Category: Uncategorized (Page 50 of 201)

Look!  I’m back!  I know, it’s almost hard to believe that I’m posting two days in a row.  But let’s not get our hopes up too high just yet that I’ll be able to keep this up… 😉  We shall see…

The other day we were gifted (ok, more of a hand-me-down) a tiny grand piano.  I think it’s adorable.  Now, to be honest, it doesn’t sound very good, and it’s a little beat up, but I can’t deny that I absolutely love it.  And so do Levi and Madison.

We’ve moved it into the studio and Maddie will play on her piano as I play.  It’s So. Cute.  She’ll get her special music book and draw in it and play and have a grand old time.

Well ,as pretty much everyone knows, today was a historic Solar Eclipse that passed over us, with the United States in the direct line from coast to coast.  I learned some pretty cool stuff about the eclipse and some history about the last one as I perused Facebook today.   See, Facebook is useful sometimes.  🙂

We had our special viewing sunglasses all ready (from the Library) and I even thought ahead and moved my afternoon lesson a couple minutes early so we could all go out and view it for a couple of minutes… only to have thick rain clouds obstruct our view entirely.

What a disappointment.

We did watch it on the computer live through the NASA website, but it just wasn’t the same as looking up into the sky and seeing it.  Oh, well.  There are enough photos (on Facebook!) to curb my curiosity of what it looked like.  My favorite photo/video of the day was the view from the NASA space shuttle.  It showed the dark shadow of the moon passing over the US.  It was cool.

So, now onto the rest of our week.  And it’s party week here!  Chloe’s Birthday party is scheduled for Saturday, so we have a lot of planning and crafting ahead of us this week!  Whoo hoo!  (We decided to have her party early this year because of Grandma Patsy’s wedding the first week of September and then school starts and then we have Levi’s first Birthday party the 3rd week in September… so earlier was better!)

Before I go, how about a picture?  (Tim already posted this on Facebook, but I wanted to put it here so I can remember it!)

We had a fantastic family reunion 2 weeks ago, but it took me a while to get back into the groove again after we got back.  And then I let the kids have more play dates last week as we are all sensing the end of summer drawing near–so I was too busy to post… and then I had a music seminar that I attended on Friday, so I was gone.  Then my sign-up day was yesterday and I taught last night and ALL day today.

So, I’m just stopping in to say, HELLO!

We’re heading to St. Cloud tomorrow, but hopefully I’ll be able to post something soon.

Oh, and by the way, yesterday’s sign up was awful with a capitol A. In all the years of doing sign-ups I’ve never had one go so poorly… My computer decided it was going to not open my email program which led to panicking and trying to get my website updated and reply to emails and phone calls… Usually I’m done in about 20 min.  But my email program wouldn’t even open for 32 min. (which in the world of signing up is and ETERNITY).  Luckily, even though I was stressing out big time, my students were mostly understanding and everyone seems to have been able to get the times they wanted.  However, it was a lesson learned.  I will not do things the same next year.  Yikes.

We went through the full back to school supply lists tonight and we’re pretty much all set.  We do need 2 or 3 more small items and shoes (but those have yet to go on sale) still, but we’re basically done.  I actually love back to school shopping.  I missed it when I graduated from college.  In fact, I remember wandering through the aisles of school supplies that first fall that I was out of school and looking longingly at the stacks of paper and nice clean pencils, but I didn’t really have any need for buying extras.  And I forgot I would get to do it again when I had kids, so I’m thrilled!  🙂

Well, they’re back.

Japanese beetles.

They pretty much took over a wild rose in my front garden two years ago, and sadly they seem to have returned with a vengeance again.  I had noticed a few a couple weeks ago and then didn’t think too much about it… until yesterday when I walked out and saw that they have not only infested that same wild rose bush, but also my lovely “tiny” tree in the front of our house.  Now, the rose bush I could live without, but not my tree!  So, I got angry and sprayed bug killer all over the tree.

