Another Zoo Day

Unlike Friday, Saturday was PERFECT zoo weather! 

So since Friday was kind of a bust for Justin, I decided to take the kids Saturday afternoon!  And guess who else has a zoo pass this year!?  The Forsyth's!!  Woohoo!! 

All of the animals were out, the sun was shinning, and the kids were happy!  It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

I've learned that the girls are much more prone for "Kodak Moments". The boys could really care less. I couldn't ever get them to turn around and smile!

Here is Katie, trying desperately to use her hat to cover the smell in the Reptile House.  She'll learn soon enough that nothing but fresh air will help with that!  You just gotta hurry and get through it!

And of course, the highlight of every zoo trip...THE PLAYGROUND! 

I was so thankful for Steven! He was so helpful and played with the kids, making sure my babies were safe!  He also sent me this pic of Justin and CiCi...Ciara looks a bit frightened by the thing, but I assure you, she was having fun!

Justin's Fieldtrip

Friday, Justin's class went to the zoo for a fieldtrip!  He'd been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks.  And wouldn't you know...Friday was the rainiest day we've had in a while!  It was not very good zoo weather!

Shawn followed and brought CiCi along.

The highlight of the trip was lunch!  Shawn and CiCi both had sack school lunches like the rest of the kids!  Ciara loved it! 

Apparently, she had a lot of fun poking this kid through out lunch.  I'm just glad everyone got a kick out of her instead of getting irritated by her!  LOL 

I wish Shawn would've gotten more pictures (especially of Justin) but I guess the weather wasn't really permitting to pull our the camera!

CiCi My Playmate

Ciara loves her dolls.  Lately, her favorite doll has been Suzy, a doll givin to her by Grandma DeeDee for Christmas.  Suzy and CiCi are great friends.  So much so that Ciara wants Suzy buckled in the carseat when we're driving to keep Suzy safe!

Here are the two friends playing together on the playground yesterday waiting for the kids to get out of school!

Birthday Table

The school celebrates the kids' birthdays monthly at a birthday table during lunch.  The kids that have birthdays that month get to eat lunch with their parents at the special table.  It's always kind of uncomfortable, but the kids love it! 

So yesterday we brought Katie a happy meal and had lunch with her at school!  Ciara LOVED it!  You could tell she felt like such a big girl!

But Katie just ate in silence.  It was odd.  She even had two of her friends at the table with her who also had birthdays in April but she didn't talk with them at all.

Shawn's worried about her socially.  He doesn't think that she has any friends.  I told him it was just because we were there, she was probably just being shy, but he didn't agree.  He said that in the morning when he drops them off, she never goes to play with any friends, she just stands there with him.  I told him again, it's because he's there.  Try leaving her.  He almost had a heartattack!  Leave her??!!  How!?

So after lunch, she went to recess and we went out to the car and stalked her.  We sat there and watched her for the rest of her recess.  She was playing with a whole group of kids, laughing and running...being a normal kid. 

See!  She has friends!  I'm not worried about her.

Glee Update

Tuesday I had a meeting at the school about the Dual Immersion for Justin that I had TOTALLY forgot about!

I was going to miss Glee!!  Oh no!  How will I go on??  I wish I had a DVR.

HEY!  I have a VCR!  You remember those things that we used to watch cassette tapes on!?? 

So I popped in a tape, programed the TV (it's a little tricky because of the converter box) and crossed my fingers!

When we came home, there was probably a 1/2 hour left of the show, but I refrained.  Just let it record and watch the episode in full tomorrow...I can do it.

So tomorrow when I got home from work I was SO excited to watch it.

"Aren't you going to wait for Katie?"  Shawn guilted me.
"No.  I can always watch it with her again when she gets home from school."

THANK GOODNESS I watched it without her!  It was a pretty bad episode.  Should have known it would be primarily about sex with it revolving around Madonna!  Glee is pretty bad on it's own, but most of the time the kids don't actually sit through a whole episode and they don't understand most of the inuendos.  This one would be a hard one to explain.  WOW!  Sometimes I feel bad that I enjoy this show so much!  But I tell you what..the kids aren't allowed to even kinda watch it any more.

And now for some sad news...the show went over it's 9:00 end time.  I thought I was being clever with programing until 9:02 but I still missed the last 5-10 minutes!  OH NO!  Now what ever shall I do!?  Boohoo!

Guess What's On Tonight??

GLEE!!

And not just Glee, but wth the POWER OF MADONNA!!!  Can I get a woot woot??!

Now to clarify, the diva herself will not, I repeat, will not be guest staring on the show.  But the show will be performing iconic songs from the pop goddess!

