Pumpkin Patch Fun

Random Thoughts About Snow...

Today our city is blanketed in frozen snow. We will not be going anywhere.

The kids are anxious to get outside and make snowmen.

Did I mention it is only 24 degrees outside? And with the windchill factor, it brings it down to 11 degrees!

They will probably only stay out for fifteen minutes...or less...the wind is really blowing!

Yes, I am a wimp when it comes to cold weather.

My sister who lives in Alaska is probably laughing at me right now. They are supposed to get down to zero sometime this week.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Thank You Lord for a nice, functioning wood stove! I love the smell of woodsmoke. It is something so homey and comforting.

I am off to enjoy the snow day with my kids!

Week Two: Letter 'B'

First of all I must mention that today is my son's birthday! My firstborn is six today....wow, time sure flies by! I remember bringing him home from the hospital and having a minor panic attack as I realized that I had no idea how to care for a baby! But God is good and my baby was a smiley, inquisitive and so sweet one :)
He has grown up so much. He is still smiley, inquisitive and sweet though. The first one to steal my heart...

I love you Mr. Dramatic! Happy Sixth Birthday!


So in honor of this birthday, we are going to Burger King for lunch AND we are going to meet Daddy at work so he can celebrate the birthday lunch with us. The kids are really excited :)

Oh and did anyone notice how b-irthday begins with 'b'? Perfect object lesson...lol! We will probably stop by the pet store to look at the animals, that was one of his requests as well. No, we will not be b-uying anything, we just go to look. After the pet store, we will probably stop by the library to pick up some b-ooks. I am going to try to find some with a focus on 'b'.

It will be a fun-filled day today!

What We Did Over The Weekend...

Saw some of these fly over our house...













Pretended to be pilots....



Hung out with good friends...









Met the local police force...

All in all, a fun-filled, exciting weekend!

Fine Literature Heard At My Home...

My husband is reading "Around the World in Eighty Days" to our sons. Passpartout morphs into "Pastors Toe" and Mr. Phileas Fogg becomes "Mr. Frog"!

Tonight the story started out like this...
"Pastors Toe farted.." *brief pause while peals of laughter ring throughout the bedroom...

Yes, we have classic literature read at my home.

The Writing is on the Dishwasher...

Discovered this the other morning...




Yes those are magnetic letters arranged by Mr. Independent, on the dishwasher, into art...




He did that without any coaching, suggestions or ANY HELP from me or Mr. Querido, or even his brother WHATSOEVER.

I'm a little scared I won't be able to keep up with my children...mentally.

Sunburns and Strawberries...

What is the common theme between the two? They are both RED!



Who forgot to put on sunscreen before she went to pick strawberries for half the day? Yeah, me. Boy I am feeling it today! I am feeling the self-neglect..lol! Oh sure, I remembered to remind Mr. Querido to put sunscreen on, then he slathered up the kids, Miss Precious as well. By then I had completely forgotten about myself. You can be sure I will remember next time! My only consolation is that I will have one awesome tan in a couple of days..lol!

More photos of our strawberry fields adventures to come...

By the way, can you tell I was wearing a necklace?

Smash Hit!

Yesterday, I threw my very first ever little kid's party! For those of you who know me in real life, I am not much of a party person...more of a party pooper...lol! So I took a deep breath when I realized my youngest son was turning four. Four is a momentous age, it is the year in which my little toddler becomes a little boy...sigh. So we had to commemorate it with a party! This whole past week I stressed over every detail, wanting it to be perfect. (I am a recovering perfectionist!) God gave me an awesome theme...garden and bugs...and with a lot of His creativity mixed in, I ran with it!

The decorations were just balloons I dressed up...

A friendly spider (is that an oxymoron?):


A hungry caterpillar:


A ravenous frog:


The hungry frog's lunch..a nervous blue fly:


Also seen flitting about were a ladybug and a dragonfly. The party was invaded midway by a colony of ants..sorry, no photos, they were a little camera shy! That was actually one of the crafts we did, we made ants out of balloons. The kids (and some of the adults too) loved it! I had an assembly line for body parts. One friend was cutting out eyes and the other one was cutting out the legs (from construction paper). We had a minor emergency when one ant had a foot severed, but the surgeon was able to re-attach (with scotch tape). The ant was reported to be in stable condition.

