Gavin the Jack

Every day, as part of Gavin's homework, we read together. Either he reads a book on his level or he picks a book for me to read to him. For Christmas, the boys received the Stinky Cheese Man book and we've been reading a story from that every night.

The story today was about the Princess and the Bowling Ball (a spoof of The Princess and the Pea). When it started talking about the Prince, I said to Gavin ~ "hey, this story has a Prince just like you are a Prince!".

He grinned and said "no..."

I persisted: "yes, you and Tyler are both Princes because I'm the Queen and Dad's the King of our house".

Again he disagreed: "Mom, I'm not a Prince, I'm a Jack!".

Neglected

I feel like I've been neglecting this space a bit lately. Besides being busy, I blame it partly on Facebook. I find that I spend so much time playing there that I have little left for here. In my defense, life has been a bit on the pleasantly dull side lately. We had a long weekend with Presidents' Day today. We did our annual Valentine's Day Treasure Hunt. The boys loved it, as usual.Look at the beautiful roses from the twins!

Gavin played at a friend's house and we did a bit of shopping, too. Damn Kohl's and the 30% off coupon they sent me in the mail!

A friend and neighbor let Shawn borrow a Sushi cookbook and yesterday he spent the afternoon experimenting with different rolls. Having a sushi chef living under my roof can only mean bad things for my waist line!

This is a smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber roll. It was delicious!

Olivia's settling in quite nicely, and making herself at home...

I've been knitting quite a bit lately. Gavin requested a new scarf ~ specifically a gray and red striped scarf. He was so cute about it, asking every day if I had completed his scarf yet. I did it as quickly as I could and was so excited at how it turned out.

Unfortunately, the gray alpaca wool yarn is too itchy for him so he hasn't worn it a lot. But now I know I can do stripes!

I also signed up for a sock class. Since my friend Jacki taught me how to knit, I've been wanting to learn how to knit socks. I drool over the homemade socks I see on other peoples' blogs and can't wait to complete my first pair.

Here they are so far.

I couldn't take pictures without getting my two handsome boys...

Tyler's doing some homework.

I've been doing some purging, too, which must be done to counteract the shopping I mentioned before. Most of my clothes are bound for the thrift store, which is likely where they were purchased to begin with. But the maternity clothes that were hardly worn, I'm selling on eBay. This is what's left after about a third of it was purchased yesterday:

I may have a slight shopping problem. But again, 70% of my clothes come from thrift or consignment stores. So it isn't as bad as it looks.

Today I'm home with the boys and we're trying to think of something fun to do. Hope you have a great week!

Jump Rope for Heart

The boys' school has tons of fundraisers... Shawn and I have a hard time deciding which ones to participate in. I like to give to the school by donating my time, helping the teachers in the classrooms, bringing treats for parties and donating items that the teachers have run out of. I don't need more wrapping paper, butter braids or cookie dough... so when those fundraisers come around, I usually opt out. We don't buy scholastic books, either, because we buy so many books used and I like the idea of recycling books. I'd rather give a monetary donation than cut down more trees.

Today, though, Tyler brought home a permission slip and donation request for Jump Rope for Heart. This is a good cause and we've decided to participate.

My mom had a heart attack when we were living in Georgia, 9 years ago. And if you've been reading here for any length of time, you know that being healthy and raising our kids to make good food choices and get exercise is very important to us. I like that they are taking this opportunity to educate the kids about a healthy heart.

If you'd like to help Tyler and this cause, please click here to donate. The minimum is $25. Thanks for considering it and have a great weekend!

Special Privledges

I've mentioned before how much Tyler loves to read. He reads for 20 minutes each day for homework. He also reads in the morning before we get up sometimes. We are constantly picking up books for him... Our local thrift store has chapter books for less than $1.00 on Saturdays (50% off day) and we grab any Magic Treehouse or Boxcar Children books that we can find. He and Gavin got some classic books for Christmas and he's already started on "Around the World in 80 Days". We find books on Paperback Swap for him, too. He is reading several books at any given time.

Tonight we started a new nighttime routine. Instead of going to sleep at 8 o'clock, we set up a reading lamp and clock and he can stay in bed reading until 8:30. He about crapped his pants when we told him about his new special privilege. You'd think we hung the moon.

I'm not sure if he gets this from me or from Shawn. But this child sure loves to read.

Saturdays are for Snow Tubing

I love this state. Everything seems better with a mountain backdrop. Walking for exercise with a view of snow capped mountains seems more pleasant. The cool, crisp air is somehow more refreshing. Leaving the grocery store or driving to work with a view of the beauty that surrounds me makes every day seem lovely in its own way. It's hard to stay sad for long when the sun shines so much.

All of us at the top of the snow tubing hill.

We have a playground in our backyard that provides hours of entertainment. Snow to play in during the winter months and endless trails and vistas to explore in the summer hours.

Saturday was a gorgeous day and we had nothing on the agenda. The weather in Denver was sunny and in the 60's. So we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and drove up to Winter Park, Colorado. The traffic was crazy but it's hard to get annoyed about being stuck in an interstate parking lot on I~70 when the view outside the car window is so lovely.

And when we got there, this is what we saw... blue, blue skies and white snow capped mountains:It was a long ride and the boys were happy to get out of the car!

They let off some steam by having a snow ball fight.

Tyler, being silly.

Here the boys are at the top of the hill, getting ready for some "tummy time"

Shawn giving Tyler a lift.

Gavin was tired after a long day of tubing!

Hope you had a fun weekend, too! It'll be hard to go to work tomorrow but we plan on playing in the snow again very soon!