Vintage Mom

My A. had his 5th birthday party and requested everyone attending dress up. He was a Power Ranger, his brother Bob the Builder, husband was a racecar driver and I dressed as my mother at the time of my 5th birthday party.

Who does he resemble?

Does he resemble my husband?

Or myself?

Or is he his own man?

Don't Be Alarmed!

It's just my Power Ranger turning 5!

Here comes the birthday cake!

And here comesthe wish!

And here comes the big gift!

It's a scooter!

Do you Compost?

In addition to our new worm bin we have a new compost bin.

CSA

We finally have a CSA delivering to our town and it's called Abundant Harvest Organics. Here is the website https://www.abundantharvestorganics.com/ If you would like to learn more about CSAs you can check here http://www.localharvest.org/csa/. The produce from Abundant Harvest Organics comes to us from the California Central Valley. Here is a picture of our box from last week.

Mother, May I Eat a Tomb, Please?

a what? A tomb, it's something you put dead people in. Ahhh.

The boys went to Sunday School today. Yes it's Easter (and A.'s birthday. It'll be more than 200 years before that happens again). Even more exciting, it was R.'s first day of Sunday School. He's been before but never made it from start to finish. He has sat with me in the crying room with the "ladies" for the most part. The ladies are the wheelchair bound grandmas who sit in the crying room. I have not seen any babies in the crying room, just the ladies, R. and me!

R.'s first bible verse was "Do not be alarmed, He is not here, He has risen!" Mark 16:6. Yes, he did memorize it, complete with chroeography. Before the recitation, he drops to his knees and throws his hands to the heavens and says "Do not be alarmed..."

Well, at Sunday School, the boys made their artwork displaying their Bible verse and they also made a special snack "tombs". They had cinammon rolls that were risen, so they were hollow inside. When cut in half they resembled tombs. The boys brought home their leftovers. They seem to have enjoyed their tombs.

Sunland Smell-o-Vision

Have You Considered a Career in Vermiculture?

We are exploring vermiculture. Ewwww! Here are the steps to creating your own worm farm.

Step One: Go to the City and purchase a $5 Rubbermaid tub with holes drilled in it. Hey, I know you can do that at home, but the City calls this a Worm Bin and will give you lots of brochures and crayons and toy trash cans if you buy one from them. Kids love this stuff so it's worth the 5 bucks.

Step Two: Gather the kids. Worms like bedding. We shredded newspaper.

Step Three: Worms like a nice moist home, don't you? Pour in a cup of water and toss that newspaper salad.

Step Four: Gather your womrs. Here are the worms. We bought them at the local garden supply.

Step Five: Prepare the worms. This part is easy, simply remove the lid. The worms are ready to move.

Step Six: Pour the little guys in, gently. Here are the worms in their new home.

Step Seven: Feed the little worms.

Birthday Time

A. has his 5th birthday this weekend. His Nana D. and Grandpa L. sent him a card and some birthday money. We went to the toystore to go shopping for a battery operated robot. No such thing was in stock so A. selected a variety of goodies. Before we get too far ahead, here is R. with his gift for being so patient in the toystore. It's a squishy, light-up UFO ball. It's fantastic!











Here is A. with his toys, 3 Bionicles, a 3-D dinosaur puzzle in an egg and a knight's sword with sheath!!






Now, I'm not a Bionicle building variety mom. I'm more of a cookie-baking, hey let's play ball in the backyard kind of mom. All those tiny parts and those instruction books just don't work for me. Big A. is the go-to guy when it comes to building models. Here is A. waiting for his Dad to come home. He sat here for hours!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY A!!!

Above is baby A at one month of age. Hey baby!

The Greatest Kids!

Okay, I have the greatest kids. Here is one of them now. He's vac-ing the house, and he isn't pretending. He has taken to vac-ing after his nap the last few days. I adore that in anyone, but in a kid, whew! My husband does the real vac-ing. Am I lucky or what? My dear R. actually will come get me to move furniture to get the crumbs underneath. I don't clean the crumbs "under". He's so good at vac-ing that this will have to be his job ;) Cheers to R. for vac-ing until the machine loses it's charge each day!!

Free Stuff!

I love free stuff. We are members of two local Freecycle groups. If you aren't familiar with Freecycle you can read about it here. http://www.freecycle.org/

A former teacher posted that she had a 50 gallon, yes 50 gallon, storage tub full of her old teaching texts and supplies for grades K-3! Holy moly, I was all over it. The box literally filled my trunk and I have the largest trunk available without tracking down a 1970s station wagon. Let me tell you, there was quite a bit of good stuff in that tub and I'm still working on organizing it in our "school bookcase". Well since I so willingly took these things off of this former teacher's hands, she contacted us when she found a box of educational games. Bingo! Literally, we received Money Bingo, Time Bingo, etc. as well as many great spelling games.

Here are some pics of the family playing Spin and Spell.

A Friend in Vinegar

I saw this post on Sassykats blog. Ahh, well I do love my vinegar. It's a great cleaner and fabric softener. How wonderful to see someone is as fond of vinegar as myself, but I suspect even more so. Here is the link and the post http://www.xanga.com/sassykat1213



Sometimes I'm a poet...
Oh, vinegar, vinegar, my sour little friend

I love the way you clean for me; for the chores you gently tend!

I poured you in my teapot last night and turned the heat on high

As you toiled and boiled in my copper pot, I gave a thankful sigh.

"Mom, what's that smell?!" *cough* *gag* "My eyes are starting to water!"

(Our little guys do not realize that any drama will become my blog fodder!)

And then, dear vinegar, you soon dwindled and my teapot was bright and clean

I happily rinsed my pot and prepared a spot of tea~ named for Catherine the Queen!

Secret Messages

I received a email post from one of my online groups from a mother of a 10 year old. She says she's been trying to get him to write more and she offered to dictate to him while he typed. He told her about the secret messages he leaves in his writing assignments. He'll type the assignment and then add his secret message in a white font. The secret message won't be visable until he highlights all, exposing the message. Pretty neat I thought. Try highlighing in black which makes the assignement disappear and your secrect message appear.