish off the landscaping by the sunroom. Here is what it looked like before...

And now after...

It only took us 5 years to get this planned, and a couple of days to finish. It just shows how much easier some things are getting around the house as the kids are getting older. We sweated off a couple of pounds each working on it, it was hot in the sun! Luckily the kids were at Andrea's house playing so Alan and I had a few hours of quiet shopping time to pick out the rocks and plants. Another great thing is that we "repurposed" 6 of the plants in this area from other parts of our yard, so they were free! For some reason our landscaping was huge and over grown this year and we had to cut it way back. But now the mulch is finished for another year and the yard looks good. Maybe we should have a party!!

Shopping spree at Toys R Us

Today was the day the kids have been waiting for... time to spend some money! I think this was the first time we've taken the kids into the store to spend their own money. Their piggy banks had been filled to the max every since they "harvested" all of the cash with Grandma a few weekends ago, so it was time to empty them out a little and have some fun. Here they are with their bags of cash...

Sydney had the clear advantage as she had a birthday gift card to ToysRUs and a couple of coupons so she ended up only spending $8 (and she started out with a lot more money) and Zack had to spend $18, which pretty much cleaned out most of his cash reserve. Now we'll have to convince Sydney to take most of her money to the Credit Union, so there is room for more money in her bank of course :)

Sydney bought a motorized kitten and cat (I guess Pico doesn't sit still long enough anymore for her! haha) and miniture kitten playset. Zack got a Hector coal train (Thomas and Friends of course!) and a 5 pack of Hot Wheels cars. None of those purchases were surprising!

Sydney's Kindergarten Graduation

Today was the big day - Kindergarten graduation!! There were 26 kids graduating with Sydney. They sung several songs, which were cute. Our favorite was "kiss your brain" :) They also asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up - surprisingly none of them said Mommies. The majority was a teacher, and a vet (for the girls) and most of the boys said a pilot. One boy said he wanted to be a "baby doctor" which got quite a response from the crowd - so the next boy said the same thing!



Ms Tennille, her teacher


Sydney and Chloe. Chloe and Sydney have been friends ever since Sydney started at daycare (well, maybe not in the infant room, but I think they were friends in the toddler room!)

Sydney and Andrea

Grandparents...

It's true - she's got the diploma to prove it!

Chuck E Cheese birthday party

Sydney has been pretty lucky this year. We went to Cedar Point on her birthday, the grandparents brought her presents, and now a party at Chuck E Cheese! It was a good time for all of the kids. Luckily we got double tokens for booking the party on a Sunday (40 for each kid) so they didn't end up running out of tokens too soon.

We love Hello Kitty!

Zack is shocked at the amount of tickets he's getting.

The lucky birthday girl got an unbelievable 389 tickets!!

Cedar Point

The weather looked nice on Sydney's birthday, so we decided to surprise the kids and take them to Cedar Point. Sydney had told us that she wanted to go to the Zoo and to Build-A-Bear on her birthday. After we suggested we go to Cedar Point instead in the morning, she said, "can we go to Build-A-Bear after Cedar Point??"

It was a great day -not too warm, but sunny.

Zack stands in awe of his favorite ride - Top Thrill dragster.

We packed our lunch and ate over in the picnic area. Yummy Sun Chips!!!

Ughhhh, I can't stand another spinning ride!!

Today the Junior Gemini - tomorrow Top Thrill Dragster!! Note there was no one else on the ride - we hardly had to wait in any lines that day.


It was a long day - we didn't get out of the park until almost 11pm. Good thing we had that stroller, I would have never been able to carry Zack around that long! As we were driving through the parking lot at night, there was quite a few bags left over from takeout food and pop cans - and the ever present seagulls looking for a bite to eat. I drove over some cups and bags on our way out and they made crunch sound. When Sydney heard that she said "Mom, you just ran over a bird!!" That was the funniest thing I'd heard all day!!

Birthday for Sydney (a little early)

We had originally planned on just having a Memorial day cookout, but since both grandparents were coming over we decided to open presents for Sydney's 6th b-day too (only 5 days early).

Zack waits pretty patiently while Sydney gets all of the attention...

It's all about Hello Kitty this year...

Grandpa W and Sydney

here are some cool swimming goggles the kids got...

