Friday!

Tonight is/was our last night alone so I took the kids to an outside movie at a local church, they have done this every year since we've lived here. The movie they played was Dreamer so because it was a horse movie they had pony rides before the movie started. I could only stand the smell of the ponies for one ride but the kids didn't seem upset! Of course, GG was too old and too cool to ride on a pony. In years past I have never brought money with to these movies. This year I decided that I would bring some. I ended up spending $2. For the great time we had it was money well spent! Peanut was cracking me up tonight. She had run to the garbage to throw some trash away and on her way back she says, "Oh no my pants are falling down." As she hanks them up. Then on the way home Peanut said, "I didn't want a real pony ride I wanted a fake pony ride." That just cracked me up! She is too funny. We sat behind an interesting lady. She felt the need to turn around and glare at any kid who made a noise, which happened to be the family just to our left. At one point Red had dropped the ball he was playing with and it rolled up by them. She turned around glared at him and then looked at me and asked if he was my son. I said, "Yes, why?" She said nothing, he wasn't being loud so I'm not sure what her problem with him was. This lady obviously thought that an outside movie was going to be as quiet as a movie theater, um okay, not going to happen.

So this week was super long but we kept pretty busy that it ended up going by somewhat fast-like. Sunday was spent with my dad, Monday was VBS, nannying, and a friend over, Tuesday was VBS, swimming and National Night Out, Wed was the funeral and then swimming at night, Thursday VBS, swimming and concert in the park! I've already wrote what we did today. I also want to state for the record that at least 3 times Red has said to me..."your the best mom ever" during this week. Thinking that means we had a pretty good week :)

The Fest!

This year I am taking a little different approach on the whole festival/carnival. I actually read through some of the other activities besides the rides. The boys did the baseball skills activity and both got a trophy. They actually gave Peanut one too just because she was there. HA! Another thing I am doing differently is actually eating some of the fest food. Typically I will feed the kids before we go and then pack a few snacks but this year I figure we didn't take a vacation last year and even though I want to take one this year it just might not happen so this will be our little vacation where we spend some money just enjoying ourselves! The first night we got an elephant ear and funnel cake to share because we went after Monkey's last baseball game of the season. Friday we ate dinner there and it was pretty good. Saturday we ate before we went and got some ice cream at the fest. The kids are so shocked. This is totally not what we have done in the past :) I have forgotten to bring my camera the last few days but am hoping to remember to bring it tonight so I can get some pictures to go with this post! I remember the camera the very last day of the fest! Here are some of the pictures I took.

Ice cream YUM

My serious ice cream eater :)

Racing down the big slide!

Monkey won!

Our favorite ride...well my favorite ride :)

Swings

Monkey's favorite ride...the bumper cars!

These two went on all the crazy rides!

2011 Fest was a good one! We spent two different nights with friends. One night with friends from school and the other night with friends from church. So much fun!!!

Family Fun Night

Tonight we took the kids to see an Arena Football team. Jeff had gotten 6 tickets from a business acquaintance. They were really good seats!!! As soon as we walked into the stadium they gave us each a gift. It was a bobble head...we had 6 but now we only have 5 one broke. Now, I will let you in on a little secret of mine...I'm not a big fan of football. But the game tonight was so fun to watch and fast paced unlike normal NFL games. Before the game started they had 4 High School football teams competing at tug-of-war one of the teams was the Pretzels, the High School I went too. The had several of these types of games through the game. At one point someone in our section was competing for some coupons. Our guy won so we all got coupons. Anyways, the things that stick out to me the most...getting on the jumbo-tron. I didn't even notice until GG started screaming, "MOM LOOK YOUR UP THERE!" Her and Monkey got on it and I went to pick up Peanut but they took it off of us before she got on. She started to cry. She was sad she didn't get to see herself on the big screen. The other thing was Red getting his arm, foot and hand stuck in the chair at different times throughout the night. After he had gotten his foot stuck I looked at him and asked, "How do you keep doing that?" Then I just couldn't contain my laughter. Seriously, how does one get so many body parts stuck in stadium chairs??? He says, "Stop making fun of me." I clarified that I'm not making fun of him, I'm laughing at him and told him he should laugh at himself. It was FUNNY. To end the night our team WON :) The kids did a pretty good job sitting there for 3 hours for this game though they did get candy and a pretzel to eat which helped. I think fun was had by all. It for sure created some family memories!!!

