Family Fun - The Park and "Sleep Over"

The boys recently asked to go visit a park near our church at the local elementary school.  So, a couple of weeks ago, while Darryl had to work on a Saturday, the boys and I headed out to the parks.  The weather was great - not humid and super breezy so it didn't seem quite so hot. The school has three separate play grounds and the boys tried them all!

 Lots and Lots and Lots of climbing walls! 

 "Look mom, I made it to the top - take my picture!"

 Followed by, "Mom, Help . .. I can't get down!"

After we left the park we got ice cream . . .and Chicken Nuggets.  Nate is not an ice cream eater HA!  Give him McDonald's Nuggets anytime!

The boys also put together a plan of sleeping in the basement.  They, with Darryl's help, made up beds using a toddler mattress and couch cushions and added night lights all in anticipation of sleeping in the "bedroom" they had made.

 All snuggled in, listening to Darryl read stories.

 Nate loves to stand by his dad while he reads and watch all of the photos.

 Getting ready to say good night . . .notice the faces of fear HA!

We said good night and turned out the light.  Nate was back upstairs in 2.5 minutes saying that he would sleep down there a different night before crawling into his bed in his room.  Josh tried to stay down there by himself but was up 5 minutes later saying, "It is too scary to sleep down there"  I'm sure they will try again and some day, I'm sure they will actually make it all night but - sometimes half the fun is just preparing for the sleep over :-)

Weekly Menu

We've had a few simple weeks without too much going and this week continues that pattern for the most part.  I'm looking forward to fall, as I do this time of year every year, not just because I enjoy fall very much but because we get to return to some of our favorite meals like Lasagna, meatloaf, and lots of soups!  For now, we need to make better use of the grill and all of the fresh veggies that are starting to show up in the farmer markets. 

Saturday - Despite our spending freeze, I'm planning for dinner to be brought home by the big D.  Pizza, Tacos, or Chinese, it doesn't matter - I just don't want to cook!

Sunday - Spaghetti and Meatballs.  This is such a simple but good Sunday after church meal.  Salad and Garlic bread will round it out. 

Monday - Darryl has PT and doesn't get home until about 7:00.  I have a meeting at 5:30 that will go to about 7:00.  So I think I will pick up McDonald's for the boys to eat at my meeting (it will take up some time for them to eat) and Darryl and I will be on our own. 

Tuesday - Time for the Grill.  I've been wanting to grill pork chops - we love them so that's what we will do!  Mac and Cheese always goes with Pork chops along with green beans and applesauce.  I might even make my own in the crock pot!

Wednesday - Shall we grill again?  Why, yes!  Steaks!  Yum!  Baked potatoes in the crock pot, corn, and Garlic Bread

Thursday - Darryl has PT again so breakfast sounds good.  I love Amish Breakfast casserole and some muffins.  I'll make frozen waffles and sausage links for the boys since neither really gets into the casserole concept yet (Everything touches and that just isn't right HA!)

Friday - Well, tacos of course!  Yum!

August Goals

Yes, August is half over but I still like to post goals even if it is just for my own benefit. 

This months goals are still a short list:

1) Do the finishing touches on the basement.  I have some shelves that I need to clean off, some odds and ins to clean out and put out to the trash and clean out the work bench area. 

2) Clean the garage.  As  I finish up the basement clean out and sorting the last of the bins in the garage from the basement I will then move to going through the stuff in the garage shelf by shelf and cleaning it all up and organizing it. 

3) Organize the kids school desks and get all of their stuff set up. 

4.) Continue deep cleaning the upstairs.  I have a few things left to do in the kitchen and bathroom before moving on to the living room and dining room.  I'm hoping to have everything done by month end so I can get back to following the Flylady weekly cleaning plan. 

That's it :-)  I know it doesn't seem like a lot but it is.  Both the basement and garage projects take up to an hour to an hour and a half total each day plus the deep cleaning takes up another hour.  Throw in snack time, helping kids do . . well . .everything, and other misc things like menu planning, bill paying, and . .well . . reading :-)  My days get full fast. 

What We are Eating

I went through my photos looking for a photo of something I've cooked recently but realized that even though I've made quite a few new recipes, many of them have been mediocre so I didn't take photos.  I tried a Chicken Thigh recipe in the crock pot last week for the sole purpose of not turning on the oven; it was ok, but not great.  I tried a cake recipe a few weeks ago that was ok but it didn't turn out the way the photo looked at all and wasn't anything to write home about.  I tried another recipe that I can't even remember at the moment and that speaks volumes.

So, there are no pretty pictures or recipes this week but I do have some new recipes to try soon!

Teacher Tuesday - We are all set up!

