A Royal Day

     I don't have pictures because for most of the day my camera was in the couch cushion. I searched high and low for it and didn't find it. Then this afternoon it magically appeared! I think that had something to do with the little ones in the house. LOL
     The girls brought their dress up clothes and were princesses:) Matthew couldn't resist and put one on for about 2 seconds. Then decided it was stupid. We also watched bits and pieces of the wedding. Of course during down time we watched Cinderella! We had lunch on fancy plates and milk in glass cups! The kids were most excited about that. I made rice crispy treats and chocolate covered strawberries for our royal snack picnic. We "talked fancy" and said everything was lovely. Rebecca the 4 year old loved it the most. She would say, "Mrs. Alissa this apple juice is lovely." lol

     Tonight was parents night out. This is when at church once a month we have free babysitting for 3 hours. We take turns as couples babysitting at church. Most years we have enough families and we only have to babysit once a year. Not to shabby! Our plans were to go to River City Cafe. A burger place then walk on the Inlet. This WAS the plan till a very excited Aspen called. She was asked to play in the varsity game!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She is the JV goalie and the Varsity goalie couldn't play tonight's game. She was so excited!! We couldn't miss her big debut on varsity. The varsity girls are good! The are currently 6th in the whole state of SC. So Aspen touched the ball twice the whole game. The girls won 10-0. The ball didn't make it's way back to Aspen many times. She still had fun!

She had very little action.

I got action shots while she was practicing.

 

She had fun and seeing her game was much better than a date night. Matthew still went to parent's night out so he could play with his friends. So we got some bleacher time:)

    

Walking to Disney

Yesterday I posted about exercising and walking the same amount of miles as going to Disney as a goal. I am a visual person so I made a fun little chart to help keep track of my mileage.

I used Velcro to attach the numbers. This way I could easily change them out. When we got home from Cub Scouts I walked and already changed my numbers!

I walked 2 miles tonight. Only A LOT more to go!

While we were gone Aspen worked on a school project. They are having a recyclable fashion show tomorrow! Here is the dress she designed using only recycled material. 

She used her dad's accounting homework for the main part! She thought it was funny.

And last but not least here is Shane giving Matthew his awards he earned last month. Shane loves doing this with Matthew. He is Matthew's den leader. He was also Aspen's soccer coach for many years. I have been blessed with an awesome husband who is very dedicated to his children. 

Lucky Us

     This morning around 3 Matthew crawled into bed with us. Instead of getting up and putting him back in bed I let him join us. BUT he had to tell me what was the habitat made for! He said, "My toy frog from Alligator Adventure."
     I told him I thought he brought a pet in from outside. He then asked, "What would I do that for?"
     So yeah no critters in my house!

     I saw a number on the scale today I haven't seen in years! I am still slowly losing weight one pound at a time. I am a goal oriented person. I like to make lists and mini goals. they help keep me motivated. Kind of like one day at a time. I like one goal at a time:) I am making a poster with the miles from my house to Disney World. Then once I walk that many miles I will plan our next trip there. I also will do the same for our trip to Hawaii. From my front door to Disney it is 490 miles. So not to bad! I can walk 490 miles. Of course one mile at a time. Before you know it....... Now from my door to Honolulu, it will take a few years! It is 4,805 miles. I enjoy walking after dinner. My neighborhood is one mile. The 2 neighborhoods in front of ours is also one mile each. So it can be done! I will keep you posted on how I am doing! I am making a chart with velcro dots. With each mile I walk I will change the numbers. Hmmm, maybe a chalk board would be easier. LOL

Mom to a Boy

     So all those cuties little sayings about boys made of puppy dog tails and snail...... They describe my son! Perfectly! So far this spring I have been greeted with, frogs, turtles, green anole lizards and caterpillars. Oh, a dead snake too. When he was one and in the everything in the mouth stage he caught and tried to eat a beetle! So he started at a young age. He has even jumped off a dock to try to catch a fish to make fish sticks when he was four!
      I don't get grossed out any more over live and dead creatures being brought to me. I can handle the skeletons and snake skins that are found and showed to me. I have even learned to appreciate these things and not just act like it is cool. I try to nurture this curiosity. I read someplace about a veterinarian whose parents let him keep things as pets. What I can't handle is the unknown.