**I remembered another cute story. I took Peanut to the bathroom and as she was washing her hands she says Hi to the lady standing next to her. The lady asked what her name was and she told her. The lady said that is a really pretty name. Then Peanut asked her what her name was. She said, "Tonya" Peanut gave me the funniest look like "what that's my mommy's name" so I told the lady that was my name too. Then she asked Peanut how old she was and after Peanut answered she asked the lady how old she was!!! The look on that lady's face was hilarious. I told her that she opened that can of worms :) I love kids they have no idea of the rules on questions!

Miracle on 34th Street

Last night we went to take the kids to see the play Miracle on 34th Street. My mom-in-law got free tickets and invited us to go with them. She got there super early and was the first person in line. When we got there we line jumped so we could sit with them. There is no assigned seating. Because we were the first in we got some really great seats. Though there wasn't really any bad seats in the place. Before the show started the kids were approached by the stage manager and asked if they wanted to be apart of the show. GG and Monkey were in the front row and they both said yes! Then he came back to the second row and asked Red who said yes but at the last second he got scared and opted out. It was really cool. They had Santa on the chair and a few kids in the play sat on his lap first and then it was Monkey's turn. Santa asked him his name. If he was in school. What his favorite subject was. If he had any brothers or sisters. If he helped out around the house. And finally what he wanted for Christmas. It was really cute and some of his answers were pretty funny and interesting. Like his favorite subject is Reading! I have struggled for so long to get that boy to read. It was funny the answer he gave for helping out around the house too. He does the dishes and the laundry...haha. He unloads the dishes with his sister and he puts his own clothes away after they have been washed and folded. Then it was GG's turn. Santa had a hard time with her name. One because it is unique and two because she talked SO quite. He had to repeat everything she said so that the audience could hear her answers! He asked her the same questions and the same two answers I thought were funny for her too! Her favorite subject she said was HISTORY! This was news to me. She has always LOVED reading and grammar. What she helps out with around the house was funny too. She takes out the garbage and rakes leaves!?! They did such a great job. People came up to me and them telling them how well they did. One lady even said that GG could be on the stage next year as one of the cast members! That made her night :) We had such a great time. The only thing I wish I would of done is gotten a cup of water for Peanut. About the last 30 minutes so was SOOOO thirsty. I was having a hard time keeping her quite. Other than that she did great and really enjoyed the signing parts of it but the acting parts didn't hold her interest that well. It was really a neat play and I'm so glad we went to see it. The guy who played Santa was amazing. My sister-in-law took some pictures afterward with the kids and Santa so I will try and get them from her to show you.

Break is over :(

Well I have to say that this week was probably one of the better weeks we have had together as a family in awhile. The no media helped a lot with the kids entertaining themselves and playing together. The kids spent many hours building different lego structures. Just as many hours constructing different designs of dominoes to knock over, they had some really cool designs! Some of them worked and others didn't but they had so much fun trying different objects to make stunts, like a book that rolled a car into the domino to start them off. We played so many card games and board games. Peanut was even getting in on the action. I hope to upload a really cute video of her and Jeff playing Jenga! She also learned how to play Uno though she still needs some help but refuses to take the advice while playing, can we say STUBBORN! I do have to admit that I did let the kids watch a few movies but we watched them all together snuggled on the couch. Before the first movie I told them that if they misbehaved after the movie was over they would not get to watch the second one. Jeff rewarded the kids great report cards with the movie rentals from an actual rental place, instead of the library, where we usually get our movies for free :) As Monday approaches I am sad and excited. Sad that I have to wake up early but excited to have some free time to myself again. I can get so much stuff done while they are not home!!!

