Mother's Day

Mother's Day this year was spent as usual with our close family and it was a lot of fun, but what I want to write about here is a Mother's Day "event" that my youngest son's teacher put on for all of the mothers in the class. We had to RSVP for the event and every mother attended. It was in the classroom, on the Friday before Mother's Day, for about 2 hours. The event was about spending some fun, quality time one on one. She had four stations set up, which we rotated to about every 15 minutes. We had block time, computer time, a station where we cut out and glued a very cute yellow flower together, and then a cooking station where we cut up and used apples, bananas, strawberries, grapes and mandarin oranges to create a "flower" on our plate before eating it together. (That was my favorite station). Then after all of that we got to enjoy cookies and a little performance put on by the kids in which they read sentences they had written about us, and poems that they learned about mothers. It was just so special, and so much fun! One of Brenden's sentences about me was that I clean his room! :)




Yes, the front of the book there says "I love you Mom," and he drew a picture of me. :) (my heart is melting again!...)

I hate socks!

I'm sure any moms of boys (and maybe girls), and even wives can relate to this: I HATE SOCKS! I hate socks so much that when I was a member of Match.com, I included that tidbit of information on my profile! Not only do I dislike wearing socks unless I HAVE to...like to run or if I wanna wear my chucks, but I HATE laundering them and finding their match and putting them away! When I was married, I was "instructed" not to fold one sock over the other because it would "stretch them out," so I got into a habit of just putting the socks in the drawer, with no mate! As my kids got older, they started to express their utter loathing of having to find a matching pair themselves and would actually be a little peeved if they had to! So, now, my fate is to sort through this giant pile and find matchies. And it's not even that simple. To top it off, the socks are not the same size! So, not only are they different styles and brands but they are different sizes too! UGH! You might say that I should throw 'em all out and start over with only one brand and style to make it easier. Well let me just say that I have tried that and it just doesn't work in the long run.

So there you have it. I hate socks!

Backwards Street Signs after Baseball

We all went to a baseball game tonight and it was so much fun!! We ate all kinds of junk food, and got to parade around the field before the game! Woohoo!

It was such a blast too to read the street signs backwards when you are driving home from a minor league baseball game with your boys and your sis and practical bro in law! Especially for your ten year old! :) Thanks go to Greg for getting the ball rolling on that fun game! or should I say "no taht nuf emag!"

Now I have to sleep like the rest of 'em!

Mother Son Dance and a Broken Hand

Well things are definitely not slowin' down over at our house! Every day there is something going on! Last night, it was the Mother Son Dance at the boys' school. It was set up very cute with tables and balloons, a DJ, hot dogs and root beer floats. We all had to wear sports jerseys too and they had a picture "booth" set up where they took a picture of us to give to us later....and it was all FREE! Ethan and Brenden are seriously at the BEST school around!! Unfortunately for me, Ethan spent most of the time playing with some friends of his outside (see his red, sweaty face) but I guess I understand! Brenden did dance with me though! (And so did my good friend Lavay and her son Rylan!) We did some sort of stomping line dance, the chicken dance and we slow danced too! Here are some pics that Lavay took:








Notice Brenden's cast! Poor baby broke his hand about a week and a half ago when he tripped over a basketball court at his dad's and fell on his hand. He went cast-less (and played like normal) for almost an entire week before we realized that it was broken!!!!!!!!!! The nurse told me that it's normal not to know....I hope she wasn't fibbin' to make me feel better!!

Vegas Baby

This year, like all years, the boys and I wanted to do something fun for Spring Break. With two failed attempts to visit my Grandma in Lake Havasu, we opted for a trip to Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas....where we could venture to the sun and surf (albeit manufactured) with warm weather, comfy beds and Haagen Dazs. And at nearly the last moment, my friend Melissa E decided to grace us with her wonderful presence!

