On Friday Jacob's folder from school had a brown paper bag in it with a note attached asking us to find some leaves over the weekend and send them in to school on Monday. Apparently they've been learning a lot about trees and leaves lately and are going to be making "leaf man."
Let the hunt collecting begin!
Within the first minute his bag was pretty much full. Full of the same kind of brown leaves.
And he spotted acorns!
These aren't brown, mom!
See!
We made it around the circle with an overflowing, ripped bag..make that 2 overflowing, ripped bags for us since Zach collected his own too.
A few hours later and all the leaves ended up covering my dining room table. I picked through them, put some in a new bag to send to school with Jacob, and tossed the rest onto the deck!
I gave the boys each haircuts today. Jacob says he looks like a new boy. Zach doesn't care what his looks like which is good since he wouldn't sit still and it's a bit crooked! Nothing a little hair gel won't take care of though. :-)
I was down 4 pounds this morning! woo-hoo!! The first week is always the best... then it slows down. As long as the numbers continue to drop I'm good with it!
Some friends of ours and us had each purchased a groupon for a family ride on the Wilmington & Western Railroad.. as the deal was nearing its expiration we decided it needed to be used and thought the Hayride Express would be a fun one to ride. Jen called to make the reservations for all of us and it turned out that the hayride was sold out but the lady said we could ride on the open air car (which was fine with us! I wasn't really wild about sitting on an itchy bale of hay for an hour anyway!). We got there, got our tickets, and the lady said "thats your car right there." Maybe she thought we were confused about which was the "open air car"...of course, the only 3 options were hay car, caboose, and the other car...so it was obvious. Well, we climbed aboard and waited for the ride to start...when the woman had said before "that's your car" she really meant it was our car. We were the only people on it! We had our own private car for the 7pm trainride. How nice! We all had a good time and then enjoyed ice cream afterwards! (even the sleepy kids perked up for ice cream!)
My attempts at getting pictures...
Can you figure out who's missing (other than Jen and myself)?
it's Josh!
There he is!!!
He was worried the conductor was going to blow the whistle so he wouldn't move closer. Jen even went so far as to have the conductor tell him he wasn't going to blow it, he still wouldn't move!
So, we changed the picture a little!
Someone else is missing though...
Josh still had his ears covered...but we were still missing one...
Noah!!!
Now we've got everyone but the mom's in the picture...but getting 7 guys and 1 little lady to look at the camera and all smile is just not happening!
starting to lose them.. .. ..
and that was it for this pose!
Jacob wants to punch someone.
Josh and Zach are cute as can be and still smiling.
Something else caught Daniel's attention.
Andrew must be thinking "what am I doing here with all of them?"
And Mike, well, all I can figure is between the 7 of you guys something happened that smelled unpleasant. But you're guys so it's a normal thing.
Inside our car...
The ride hadn't started yet.. they moved around a lot after this picture!
I think they might've sat on every bench!
Jacob and Andrew having a discussion about something...
And then there's Josh and Zach...though I'm not sure which is which!
This was definitely something we'll do again!
On another note, I've started doing Weight Watchers again to lose some weight!
I just started on Thursday and Sundays are my weigh in days so we'll see how my first few days have been tomorrow!
We received this picture in the mail today from Daniel's cousin:
I was expecting it so I didn't tear up right away. This is Daniel's grandma, doing one of the things she loved most of all, fishing.
I opened it up and showed it to the boys, they remembered who it was (I wasn't sure since the last time they saw her was Mother's Day). Zach looked at me and said "Did she send this picture to us from heaven?" I had to turn around and gather myself together before I could look at him and respond. Once I explained to them both that this picture was taken before she went to heaven and someone mailed us a copy of it Jacob's question was "Does she go fishing in heaven?" You can bet I gave him a big smile and said of course!! I'm not sure how well they understand death, well, they understand that people die and go to heaven but I know they don't quite get the finality of it. They're starting to understand better that when people die we don't get to see them again until we go to heaven. They'll say things to me like "Mom, you can't wait to go to heaven so you can see Great Grandpa Gibson again." As little as they are, they know how much I miss him. It's those times that I don't really know what to say to them other than "You're right boys, I can't wait to go to heaven to see Great Grandpa again but I want to be here with you guys more than anything right now."
