Snow day #8!

I kid you not. We were to be done with school on May 28th-- we are now going till June 9th!

It's gonna be a luau!

Break out the Surfin' USA, Wipeout and other beach tunes! We have a party theme! Beach Party/Luau! Lauren is super excited! She wants a grass skirt cake-- we are going to look into that... I have a few ideas for it too!

I bought cute invites that look like a beach print shirt cut out... and I am going to request the kids come in beach attire!

We are going to play a ring toss game, do the limbo contest, pass the coconut, possibly a balloon popping contest... make Aloha picture frames. I am taking their picture infront of a beach mural and I will send that with the thank you note from Lauren on the back! We are going to have cake and ice cream (keep it simple stupid is my theory).

I bought hibicus beach totes, beach containers (you know the kind that all the leathery, 60+ yrs olds, who wear a bright orange thongs, have around their necks to keep their money so it doesn't get wet at the beach- those containers) with a hibicus print on them, leis, tropical fish stickers, beach balls, and I am making a CD of the beach music they will listen to that day for their gift bags (aka beach totes)!

Ok so a few questions:

Can you put stickers on CD's and still have them play music?
Should I hand out winner prizes for the games we play? I was thinking not.. maybe a certificate.. but I am not a big fan of you are a winner and the rest are not!

Aloha!

About to loose it on Mother Nature- someone hold me back!

I will start with we have more snow coming.

Have I mentioned how much I despise snow? I think I might have at some point.

I feel like my blog has been dedicated to the talk of snow, how much we have gotten, how much we are due to get, how much it has affected our lives lately! I am dwelling on it way to much! It is not healthy. I feel like I have nothing good to say- atleast when it comes to the snow part! Normally I am hoping for snow. I was even happy to have a white Christmas, I wanted snow then. But once that is over, I am ready for spring. This winter has lasted far too long! To much snow, to much ice, to much cold, to much missed school, to much missed dance class (and other activities), it is just too much. Sadly we have the rest of Feb and March left (which is typically our worst month for snow fall). I want warm days, not even hot, just warm, like 60’s! Heck I’d take 40’s or 50’s! We are set for another 5-10” today.

I seriously do not think I can take it.

I am about to loose it on Mother Nature.

I mean should a 3yr old know what wind chill is?!

We are 34 degrees cooler today than we were last week. Which would not be bad if it was 84 last week! But it wasn’t it was in the teens! And that 34 degree difference doesn’t even take into consideration the above mentioned wind chill factor! It is pretty sad that on Sunday we had to dig out our driveway, because my DH (even with a big 4x4 truck) couldn’t get thru—and it didn’t even snow Saturday night or Sunday morning… that was just the drifting in! UGH!

So with my above "venting" it would appear I didn’t have a good weekend, but actually we did!

Friday I helped at Lauren's 100th day of school today. What a fun day! Each student made a t-shirt or item with 100 things on it. Lauren's has tick marks on the back in glow in the dark paint! They even turned off the lights for her. They made snacks with 100 items, necklaces, spent $100 dollars (drew a pic of what they would spend it on--lol)! Did 100 thumbprints, exercises while counting to 100 in 5's and 10's (quite a work out)... and more.

I also took in our tax stuff, wait I will tell you why good not bad… no paying in (thus the good news)! Actually we are getting a few hundred dollars back we didn’t know about- but the reason is that we paid double what we paid in 2006 on property taxes! So the excitement is short lived! LOL! Ahh it's only money, right?! On the flip side I have to pay taxes on $241.68 of my flex spending (dependant care funds) that I spent all of, but now I can't find receipts for that amount! Whatever. Oh well I never paid tax on it to start.

Saturday Lauren went to a neighbor’s house to play, while Mason and I ran errands. When Lauren came home it was a quick shuffle to get bags packed and get them on their way to my Mom’s house—they spent the night since we had my company “holiday” party that evening. As much as I was dreading the party, we actually had a great time. We stayed till the end too! So not in the plan. It was a nice evening without kids (wink wink).

Sunday I was up at 7am… strange since my alarm (aka 3yr old saying good morning Mom while crawling all over me and asking me for breakfast) wasn’t home. I headed off to make the trek to my Mom’s house to get the kids, as we had a busy day to get started on. Lauren headed to a day dance camp and we had a double birthday party to go to (family members). At 4pm we headed to the school that Lauren was at to watch the different dance troops perform, Lauren did an awesome job! That didn’t wrap up until 7pm (never expected it to last that long). Home quick meal, bath time, game time, book time, bed time! Whew! Packed up backpacks for school, and to sleep I went! I was beat!

Oh and then the news of a 2hr delay for today came in there sometime right before bed! Ok vent over!

Here is a pic of Lauren at dance camp:

Still snowing!

UGh we are at a foot now since morning and it is still snowing! Supposed to stop at 7pm.... and then start again tomorrow at 11am and go till Friday! And to top it off it is a heavy wet snow... so the snow blower doesn't do super great with it... as it gets all bound up in the auger! Which means shovling! lol! a 40ft x 25ft driveway is a lot of shovel! Especially with 6" covering it, and doing it several times to keep up! I am claiming it as my exercise! I literally work up a sweat! And it has been fun (no really it has beenfun) shoveling with DH and laughing and being goofy while doing it... and the kids have a blast out with us.. Mason helps... Lauren plays on the hills or makes snowpeople/snow families!

Signing off from snow covered/blizzard country;)

1 bath + 2 games + 3 books = ZZZZZZZ’s

Ahhh…sure it was just night # 1 (this time) and we have been down this path before (several times)! We normally do all those things prior to bedtime, but the kids always beg, borrow and plead (heck sometimes steal—lol aka turn it on themselves) to watch just 15 minutes of TV which I break down and let them… and the first few nights seem to go fine… then we get into the not going to sleep routine, the up numerous times at night, blah, blah, blah… this pattern happens often… we break them of it, we fall back into it… cycle, cycle, cycle. This time is different (I swear, I am putting it in writing, I am holding myself to it) we will stick with this! It was heavenly to snuggle them into bed, no whimpering, no whining, and actually go into my room and fold laundry—alone, not kids sneaking in, watch a few moments of TV myself and hit the pillow by 10pm—again sans kiddo’s!

And to totally change the subject… my darling son scared the crap out of me last night… we ALWAYS keep our bedroom door locked and the kid’s bathroom (they use the ½ bath). We do this so no one is in there playing etc… just always have done it this way. So last night I see the light on under the door and head back to see who or what is going on… as I near the hallway the light goes off and Mason opens the door crying… that he is bitten. I am thinking what, huh? Bitten? How… I flick the light and on notice that there are two nightlights (one not in) where only 1 used to be… he tried plugging in a 2nd night light… which wasn’t the problem, he got zapped… and actually triggered the fault protector. He was really shaken up. He was fine thankfully, I think it scared him more then anything. So we had a review of why we do not plug or unplug items. UGH that child!


We are expecting 12” of snow by the end of the night—supposedly starting at noon and not ending till Thursday morning at 3am—so we will probably end up with more like 18” total… which means this little snow man that Lauren made yesterday will probably be covered… it is her bunnyman.

And I posted this on a message board, but I never added it here... we made Lauren's valentines for her classmates... I love how they turned out... I put a candy necklace on the back and a sticker that said; Roses are read, voliets are blue, I am so lucky to have a friend like you, Happy Valentines Day, Lauren! They are so special and she really took time to make them for each person!

We were very craft the last few days, we also made a 100's t-shirt for school on Friday... I will take a pic of her in and share!