Day 1 Wednesday:

We got to Vegas and before we could even begin to unpack, Brenden and Ethan already had their swim trunks on and flippers in hand. It was the cutest thing, so I couldn't say no. We went down to the pool and they claimed to be closed! It was merely 5:38 and they didn't close till 6 officially, but they wouldn't let us in. So, we spent the next half hour walking around looking for the "ghost spa"...that's the spa (jacuzzi) that people were trying to help us find that never actually showed itself to us. So, we unpacked and went down to see the Shark Reef Exhibit! That was very cool and I got the boys shark tooth necklaces afterward. After that, we went out via a kinda scary rail tram to Excalibur, and walked through New York New York (the kids called out "THE STATUE OF LIBERTY!!" hehe - I explained that it isn't the statue) to the MGM Grand where we looked at REAL LIVE sleeping lions and ate Nathan's hot dogs and Haagen Dazs ice cream. Yum! Finally, we went back to the hotel and called it a night.

Day 2 Thursday:

We woke up early, put on our swim gear and headed down to the pools where we remained the rest of the day. To our dismay, they don't rent inner tubes there anymore, so I had to buy one for $23.71. YES, $23.71! The Mandalay Bay boasts 3 regular pools and jacuzzis, a lazy river and a huge wave pool with lots and lots of sand. The weather was 82 degrees and beautiful and the time spent there was absolutely fantastic. We all had a blast!!

That night, after a little R and R in the room, we went over to the Rio to try their buffet. We almost did the seafood buffet but opted instead for the "World Famous Carnival International Buffet." It was good, but a bit overwhelming if I do say so myself. The buffet itself is probably a mile long if you string it all together. They have so many food choices that my brain and my stomach didn't know what the heck to do. Brenden stuck with pizza mostly, and Ethan mostly crab, shrimp and sushi (that's my boy!). I can't remember what I had. It's all a blur! After Rio, we went back to our little home away from home and got ready for bed and watched Ethan make shadow puppets on the wall (very fun). Melissa went down and did some gambling, but my little ones didn't want me to go! I told them that I would just wait for them to fall asleep then (hehe), but I decided to stay and watch some MTV...that was actually fun since I almost never watch TV at home, especially dumb TV like that! hehe.

Day 3 Friday:

We woke up early again and headed for the pool. We only planned on being there an hour because we needed to check out of the hotel and do some other stuff in Vegas. We were out there for about 45 minutes when the weather turned FREEZING. There was a sudden mass exodus! So, we got ready, packed our bags and got outta there! We headed to Blueberry Hill for breakfast. Ethan and I each had the special: a Tiger omelet and pancakes. It was SOOO good. Best thing we ate in Vegas. Brennie had the kids Pancake special. Yum Yum!!
From there, we headed to Circus Circus for some game time. We ended up staying there for FOUR hours!! Melissa and I watched the kids enjoy all kinds of rides in the Adventuredome from Sponge Bob 4D to Laser Tag (their favorite). From there, we headed out of town, stopping only at Stateline to get gas at Terrible's in exchange for $20 in free slot play at Buffalo Bills. I did that while Mel took the boys to the arcade. Boy that was five minutes of FUN! I love Jacks or Better! Finally, after battling STRONG WIND GUSTS alllllllll they way home, we arrived in our home town at about 11pm!

All in all, an awesome family trip!!

Camera cord and Vegas

I have looked for the last five to ten minutes for my camera cord/cable so that I can download the ohhh so cute pictures from our family (and friend) trip to Vegas this Spring Break; but alas the darn thing has decided to get up and walk away YET AGAIN!

The Vegas blog entry will in fact be a tale in pictures so you all will have to wait just a little longer!

Here cable cable cable!

:)

Never Gonna Kiss a Girl

I am writing this blog so that I can remember to tell the story on Brenden's wedding day.

Yesterday, Brenden and I were running some errands and he started telling me about how he would never ever ever ever neeeevvvvvvvvver ever evvvvvvvvver never never never ever kiss a girl.

My response - Sure you will - someday.

Brenden's response -- No, never ever never ever ever.

My response - OK, not a problem.

So tonight, the boys, my sister and I went out to Steer N Stein and I was telling the story. Brenden put his hand up in front of his face, waving it up and down with an "eee, eee, eee" sound and said, I will never kiss a girl, not even when I'm married! Kellie said, You have to kiss a girl if you're married and Brenden said Nope, not me...with more hand waving and "eee, eee, eee" noises. LOL