It's been 2 months since Daniel's grandma passed away and just like my grandpa Gibson, I think of her all the time. I've got to get some pictures together of our grandparents and frame them.
On a less tearful note, I have the sweetest children in the world.
Zach leaned into the stroller and talked to Emily the whole walk home.
She just cooed and smiled at him.
They just make me so happy. (Jacob too but he was still at school!)
Zach has been on blue everyday this week at school. (Thursday and Friday of last week too..so 5 days in a row! Talk about a proud mama!! Jacob was on blue yesterday too!)
We had open house tonight at the Elementary school the boys attend. As we were walking down the hall to Jacob's class a teacher in the hallway saw the boys and said "it's the wing-shoe brothers!" Apparently thats what they're known as at the school. Thanks, Annie! The wings are making them well known...and not for anything bad! Maybe I'll remember to take a picture of them with them on tomorrow...maybe!!
We tried the bumbo seat out again with Emily. She was much happier this time than last!! (Though she was done after about 10 minutes!
Pretty sure she's thinking "hurry up and take the picture mom so you can get me outta here!"
Zach was as always, very helpful and putting the toys where he thought she'd like them best!!
Zach asked to take a few pictures with my camera and I let him! (I know, I get nervous handing my DSLR camera to Daniel but I let my 4 year old use it.) Here's a few of his pictures.
My kitchen floor...glad it looks sort of clean!!!
Part of the living room.
The living room floor with what he calls his "homework." Notice Woof-Woof off in the distance watching. Once again, my floor looks pretty stinkin' clean! I've been trying hard lately to keep it picked up...and made sure to bug the kids even more about picking up their stuff! I'm coming up with a new organizational plan for the toy room. Then the rule will be one bin at a time and it has to be picked up before you can get another out!!! (Or else the toy room will become my sunroom and will have no toys in it. . .)
We had such a fun-filled, busy weekend! One of the boys' friends, Andrew, (that we met through t-ball) was celebrating his 6th birthday on Saturday. We joined him and his family and friends at a really fun place for kids, xbos, for his party! The boys had a blast!!!
This place is like a super giant McDonald's playland, only less dirty and more fun!
They LOVED the slide. Zach and his friend, Josh.
That was fun!
and pretty speedy!
Jacob and Andrew went down face first.
This is how they landed everytime!
Jacob got up before a collision happened!
Back up they go!
and back down they slide!
goofy kids!
perspective of how big this place is! That would be Josh climbing up one of the levels...his mom quickly insisted he climb down but I made sure to get his picture!
At the top of this side! There was a super twisty, super tall slide on the other side too!
boom!
We're thinking about having a little gathering for the boys here. We try to do something for them (combined) up here for their friends to celebrate and this would be fun. Only problem is it's about a 45 minute drive. There's a place a little closer that I'll have to think about too (although it's a little bit smaller).
After we left the party we headed to the St. Hedwig Polish Festival in Wilmington, DE. It's more of a carnival with a tent with polish food than a Polish festival. Anyways, we enjoyed yummy polish food and then the boys and Daniel enjoyed sliding down a super giant slide twice before we scurried off to the car watching dark skies move over. Pretty soon after we got in the car the rain moved in! Go figure I had a load of diapers outside drying and wasn't home when it started raining. My neighbors weren't home either!!!
Sunday we recovered from the fun we had on Saturday and Daniel finished installing a motion sensor light on our garage to keep whoever was sitting in our driveway a few nights ago out. (One of our neighbors saw someone and shooed them away..we were sound asleep.)
Emily has been as cute as ever--
She is sooooo alert! She's doing amazing holding her head up and wanting to lean forward (hasn't figured out that once she starts to go forward she just keeps on going!). Did I mention she hates everything to do with the car seat? Both of the boys went through a phase where they hated the car seat but I don't remember it being this early!! I normally set her in the carseat when we go to get the boys and snap it into the stroller (don't buckle her in though). She screamed all 3 attempts today of putting her in it and pushing her to the school. I carried her home and pushed the stroller after dropping the boys off this morning.. and then carried her half the way when going to get Zach this afternoon. I'm thinking in the morning I'm going to try just putting her in the stroller with the seat reclined a little. Hopefully she'll tolerate that! She has really enjoyed riding in the Ergo Baby carrier lately (thanks, Sarah!!) which is comfy for both of us and a nice break from the stroller. By the way, car rides aren't any better! She screams and screams and screams! (Then of course she falls asleep when we're about a minute away from where we're going and wakes up as soon as the car stops! Good thing she's so cute!)