I am SO excited!!  As if you couldn't tell!

With songs like Express Yourself, Like a Prayer, and of course, Vogue, I will probably be in line with my copy of the CD tomorrow once it's available!  I just wish it included Papa Don't Preach from an earlier episode.  Actually, there are a few songs that are lacking from the first 2 Glee CDs.  :(  

Click here for a sample of the songs performed by the Glee cast!

Splish Splash

We made a giant leap from winter to summer!  Can you believe we almost hit 80 degrees yesterday!?

I can't believe how quickly we went from snowboots to swimsuits!  Can you tell how absolutely excited the kids are??  LOL

My kids were DYING to play in the water!  Their pleads were answered by their dad, who set up the slip n' slide for them!  They had a BLAST!

It's so funny to watch them.  They are very good about taking turns.  First Katie will do a "trick" (which means she wants to slide in a fancy way).  Then Justin will have to "top that" and do something even "cooler".  Then CiCi will just slowly run down the whole path, trying her darndest not to fall, laughing the whole way.  It's so funny!

And then of course, there was the traditional drinking of the water.  There is something about hose water...the kids can't keep their faces out of it!

Happy Sunny Day!

My kids REALLY enjoyed the weather yesterday!  We were outside most of the day soaking in the vitamin D!

They were so excited to have a picnic outside for lunch!  I think that is one of their favorite warm weather activites - eating outside!  It doesn't get much better than that!  They can't wait to go to the parks and eat!

Justin's Accepted!!!

I am SOO excited to announce that Justin has been accepted into the Gifted Spanish Dual Immersion program!!! 

They tested him a couple of weeks ago and we got our invitation letter yesterday!!!

I am so happy and proud of him!  Katie is excited too!  She can't wait to talk Spanish behind our backs!  LOL

I only wish Justin was as excited.  He seems really scared and nervous.  I'm hoping that with our encouragement and Katie's help, he'll come around and see how great this will be for him.

I had to laugh at this pic...I was trying to take a picture of my handsome man and Ciara kept trying to sneak in.  LOL  I love her little happy face!

Please Excuse Our Dust

FINALLY! We are remodeling the front room!! It only took 8 years and a couple hissy fits!

A couple of weeks ago I had decided that I was going to paint the front room. I was tired of the "old" look. There is nothing like fresh paint to brighten and renew a room.

However, Shawn had other plans. He didn't want to repaint until we did the repairs and got the remodeling done. But we couldn't complete the remodeling in the front room without remodeling the kitchen/dining room and then we are talking about more and more money! Why can't I just paint!?

I was mad and he knew it! So Tuesday he started on the remodeling. We are doing things slowly - his goal is just to do SOMETHING everyday, even if it's just putty.

So far, we ripped out the stupid shelves off the side of the corner and we put up half of the new extended wall. (Now I just have to find a
new home for everything that was on the shelves and now on my counter! Look at all that junk!)


I was a bit nervous about this. I had a GREAT BIG opening leading from the dining room to the front room, but we needed to close that off a bit for the remodeling we want to eventually do in the kitchen.

And I need to clarify...when I saw we, I mostly mean Shawn and his dad. I helped putty. LOL

Yesterday, with only half the wall drywalled, Shawn made a comment about having to return the extra drywall. I was confused. What about the other side of the wall? The side that people IMMEDIATELY see upon entering the house? He informed me that he wasn't going to do that side until we do the kitchen. Umm. No. The kitchen could take a couple more years. The kitchen will be the most expensive of our projects we've done or will do.

I think we've agreed that right now, we'll focus on the living room and immediately after move on to the kitchen. Hopefully, things go as planned because I think having the studs stare at me everyday when I come home will drive me insane.

For now, I'm just excited to see progress. I just hope it isn't a year long project!

Happy Happy Easter!

By the time Saturday evening came, I was EXHAUSTED! I found myself falling asleep on the couch by 7:00! Finally at 8:00 I couldn't fight it any longer. I asked Shawn if he minded if I snuck into the bedroom to go to bed. He, of course, did not. So I kissed my kiddies and went to lay down.

I was just about back to sleep when I realized TOMORROW'S EASTER! I can't go to sleep yet! Uuuuugggghhh!

I got right back up and went downstairs. Prepared what I could, kissed my kids again, reminding them that the Easter Bunny can not come until they are asleep and asked Shawn to nudge me when they are in bed and I returned the bedroom. I couldn't let myself fall into a deep sleep, so I felt like I was always on the brink of sleeping but not really. I hate that kind of sleep!

Soon, but not soon enough for me, I got the nudge. With Shawn's help we were done getting everything together in about 15 minutes and I was back in bed!