      This was discovered in his room when he was carried to his room. He fell asleep early in the living room tonight. It looks like he made a habitat for a new "pet" in his room. He emptied a toy shelf to do this. I don't know how he snuck this by me. Usually he is excited about what he caught. I won't know until tomorrow what is roaming around. He is sleeping so soundly I couldn't wake him.

Blue and White Game

     It's that time of the year again..... soccer season! At the end of January beginning of February there is a week of soccer tryouts. At the end of the week the girls have the traditional blue and white game. Half the team wears home jerseys and the other half wears away jerseys. The girls are mixed varsity and junior varsity. So there are both on each team. It is not varsity versus junior varsity.
     The girls find out if they made the team AFTER they play the game. I wish they knew before. It is heartbreaking to see them play then some of them not make the team. Well Aspen......made the JV team!!! She was so excited! When we talked about her trying out I told her to try her best. She had a friend last year that didn't make the team yet was on the year before. I think seeing that made her try her best.
     As we came home from church I couldn't help but smile when I saw the muddy stinky soccer cleats on my porch. I know I will get aggravated with them taking permanent residence. But tonight it made me smile:)

Family Theme Night

     Last year before our Disney trip in June I made an one hundred day count down. I cut out 100 little Mickey heads I copied from paint chip samples from Home Depot. On the count down I had interesting Disney World facts, Disney movie facts and theme nights planned for every other week. Each day we took down a Mickey head and read the fact or did the activity. Last week Shane asked me why didn't we do theme nights anymore. I told him I did it to help get us excited about Disney (like we needed help!). He said he wanted to do them again! So I told him to pick out the movie so I could plan. He let Matthew choose and our movie was Princess and The Frog!

     So I went to the DIS BOARDS for ideas! I missed being on the Disney planning forums. For dinner we had Zataran's Jambalaya, corn and corn bread. It was good! Zataran's also has on their Facebook page fun jazz music to listen to!



We had swamp juice with dinner!

      With Mardi Gras around the corner I was able to find decorations at the Dollar Tree!

The table cloth was more purplish. Psst Shane, see I need a new camera:)

     We only did one craft. I bought a craft for the kids to work on together. I thought it would take too long for each to do their own. I wasn't expecting Aspen to get made about the finished frog not looking like the box!

     We played a couple games. We all had party favors and we tried to "catch" Matthew's toy bugs with our frog tongues. We then played firefly hide and seek. We had glow sticks and one person hid. All the lights were out and we had to use our glow sticks as our lights. It was fun! Matthew was a little scared of the dark so him and I were one person.


Dessert: Mud pie



Dessert: Frog Sherbet

          Then it was movie time. We had fun! I liked doing this again. I think we may have to make it a part of our routine. Maybe do it once a month.

Picture Quality

Please do not mind the quality of the pictures. A certain six year old boy broke my camera making videos. So I have to use my cell phone till his Daddy replaces it. I'm thinking it will be a birthday present in a week and a half!

Our Chinese New Year Celebration

     Since I had off on Thursday and Matthew was at school we celebrated Chinese New Year on Friday. Friday was Matthew's home day. So once he finished his school work we learned about Chinese New Year.
     We had to go get food so we went to Costco and bought pot stickers. I found a recipe to make some homemade but it was quicker to get the ones from the store. We then went to a little Asian store here at the beach. The owners are really nice. I wanted the kids to see foods and other items they don't see at the grocery store. They were most impressed with the fish in the refrigerator. Also they liked the place settings and pretty chopsticks. Rebecca wasn't impressed with the dried shrimp! LOL It was fun seeing them ooh and aah over things in the store.



This store is in Socastee.




Our goodies from the store! Yes all dessert!