I could see them actually dropping out of the tree and landing on the ground as I sprayed it.  It was strangely satisfying. I checked this morning and there are dozens of dead bugs under the tree and bush now.  And I’m happy to report that there are only a few visible.  I’ll have to make sure I spray it again in another week or so, but I’m pleased so far.  🙂

See ya later, ye destructive beetles!

My friend Tara (who takes our family pictures every year) sent me a picture of these shirts a few months ago commenting on how fitting they were for us.  I showed Tim the picture and he immediately laughed and said we should find the shirts and do a photo shoot.  Well, after some digging I did find the shirts but they were crazy expensive, so I decided I would just try and make them myself.

Crafty Mom strikes again.  Ha!

The photo shoot was a bit of a struggle… Levi didn’t nap well that day, then wouldn’t stop crying, then wouldn’t sit still.  Maddie was so excited to take pictures that she kept jumping up in the air.  And Josiah was loving on his siblings too much which made Maddie mad and not want to sit by him… it was a bit chaotic.  In fact, considering how much noise and tears and movement there was I am surprised at how many great pictures Tara was able to capture!

The good news is, this is the hardest point picture taking is going to be.  From here on out, Maddie is going to get more agreeable and be able to sit still longer, and soon it will just be Levi we have to wrangle.  Whew!  Either way, it’s always fun to capture the kids in this moment of chaos in our life to remember forever.

We celebrated Josiah’s Birthday this past weekend with a rockin’ Mario Kart Birthday.  He had been anticipating it for a long time–recently talking about it NON. STOP. so I was glad the day finally arrived.

Tim was up and out the door bright and early to pick up Chloe from camp, so Josiah and I (with the er… “help”… of Maddie and Levi) spent the morning getting ready and eagerly awaiting 3:00 to arrive.  As usual I had done quite a bit of Pinteresting and was eager to see how everything actually turned out and looked all completed.  And I can say, I wasn’t disappointed.  I was even able to redeem myself from my Honey Comb Cake Catastrophe from last year.  😉

First the pictures of the food (because that’s my favorite part)!

Oh, and did you notice his AWESOME Mario (M) shirt?  I’m very proud of that too.  I made it from an old red shirt he owned and a bleach pen.  I did learn that the bleach does bleed… a lot.  So, I actually had to fill in most of the M with a red sharpie after I bleached it, but it turned out fine for the party.  I’m not sure the red will last once I wash it, but that’s ok.  He was still thrilled to be able to wear it on for his party.

Now onto the decorations!  I want to give a shout out to Auntie Jen for printing and coloring all the mario kart people on the banner.  🙂  I also made a few other checkerboard flag banners that I didn’t take pictures of, and since this post is already very picture heavy I figure you can just visualize that in your head.

We even colored Rainbow Road up to the front door.  Josiah thought that was really awesome.  I thought it was a good idea until I was on my hands and knees dripping in sweat hoping I didn’t scrape my knuckles painfully on the cement….

The boys enjoyed playing pin the mustache on Mario and donning their own goofy mustaches.  (As a side note: when buying mustaches for a party, do make sure the package says adhesive or sticky in the title.  Apparently I bought just mustaches.  No sticky backs included.  I didn’t even know they made such a thing.  So…. I pulled out the good ol’ double sided tape.  Ha!)

Tim also drew a course for the boys to race around (while getting wet since it was almost 100*) and they took turns running it and being timed.  It was fun, although a couple kids got hurt… ah, the joys of boys and racing.  But no one was seriously injured, so I call that a win.  😉

And last but not least, they did enjoy actually playing Mario Kart.

The party was a smashing success.  I was a little apprehensive that the party would not quite live up to Josiah’s dreams since he had been looking forward to it for so long, but according to him, “it was even better than I had imagined it would be.”  So much so, in fact…. that he cried himself to sleep that night lamenting the fact that it was over.   Ah, the joys of being 6 and overtired and exhausted.