Pay It Forward

Seems like fun...

This is how it works..... the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive a hand made gift from me during this year (don't worry I'm not going to wait until December!). When and what will be a surprise. BUT, in order for you to leave a comment on my blog, you have to post this on your blog FIRST. (That means that sometime during this year you will send a gift to 3 people as well, not necessarily hand made) Get it? Ready, set, pay it forward!

Little boys and Star Wars

My boys are obsessed with Star Wars. They are not alone on our street though, all the other boys within a two block radius (and some of the girls) have their own lightsabers and they all get out in the street and do lightsaber wars. Kade has gotten in on the action in the house recently. I noticed him taking any kind of long object he could find and swinging it around while the boys had their lightsabers out. Grandma Paulette noticed this when she came out and bought him his very own red one. It lights up and makes the noise, so he runs around smacking the boys and sometimes me with it. Last night he and Trevor were "fighting" and Trevor smacked him lightly on the back with his lightsaber. Kade made this little grunting sound and laid on the floor pretending to die...it was the funniest thing! I just wish I had a video camera to immortalize the action.

New Orleans 2009

Last week the boys and I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans with my mother in law, Paulette, because she had a conference there for work. We got to stay at the Astor Crown Plaza, which is a very nice hotel (with comfortable beds). It was right on Canal Street in the French Quarter, which for the most part made it very convenient. The only problem with it was that we got there at 3:10 Sunday afternoon...right as the Dog Parade began on Canal Street! We sat in traffic for two hours while the parade went by and they cleaned the streets...and we were only two blocks from our hotel! We couldn't even see the parade because we couldn't get anywhere close to Canal St. It is a dang good thing we had the dvd player hooked up cause we would have been completely nutty.

Paulette had to go to a meeting that night, so the boys and I walked to get some dinner. I wasn't feeling too well so I opted for a soft pretzel and got the boys some pizza. That night I got horribly sick (Kade had been dealing with the stomach flu for a few days) and let's just say I was glad I only ate a pretzel for dinner.

Monday we were on our own for most of the day while Paulette was in meetings, we took our time getting out of the hotel, went to McDonalds for lunch and then walked to the Riverwalk to check out the Mississippi. We went to the shopping center there and got a birthday gift for Chad. I scored big time at the Gap on a pair of shorts for Blake that were marked down to $1.99. I think it was a pricing error cause all the other shorts in the same style on that rack said $18.99, but they honored the price on the tag. That pretty much made my day, which was good cause I still felt rotten!

The boys wanted to ride the free ferry across the river, so that killed about 45 minutes. When we were done with that we met up with Paulette and took a tour in a buggy around the French Quarter. It was pretty interesting, we got to see Nicolas Cage's house and Brad and Angelina's house. At one point some people let their pit bull off it's leash and it darted out trying to attack our mule. The mule kicked the crud out of the dog and sent it yelping back to it's owners. The boys were a little freaked out cause they had a front row seat for the whole thing.

That night Blake got sick, luckily only once, but felt fine the rest of the trip (must have been nice, I still felt rotten). On Tuesday Paulette was gone the whole day, so the boys and I occupied ourselves by going to the Aquarium of the Americas, the Imax theatre and the Insectarium. Our favorite was the Insectarium, it was really well laid out and interesting. It was an eventful day, so we called it early and went back for room service at the hotel.

On Wednesday we packed to leave and decided to take the scenic route home. We drove on the River Rd. along the Mississippi, also known as the Plantation Parade. There are six plantations still standing which offer tours. We did tours at two of them and took pictures of a few more. The tours were great. One of them, The Laura...A Creole Plantation, was one of the best plantation tours I have ever been on. It was definitely worth the extra time spent in the car.

All in all, despite the flu we had a great time. I am so thankful to Paulette for providing the hotel and gas money. Thanks! We all needed a break from real life, and I enjoyed the chance to spend time with my boys. They were so well behaved! I got several comments from people about how good they were, which does my heart good, especially since I was with them by myself most of the time. I have come to a decision though, I am not a fan of Mardi Gras or Cajun food. I have been to New Orleans three times now, but I had never been with a child who could read so I guess I never noticed how raunchy things are there. I was constantly telling Blake not to read t-shirts on display or pick up various nasty items (that should never have been within reach of children in regular stores). It will be a while, if ever, before I am ready to go back!

The Bubbleologist

Today I went to the library to get a schedule of storytimes and when I looked at the schedule I noticed that tonight they were having a "Bubbleologist" come to do a free show at 6pm. This guy travels the country doing shows and assemblies and birthday parties, and the whole show revolves around playing with bubbles! You can check out his website at www.BubbleJuggler.com .