Sunday morning, Katie tries to come into the bedroom and wake us up at about 6:00! You've got to be kidding me! I sent her little butt right back to her room to go to bed!

At 7:00, we were attacked by both little turkeys! I, again, refused to get up yet and made them cuddle with me in the bed until they fell back asleep.

By 8:00, Shiloh was up walking around. Anyone who has a dog, knows that once the dog is up - you're up. That is, unless you want to clean up a mess later.

So we woke up sweet CiCi girl and made our way to the front room. The two older kids' eyes were already scanning for hidden eggs! Watching them "hunt" was a lot of fun! Ciara would get SO excited! She didn't really get the "urgency" of it though like the other kids! They were running around in frantic circles searching and searching, afraid of letting the other one find another egg that could be theirs!

Later, we enjoyed a nice dinner at Shawn's parents. It was a really nice and relaxing day. I just wish it wasn't soooo cold!

Happy Birthday Katie Lady!

Our sweet Katie girl turned 8 on Saturday! I'm still in shock!!

And so much for her, "I don't want to get older"! First thing Saturday morning (at the crack of dawn, I might add!) She jumps on the couch to lay with me and teases me that she keeps getting older and older!

Saturday we had family join us in celebrating her birthday! We enjoyed some fried chicken - as well as you can enjoy dried out fried chicken :( , ice cream and cake!

We LOVE Costco cake - but they don't do any "character" cakes! So I added the Littlest Pet Shop characters myself! Pretty in"gina'ous if I might say so myself! LOL

And of course, presents!

Overall, it was a great day!

Happy Happy Birthday sweetheart!!! I love you SO much! You are such a sweet and beautiful girl!!

I'm disappointed that I didn't get more pics!! Oops!

Not as crazy as you thought

Friday evening actually went VERY smoothly!

The kids had a really great time! The dying of the eggs went really smooth too! Because the eggs were hollow, it took a little bit more attention to dye them. You can't just let them sink to the bottom and wait. You have to hold them down into the dye. We did the little girls first and got them "out of the way" so they could go play. I think that was the key! After they were done, the rest of the kids were able to do whatever they wanted with their eggs! I had lots of fun showing them some different techniques they could use with stickers or rubberbands! I think the favorite was the tie-dye though!

Time flew by! Once the eggs were done, it was already 10:30! Time for a quick clean up and movie time! I could not believe that ALL 9 kids were still awake after the movie! Even the babies!! Finally, the credit were rolling, I go to turn the TV off with the dreaded, "K, guys...it's time for bed!" when ZAP! The power in the house goes out! Perfect timing!

Some of the little kids were a little freaked out, but once they got settled down, they were asleep rather quickly!

Hollow Easter Eggs

I plan on dying eggs with 9 kids tonight.  By far, the most kids I've ever done such a messy activity with!  And what am I going to do with all of those eggs?  I don't even know if my fridge is big enough to hold all of those eggs!  But when I asked Katie what she wanted to do during her birthday sleep over, her response was dying eggs.  So that's what we'll be doing.

So since we decided on this, I've been trying to think of a solution.  What to do with all of these eggs?  That's when it hit me!  I'm going to hollow them out!  They don't have to be refridgerated and the kids can keep them as long as they want!  How fun! 

Well, since I've never done this before, I had to ask around.  Sounded simple enough.  Poke a hole in the top and bottom of the egg with a needle and blow. 

I can tell you, it's not so simple. 

The hole on the bottom needs to be quite big - bigger than a prick any ways, and you need to "scramble" the insides with the needle so that the yolk breaks.  And you need to have the cheeks of a chipmunk to successfully blow the eggs out!  Think of blowing up a water balloon but much harder!  It's a pain!  (My poor cheeks are SOOO sore!) But I did it!  I blew out 7 dozen eggs!  (I know..what a waste of eggs - but eggs are pretty cheap right now...it's worth not having to worry about making 7 dozen devilled eggs!  LOL)  I plan on giving each kid a half a dozen eggs - that'll leave extras for when some get broken.  And some WILL break - I'm sure of it!

After you have blown out the eggs, you then have to boil the shells to clean them up!  That was easy - except that they float.  So I had to carefully hold them in the boiling water with tongs.  Which led me to start thinking...how are we going to dye these things if they float!?

So I blew out a couple of extras to experiment on last night.  I think I have it down!  I am fully prepared!  I even have a plastic table cloth for my floor - we'll be doing the actual dying on the kitchen floor in shifts!  lol AND I have plastic gloves to help keep the dye off the kids' little fingers!  I just hope everyone brings a ratty old t-shirt, just in case - hint hint.

So bring it on!  I'm ready!