last day

Brecken picked these flowers out at the greenhouse the other day, and last night he helped me plant them into these cups. He gave them to his teachers at school today, as today was his last day of preschool for the school year! Tomorrow we get to go to a preschool picnic, but today was the last day of actual school. He loves his teachers so much, I know he will miss them when he moves on to the 4 year old class next year! He has learned so much this year, it's been amazing to watch. He's quite the smart little boy, that's for sure!

the garden

We got a huge dump truck full of dirt delivered to our driveway yesterday. We had ordered dirt to fill the flower bed that Josh re-did for me this spring. I freaked out though- we certainly did NOT need a whole dump truck full! Luckily he only emptied about 1/4 of it into our planter. It snowed yesterday (can you believe it?!), so we couldn't spread it out, but Josh and Brecken did that today. After it was all spread, Brecken and I tossed the new flower seeds into it. I can't wait until they grow and bloom!

We also planted tomato plants into a hanging tomato planter that I'm going to try this year... we'll see if I can get anything to grow from it!

After the snow yesterday, the 50 degrees and sun felt WONDERFUL today!

mail

Brecken LOVES to get mail. If we go to the post office and there's something for him in the mail box, it totally makes his whole day. He squeals with excitement and can't wait to open it. It's too bad he doesn't get mail very often. :) He did get mail today though- his grandma sent him an envelope and in it was a whole dollar!! He is so proud of that dollar. I asked if he wanted to call Grandma and tell her thank you, but he said, "No, I think I will email her instead. So here is the email he sent her, complete with the word-for-word translation- I didn't make any of this up- he really told me this is what it said, exactly!


jnbvcxzfasdfghjkl;;'5547/*--------------------------mnbvcxzaasdfghjklqwertyu
iop

Thank you for giving me mail, Grandma. It was very nice. Will you send
me another mail tomorrow?

bccccccccccccccccccccsrekenn

(And he typed the letters in his name. They aren't in the right order, but they are the right letters. :) He even picked them out on the keyboard by himself! )

a talk

Brecken to me this afternoon: Mommy, we need to have a little talk.

Me: Ok... (wondering what is going to come out of his mouth...)

B: If you don't like bugs, I will tell them to go away.

Me: OK! Thanks, bud!

B: You're welcome. I'm glad we had that little talk.

My best boy loves flowers. He loves anything to do with flowers. So today he helped me plant flowers in our outdoor pots. It was finally a beautiful day to do it!



(excuse the dead look to these. Poor things needed water. They look much better this evening.)

party animal

I have been quite the party animal this weekend. :) I went to a Mary Kay party on Thursday night, my secret friend reveal party on Friday night, last night we all went to a "bachelor" party at a friend's house (more about that in a minute), and today we're going to Enc for a retirement party for our school counselor. Phew- I've never gone to so many parties in a row! :)


Here is what I got for my secret friend for her final gift. She ended up not having any idea I was her secret friend- I was shocked! Anyway, I took all these pictures and had it matted and framed. And she cried, she liked it so much. Hooray! :) It spells her last name.

Last night we went to a friend's house for a "bachelor" party for our 6th grade teacher at work. I say "bachelor" because there were more women than men, and two 3 year olds too, to join in on the fun. :) Jordan was quite the sport and even let the 3 year olds play games with him! Brecken's friend Sophie was the other 3 year old and they ran and ran and ran until 10:00 last night. They had a blast. Sophie gave Brecken his first kiss from a girl (on the cheek) and he proceeded to wipe it off.

7 more days of school for me!! Brecken has 8, and Josh has 9. I'm kind of excited that I'm the one with the fewest number. :)

self-diagnosis

Said to me tonight, COMPLETELY out of the blue and he was very serious:

"Mom, I just feel like I'm allergic to bears."

Umm....

mommy...

...is the best name I've ever had.

hand in hand

Brecken made something for me for Mother's Day at preschool and couldn't wait to show me- and it's wonderful! When he told me "I figured you would LOVE this, Mommy!" I told him he was right- I DO love it! Back at his Parent-Teacher conference, Miss Melody asked if I would leave my hand prints in paint. I forgot I even did that, until I saw my hand prints on my Mother's Day present! I love love love the X's and O's he drew on he hearts. :)

hello!

Welcome to the "new" blog. :)

new address

This blog is getting a new address very, very shortly. If you would like the new address, leave a comment here with your email address and I will email you the new address when we put it into effect. Hopefully this will solve a problem I encountered today and won't make me have to make the blog go private- I don't '*want* to do that but will if I need to- I will see how the new web address works first.

I have to approve all comments, so once I get your comment with your email address in it, I'll delete it so it's not posted on the web! :) As soon as the new address goes into effect, I'll send you the new info.

rhyme time

We took a drive this evening so I could find an "N" to finish up a photo project I've been working on. We drove out in the country and saw lots of cows. Brecken asked what cows eat- here is the rest of the conversation:

Me: Cows eat grass.
B: So do deer!
(a short time later...)
B: HEY! Cows and deer RHYME!
Me: Um, no, not quite. Rhyming means two words sound the same, like Cow and Pow.
B: No, Mommy. Cow and deer.
Me: No, like pear and tear.
B: NO! Those don't rhyme! Grass and sky rhyme!
Josh: No, buddy. It would be like sky and pie.
B: DADDY! NO! Car and house.