Perfection...

In my mind today was as close to perfect as they come! We got up and headed to the pumpkin farm with grandparents! It was an absolute BEAUTIFUL day out, 65ish and Sunny.

We found some bats while we were there...
some scary

some sweet

we also found some really small children!

we had to bail some jail birds out

I took a enchanted pumpkin ride with my prince charming

time for a camel rides!
the girls...

the boys

they were trying to shoot the girls...haha

snack time...APPLE CIDER DOUGHNUTS!
Yummy

thought we should tire the kids out and let them JUMP.
they got some great air these are only a couple of the pictures we took

Once they were good and worn out we went out to eat with my dad and step mom. We were going to go to this restaurant that my dad took us to every Friday night for pizza when I was growing up but they got their license revoked. So sad, but it was so cool to look inside and have all those childhood memories rushing at me. After lunch my parents gave us presents from their recent trip to Greece and Turkey!!! This afternoon the kids racked leaves and I got new pictures for my blog! They played in those leaves for over an hour.
GlamorGirl and I left and picked up her violin. I just realized that we have a guitar, violin, drum set and recorder in our house...like we need more noise makers ;) Now we are starting the good ole fire pit and having some homemade apple cider!!! Sorry no pictures of that ;) See it was PERFECT!

The Boat

First I want to say thank you for the input on what to do with our little Peanut. As for now we are going to leave her where she is with the plan of putting her through K1 and the K2 with the option if she is doing exceptionally well we just move her ahead. We have time :)

Today we went on my dad's boat. Last night when I went to bed the forecast said thunderstorms ALL. DAY. LONG. I got up this morning and it said partly cloudy with 10% chance of rain!!! We headed out the door for what I think was the PERFECT day for boating. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and because the forecast was calling for storms there was BARELY anyone on the water!!! We were on the water by 10am. My dad's 4 person tube (Mable) died. They now only have the two person one. The boys went out first. Then Monkey and Peanut went out, she was love, love, LOVING it. You could hear her laughter all the way in the boat. Then GG and Red went. By the time all the kids had a turn it was lunch time. We anchored the boat by the shore and we ate lunch and then went swimming. My parents neighbors came with us and the wife had some special lotion that attracts the sun to speed up tanning. I put that on and laid out for a little bit. When I got too hot I jumped in the lake to cool off. I did sunscreen the kids and my face a few times. When the adults were done swimming, because the kids could of swam the rest of the day and been happy as can be, we did more tubing. My dad and J went first. We gave Peanut one more turn with one of her siblings (I can't remember which one) before I put her to sleep. Each of the kids, except Peanut got a turn with daddy. J said Peanut didn't weigh enough and it would of been to hard to keep the tube upright. A little after 3pm we headed to the dock to put the boat away. We went back to my dad's house to unload the wet boat stuff and then went out to eat. It was such a fun and relaxing day for me. No cooking meals or cleaning up afterward. See perfect!

This just keeps getting better!

