It went above 40 degrees today!

We are having a warm spell.  When Aidan and I were out shopping it was up to 49 degrees.  Could Spring be around the corner?  Do I dare hope?  What did the warm weather get me in the mood for?  Well, besides shopping....I got some seeds started today.

Look at the score I picked up at Lowes:

2 seed starter kits and a bunch of seeds!  $71 worth of gardening goodies

I came home and immediatly got to planting seeds.  I will post later tonight or tomorrow what I planted.  I'm supposed to be making dinner right now but no one is screaming that they are hungry yet, so I'm getting a quick little blog in.

We also put together a new home for Rhino.  Aidan and Connor both made honor roll for the second nine weeks of school and they got to pick rewards.  When I was little and made the honor roll (didn't happen that often  =) ) my parents always got us a small treat as a reward.  I was thinking that they would want a new video game or a new movie.  Aidan wanted to get Rhino a new home that was roomier and had more fun things for her to do.  So, here is Rhino's new crib.  She loves it.  She usually sleeps all day and is up all night, but since we put her in her new place, she's been running all over the place playing on her wheel and sliding on her slide.  

Rhino's new home thanks to Aidan.

Back to the seeds.  They are all planted in their little cups.  Tim and I dragged our grow light set upstairs from the basement.  I decided that it was too cold on the basement floor to germinate anything and I didn't really like the idea of getting heating pads to put under the trays so we just brought it upstairs.  Our dining room is now devoted to our seeds growing for a couple of months.  There is enough room under the lights to start two more trays if I decide to.  I'm excited to see what comes up.  One tray if veggies and one tray is flowers and then the little one is hot peppers for Tim.  He has already told me that he's ordering his own seeds for his peppers.  I think he's turning into a pepper snob.

lights set up on the dining room table.

So, I'll come back in a little bit to post what I planted and how many days it says it will take to germinate.  

Anticipation.

It was funny.  Yesterday, mid-day, Tim emailed me a message with the subject line of "something useful".  I opened the message up only to find a link to a 23 qt pressure cooker/canner.  Huh?  I wanted one of these last year and he didn't want to spend the money for it.  I jumped on the opportunity and ordered it from amazon and even with free shipping I got it delivered today!  Color me one excited little bee.  

I think we shall name her Queen.  Because when I see it I hear "Under Pressure" by Queen.  Yes, I'm a dork and I name all things. It bugs the heck out of Tim.

here she is...I don't think I put her together properly.  Yikes!

I unpacked it and started flipping through the instruction book and now I'm a bit scared too.  It's a little intimidating.  I'm going to have to really read the book and not just thumb through it.  I think Tim changed his mind about the pressure cooker after we spent an entire day working with a ton of tomatoes only to lose them all.  That was a bummer.  Not this year.

We've been discussing our garden this year.  We know that we want tomatoes, potatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers and beets.  Oh, and I'm sure we'll have boxes of chili peppers all over the place too.    I am thinking that next month we'll be bringing up the grow lights and starting our seeds.  

Oh, there is nothing like thinking about gardening in the middle of the winter.  This has been a long, cold, icy winter.  I look out into the back yard and long to be out there with the sun beating down on me and working in the dirt.  I can't wait.  I think the starting of seeds and taking care of them as they grow will help the winter hurry on out of here.  I'm kicking myself though for not planting any bulbs in the fall.  I was so busy that I completely forgot about it and now I'm going to be sad when everyone else has amazing spring flowers coming up and I'll have nothing. I will plant bulbs next fall.  

Not too much else going on over here.  We are half way through the school year. The boys are doing fabulous.  Connor has discovered that he LOVES geometry.  We've had a lot of fun learning that and playing around with it.  Aidan is writing almost as neatly as I do and is reading small books to himself now.  We got everything done in January that we wanted to do.  We got both of our credit cards PAID OFF.  We are sitting pretty right now planning for summer festivities and gardening. 

I hope everyone is staying warm and happy.

Friday Fun!

I did the dreaded deed today.  I did something that I don't like doing, but did anyway.  I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese. The germ factory.  Why?  Because they've been doing really good in school lately and Connor rocked his endocrinologist appointment and well, they've been whining about it for a while.

It wasn't as bad as I remember it.  Of course it was partly because it was at lunch time and most kids were in school.  They basically had the whole place to themselves with just a couple of pre school wee ones running around.  

Connor on a Star Wars game.

Aidan showing great determination and patience.

A happy duo.

Aidan in his fave place.  He spent most of his time up in the tubes.

This was actually a really neat thing.  It was a roller coaster simulator that they rode three times.  Connor got scared on the last one and I jumped in to finish off the ride and got off the stupid thing with motion sickness.  I must be getting old.  Nah.

The kids were great.  They didn't throw a fit when I said it was time to leave.  They didn't fight or argue.  They actually thanked me when we were done.  I will almost admit that I had fun.  I'm just not sure I'll tell the kids that. ☺

So, it's crazy cold here and we are going to spend the night in front of the fire and watch some movies I think.  Nothing major planned this weekend.  It was supposed to be our clean up the outside weekend but not when the high is 12.  Too cold for me.  

I hope everyone has a faboo weekend!

Blogging bug hit.

I guess the time and energy that I put into this blog is paying off.  Connor has decided that he wants to start and run a blog.  I say go for it.  He actually wants to write?  Who am I to stand in his way?  I think it will be good for him and he's so excited about having one.  Aidan wants one too and I told him that if he is reading by the end of kindergarten, he can start one too.  Until then, he can guest write on Connor's.