Our main feature fun thing was to make planters to take home (party favor and craft activity bonus!). I had prepainted some tiny terracotta pots with silver acrylic paint. Then we purchased some lobelia from the garden center. We had the kids stuff the pots (gently) and then they got to take them home. The kids loved it! Eight little pairs of eyes watched with rapt attention. One little boy told me "I have never planted anything at a birthday party before...this is the coolest party I have ever been too!" (There is no higher party praise than that of an actual attendee...lol!)
Here you can see the table "decorations", which did double duty as the favor and craft later on:


A bit messy, but a lot of fun!


The finished product:


We munched on some dirt and worms for a snack...

Surprisingly enough, everyone really liked the green worms!

And every kid seemed to have a lot of fun...especially sharing the toys!




Overall, I think it was a very successful birthday...I give myself a thumbs up! :)



And did I also mention that I had fun too? Who knew a party-impaired gal could throw a little boy's birthday that she would have fun with! God is so good!

And I am THE cool mom now :)

Losing Our Minds but Not Our Sense of Humor!

Last night we had a friend fly in late (11pm) from Mexico. So we waited with his family to greet him. After all the hugging and back slapping (men..lol!) it was time for him to go home with his wife and baby daughter. We parted ways in the parking garage.

Toting three kids, my beloved and I wearily walked to our van. As we headed into the elevator, we realized that we didn't remember what level we were parked on. There are only six levels so how hard could the process of elimintaion be? We pressed P3 and whooshed up to that level. As we stepped out we immediately saw that our van was no where to be found. Although we found the white truck we had parked next to. Panic started to set in. Then we realized that it was the WRONG level. Whew! Our vehicle had not been stolen. Thank God! The only thing was is that we were hopelessly lost and had ABSOLUTELY no idea where our van was parked! So with a prayer and some humor we pressed P2 and arrived on the rental car floor. Definitely the wrong one. OK, for the sake of not boring you to death, it took us HALF AN HOUR of whooshing up and down the floors to find out that we were parked on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the parking garage!

I tell you, we could not have felt more dumb going up and down in the elevators with 2 tired toddlers and one very hungry baby. I imagine that airport security would probably have come to find us eventually...
Actually, I wonder what would have happened if we hadn't found out about the different sides of the parking garage.

The best part is that we had paid prior to reentering the garage and because we took SO LONG to find our vehicle, they wanted to charge us another $3!!! We pleaded insanity and they let us off the hook!

LOL! These are the kinds of situations that could have escalated into a full blown argument, blame-shifting, etc. But we both managed to see the humor in it...how many adults does it take to find their vehicle?..and we maanaged to stay happy with each other and just look at it as a really great workout!

I am so cracking up as I think about what the security footage must have looked like!

Mr. Independent thought that the whole fiasco was great fun. "Mama, we're silly!" he told me on the one-hundredth run up the elevator.

If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Easter Fun

UPDATE: Please see my post "Ensuring Their Safety" for why photo(s) have been deleted from this post.


HE IS RISEN...Thank You Lord, that our Redeemer lives!

Happy Easter!

We went to Grandpa and Grandma's to celebrate...

Then we dyed Easter eggs...

Don't dye your fingers...







What beautifully dyed eggs! We have to let them dry..



All ready for the egg hunt!

The boys closed their eyes and waited for the go-ahead. Then they ran around trying to find the hidden eggs. JM got the hang of it quite quickly but IE had to have some clues. They finally found all the eggs and then turned in their bounty for some booty...CANDY!

AJ slept through the whole egg hunt, even the chaos of two little boys frantically finding hidden eggs didn't wake her up! lol :)

Here she is in her beautiful Easter dress that Grandpa and Grandma got for her...

My little princess..

We ate Bunny Cake, lots of candy and finally it was time to go home. We had a fabulous Easter...how was your's?