Garage Sales!

We LOVE 'em!!! Today we hit the jackpot for Aubri, who is growing so fast that I just cannot keep her in clothes. We found her several brand new pairs of Old N*vy Jeans for 2 bucks a piece! We also found several Abercr*mbie and H*llister t shirts for her. She is thrilled! I can't buy these brands for her any other way and the clothes look new! We also found a little dog crate for 3 bucks and a couple of G*p button down shirts for Andy for a buck a piece and a super cute gymnastics leotard for Sera for a buck. It is a fun time to get out as a family and bargain hunt. We got a Little Ce*sar's pizza for 6 bucks on the way home. Cheap fun, but we like it that way!!

We are getting ready to have a garage sale at my dad's this next week. I am hoping I can get the kids as excited about getting rid of some of their stuff! Wish me luck!

I will try to post photos of their efforts next week when it all gets a bit more organized.... In the mean time, I go back to work half days on Monday, Andy starts summer school for a half day, Aubri starts honors band and honors choir and Sera gets to spend some special time with Grandpa. They are all taking gymnastics and swimming in the afternoons and then swiming in our neighboor hood pool. Life is busy!

Construction errors

You know, my grandma always told me that the best way to learn is from your mistakes. I was a timid and shy kid and was so often afraid to try new things, thus never learning how to do them well.... It was bad! My mom never wanted me in the kitchen and never taught me to cook. My grandma would try when I visited her, and I was always afraid I would ruin something. I never learned how to cook much of anything, except Grandma's recipes, as a result, until I had left home. This spilled over into so many areas of my life. Now that I am old ( especially in the eyes of my kids) I can see the error of my ways and really try to get my kids to be braver than I was. Thankfully they are!!

Aubri made cookies yesterday and is making dinner tonight from a cookbook our friend Kathy gave us with easy to make meals for families on a budget. Right up our alley!!!

In any case, I apologize for all the weird things you may see on the blog for a while. I see all these neat blogs and have wished that I knew how to set them up. I cannot afford to have any of the professional blog designers help me right now, since pennies are tight, so I am going to just have to learn how to do it myself! I am currently trying to be brave and actually learn how to format a template in HTML without copying and pasting everything and not having a clue what I am pasting and where it needs to go.... So I am learning a lot while I screw up this template. I am just using digital kits I have for scrapping for the kids and I cannot decide on what I like, and when I do, I can't seem to figure out how to put it on the page...

If any of you have any ideas on what I should try to do here, or not try for that matter, I am game!! It may take a while for me to figure it out though!!

My Posies....

I just have to post these.They are not the best photos, since I don't seem to be able to get many good photos lately, but I have taken a pic of the kids in front of these bushes every year. I just love peonies!!

Celebrate the end of a long schoo year Great Wolf style!!

This year I took advantage of a really good deal and booked us a room at Great Wolf Lodge about 6 months in advance. We went on a Friday night after school, the last Friday of school, to celebrate having had a great school year.

I was exhausted and had to drive in pouring rain for almost 2 hours to get there, but once we got there it was all worth it!! They upgraded us from the basic room to a room with bunk beds for the kids! They were thrilled and I had a bed all to myself!

Andy knew what to do, since we had done this once before after he first came home. Sera was caught up in all the excitement and didn't hesitate a bit, until water got in her face that is.... Then she backed off for a while, but discovered that she could play in the park areas not designed for swimming and had a blast! Andy is now swimming like a fish and has no problem swimming under water or above. He and Aubri hit the slides and I stayed with Sera or took her in the hot tub. It was great! She even relaxed with me and tried to float. Next year when summer comes around, she will be able to take swim lessons and not have to worry about water coming in her mouth unwanted :-)

It was well worth the expense we paid ( NOT full price by a long shot) to plan ahead to take the kids for a mini vacation. It will be the only travel fun we will have, outside of day trips and taking Sera to Chicago for her surgery so we really made the most of it.

A graduation, a concert and another graduation!!!

My Aubri graduated 5th grade with a Presidential Award for Academic Excellence. I am so proud of her!! She was so beautiful and I felt so blessed to be her mom! I had to present awards to some of my students, but I got to sit back down to be her mom in the audience. The photos aren't so good, but my memories certainly are vivid. My baby has grown so much and it truly will only be a breathtaking moment before I am attending her highschool graduation. I want to enjoy each and every second with her. She is such a wonderful, sweet and charming girl!

Sera graduated Preschool with all the spunk and rhythm of a truly in tune new Kindergarten student! :-) She was a total ham on the stage. She has changed so much in the time she has been home that it is almost unbelieveable. Shy would not be a good descriptor for her at all now! She is the life of the party!!! She was not misbehaved, just very outgoing and very spunky while participating in the dances and songs the kids sang for the program. She had many people laughing at her antics and she loved every second!!It is a good thing she was so cute, because the ceremony drove me nuts.... No one would be quiet or even stay seated!! I took a video of Sera dancing and finally gave up after discovering that it looked like I was drunk while taking it. People kept standing up behind me and knocking me forward. I had to stand to take it because the people in front of me would not sit down.... The noise was horrendous and left all of us with a horrible headache. It is truly scary how few people seem to be able to be respectful of others in situations like this...... Manners seem to be non existant. I so wanted the director to tell the other parents to try to behave, since their kids were behaving better than they were..... But no matter what chaos was going on around her, my little star was a cute as can be as she moved on to the next educational step in her life! She was absolutely thrilled and her enthusiasm was contagious! She had new sparkly Princess shoes on her feet and she couldn't have been more proud of any thing. She danced and twirled to show them off all night while telling everyone in earshot that she is going to KINDERGARTEN!