What else is new?  Hmmm...Not too much.  We got the closets 90 percent done last weekend but then both Tim and I came down with the kids' colds and couldn't finish. It will be added to the weekend list for the upcoming weekend.  This weekend we are supposed to work outside and pick up a bit.  I suppose how much we get accomplished will depend on what the temps are.  They are supposed to be brutal.  

I'm also happy to report that one of our credit cards is officially paid off!  This is big news.  We are very happy.  We are very close to paying off the other credit card as well and then the only debt we will have will be the student loans.  Wahoo.  This is pretty exciting.  We've worked hard at this goal and it was so nice to pay the one off.  

Not too much else going on.  The kids are trucking along in school.  Connor just did a reading benchmark with his teacher and he did awesome.  I knew he would.  He had to do three timed readings to see how many words a minute he can read.  The first one he did was 130 words, the second one he did was 156 words and the third reading was 133. Why the difference?  Because on the first and last reading he was reading with such emphasis and drama that it was taking away from his numbers.  The second one he just read straight through after his teacher mentioned to just concentrate on reading.  After it was done I had to explain to him that while it was awesome for him to put such feeling into the reading and how it made it fun to listen to, he needed to just read on tests like this.  His teacher did say he was reading at an advanced level and that made me feel good.  

That being said, it's time to get back to school with the wee ones.  Hope everyone is having a great week.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some pics up again...it's just that there isn't much going on right now.

Dear Winter,

While I enjoy the snow and we have fun playing in it, I'm over you.  I'm tired of being cold all the time.  I'm tired of the grey skies.  I'm ready to start playing in the dirt again.  I'm ready to see green grass and bright flowers again.  I mean really, must you be only 13 degrees on Friday?  I have to go out first thing in the morning when it will be likely 0 degrees out to take Connor to his endocrynologist.  I would much more prefer it to be warmer.   Let's get the rest of your snowing done and bring on in Spring.   Are you listening Mr. Groundhog?

Yours, 

Busy Bee

Planning.

Call me crazy, but I like to plan things. I  am a list maker.  I like to have everything organized. 

We are starting to make our plans for  our year.  We have a ten year anniversary celebration/trip to plan.  Tim mentioned a trip to Ireland which I would love, but not sure if we are going to pursue it.  We have a lot of little things around the house to work on.  We have hiking trips to plan and maybe even a camping trip.  

In the past I have used notebooks to write everything down and then I'll put my notebook down not to be found for a month or two.  I figured since I have this little bloggie still up and running that I could do some planning here.

We have taken a weekend trip already once this month so I know that we won't be going out of town again for at least three weeks.  This weekend coming up we are planning to work on the closets in our bedrooms/classroom.  A while back I had the crazy idea to change everyones' bedrooms around but never got around to switching around the closets.  This weekend it will be done.   The following weekend will be outdoor pickup.  Crazy, I know, to do it in the middle of the winter, but I think the scarecrows can come in off the front porch.  

Oh, I just thought of something I have to do in the next week:  send Aidan's DS to Nintendo for some warranty work.  Self, remember to print off the Fed Ex label and send it.

After those two weekends are knocked off we are going to each weekend hit a room and super clean it.  I mean tear everything out of counters, pulling things off of shelves, scrubbing everything and doing touch up paint work.

So, there we have it....the month of January is all set up.  I know this year is going to be a good year and I'm excited!

Now, I'm off to take care of two weebles with sniffles.  Too many weekends away has finally caught up with them I think.

A good way to start out the new year!

How you say?  By spending the weekend with good friends that you don't get to see very often.  We packed up the crew and drove over to CT to spend the weekend over there.   The kids were very excited because they haven't seen their friends since last summer.  When we got there the house was swarming with girls.  They apparently had been up most of the previous night preparing for a "show".  I was laughing when they were getting ready to start, Jenn said she needed another beer.  I knew then what we were in for.

Future American Idols?

Connor and Aidan hanging out on the stairs, I think amazed by all the girls in one place.  Scared, perhaps?

After a third set, things started to turn sour and the boys were lining up on the couch to start taking the girls out.

After the show, the girls all left with their parents and it was left to being just our family and Samm's.  The kids all had fun playing on the wii and then all disappeared so that the adults could have some fun.  We tried to get them into bed at normal time, but that did NOT work.  Finally around 11:30 we had to split them up.  If we hadn't I'm certain they would have stayed up much later.  As it was, they both woke up at 7:30 wanting to get back to playing.

When we got up we were treated to a family of deer eating in the back yard.

baby deer getting ready to do some munching

The rest of the family showed up for breakfast after some more food was put out. The kids and I had fun watching them.

They all played together and then we had to get on the road.  The boys were not happy and have already made plans to go back (they think they are going back next month...I don't think it will be that soon).   

Proof that fun was had by all:

Connor passed out on the way home.  He never sleeps in the car.

Aidan zonked out too.  It was a quiet ride home. 

It was funny too becuase we weren't home an hour and Nick, a neighborhood friend, came over and played for two and half hours.  Now Aidan is so over tired he's cranky. Me thinks he will be in bed early tonight.

Tomorrow we start school back up from our winter break.  I'm hoping it will be a smooth transition back.  I'm hoping to keep up with the bloggie but I'm not promising anything right now.

I hope everyone had a great weekend and a good start to the new year.