     

We used our fun animal chopsticks! Look! I even had rabbit ones!

      For lunch I served fried rice (came from the Japanese fast food restaurant), pot stickers, pineapple cake ( the package said from Taiwan), and fortune cookies (I don't think they originated in China.). So our lunch wasn't very authentic but the children enjoyed it!



Rylie, Matthew and Rebecca trying to eat with chopsticks!

     We had fun learning how to count to 10 in Chinese and learning the meaning of different symbols of Chinese New Year. We learned what animal we were and this year is the year of the rabbit. We also made crafts and watched on YouTube parades in different cities.


One of our crafts.



Our limited decorations. They also colored a flag of China. The center red thing is my cut out of a rabbit.



After watching videos they did their own dragon dance! I did not lead them in this activity. Matthew came up with this one!

      After we watch the Disney movie Mulan. It was a fun day! The kids enjoyed learning a little about China and Chinese New Year. I would love to one year visit a city with a parade. All the colors, music and movement just look so fun!


Should I Feel Guilty?

Today was a beautiful day in South Carolina! It was over 70 degrees! A part of me felt bad because today was the BIG STORM. In NY where my mom and brother still live they were dealing with snow and ice. Our morning started out warm but wet. We knew it was going to be warm but it was suppose to rain all day. I am so glad it didn't!


Miss Rascal was glad the sun came out too!

      So after school we went to the bird park AGAIN! We went yesterday too. It wasn't as warm but still fun feeding the birds yesterday. The kids were most excited about the fact I got pooped on by a seagull! I was actually kind of glad too. This will sound crazy but I always secretly wanted to be pooped on! LOL I read in a book when I was younger that it was good luck. So my friends you can thank me and my good luck for the lovely weather today:)


WOW!! 75 degrees!

     The seagulls and ducks were glad to see us again! Matthew and the girls I babysit love feeding the ducks.


     Matthew had a favorite. Of course it was one of the ugly ducks. It had a mohawk and an attitude. He was pretty cool!



This picture doesn't show how big the duck was! He came to Matthew's knees! See his mohawk?

      The kids were glad the groundhog did not see his shadow. We also made a groundhog craft. We painted cups brown and made a groundhog on a stick. The groundhog popped out of the cup looking for his shadow. They loved it! They really thought it was so nice today because he didn't see his shadow. Matthew asked if that meant school would get out early too. To bad it's going to be a high in the 40's tomorrow with rain. Brr Today was a tease! I can't wait for more 70 degree days.

     

Goals

     One of my goals for 2011 is to lose weight. I am proud to say one month later I lost 5 pounds in the month of January! I also cut extra salt out of my diet. That was hard! I have heard or read somewhere it takes 21 days to make something a habit. I used to salt food without even tasting it! Lots of salt. I needed to SEE the salt crystals on my food. Now I use other things such as Mrs. Dash and I am learning how to use other spices. I had a friend tell me about salt substitutes and to use sea salt instead of regular salt. That is suppose to be healthier. I didn't want to substitute my habit. I want to cut it out. I have learned I abuse salt. Sounds funny when I type it. BUT I have been using salt in an unhealthy way.
     Another goal I have is to read 40 books this year. I love to read but I have put this on the back burner. Text books for school, reading books to Matthew and the girls I babysit and reading Aspen's books (I will sometimes read her books just to see what she is reading) will not count toward my goal! I need to read books I want to read. So this month I have ............. 2 books toward my goal. I am a little behind but I did over come a reading hurdle. I have learned it is okay to walk away from a book. I was a few chapters into a book and found something incorrect in the book. I then had no desire to finish the book. I tried to keep reading because you have to finish what you started. After wasting a few nights I finally walked away from the book. It was a relief to be able to do that! I have forced myself through books in the past that I did not find interesting. I can't wait to be able to do it again! LOL
   For February I will continue working on losing weight. I will lose another 5 pounds this month. I will also read 3 books this month. In February I will send Valentine's cards to family with pictures of the kids and blog at least 3 times a week.