Life As We Know It...

This week has been pretty hectic around here! With school in full swing, we have had our share of homework, book reports, tests, and the list goes on & on. Both boys have begun scouts again. Ryan is now in Boy Scouts and loves it and Sam is still in Cub Scouts. Sam has started selling popcorn for the yearly fall fundraiser, so he is busy selling that!

I have started taking care of a little 3 month baby boy during the day, which is keeping me on my toes as well. I forgot how busy you are with an infant in the house!!! Lauren was pretty jealous at first of him being here, but she is finally adjusting. Thankfully when he is dropped off at 7:00 a.m. he is still asleep and usually sleeps until about 10:00, so I spend those couple of hours alone with her playing games, reading books and just playing together. Makes things a little easier once he wakes up to tell her that she needs to play alone for a little while.

We had open house at school Thursday night for the boys. We met all their teachers. Ryan's teachers told us the same thing we hear every year... "he is is so quiet, he never talks in class." He reminds me so much of me when I was his age! Sam is just the opposite. In fact Sam has the same math teacher this year that Ryan had in 3rd grade. This teacher is PHENOMENAL and a MAN (which ranks very high in Sam's book!) When we walked into his room, the teacher immediately said "I had Ryan in class a few years ago... WOW! Your 2 boys are polar opposites aren't they???" Sam is excelling tremendously in math right now. All of a sudden math has "clicked" with him and he is doing great. He came home yesterday and had gotten an A+ on a recent math test, of course he was MORE excited that his name was read during morning assembly in front of the whole school for his A+ then the fact that he got the A+.

Time to go check on my kids... seems that Lauren just got into a glue stick! Kids ~ Gotta Love 'Em!!!!

Not Me Monday

I'm getting on board with Not Me Monday, founded by the one & only MckMamaWelcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

So, here goes my first not Me Monday post!!! This week I surely did not take an afternoon nap on Saturday, no NOT ME ~ for 1 1/2 hours while my little princess slept and all of my boys were gone camping! No not me, that would be irresponsible, since I surely could have been doing something more constructive like cleaning my house!

And I truly did not go TWICE to the local pool for a swim last week, no NOT ME! That would have been pure lazy, especially while my husband was at work. No not me, I didn't do it!!!

I did not, I repeat did NOT get upset with my little princess when I discovered she had colored with marker on the mouse to our computer. No, not me! And I did not grab the magic eraser as quickly as possible to clean it before my dear husband came home! Nope, not me!

Hope you enjoy the No me Monday posts as much as I do. Enjoy and get on board with starting your own Not Me Monday posts, come on!!! We've all had days like this!

Menu Plan Monday

PHEW! We are in full swing here at our house this week! Ryan is turning 11 on Wednesday, and needless to say I have a very full week ahead! We had a great weekend. All THREE of my boys went camping Friday night. So my little princess & I enjoyed some much needed girl time together! Of course that included dinner & shopping! What can a say a girls gotta shop!!!

Ok, on to our menu planning for this week. Hope everyone has a wonderful week! Here's what we'll be eating at my house!

Monday: Chicken with pesto sauce & pasta, dinner rolls

Tuesday: Cheeseburger Pasta

Wednesday: Hamburger Cook out for Ryan's birthday

Thursday: Chicken Kabobs on the grill, corn on the cob

Friday: Bacon & Cheese topped BBQ Chicken, fresh yellow beans

Saturday: Homemade Pizza (Chicken Alfredo Pizza)

Sunday: Ham & Potatoes, vegetables

Menu Plan Mondays...

I've been doing menu planning for about a year now, and boy has it saved us some serious cash! With a grocery store literally a block from my house, I was spending too much money on impulse shopping. I would stop by the store for 2 items and return home with 22 items! YIKES!!!

So, a friend suggested menu planning. I usually plan out our menus 1 week at a time, but somedays I feel more ambitious and plan out more, not this week! So, here it is our one week menu plan!

Monday: Grilled Pork sirloin with corn on the cob

Tuesday: Spaghetti with garlic cheese rolls

Wednesday: Chicken braats with beans and a side salad

Thursday: Hamburgers, baked beans & fresh veggies w/ dip

Friday: BBQ Chicken on the grill, parmesan potatoes, side salad

Saturday: Pizza

Sunday: is our church picnic, so I get out of cooking! :)

Sweet Home Alabama!

Well, we are adjusting to life after vacation. We had an amazing trip with absolutely beautiful weather. Couldn't have asked for better weather while we were down there. It was around 80 degrees every day and sunny. We had rain one afternoon, but it didn't start until around 4:30 in the afternoon and only lasted a few hours. By about 7:00 it was done. The coldest day was the day before we left to come home and it was a frigid 73 degrees (haha). It was incredible.

While we were there we did so much sight seeing, it was great! Ric's aunt lives in a beautiful private community with many things for the kids to do such as basketball courts, a soccer field, a playground, tennis courts, walking trails, a lake which is great for fishing in, and many stores along with a few restaurants. It was very peaceful in this community and all of us thoroughly enjoyed our time with Judy.

But, we also wanted to get out and *see* Birmingham. I had done quite a bit of research online before we left because I didn't want the kids to get bored while we were there. I found a list of the top attractions that Birmingham has to offer and we visited 3 of those attractions. Our first stop was to the McWane Science Center in downtown Birmingham. What fun! The kids had a blast there! That was probably the most enjoyable day that we had there. The kids enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit which was there, and they could "dig" for dinosaur bones. There was also a huge exhibit on weather, another one on the techniques used in making a cartoon, and of course Lauren had a great time in the preschool area. We could have stayed all day there! Another big attraction there was the aquarium that they had. We saw a huge eel, many saltwater fish from the Gulf area, some fresh water fish, an octopus, and so many other sea creatures. The boys loved the aquarium area.