Even though it was only about 75 degrees (maybe) outside, the kids had to try out the new slip and slide that Sydney got.

Birthday cake

I know it's hard to believe from looking at these pictures, but I really did take two Wilton cake decorating classes! I guess you learn enough to be dangerous - which is what I am when I'm left to my own devices and need to come up with a cake design on my own. I can really excel when when I follow a design in a book, but I just can't seem to get the right balance of design and color when I do it myself. But I digress, this is really a story about a birthday cake... so Sydney and I looked through my cake books and she found a cool frosting cat that she wanted on her cake. Since we decided to have her birthday party early with the grandparents, I had to make a cake on short order. I came up with this cake and the cat even came out pretty decent.

but the next morning.....

Well much to my surprise, when I took the cake cover off the next morning, all of the frosting on the back of the cake had slid off !!! We ran the dishwasher last night and I think the hot air from the dishwasher was blown in the direction of the cake and caused the mess. waaa. Well at least is was the back of the cake!!

Kindergarten trip to the Zoo

Today was the kindergarten trip to the Toledo Zoo. Alan was a chaperone. Since so many parents wanted to go, Alan only had one other kid with him. It was quite interesting because this little boy kept asking Alan "Will you buy this for me??" "Why won't you buy this for me!?". It was funny because Alan wasn't even buying anything for Sydney!

That's my little shutterbug- taking pictures of the penguins.

I think Sydney's favorite part of the day was going to McDonalds for ice cream with Daddy!

Heritage Days

The kids went over to Grandma & Grandpa B's house this weekend to spend the night. They had a great time! The best part was that they were taken to a festival called Heritage Days, out in the "farmland". It was somewhere in Michigan. The day started out rainy, and I was afraid they would not be able to go - after all of the talk of the activities that would have been quite a letdown for them.

They got to dig for money in this sawdust "sandbox". I figured they would get maybe $5. We were sure surprised when they came home with $11 (Zack) and $43 (Sydney)!! Sydney had the clear advantage as she could reach farther than Zack and she didn't mind getting dirty :)

Grandma helps Zack find some treasure!

Of course there were lots of animals to see - pigs, chickens, cows and goats. But they also got to go for a ride on a real, big tractor and participate in a tractor pull. Yep, the kids got strapped in and pulled a weight just like a real tractor pull. Zack pulled a respectable 29 pounds and Sydney pulled 38. They didn't win awards for their weight pulled, but they did get a cool ribbon for participating. Sydney was so proud of her ribbon that she wore it to school all day on Monday.

Hootie

Tonight said goodbye to our kitty, Hootie. Hootie came into our lives as a stray cat who used to live under our deck at our first house. She took up residence there, and soon she had 2 litters of kittens! We caught all of those kittens and found good homes for them. The first time she appeared, we named her "Hootie and the Blowfish" because she was with her 2 babies. Oh, and Hootie was a popular group at the time. :) Well, Hootie was the most elusive of the cats and we had to rent a live trap to catch her and bring her inside to live with us. We couldn't leave her outside to keep reproducing under our deck! So with Hootie in our house, we now had 3 cats (Tara and Chyna were already living with us). Hootie was a calm cat who always just kind of hung around. However, we also found out she was a diabetic cat, after she peed on our carpet repeatedly of our new house and ruined it :( We have been giving her insulin shots for almost 4 years. Even though she wasn 't a playful kitty, she loved to sit on your lap and be brushed. We think she was 15 years old when she passed away. Goodbye dear Hootie.

Our little smartie!!

** caution, Mommy bragging going on here!! **
Yesterday I met with Sydney's kindergarten teacher for the last conference of the year. I can't believe how fast school has gone by. About a month ago the kindergarten class took the Iowa standardized test. Most of the public schools in our area don't take that test in Kindergarten, but since CDC is a private school, they like to take the test to make sure their teaching standards are up to par and to provide solid proof that their program works. Well I am certainly sold on it... Ms Tennille told me that Sydney scored "2.0 " (2nd grade) in Word Analysis and "1.7" (1st grade, 7th month) in Math! That is the 94th percentile for the Word Analysis and 95th percentile for Math! Great job Sydney, we are so proud of you!!!