Monday, February 16, 2015

A Wonderful Long weekend

Our weekend started early, and really, isn't that the best kind?   The boy's had their Valentine's Parties at school on Friday afternoon, so I had reserved my mother in law to watch Jacob while we both participated in the school parties.   Then I'd taken on Piper.   And when discussing the gig, she offered to take her on the 13th in advance, so Eric and I could still help out at school.

I forget if I'd mentioned this before, that Eric and I are Co-Room Parents for the boys classes.   We agreed back in the fall, since we'd be off for the parties anyway, if we could round up a third party to Jacob sit, then we could go to the class parties.  One of us would go to 3rd grade, and the other to kindergarten for the Christmas party, and then at Valentine's we'd switch.



This time I got to go to Christopher's class.  Third Graders are something else! 
God Bless those teachers.  There were a couple kids who were so disrespectful they were talking like teenagers.  All of a sudden, they went from 8 to 18! Nope, I didn't like it.  
But I did like their teacher.  He commanded their attention, in a loving way.   They didn't always talk respectfully, but if their teacher got stern, they snapped to it.   It was a great class.  We divided into groups. We had the snack station, a card/flower station, and a game/bingo station.  And we just swapped out every 20 minutes.   I brought strawberries, and sparkling grape juice, and pretzels.  Another parent brought chocolate covered strawberries.  It was rather special to have the sparkling drinkies in class.  I'd even found those plastic wine glasses.  Way cute.  I got beads for prizes at the bingo game.  Mr. J put them all on and distributed as necessary.  He was cracking me up.   


I manned the craft station - we made Bling Rings.  This was mine, an upside down hershey's kiss, wrapped in pipe cleaners, and wrapped around a finger like a big clunky ring.  The kids all got a kick out of it.  I was worried the boys wouldn't like it.  But they did.  Chocolate is everybody's favorite kind of jewelry! 

After school, we came home to find that though Jacob hadn't napped, Piper did, and she had gone home already.   We invited the Julius family over to play.  They brought heart shaped pizza.


I love having pizza from Monical's.  
Lots of yummies, and we played, and the kids played and it was fabulous. 
The kids were so good together, they let us play half a game of Shanghai Rummy.
The kids played in the basement for a while.  Then they curled up and watched tv with Jacob.  


Turns out everybody loves Yo Gabba Gabba and Octonauts, just like he does.  


 After our friends had to hit the road, we got the kids all dolled up in their winter jammies and put them to bed.  Miles to go before they slept.


But they actually slept in a bit.  They must've been Worn Out!  
And we made a special holiday breakfast.  


No holiday is complete without honey flakey biscuit egg sandwiches.  


Daddy opened his present - a Young Living USB diffuser for his computer at work. 
I got him some oils to help - RC for breathing, Peppermint, and Orange for focus.  These should perk him up, as hard as he's been working.  He seemed happy about it, I'm excited to hear how this diffuser works.  


For each other we got a new coffeemaker, and a new coffee grinder. 
The old one had died.  
But if you get a Daddy a coffeemaker for Valentine's Day, he's gonna need some coffee to go with it.  I found Meijer had bulk beans, including my new favorite Michigan Cherry.  Yeah baby. 
My house smells GOOD when that stuff is brewing.  


The boys got a Cars table.  Literally, it's Disney/Pixar Cars.  
And it has holes in the table where they can drop Hot Wheels (or Cars cars) into the center of the table, and watch as they shoot out down a ramp and across the floor.  It's a big hit! 


There were also chocolates and light up pens for the boys.  
Chris liked the pen. :) 


Chris and Jacob just played for a while. Together. 
Played Cars.  Played swordfight with their lightup pens.  They just played, together, and it was good.
It was unusual, a first, but a great first.


This was my present from Eric. 
He had to hunt pretty hard to find me a rack for my oils for our bathroom.  He wanted it to be less than 12 inches wide, so that he could fit it on the bulkhead next to my sink.  It worked!  

The boys decided they really didn't feel like doing much fancy for Valentine's.  I thought they'd like to go to the Museum. Maybe go to Steak-n-Shake for dinner?  Nope they wanted just hang out at home all day and play.  OK.  That's fine too. 


Actually, Christopher wanted to read.  He was almost done with the third Harry Potter book. 


Sunday morning, the boys were singing with the other Sunday school youth. 
Pastor is going on sabattical this spring, so we're going to be doing a Ancient Greece/Paul's times, VBS for the whole church to learn about it.   And the kids are getting a head start, doing greek dances and some songs that sound very Greek.  


They actually got to sing at all three services.   They did a Great Job!



They sang about Loving your neighbor as yourself.  


Eric said he got really dizzy watching this dance.  I could totally understand why! 


When they went to sing for the Grace contemporary service, I had a better place to stand. ;)


They were so cute singing at both services.  It's easy to spot the boys in their matching red sweaters. 


I put the boys in matching sweaters on purpose, so they are easy for me to spot.  
But as it turns out, it's not easy for others.  Sunday night, the church had a Valentine's Party for the kids at the church.  It was a dropoff thing, so that Eric and I could go for a date, from 5-8, all by ourselves!  They took all three kiddos and played with them, sugared them up ;) , and gave them back.  It was Awesome!  


Eric and I decided to make the most of our Valentine's date night, and we drove down to Greenwood to Thai Spice.  It's been so cold lately, sunny, but stone cold, all we wanted is some good Tom Yum soup.  I love that fresh limey and lemongrass taste, with just a bit of heat.   Oh yeah.  
Some thought we were crazy for going far, but we did.  And it was Good. 


It was a Harry Potter weekend! 
Chris finished the book, and we watched the movie.  And then both big boys just Had to play the video game too. They spent most of Monday doing that.  Sam hadn't seen the movie, but it didn't matter, he digs a good video game. 


Sorry, no one can take this kid serious.  
But this was what he was doing, while his Bows (brothers) were playing video games.  

Meanwhile, I broke out the camera, and did some picture taking in manual, of the beautiful bouquet of roses that Eric got me for Valentine's Day.  


This was a beautiful red/orange rose that opened up on Sunday morning.  Still Gorgeous Monday.  


Lo, roses ere blooming. 


What a beautiful bouquet. 
And a beautiful weekend.  

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