Boy, was he getting mad that we had "no idea" how rhyming works. HA! :)

party like a rockstar

What a great weekend! We had all of the Sandlian family over to celebrate Bryell's 1st birthday. What a fun time we had. Brecken had a BLAST playing with all his cousins. He is still talking about all the great times tonight! We had a wonderful time with everyone over.

sports and music

So many kids think they have to choose between sports and music.

My 3 year old son, however, already knows that he can do both at the same time.

He just told me, "If I sing while I run, it helps me run really fast!" And demonstrated by running around the house while singing the "ABC" song.

It's just one of the advantages of having a coach-dad and a music-mom, I guess. :)

planting a seed in a child's mind

I got this little garden thing for Brecken while we were in Chicago. He is always wanting to plant seeds (we have plenty of popcorn seeds in the snow...) and loves Curious George, so I thought this was perfect! We must check 12 times a day to see if anything has grown. I sure hope it does grow, because if not, I'll have one seriously sad little boy!

chicago

A few quick stories and a few pictures from our trip!





My grandma was put in the hospital a couple days before we flew out to Chicago. That was a bummer, because we didn't get to see her new apartment in the assisted living place she's in, and we didn't get to take her outside. :( We did visit her every day we were in Chicago though, which was good. It's been too long since we've seen her! I'm glad we were able to visit every day.


We traveled most of Tuesday. Our hotel was in the greatest location EVER- right downtown, a block off Michigan Avenue! We walked around Tuesday afternoon/evening and everything we wanted to eat was right there. :)





Wednesday we got up and went to the aquarium. It was a rainy day, and we got to the aquarium and about died at the size of the line. It was about a mile long, no joke. Luckily, they had an "accessible line" for strollers and wheelchairs, and boy, am I glad we brought the stroller that day. Even waiting in that much shorter line, it took us an hour to get in the aquarium! We didn't mind though, after we got to the ticket counter. It was going to cost us about $85 for the three of us to get in, but Josh asked if they had an educator discount and showed our teacher ID cards and all THREE of us got in for FREE! I was shocked. And very glad, because the aquarium was soooo crowded that day that I felt we didn't get $85 out of it! We had fun while we were there though. Brecken loves aquariums.

Thursday was a super fun day. We went to the children's museum! We were able to walk there from our hotel, and it only took about a half hour. Brecken had a blast while we were there. They had the most amazing rooms- a "move!" room where you could climb and rock and balance and feel and touch and run and jump. It was an occupational therapist's dream room! There was a water room where all you did was play with water items, a room to dig for dinosaur bones, an inventing room, an area to plaly checkers, bowl, make things out of clay, anything you could imagine. A few of the rooms were closed due to a school field trip occupying them, but we had PLENTY to see still!

Thursday night, we met up with my cousin Catie and went to a Bulls game! I've never been to an NBA game before. We had a great time! Thank you, Uncle Pudge, for letting us have your company's season tickets for the night! We had a great time!!! Catie, it was so great to see you!

Brecken cheering hard:

#16 is a Cheyenne East graduate!

Friday morning, Brecken woke up and the first thing he said was "What do we get to do today?" :) We didn't have anything too exciting planned, but we took him to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and just did sightseeing and shopping all day.

Saturday was GORGEOUS outside! Our plane didn't leave until the evening so we packed up the car and took off on foot. We walked to the other end of Michigan Avenue, across the Chicago River, and up to Millennium Park.

Our reflection in the "Bean" sculpture- I had to take quite a few pictures to get us in the frame! :)

It was so nice out that we got Subway and ate a picnic outside at the park! We haven't been able to do that since last summer, so what a nice treat! Then we took our time walking back to the car to get to the airport. We had a great trip, and hopefully it won't be so long before we can go again!

reality

Back to it. Yuck. I hate the last day of vacation! I'm NOT looking forward to work tomorrow. I wish Josh and I would win the lottery so that our family can just travel and be together all the time- that's when we're at our best!

We had a wonderful time in Chicago and got back at 1:10 this morning. My wonderful husband got us home without falling asleep, which is more than I would have been able to do. I tried so hard to stay awake with him but did a bit of dozing the last 40 or so miles. Brecken was asleep before we got a mile away from the hotel where we had parked our car. :)

We had a great trip. Today after I get myself moving, I'll get some pictures posted, along with some stories.

a hunting we will go...

Egg hunt day! We had two in Saratoga that we went to. Here's what it looked like outside on the way to the first one:

Wyoming kids grow up tough, since they have to put up with this junk at Easter! :) Luckily, just as the hunt was about to start, the snow went away and the sun came out. It was still gale-force winds, but at least we didn't have the flying snow to contend with, too.

The second one, this afternoon, wasn't much warmer. No blowing snow, but soooo windy still. Brecken had a great time and asked when we can go to the next one. :)

perfect day

Brecken was playing with his toy truck and trailer with the cows that go inside it this evening, and all of a sudden the birds started chirping outside. He looked up in surprise and said, "Hey! I hear birds!" Then got that big ol' glint in his eyes (if you know him, you know the one... he can't hide it!) and a grin on his face. He looked down and continued playing, and without looking at Josh and *just* loud enough for Josh to hear, said, "Hmmm... it's the perfect day to go golfing."

I about made my stomach hurt from holding my laughter in.

Never mind the 30 mph winds, the 20 degree air temp, and the blizzard we had this morning. :)

"aren't they so bootiful??"

That's what the B-man asked while gazing at his wonderful eggs we colored this evening. :)