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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Ten On Tuesday

1. "Operation: Divide and Conquer" has been in full effect. This is where Chuck takes 1-2 children to an activity and I take 1-2 children to a different activity that is inevitably scheduled for the exact same time as the previous activity. It's been a crazy month. Looking forward to March and slowing down a little.

2. The upside of "Operation: Divide and Conquer" is that we get to spend a little one on one {or one on two} time with our boys. This weekend I got the privilege of taking Bryce and Jackson to their basketball games and to brunch. Had the best time. I laughed so hard at their silly jokes. Such fun kids.

3. I've been taking Bryce to lacrosse practices a couple of nights a week. We generally chat about school and stuff that's on his mind. Lately we've also been playing "Punch Buggy". {You know, the old game where you lightly punch someone when you see a VW Bug/Beetle.}
I've learned three things from this-1) Bryce has a mean right hook, 2) I bruise easy, and 3) Bryce really doesn't know his cars. I can't tell you how many times {after I've been punched} that I've had to say "That's a PT Cruiser not a Bug." "Sorry about that Mom."

4. Jarron's been spending a lot of time with Chuck because of basketball. But he does come to me when it's time to work on his President of the US club work. I love working with him on this-I've always loved Presidential history and seeing him enjoy it is just so much fun. Love that we have this connection.

5. Jackson scored a basket this weekend at his basketball game! His Uncle Don managed to grab video of it with his camera-if I'm able to download it, I'll share it here. So proud of that kid. {Coincidentally, his best friend and twin separated at birth, Otto, scored his first basket on Saturday too!}

6. I recently discovered the Pandora app on my iPad. {Did I ever tell you guys how I won a free iPad at work? Still can't believe it!} Anyway, all you do is type in the name of an artist and it plays all sorts of artists just like that one-FOR FREE. What?!? I'm probably about 3 years late to the party but I was super excited to find it. I use it all the time at work while I'm cranking out reports.

7. The Moose is growing up so fast. He's such a big guy that I forget sometimes he's only 3. Last night we were sitting on the couch together and he hugged me and said "You're my sweet Mommy. I love you." I almost cried it was such a sweet moment.
Then he said, "Now will you get me some blue juice?" {Gatorade-he love it}
He definitely knows how to play me.

8. Despite our busy schedules, I got to go to scrapbook night with my friends Sandy and Laurie Friday night. I've been feeling a little uninspired lately with my crafting, and this really helped me get my groove back. I finished half of our vacation album and jotted down tons of ideas for layouts to work on this month. I had so much fun!

9. We've been watching American Idol and The Voice. Seems like I heard the song "House of the Rising Sun" a number of times during auditions on both shows-never had heard it before. Such a haunting song. Thanks to Wikipedia-I now know all about it. {For the record, "Ice , Ice Baby also has it's own Wikipedia page-nice job Wikipedia!}

10. We had a fun family night out Saturday-dinner at Max & Erma's. Love this picture of the boys playing Mad Libs. The littlest Lakes boy had us cracking up with his dance breaks. Love nights like this.

Friday, February 24, 2012

My Own Kind Of Paradise

Knee deep in the water somewhere
Got the blue sky breeze blowing wind through my hair
Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair
Sunrise there's a fire in the sky
Never been so happy
Never felt so alive


And I think I might have found me my own kind of paradise...
 {My favorite photo from our summer vacation and lyrics by The Zac Brown Band.}
I miss the beach on this dreary February day. Summer seems so far off.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Ten on Tuesday

1. Guess who's back...back again... :)

2. This kid is loving lacrosse and is pretty good at it. You'll be able to see him tearing up the field in just a couple of weeks playing for the Fairfield Indians. {Oddly enough-not at any field in Fairfield, because ALL of our home games are nowhere near Fairfield-so weird.}
I swear that's him beneath all that gear. In case you actually wanted to see him, here he is in his basketball uniform:

3. This kid is a basketball defensive machine. You just go ahead and try to score on my Jack-Jack. Try it. He's also a mean Lego builder these days.

4. This kid is doing an amazing job for the Fairfield Tomahawks-also a defensive machine. Maybe it's the 3 brothers thing but my kids love to defend the ball.

5. This kid is as rotten as ever. The other night I was putting him to bed and trying {unsuccessfully} to calm him down. "Moose, lay down and go to sleep. 1, 2, 3..." "4, 5, 6...Mommy, I count too!" Sigh. He's a handful but he's awfully cute, so we'll keep him.

6. In the last 3 months I have sold about 3 tons of cookie dough for various fundraisers for my children. I'm beginning to feel like a drug dealer. This last sale, a random guy I've never met before came to my desk with cash and said "I heard you had cookie dough, I'll take two of the Cranberry, I have cash." Ummmm...and your name is?

7. Moose may just be a video game genius. We recently went to the WEB entertainment center for a birthday party and I had to keep him occupied. He wanted to play this Spongebob game. It was the kind where the dot spins around and if you hit the buzzer at a certain place, you win that number of tickets. There's also a jackpot, where if you hit the buzzer at the jackpot you win 150 tickets. Moose walked up the machine and hit the jackpot. Hmmmnnn... "I win Mommy! High Five!" {He loves High Fives.} He wanted to play again. Okay. He hits the jackpot again. What!!!!! Okay. Time to try this on another machine. He hits a 50 ticket winner on another game. I drag him back to SpongeBob {he wanted to play basketball-not so much kiddo}, this time there's people watching, because they remember the first two wins. He hits the jackpot AGAIN. No kidding. The girl next to me asks if he has it timed. Ummm no. He's three. I figure we better not press our luck and take our tickets over to the area to get prizes. He's just barely short for big stuffed dog. I tell him he can get a stuffed monkey or try Spongebob one more time to get the stuffed dog.
We head back to Spongebob. I swipe the card, he hits the buzzer and BAM. Jackpot!!!! I couldn't believe it. "I get my dog now Mommy?" Yup. And he did. I'm taking him to Dave & Busters next week. They have better prizes. ;)

8. We are doing this Zero Waste initiative at work and they took our garbage cans from us. We have a cup to use for garbage. I'm not even kidding. I spend a good 15 minutes a day figuring out whether something goes in the compost, mixed recycle, trash or paper bins. Sooooo complicated. On the bright side, I run into a lot of my co-workers doing the same thing, so at least I'm not the only one confused.

9. Am I the only one who finds it super weird that we haven't gotten any snow at all this winter and it's been in the 50's and 60's more than it's been in the 20's? Just me? Okay then.

10. I need a vacation. Just putting that out there. :) Happy Tuesday friends!