From this afternoon:
(I know, I move too much!)
Once we got home from school we loaded into the car and headed to the dentist's office. The boys both had a cleaning scheduled and they did fantastic!
After his cleaning! I was in the room with him and said "I'm gonna go check on your brother." My bag was in the room with Jacob-I grabbed my phone and headed back to the room with Zach in it and he was already finished and out of the chair! So, I missed taking any pictures of him getting his teeth cleaned with the dentist. Lucky little man, the dentist cleans his teeth. I thought it would only be that way for his very first cleaning but nope, every single one has been with the dentist!
One of the hygienists always does Jacob's teeth. The same one that does mine! (You'd think I'd remember her name but nope, I don't!)
Jacob did great also and didn't have any cavities either. His 6 year molars are starting to come through and his bottom teeth are starting to get wiggley! When the dentist came in I informed her that I was not going to be the tooth puller of the family! I figure I do enough and shouldn't need to add tooth puller to the list!!! (but I guess I'd rather be the tooth puller than stink bug remover..speaking of stink bugs...there's one in the bathroom that Daniel needs to take care of!!!
Overall, we've had a pretty fun past few days!
Our night ended with ice cream from Rita's since Zach got on blue today as well as Friday!
So, Zach said he was fine with his new blue scooter last night. . . today after school he was sitting on the floor with his scooter next to him and he said "I really wish my scooter was red." I felt awful because I really thought the one we bought last night was red. He agreed that we should go back to the store and see if they had a red one..and if they didn't he said he'd be fine with the blue one (but he was really hoping for a red one!).
Well, guess what?
They had one! (and you can bet we opened the box to make sure before leaving the store!)
The excitement on his face when I told him it was red was priceless.
(Though he wasn't exactly thrilled with me when I made him eat his lunch before putting it together.)
He rode it the entire way to school to pick Jacob up.
(Daniel met us at the school and the boys both jumped in the truck with him.)
scooting in the driveway.
Don't you swing with a helmet on?
Daniel pointed out a cicada exoskeleton to the boys. Then I got to teach them about how bugs don't have bones like people but a harder shell called an exoskeleton to protect them--unless a little boy steps on them. Then they go scrunch.
Jacob asked to take a few pictures...
Daniel was working on clearing out the area at the front corner of our yard that was covered in poison ivy up until recently. My dad started tackling the poison ivy 3 months ago with roundup. All of the poison ivy at the bottom was wilting away but the top still seemed to be thriving (the tree, not so much) so Daniel tackled the vines growing up the tree. I wish I would've taken a picture of the tree trunk; it was covered in big, thick, furry looking vines--thats how old the poison ivy was. That took care of all of the poison ivy at the top of the tree! I didn't take an after picture from tonight but he got the rest of the vines near the bottom of the tree ripped off, stripped the little holly bush (that is being removed) and cleared out the area on the road where there's a drain that was covered in dirt, leaves, and whatever else landed there. Daniel suggested we plant some bulbs after he gets it all cleaned up!
Now it was Zach's turn with the camera. Emily's in her favorite place and has really started to enjoy the ergo baby carrier. She slept in it all the way to get Zach and then fell asleep in it as we were walking to get Jacob. (not only did she fall asleep in it, she slept in it for 1.5 hours..then I woke her up to feed her since we were going to our neighbors for dinner!)
This time Jacob said "Daddy, say "ARRGH!!!"
Pretty sure this was a team effort. Zach gave me the dandelion and told me to make a wish while Jacob took the picture. Daniel can thank me later for spreading dandelion seeds all over the yard!
We headed over to the Rubinstein's house for our monthly dinner get together with them and the Longeways. I took my camera and took all of 2 pictures--both of Abby. This is my favorite of the 2...
She said Emily was making silly faces at her so I told her to make silly faces back. Her mom and dad agreed that this picture was her in a nutshell!
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