Sera's graduation was on the same night as Aubri's band concert, so we flew from her noisy graduation to Aubri's concert and caught the last song! Grandpa had gone with her, thankfully, since I could not be in two places at once. She did and excellent job and will be doing summer band again as well as honor choir. She really enjoys music :-)


Andy was also excited to be moving from Kindergarten to first grade. Poor kid did not understand why there was not a progam for that, but he was a very super brother and really congratulated his sisters!
Crazy video below... I promise I was not drunk!!! I was tired, but I really was not that tired either!!! Sera was quite the bouncy little dancer though, so it is worth posting even though it may make you a bit dizzy.... Sorry!!!! I will also bet that it will make you smile, though!

The noise is overwhelming in the auditorium and you can hear it in the video.... You may want to watch it with no volume. If not, remember to tun off the music on the upper left of the page by clicking on the pause. It looks like this - II :-)

A few photos of the puppies...

I really should have taken more photos and video of these three little balls of fluff before they moved on to their new families.

Bisou went with his new family, a teacher from school who finally had time to deal with a puppy when school let out, this last Thursday and Gucci went almost 3 weeks ago....

I am terribly behind and have no hopes of ever being caught up!! Catching good photos of little black fluff balls is not an easy feat for this photographically challenged mom, though... So I am some what excused I guess. I did manage to take these the day before Gucci, or the Gooch, went with his new family ( also a teacher from school).

We do miss the 2 boy fluff balls and really enjoyed watching them grow! I also appreciate not having so many little bodies to keep track of and care for.... It looks like Madeleine, the only girl, will be staying with us since the kids are not OK with me sending her out of state and really want to keep her. It is a good thing she will never be more then 4 lbs and doesn't eat much!! She has already learned how to keep out from underfoot and has the same personality as her Dad, very laid back and quiet, so she will not be much trouble.

She certainly provides the kids with hours of entertainment since Aubri walks her, while Andy walks BaoBao and Sera walks Bitsy ( momma dog). Our big Bella, the standard poodle, is mine to walk :-)

Yep! I can walk around the block this year without pain!!! I need a cane to make sure I don't fall due to not feeling my foot, but I can go out with my kids again, finally!!! It is a bit odd looking I am sure, as I do walk with a weird limp with the drop foot, but I truly don't care what people think about me and I really don't think they will even see the old lady walking with the cute kids and puppies. They like having me along and I love being able to go with them!!! Nothing like a moving circus!

Our weekend.... last weekend and news from this weekend

Andy would not sit down to let me take his photo until we checked carefully that there were NO BEES in sight!! For some reason he is now petrified at the thought of possibly getting stung. He has never been stung and has endured far worse pain, but he literally panics at the thought of a bee being anywhere near him right now.
Pop at the Wamego Tulip Festival last weekend. He wanted to come with us and brought his own seating. We are so glad that he did. Even if there were a few complications with fussy kids, we love spending time with Grandpa! There weren't many tulips, but the kids enjoyed eating outside and playing in the park and petting zoo. We didn't stay too long, since we had stuff to still get done at home, but it was a fun time, when the kids were not fussing at each other that is :-)






Andy and the llama who decided she liked me a lot and would not leave me alone..... She even jumped out of her pen to walk with me. Scared me to death, but it turned out that she was a real sweetheart. Kind of like a big dog!



This weekend we have stayed in a rested up a bit, while getting some things done at home. One of the puppies went to his new home and Pop gave us a huge scare. He had to be rushed from church to the hospital due to supra ventricular tachycardia. Evidently he told the folks at church to not tell me... So I did not know until he came home. I was so angry at them for not letting me know, but I am better now. He had told them to not call me. Why they listened to him I will never know. I love my dad so much! He truly is a stubborn old goat though!!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Our Week, the good and the bad....

Busy and crazy as usual.... We have been able to spend our dinner times this week with grandpa and the kid have loved it. We are so happy he has time to spend with us now!!

We had steaed asparagus this week and as you can see, Sera is a huge fan! This girl loves foods that are good for her! Beets, wheat bread, okra, asparagus, you name it!!!

Grandma had her 87th birthday and Pop went to see her during the day. By the time we get out of school, she is having a hard time, or we would also have gone. We will see her on Easter
though!

Aubri scored exemplary on her state exams and has started taking her placement tests for homeschooling. She is so excited to be able to learn at her own pace and go as fast as she wants!

Sera got to go to Kindergarten round up and was tickeled to the bone about it all! She told me as we went in, "Mommie, I be a Kindergarten girl because I am grow and grow and grow!!!" She loved the games and activities and is proudly wearing her super kid medal from her goodie bag. She tells everyone she sees that she is going to be a Kindergarten girl :-)

My leg sems to be doing better, where the hematoma is. Hopefully it will continue to shrink more on its own and there will be no surgery in the future.

Monday my glasses blew off my face, literally and I am wearing an old pair, which really is not easy, but at least I can see somethings, until my new frames come in to put my old lenses in. Thankfully I will not have to buy new lenses too!!

Friday was a long day for me, with para evals due and paras unhappy with each other... Then I find out that my sweet little boy, who I had hoped had learned to not use his fist when he is upset, had punched a very nice little boy in the nose for simply asking to see his watch.... SO.... we had pizza rolls, soda and ice cream for dinner and the girls got a new movie to watch. Andy sat on the bed, with a peanut butter sandwich and milk for dinner. I hope his punishment was sufficient so that he can enjoy the Easter we have planned. He is dreading having to go see the principal and he will not get recess all next week as well as no DS or TV for a week. Who knows....

I so pray that he will eventually learn to think before he acts and someday not have the thought of hitting someone even cross his mind!

Today we are off to ride an Easter train and see the Easter bunny. We have never done this before, but I had better stop typing, because I need to get a new tail light first!!