This past week, my parents made the drive over and brought us two desks.  I used one of my days without kids to unpack their school boxes, set up their desks, and set up the computer.  You may wonder why I did this without the boys and quite simply, because it make it easier.  The boys love to help but sometimes, their help is helpless.  HA!

We are about ready for school to start.  I have an instructional video that I still have to watch but otherwise, I think we are good!

 The boys new desks.  Their desks hold their specific school items, books and supplies.  The carts in the middle hold other art supplies like extra markers, crayons, glue etc as well as art books, painting items and more.  The desk on the left, the white one, my mom picked up from a friend at a garage sale and the one on the right, the brown one, was my mom's many years ago and has stayed in the family.  It is the same desk that I took to college with me and was most recently housed at my brother's house until they moved back in June.

 I have more books than the boys do!  This little shelf holds all of the teacher manuals for both books.  I'm curious how much I'll have to use these throughout this year or if I can figure out K-5 and 1st grade work on my own ;-)

 For now, we've set up the boys computer on a table in our dining room.  We need to work on how much they use it verses using their I-pads for school to determine if we need a better set up later.

 One of the benefits of this new setup is that I get to put a tablecloth on my table again!  When our table was our school "desk" I couldn't keep a table cloth on it since it made it difficult for the boys to do their work (hard to write on top of cloth!) but now, I can keep a tablecloth on it and my beautiful candle on it too!

Finally, the piano got moved to the opposite wall which I like better (for now).  It seemed to really crowd the walkway before and now it is more out of the way. 

Make It Monday - "Making Fun" and "Making Clean" and "Making Projects"

So, we've been making lots of stuff lately. 

1) Making Fun.  Darryl and I had the opportunity this past weekend to hang out together and celebrate our anniversary.  I took my camera but took no photos!  This is what we did:  We went to Good Will (I know, crazy).  We never, ever, ever shop at Good Will - I just have zero luck so I never go.  Well, on this particular day, Darryl found shorts, pants and a shirt; I found a pair of shorts; and I got dress shirts and pants for the boys for the winter - all really nice name brand stuff.  From there, we went into Grand Rapids to the Downtown Market.  It's a really cool specialty market but beyond that, a brand new BBQ just opened there so we decided to try it for lunch.  The food was pretty good.  We also stopped at the awesome bakery and each got the most amazing cookie ever.  Then we headed out to the brand new Tanger Outlet Mall.  It was a total Zoo HA!  We, amazingly, got a parking spot by following people headed to their vehicle (total stalkers, yep!).  We did enjoy walking around and checking out some stores but, for the most part, the stores did not have any deals.  I did manage to get a couple pair of shorts at an amazing deal and Darryl found a pair of tennis shoes that he really needed but otherwise, I'd rather go to the much less busy mall.  Lets see, we then got coffee, stopped at Best Buy to ask some questions and price out options to possibly "cut the cord" on the dish and then went to Olive Garden for dinner.  It was a beautiful night so we drove around and checked out various neighbors where we might like to move someday and ended the night by getting some the best ice cream  at the coolest ice cream shop! Yep, we had fun! 

2) Making Clean - Since the kids are at Papa and Nana's for a few days, I wanted to wrap up some really big cleaning projects that needed more than the 15 minutes I can usually dedicate to them.  I finished up the project in the garage which included loading the truck with the final stuff for Good Will (a full truck load!) AND totally cleaned the garage.  I mean totally.  We got rid of stuff that has been on the shelves for 10 years and organized everything else.  Normally we do this project twice a year (spring and fall) but, since September 2013, it hasn't really been done so there was a lot of work to do!  I do have a bunch of stuff to now list on the local garage sale site which I will do bin by bin over the coming weeks.  I also took time to vacuum out the truck and wash it plus put in new car mats that I bought six months ago but never got around to putting them in HA! 

3) Making Projects - My kids.  Oui.  They have gotten into making "projects".  For two boys who wanted nothing to do with art projects, the past few weeks have transformed them into Art kids.  They have painted and glued.  They have dug through stickers and paper scraps.  They have found Popsicle sticks, cotton balls, pipe cleaners and every other art supply I had stuck in a drawer and created.  It's been fun and I've been informed that they each want a million stickers for Christmas :-)

So, yes, we've been "making" a lot of stuff which means . . .life is good. 

Things My Kids Say

* Josh has all of a sudden started calling Papa, Pop.  It made me smile to hear him say, "Hey, Pop, I will shine that flashlight where ever you need me to." or, "Pop, let me help you carry that desk."   Why, cause I've called my dad "Pops" forever so it all fits right in :-)

* I bought the boys some new PJ shorts on clearance the other day since they.  When I showed Josh his, he said, "Mom, those are the exact shorts I've wanted for 100 years!".  Yes, prone to over exaggeration, that kid.