We had our closing this morning. The sellers were there which is unusual. We had some small talk before everything began and then all the signing began. Once the signing was done we were waiting for the bank wire to go through. During that time (about 25 minutes) we talked to the couple who are in their 80's. They have been married for 57 years and have 3 kids but no grandkids. They were just the sweetest, nicest people. Red was wearing one of our church shirts and the wife asked about it so we told her about our church. Since they have moved they haven't been able to find a church. We invited them to come to our church since it is only about 15 minutes from their new home. I think it would be really cool to have them attend our church. The husband gave J his business card, yes he is still working at 80, and told him to give him a call and he would come over and show him everything about the house. I am hoping that when he does come his wife will come too and she can tell me about the flowers in more detail. We did talk plant/flower/trees but it would be nice for her to point them out. Anyways, the reason it was taking so long was that the money wire got messed up and they sent the money to the right bank but wrong account. They told us it could take up to 6 hours to straighten it out. Which meant we wouldn't own the house for 6 more hours. Also during that 25 minute period they handed over the keys and garage door things. Their attorney told them that they didn't have to hand over the keys because it wasn't ours yet but they said we could have the keys anyway. It wasn't like they didn't know where we lived :) About 2 hours later we got the call that everything went through and it was officially our house!!! After the closing we didn't waste any time, we went and got stuff out of the storage, dropped Red off at school, and went to the house. I cleaned the entire upstairs. I wiped down the windows, vacuumed the floors and then mopped them. J went to get the hardwood floors we had ordered. When he got back a man pulled into the driveway. It was the son of the sellers. He welcomed us home and talked to J for quite awhile. He was a really nice man and he was so happy that we were moving in with our 4 kiddos. We didn't end up getting as much stuff as we wanted to get done but we made a pretty good dent in the things that have to get done before we move in. J ripped up the carpet in the living room and I helped get the staples out. We picked the kids up from school and got more stuff from storage, came home, kids did homework, we had dinner, cleaned up the kitchen and out the door we went. J had a surprise for us. We went to see a women's basketball game. It was pretty cool. We didn't stay until the end because it was getting late but we watched 3 quarters. Now the kids are sleeping and J is taking another load of stuff over to the house. I need to go make lunches then I am going to back another long day tomorrow. We are painting the white walls. I need color in my life!

The funnies...

Tonight we went to a basketball game that J played in between two of the middle schools in the town he works, does that make sense? Anyway it was a late night putting us home at 9:45pm. On our drive home we were helping GG study for her state and capitol test tomorrow. It started to get a bit silly by the time we were done "studying" with her. It led to jokes. The kids have been into the boat jokes lately. You know the ones? Pickle me and Tickle me were in a boat and Pickle me fell out. Who was left? Well yesterday J said to Red, "Inch me and Pinch me were in a boat and Inch me fell out. Who was left? Red says, "Pinch me" Then he got this look on his face when he realized what he just said. Too funny. Forward to the ride home. J says, "Hey Red, Peat and Repeat were in a boat and Peat fell out. Who was left? The first two times he says, "pinch me" then he gets it and says, "repeat" to which J keeps saying the joke over and over. Then comes the funniest thing of the night. Red says to Monkey, "Pickle me and Pinch me were in a boat. Pickle me fell out. Who was left? To which Monkey replied, "get away from me" It went on with different boat scenarios from there and I was laughing so hard the rest of the ride home. I love those kids they are just too funny.

One for my record

Has time ever gotten away from you and then you think to you yourself what day is it? And where did these days go? Well that was our last weekend. It was extremely fun and jam packed. Saturday we met my sis-in-law and nephews at the picture place and we got all 6 kids pictures taken. It was a bit crazy but we got some good pictures so I would say it was worth it. Then my *tornado* and I went to a birthday party. That got over at 1pm we got home and grabbed all of our snow gear and headed out the door for some sledding fun with friends. Once the kids were frozen ice cubes we went to our friends house for dinner and to hang out. It was a busy day but such a fun one.

Sunday after church we met our friends from Michigan for lunch and then they came over to play. We sent out her oldest and my 3 to play in the snow in the front yard. The other 3 kids stayed inside and slept on the couch. My friend was holding her almost 3 year old while she slept and all of a sudden she started peeing on her. I'm such a bad friend because I just laughed. Good thing they had luggage in their car! It was so nice to catch up with them and for the kids to get to play together. We have know them since Monkey was 4 months old.