Our next day trip was to the Peanut Depot also located in downtown Birmingham. This was a very fun trip that only took a short time to do. BINGO! Just what we need for the kids. The Peanut Depot was located in a large old brick building on a brick road. The building itself is over 100 years ago and is listed in the Birmingham historical directory. They make all their own fresh roasted peanuts there and give tours of how peanuts are made. This was fun, I've never seen the process on roasting peanuts. We also ate our first ever Boiled Peanuts. Quite honestly, I've never even heard of boiled peanuts until last week. The tour wasn't really a *tour*. The building is basically 1 very large warehouse type room and all of the peanuts are actually roasted right there in that big room. The owner was there and he explained everything to us very well. Of course we left with quite a few bags of fresh roasted peanuts! YUMMY!

Our third and final day trip was to the Birmingham Zoo. Of course the kids loved the zoo. We saw many of our favorite animals such as the gorilla, the sea lion, tigers, lions, monkeys and many other creatures as well. This was Lauren's first trip to a zoo, and she had a great time seeing all the animals her 2 favorites were the zebra and the many giraffes.

All in all we had a great trip. It took us 12 hours 15 minutes to drive straight down there and only took us 11 1/2 hours coming home. The kids did awesome in the van both there and back. I couldn't have asked for my kids to be better behaved!

Conferences

Tonight was conference night for both of our boys. You know ever since my kids started school I HATE parent teacher conferences! My kids do good in school, so I don't know why I hate it so much. I think its the whole idea that somebody else is critiquing MY kids! I don't know what the reason is, but I cringe going in there! 

So, Sam's conference was first. At his fall conference there was some behavior issues. Sam is a very bright kid, and quite honestly he is VERY bored in school. So, tonight we're told that his behavior is 100% improved! So, thats a relief. Then we go on to the academic *stuff*!  So his teacher tells us that he is reading at about a 3rd-4th grade reading level. He has no problem sounding out words, in fact he rarely has to stop and sound them out anymore. At this school the boys take what is called NWEA tests (Northwest Education Association). He is too young for the MEAP test, so this is what would be equivalent to a MEAP test. WELL, Sam's tests showed this: Math, the normal "average" for a child in 1st grade would be a score of 170, Sam scored 190. 

Reading, the "average" score for a 1st grader in reading is 160 and Sam scored almost a 200. 

So, Sam is doing quite well for a child his age. In fact Sam, according to these tests results he has surpassed 99% of other children in 1st grade. I just hope that next year he will have a teacher that pushes him a little bit harder. 

Ok, onto Ryan. At this level with Ryan he gets letter grades. Soooo, he has a B+ in Language Arts, a B+ in Reading, an A- in Math, a B+ in Social Studies and a B+ in Science. 

Ryan also had to take the NWEA tests and in reading he scored 216 points (the "average" score for a 4th grader is 207). In Math Ryan scored 217 and the "average" score for a 4th grader is 209. So Ryan is also working above average. He does a great job in school and Ryan recently was awarded the Virtue of the Month Award for 4th grade for the "Encouragement" Virtue. Apparently Ryan does a great job encouraging his classmates. 

So, all in all conferences went great. I'm glad its done until fall though...

HAPPY APRIL???? maybe...

Ok, so the beginning of April hasn't been that great here at our house. Tuesday was April Fools Day and we woke up to find that Ryan (our oldest) had pink eye. YUCK! So, of course, that meant he had to stay home from school. 

Tuesday night I started feeling a little yucky. I had some swollen gland stuff going on in my throat, which is pretty common when I catch a cold. Well, by the time I went to bed I was feeling miserable, so I drank some Airborne (which I highly recommend to people!!!) and off to bed I went. 

Wednesday morning I woke up to find that I could NOT talk. My throat was swollen closed. Words were nearly impossible coming out of my mouth. It was odd and yet very scary too! I've never experienced anything quite like this. Ric looked at me and said "do you have a cough drop in your mouth?" NO! nothing in my mouth, just felt like I had something shoved down my throat. Then I took a look at Ryan and saw that his pink eye had not cleared up. So, of course that meant he had to stay home again. In the meantime, Ric looked at me and said "let me see your throat." So he took a flashlight and peered in my throat and announced "you need to see a doctor. I think you have strep throat." GREAT! So, I first called the pediatrician for Ryan. He has had this cough/cold and I knew he had an ear infection. Then I proceeded to call my doctor and get an appointment for me.

Well, 9:00 a.m. we are sitting in the pediatrician's office and she says "Ryan's ears are fine, his lungs are fine." THEN she looks in his throat. "WHOA! He has strep throat!!!!" I then told the pediatrician about my symptoms and she peered into my throat and said "oh yes, you have it to." So, he's on an antibiotic for his strep throat. So at 1:00 p.m I go to my doctor and tell them "yes I think I have strep, my son was at the pediatrician earlier and he also has it." So, my doctor takes a look and says "Oh you definitely have strep. I wish I had a med student here to show this to." They never even did throat cultures on either of us because the strep was so bad. 

So, how did we end this eventful day???? Well, I told Ryan we deserved ice cream. So we bought ourselves some ice cream and let the cool ice cream run down our sore throats! Doesn't ice cream always make everything better???!!!!!!!