And So It Begins. . . . .

Life is different living on an acre instead of .17 of an acre - very different.  At least this year I am not racing against the clock to get the yard ready for a wedding reception, just getting it ready so it has a chance to look good in late spring.  Kirra as been sick since Thursday and I was feeling incredibly full of cabin fever so I sent the kids to the swing set and I started working.  They didn't last all that long outside, but I stayed out two hours and made some progress in our back yard.  Cleaned out the flower bed underneath the kitchen windows and pruned many bushes.  Still hours and hours to go - especially in the front, but it feels good to have made a dent in the work!

Sometimes it just feels good to have proof I did something during the day!  Glad I remember to take a picture before I started so that I would be able to give myself a pat on the back when I saw how much the landscape changed!

 

 And here are my seven wheelbarrow loads of dead flowers, leaves, weeds and pruned branches.

 I may not be able to move tomorrow due to all the squatting and pruning so I thought I better post tonight when I am still proud of my work. I can feel my shoulders and back starting to be really tight.  It was murder on my wrists tonight to do a crab walk for our FHE game - gonna be an ibuprofen day tomorrow!

Remembering. . . .

For Valentine's Day Scott gave me a new internal hard drive for our computer.  Romantic - maybe not, but for sure something I needed.  I have a photography disease and some effects from the illness are taking a LOT of pictures.  Our C: drive was full, our second internal hard drive was full and one of our backup drives.  Needless to say our computer is SLOW!  To help that problem I now have a dedicated internal hard drive that belongs only to me and I am slowing filling it up with other stuff from the computer.  This also caused me to start purging, merging and naming random things.  I found this file that had pictures of Kirra at each age from 1 to 6.  She used these pictures in a summer history class to make a timeline and I thought they would be fun to post!

Brand New! (and not tiny might I add)

  ONE!

TWO! (Girly girl!)

 

THREE! (3rd birthday party)

 

FOUR! (4th birthday party)

 

FIVE! (first day of Kindergarten)

 

SIX! (flower girl for Nick & Jess's wedding)

School Valentine's

Holidays equal parties which usually equals me being in charge. We had a lot of fun in Kade’s class this morning – his teacher likes to start class parties at 8:00 a.m. and then they get them out of the way and the kids don’t have to think about it all day, anticipating all the fun!  I am a room mom in his Kindergarten class along with another amazing mom.  I am the public relations part of the team and she is always coming up with great ideas and carrying them out. Kade’s teacher had done a couple things in the past that she gave us ideas for and we were set.  It really helps that we have a class full of kids with awesome parents that are willing to send in anything we need and come help at the parties.  

The kids got to make their lunches for today – starting with heart shaped sandwiches.  They cut out their bread, cheese and ham with heart shaped cookie cutters and put it altogether.  Then they made Rainbow Fruit Kabobs with a strawberry for red, cantaloupe for orange, pineapple for yellow, honeydew melon for green, blueberries for blue, and purple grapes for purple.  To complete the lunch they got two heart shaped sugar cookies, a bag of chips and a juice box.  We put them all in decorated lunch sacks and saved them for lunch time.

The other room mom planned a hot lava and hot potato game and then a cute painting craft.  So glad she’s good at all that stuff because I think her job is always way harder than mine!

Here's Kade trying to keep his feet on the hearts as he slides them across the 'hot lava'.

 
Cute painting project.  The other room mom took the time to make LOVE on each paper with painters tape and when the paint dried they got to peel off the letters to make fun Valentine art .

  Overjoyed at the prospects of so much candy in his bag!

 Keian's class didn't have a party - but they did have a "Valentine's Exchange" and he's been looking forward to it all week.  I found it funny each time he would ask "How many more days until my Valentine's Exchange?" Kind of a funny word for a four year old! He was over the moon about his Hershey's kisses and suckers in his bag.

 A cute card Keian made me in school!

 Love amazing teachers who have the patience to give us fun things like this!

Kade at home inspecting his loot.

 Kade's adorable card!  His teacher is so good about taking pictures and incorporating them into things for the kids to bring home.

 And here's our Kirra with her fun treats.  Her class had to work hard to 'earn' their festivities because they've been having some behavior issues.  As of yesterday they still had one letter in Valentine's to earn before they could have treats and a fun math game this afternoon.  So glad they made it!

HAPPY HEART DAY!

Teacher Gifts 2013

Way cute teacher gifts for Valentine's Day thanks to Pinterest.  Got the fun idea and the cute image from a fun website and then the kids and I hit Dollar Tree and right when we walked in there was a display with these cute food storage boxes.  We cleaned then out of the red ones and then headed to Smith's to buy CHOCOLATE!  Kade was a little bummed we had to get chocolate for his teachers instead of Starbursts but I assured him that grown women love chocolate. :)

Valentine's Dinner 2013

It's so crazy to type 2013!  I just can't believe the year is already 2013 - as I was making my bed this morning I had this crazy train of thought and not sure what sparked it, but my parents will be married 40 years in the year 2018 which means I'll be 40 in 2019 - yikes!  Then I was thinking 40. . . that is a big number, but I still remember when I was 15 like it was yesterday.  Makes sense when our friend, David Castle, told us last night he still feels like a kid and he turned 70 on Christmas Day.  Age is what you make it!  Getting older is sometime depressing, but I wouldn't trade my 30's for my teens, ever!

Kind of a nutty side note on a Valentine's post, but whatever. :)

The Valentine's tradition in our house is a crab feast and boy this year was it ever a feast!  We grilled the crab for the first time and we'll never go back to boiling it.  It was just as amazing as I remember it being when we had it in a restaurant in Florida in 2011. We also had a yummy wild rice dish that Paula made, along with asparagus and Pillsbury flakey rolls. The awesomeness didn't end there as we set up the chocolate fountain and enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries and then some amazing chocolate cake.  We were all in pain after eating so much, but was it ever good!

I usually get pictures of us cracking the crab, but this year was even messier since we had grilled it so I never even thought about the camera with my messy hands.  Here is Keian in the height of his glory with his beloved chocolate.  This kid ate and ate and ate!  Crab, asparagus and chocolate! He announced at dinner "my tinkle will stink pretty soon after this asparagus!"  If any of you have eaten asparagus and noticed - it really does make your urine stink.  Some of his chocolate had hardened on his plate and he was trying to pick it off.  I told him he could have more chocolate so Scott got him another chocolate covered marshmallow and this is the result - delicious chocolate dripping everywhere!

P.S. We had our Valentine's Day dinner a day early since I have a YW activity tonight.

Beautiful flowers Keian and Daddy picked up last week for me - always cheaper and usually in better shape than what you can find on Valentine's Day.  Gorgeous!

Chinese Dragon

Kade’s Chinese Dragon to celebrate Chinese New Year!

Man, Kindergarten is FUN!   He made this whole dragon all by himself.  I was in his classroom that morning and I was amazed as I watched him create the awesome pattern on the back of the dragon and follow his teacher's instructions perfectly as he created this friendly fellow. 

The Kindergarteners got to parade around the school with their dragons and Kade's class was lucky enough to have a Chinese lunch on February 8th.  There is a little boy in his class who's parents own a Chinese restaurant so they got a lot of food for a great price.

Daddy and keian got to go in the class and help that day!