10 and then some on Tuesday

1. My son is slightly neurotic. Andy and I have now learned that we have to do a "dino" sweep of Will's room before he goes to sleep. There is some switch in his little brain that instructs him to wake up anytime between 10pm and 3am to check his room for scary dinosaurs. This includes dino books and his stuffed 2 foot tall dino. They may be allowed to live in his room during the day but Will yells to get them out of his room in the middle of the night. I will give him credit for at least waiting until 5 minutes AFTER the Lost Series Finale to cry on Sunday night.
2. Weed whackers are fun. My arms are so sore but the weed whacker was kind of fun.
3. School is over today. I've been making a list of activities so I can pull out things to do for the kids over the summer (August especially!). We have so many random little arts and crafts projects and small toys and games that I often forget. This list should help.
4. The burrs that come in from our backyard are never-ending. It's our own fault for letting the weeds get to that point. KC pays the biggest price with burrs in her paws and around her mouth. She seems to find the worst spots to walk through.
5. Sarah got some new clothes last week. Are you sitting down..... BLUE and SHORTS! Ok, so the shorts were forced on her by me but she was actually very willing to pick them out and really likes the 2 pairs we got.
6. My mom came for a short visit last week. The kids LOVE going into wake her up and taking her to school with them. Will has asked me MANY times where she went and why she isn't here anymore. I told him she had to go home and that we'll see her soon. He hangs his head (in his true drama king fashion) and says I miss her. How sweet is that!
7. Andy and I have been debating our cable/phone/internet bill for some time. We are thinking about dropping the cable part. We know friends that have done it. We figure we could watch broadcast shows and we could catch up on missed things online. Mostly it would be the kids channels that would be gone but then - that's probably a good thing. While still debating, we figured out how to hook our Wii into our wireless network (MUCH easier than we thought) and are now streaming Netflix's instant play shows and movies to our TV. It's pretty cool. I can pull up Google on the TV. Not that we can go much of anywhere from that but it's still fun to see the Google search screen on our 8 or 9 year old TV. If only they would upgrade the Wii's browser, then we could watch hulu and cbs.com, etc. online through the TV.
8. Our fish, Goldie, is 2 months old now and going strong. She got a blue plant to add to her little bowl over the weekend. I'm pretty surprised that she's still around.
9. Sarah loves to write and illustrate books. She keeps saying that she needs to finish one so that she can put it in the school's library. I have to explain about how that's a great idea but you have to get published first so for now they will have to stay in our "library".
10. We've been playing Mancala a lot over here. Well, mostly Sarah and I have been playing. It's a bit too hard for Will to strategize. He understands how to move the marbles but that's about it. He's a good helper. Sarah is getting far too good at the game. Daddy (the master) better watch out!
11. Will is finally doing some more potty things by himself. This also means more mess in the bathroom but I'll take it, I guess. He's very proud of himself. We also removed the plastic sheet under his regular sheet over the weekend. He's been out of diapers day and night for several months but we finally decided he's doing well enough at night to go sheet free! He was very excited!
12. We painted our bathroom. The only problem is that we grabbed the flat paint instead of semi-gloss from the garage. OOPS! The good news is that our Master bathroom is very open so the flat paint should hold up just fine. I would worry more if it was any other bathroom in the house.
    
    
13. Sarah LOVES LOVES LOVES to listen to books on CD, especially Magic Tree House books. It has made quiet time in this house very enjoyable. I get a little bit of down time and she enjoys a book. She's even started trying to read along with the CD which is AWESOME.
14. The flip side of all the books on CD is that she's found some interesting topics. If you're not familiar with the Magic Tree House series - there are over 40 books and they are based on many historical events and times - like Pompeii, Ancient Egypt, Pilgrims, etc. It's great for learning but Sarah seems to lean towards the "darker" choices. Her favorite one is Civil War on Sunday, in which our main characters help to care for soldiers and meet a slave. She says it's because she wants to be a nurse. I'm good with that but still an odd favorite! Her other favorite is Tonight on the Titanic. I had to inform her that yes a very large ship did actually sink. This made her sad. We found a computer recreation of it happening on You Tube. She likes to watch it over and over and over. Weird but nice that she is curious about EVERYTHING just as a 5 year old should be.
15. And... since I didn't write a Mother's Day blog - Here is the cake Andy and the kids made me for.... Very pink (red velvet inside) and every kind of sprinkle you could imagine. Who do you think enjoyed it the most??
    
    
16. We've been doing some little science experiments over the past couple weeks. We did the mentos and Diet Coke thing a short bit ago. It was pretty cool but much shorter than I thought it would be:
    
    
    And that's all for this week.....