Monday was a full day out of the house, chiropractor appointment, grocery shopping, lunch mom at school, giving Peanut a nap, etc. J went snowboarding with his sister's boyfriend. I am so glad they got to go so now I don't have to hear about how he didn't get to go this season! I think he wants to go again for sure with another friend which is fine as long as he does it on a day the kids are in school I am cool with that :) Tuesday Peanut and I went over to see J's family from out of town (grandparents and Aunt) and then we took Virginia and the boys back to our house for naps, dinner and play. They leave today so it was nice to be able to spend a little more time with them. Now when my kids look at my blog years from now they can see that we really did do fun things and mom wasn't all about food. ALL. THE. TIME.

Sorry in advance!

I have a bunch of thoughts going through my head so this post maybe a bit ramble-y, I have gotten a few emails and such about our story as I haven’t put a whole lot of details on my blog. I am currently working on going through some of my older posts to see when we first started getting sick. As I blogged about it without having a connection between the toxic mold and our sicknesses.

Wednesday I took the kids to the Museum of Science and Industry. I took them out of school for the day and I was hoping that they would sleep in a bit but instead Red woke up at 5:45am because he had wet the bed. He wouldn’t go back to sleep after that and from the living room couch proceeded to make his grunting noises that he makes when he doesn’t want to do something,,,ie sleep. He ended up waking Peanut up about 6:15. So instead of getting to sleep in I got up earlier. Oh well. We ended up getting a little lost on the way there as mapquest gave us wrong directions. Though I do feel better the family we were meeting there got the same directions from mapquest and so got lost too. I just called my dad-in-law and he got me to where we needed to be. It was such a great day. For one, it was only gas money + parking (16) so pretty affordable. They had a live science experiment set up and the kids loved that. We also got to see a chick crack it’s way out of an egg. It only took about 30 minutes of watching the egg :) They climbed the rock wall, played the video games, did the car and ski/snowboarding simulators, played in the water area and got soaked! It was a wonderful day. I have pictures but they are trapped in my camera at the moment and who knows if I will get them on here ever. Ha.

I am also getting excited/nervous about my upcoming trip. I know that the kids will be taken care of while I am going that isn’t my concern I just want to make it back to them in one piece. I know it is even a horrible thought to think about but at the same time it could happen. I am writing a letter for each night I am gone for each individual kid to read before bed. J did that when he went to Canada and they loved it. I thought I should do the same thing!

Hooky

I'm pulling the kids out of school tomorrow and taking them somewhere fun. I will be leaving in a few days and I want to spend as much time with them as possible. It works out well because J has a crazy busy work week and he couldn't take the kids to school tomorrow or Thursday. So it was just the incentive I needed to keep them with me! I have our lunches packed and I have directions. I'm a little nervous because I don't like driving in Chicago but I know we will have so much fun. Thursday I am taking them early from school because J informed me that he can't bring them home like I had thought that day. It just works to all of our benefit this way! I hope my next update will be with pictures of our adventure, but I will be with the four of them by myself in a big space so who knows if I will get any pictures :) Like I said on facebook the only thing that could make tomorrow even better would be if J could come with.

More pictures! Halloween and Christmas :)

We traditionally put up our Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) but this year we didn't. It was in the garage at our old house. J and I had talked about whether we should bring it or just not have a tree this year. He was saying we should just leave it and not have a tree this year because we don't know if that tree was infested with the mold or not. After not having it up the first few days after Thanksgiving we both decided that we needed to go get it and put it up. It just didn't "feel" right not having one. Here are the pictures from our Christmas tree decorating night. The kids each put up the ornaments with their names on it from years past oh so fun!

I know this is a lot late but here is our Toy Story crew!
Monkey: Woody
Red: Buzz
GG: Jesse
Peanut: Bo Peep

PICTURES

Yeah I know the ole blog has been lacking some pictures. Here are the pictures of our puzzle in progress during our Thanksgiving break. We had a lot of fun doing it together!








I just realized that I didn't bring the other memory stick for the camera that has the new sidebar pictures for the kids. Ugh! They are going to be so outdated by the time I get them on here.