Chad is out of town tonight but I thought I just might be brave enough to take the boys by myself if I threatened them within an inch of their lives. Well it must have worked (or else the Bubbleologist was just incredibly awesome to them too) because they were as close to angelic as three normally rambunctious boys can be. It helped that the library provided snacks and drinks, Kade was entertained pretty much the whole time by a juice box that he figured out how to get the straw in and out of once it was empty.


Blake got to go up and help the guy with one of his demonstrations. He was demonstrating how you can poke a bubble with a sharp object if that object is wet. Blake first poked a bubble with a dry pencil, then got it wet in bubble solution and did it again, that time it went right into the middle of the bubble. All the children were just enthralled by this guy, he was quite the performer. I found myself giggling right along with them though, he was just so much fun!

The whole time he was telling the kids that they could make their dreams come true and his dream had always been to make a square bubble. He showed them square shaped bubble wands and how the bubbles always came out round. He also talked about how when he was a little boy he saw a man make a white bubble by blowing cigarette smoke into it. He said, "Well I don't smoke, cause it's yucky." All of the kids agreed enthusiastically. "Actually, I am allergic to cigarette smoke...and cats. So if you have a cat that smokes I am a goner!" He then told us that he had figured out a way to make a white bubble without cigarettes. He pulled out a purple sippy cup with a straw on one side of the lid and a cord, which he plugged in. Then he blew a bubble, inserted the straw end of the sippy cup into the bubble, blew into the spout of the sippy cup and *voila!* the bubble became filled with fog. Awesome!

He called a little girl up to help him make a gigantic bubble, which he made with her inside. She was adorable to begin with, but when he pulled that bubble up over her body the look on her face was so priceless I just had to take pictures.

His grand finale, so to speak, was to make a square bubble filled with smoke. He made six bubbles all stuck together, then he blew fog into the center bubble and it was amazing to see that it created a square bubble right in the middle of the group of bubbles.

Maybe I am easily entertained, maybe I need to get out more, or maybe there is still a child deep inside of me that can still appreciate something amazing with childlike wonder. Whatever it is, I am so glad I took my boys to see the "Bubble Master".

Gingerbread Train

I realize that it is now February, but life was a little hectic around Christmas so we finally just got around to building and decorating the gingerbread train that my mother in law sent the boys for Christmas. For FHE on Monday night we did a little lesson about taking the Sacrament and then for the activity we dragged the train out. The boys have been begging for weeks to do it and the time was right. Chad "engineered" it, Blake and Trevor decorated, Kade picked his nose and I took pictures. All in all it wasn't a huge mess but it was a huge success.

On a side note, the reason that we had to do the lesson about the Sacrament had to do with something that happened a few weeks ago during the Sacrament. Blake had been mentioning every so often about how he missed the Sacrament bread in Tennessee that Sister Baumann makes every week (and tastes more like cake than bread). I was getting a little worried that he might say something embarrassing during Church and before I could do anything about it, my nightmare became a reality.

After they passed the bread that day he leaned over to me and said in his version of a whisper (which to normal people is a sonic boom on the decibal level)..."We need to give these people the recipe for the bread they have for Sacrament in Tennessee!". Yep. Gotta love that kid. Chad says he is a chip off the old block (meaning me)...and I guess I am inclined to agree with him. Anyway, I think we finally got the message across that it doesn't matter what the bread tastes like, it is the reason why we take it that it is so important. Good thing everyone who heard him got a good laugh, and then when I related the story later that day in Relief Society during a [gasp] lesson on taking the Sacrament the sisters thought it was humorous as well. Glad I could accomodate.

100 Days of School

I just love it when Blake's teachers assign homework projects for him to do that I end up having to completely supervise and clean up. His teacher last year assigned him something like that once a month, this year we've been lucky and only recently had one assigned. I don't really understand why the first 100 days of school are such a big deal, I have a theory that it is marking the halfway point of the year, or perhaps it is for the teachers to celebrate the fact that their children haven't tied them up and sacrificed them to the history gods...I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, Blake had to do a project where he used 100 of something in a creative way. It is due Wednesday, but I decided to get it over with this afternoon so I (I mean we) would have an extra day just in case something went wrong. I had a vision where we used marshmellows to build an igloo and then when I presented the idea to Blake he liked it so much we decided to throw in some marshmellow penguins to make it more interesting.

He helped me "build" the igloo, which consisted of gluing marshmellows around an old snack container that no longer had a lid. The thing that surprised me was that 100 marshmellows didn't go as far as I thought they would. We ended up having to make a roof for the igloo out of white cardstock so we would have enough of the marshmellows left to make some penguins. Blake then decorated the scenery and I made the little penguins using black magic marker, toothpicks, glue and marshmellows. I think it turned out pretty cute...it didn't occur to me until later that I really hope they don't have an ant problem!