Manic Monday

Today is the first day of Zoo Camp for Two.  She's attended this camp three years in the past, and volunteers with the zoo a couple times a year.  It's a fun, fun place but this year I'm excited for her as she has moved up to "Zoo Teens" and will have more real zoo experiences. Two's life goal (at least for the last couple years...) has been to be a zoo keeper and work with exotic animals so this is a truly great experience for her.  It makes me insanely happy.

I have Zumba, and the three others will play in childcare while I do that.  It's nice because the instructor's daughter is in there, and she's the same age as Three.  Since The Bestie's son isn't in there right now, it's nice to have someone else in there.  And, I get to wear my new skirt.

I have been working on some projects over the weekend.  New chore charts for the big kids-I mentioned that I needed to shake up One's world.  And, it has made me realize that they REALLY should help out more.  My mother in law and I had a conversation once, since she's the mother of 5 she has good opinions on the subject of running a "large" family.  I told her that I consider it my job to do it well...and her response was that "CEO's don't run companies alone."  She was telling me to enlist the help of the girls, and that was a couple years ago.  I don't want to give them "too much" as I have seen far too many examples of large families using their big kids as maids and nannies, and I have some strong personal opinions on that.  More on Wordy Wednesday about what I've been working on.

I am getting myself back together...back to where I once was....back to where I long to be again.  I know this to be true because:  my bedroom is CLEAN, I packed Two's lunch for camp LAST NIGHT, I got the snacks ready for the boys to eat in childcare LAST NIGHT, and my kitchen was clean before I went to sleep.  Ahhh, Shauna...I've missed you.

Sunday Snapshots

Three has been very into measuring lately, here he is using a measuring tape to measure a stick.

Family Olympics:  Swimming race.  Two, Cousin J, and One.

Family Olympics:  Diving competition--Two, and Cousin J.

The making of the torches.

Here is Three "bringing in the torch."  I love this shot.  It makes me smile.  (Honestly, so does the fact that my living room was clean!) 

And, lastly a little sink/float action in the tub.  

Flashback Friday (on Saturday?)

So, I clearly lost a day this week.  I posted "Wordy Wednesday" on Thursday, and posted "Lazy Housewife" which is Thursday's post on Friday...I honestly didn't realize it until late last night, when it gave me a good laugh at myself.  The Punk's birthday was Tuesday, and as much, I "lost" Tuesday.  I got up, made him these amazing Key Lime Swirl Cheesecake Bars, and then we headed to The Bestie's house to drop off the kids.  We went to see Batman:  The Dark Knight Rises (awesome, in case you were wondering)  in the Imax theater.  Then we had dinner.  A dinner where we could sit next to each other....instead of having to divide and conquer the littles.  A dinner where we had conversation!  It was also awesome.  Then we went shopping.  Shopping without kids...ahh, bliss.  :)  I got to try on shoes without wanting to kill anyone.  The Punk bought me an exercise skort.  I've been wanting one, my Zumba instructor has one and it's cute.

We've had a good school week.  We made these olympic torches to mark the beginning of the games.  It's a variation of a link posted earlier in the week.  I didn't have tissue paper in the right colors, so I cut up construction paper instead.  It worked out fine.

And here is our chart to keep track of the medals "our" countries each win during the games.  The boys were very excited about it.  I mounted it on the side of the fridge, and I sincerely hope that Four doesn't destroy it.  I'll post updated pictures of this as the games go on.

Now that I have my days straight again, there will be more pictures in the Snapshot Sunday post tomorrow!  LOL

Lazy Housewife....

So, normally Thursday posts are about food.  Today,  I'm going to post an EASY dinner BUT then an olympic food link AND then I'm going to post some more Olympic stuff...'cause ya know, I'm obsessed, as are my children (parenting WIN right there.)

Your Lazy Housewife Dinner:  Crockpot Lasagna

Fun Olympic food:

http://hoosierhomemade.com/olympic-torch-cupcakes/  FTR, I won't be making these...but how cute are they??

I'm making this:

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/olympic_medal_chart.htm

The kids (well, three of them) picked a country.  One chose Canada, Two chose Brazil, Three chose United States, and I am taking the host country.

We did a torch craft, see yesterday's blog hop link for the craft we did.  I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Wordy Wednesday

Kids Bloggers Go Olympics  Awesome.  I am so excited about the Olympics!  It's insane.  I loveeee the summer olympics (I like the winter ones, too, but I prefer summer.)  I found this blog hop with different blog hosts giving ideas of things to do as the Olympics progress.  I'm over the moon.  I also realize I'm such a dork.  It's cool.

Olympic Ring Crafts has a few ideas as well.

Have some olympic fun with your kids today!  We'll be heading to the pool in a couple hours and we'll be having a diving competition and some races!  :)

Sunday Snapshots

I have a lot of snapshots this week, we hosted a "Messy Playdate,"  I shared the link a couple weeks ago.  We did several of the activities.  A blast was had.

