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!