Four loves swimming.  Baby fish.

Water colors.

Glow Sticks in the tub. (They are having a light saber fight here.)

We learned the characteristics of an insect.  And, did this butterfly craft.

Created a "habitat" for a plastic lizard.

He had a special yogurt treat.  He was super happy!

Spaghetti bin at our Messy Playdate!

Shaving cream fight (an addition to our messyplaydate.)

Sibling love....

This is The Bestie's eldest, with my big girls.  They had fun (even if The Bestie's daughter doesn't look like it. LOL)

Notice that they are all still armed (I forced them to pause for this picture...)  One, Two and a great friends One.  

Water Balloon bulls-eye, another addition to the messy playdate, an idea originated from my Summer Fun Pinterest Board.

The aftermath...thankfully, we had a great bunch of kids, and it cleaned up pretty easily with all those hands, and a hose.  *wink*

After the messy playdate (which was originally supposed to be for the WEE-ones, but I think the big kids gave them a run for their money-fun wise,) we took the Bigs skating.

Wordy Wednesday

This week, on my mind has been chores and schedules.

I'm running through in my brain our "fall" schedule.  I will have a student in EVERY level-one high schooler, one middle schooler, one elementary schooler, and a pre-schooler!  Holy.  Moses.

I've been looking online at high school transcripts, since, ya know...it counts now and stuff.  If I ever get around to buying the curriculum I really want, it will take a lot of the stress off me.  But, ya know, I've been wanting it for an entire year...so...we'll see if that happens.  *shrug*  Either way, I can handle it.  Cause, ya know, I rock.

I need to enforce a rule where my boy children CLEAN UP THEIR TOYS.  I always end up doing it, and I'm over that shit.  Scheduled into our day will be two clean up sessions, one before quiet time, and one before bed.  Possibly one more before dinner.  We'll see how it looks when I start trying to put everything on the schedule.  It's amazing to me how having it WRITTEN down some where makes it so in my world.  I'm so much more capable of discipline when their is a plan.

Two for Tuesday

Olympic Download

Olympic Unit

Snapshot Sunday

From my summer fun board on Pinterest



The chase is on....

Hitting himself in the face with the wet sponge, goof ball!

For quite time, I broke out this activity.  He LOVES it.  He's asked several times to play it, but I insist it stay a "quiet time" activity, this will hold his interest in it longer, making it seem special.  This is a Haba Pegboard.

Lazy Housewife

For dinner tonight....

Best Burger Recipe;  Changes I made:  I caramelized onions instead of using the onion powder.  I used a mix of ground beef and ground turkey because that's what I have in the freezer (we buy both at BJ's then mix them together.)  I don't think I had 2 lbs of meat, so they had a hard time staying together, since I didn't adjust the amount of bbq sauce (D'oh.)  Just the larger ones crumbled, the medium/smallish ones stayed together just fine.  Lesson learned.

Did my crew think these were the best burgers ever?

They got rave reviews!  I tweaked Four's burger (ya know, all those damned allergies!) but he got cheese, caramelized onions, salt and pepper and declared his burger the best ever!  This makes a mama happy.  The Punk and the other kids thought they were YUM-O!  We'll def do these again.

I also made homemade "fries."  Just cut up your potatoes, toss them in a bowl with salt, pepper, olive oil and bake on a cooling rack.  :)  Simple, and yummy.

Two For Tuesday

Play At Home Mom

Kindergarten Common Skills

Manic Monday

Summer is making my Monday's not so manic.  :)  It's nice.

My Zumba instructor is on vacay this week, so there was no class today which allowed me to spend some time at the park with people I really like (you know what I mean...there are always people you spend time with that you don't REALLY like.)  I hope they read that...lol

TMI:  Today is the 2nd day of my period, and it's been atrocious.  I had to will myself out of bed this morning, as my body kept insisting that NO we did not need to get up.  I spent time at the park, came home, had lunch, put Four down for a nap and collapsed into bed.  I took some meds, and feel better this afternoon.  I have been eating horribly as well...I made funfetti cupcakes for the kids (yeah, for the kids *wink wink*) on Friday and well...I think I've eaten more than all of them combined.  You shouldn't make cupcakes when you have PMDD, just FYI.

Anway...since I've been eating so badly, I knew I needed to work out, but look back at the info I've given you about how I felt today...it was not really something I want to do.  But, we were just talking at the park about being fit and losing weight, so I felt doubly bad about it.  Honestly, I'm 5 lbs from my goal, and it is SOLELY because I work out-especially when I don't want too.  I have zero will power when it comes to food, so I KNOW I have to work my ass off-literally.  I'm in a size 4 for the first time in a decade, and almost to the weight I want to be at.

So, what's a girl to do when she really doesn't want to work out but NEEDS to burn calories?  Tabata to the Rescue.

http://www.shape.com/fitness/cardio/tabata-4-minute-fat-burning-miracle-workout

It's 4 minutes.  I did it.  YOU can do it.  Now.