Shawn's Flat Stanley Project

Shawn's class had to do a Flat Stanley project over spring break. If you are not familiar with Flat Stanley, Flat Stanley is a childrens book where the main character gets flattened by a billboard. He's not hurt though and is able to travel around the world in an envelope. So Shawn had to color and cut out his own Flat Stanley and send it to someone in a different town so Flat Stanley could see the sights. Shawn chose to send his Flat Stanley to his cousins Jeremy and Chris. They did a great job taking pictures and showing Flat Stanley the sights in Ocean City, MD. We almost didn't have enough room to show all the pictures! First they took Flat Stanley to Assateague Island to see the wild ponies. I was jealous because even though I've grown up my entire life in MD and went to Ocean City at least once a year, I've never been to Assateague. I may make that a mission when I go up in June. After Assateague, they took Flat Stanley to the boardwalk and buried him in the sand, lol. They took him to see a new firefighter memorial which looked pretty neat. They have a piece of metal from one of the world trade center towers in NY along with a statue of a firefighter. The piece of metal is very powerful and really makes you remember that day! Then they took Flat Stanley to Home Depot and Dunkin Donuts before taking him to the Berlin Fire Department to end their tour. We are so grateful for Jeremy and Chris to help us out with Shawn's project and of course their mother, Kandi, who took the pictures and drove them around. Thanks guys! Shawn was really excited to see the pictures and we had fun making the poster. Shawn made the title on the poster, helped place a few of the pictures, and made all the labels on the label maker and placed them on the poster himself. It turned out really good and he was so proud. Here's a couple pictures we took before we turned in the project (I had to use flip pages to get all the pictures on there so unfortunately all the pictures aren't shown). Enjoy!

Garden update

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I have no excuse but I'm going to blame Facebook, LOL. Anyway, I thought it was time to share some new garden pictures and report on our progress. Let me first say that we are beginners. I have no idea what I'm doing with this garden; just kind of winging it. The first tomato plant is looking pretty good. It finally has 3 little blooms on it so we hope to see little tomatoes soon. The second tomato plant was transplanted and it doesn't look as healthy as the first one but it keeps growing anyway so we'll see. My green bean plants started off looking the healthiest of them all but something started eating the leaves in the last 2 weeks. I seriously have to spray them with the organic insect spray my friends husband recommended. They do have lots of green beans on them though so I think we had success with this plant. I'll have to let you know how they tasted since I haven't pulled any off yet. My carrots look like they are doing pretty good. I have a few scallions that look like they are healthy. I used to have more but don't know what happened to them...something ate them maybe? The two types of lettuce I planted never germinated. Neither did the oregano or basil. I planted some beets later than everything else and I have a few things growing in the square I planted them in but I have no idea if they are beets or weeds, lol. I'll give it a little longer to see how they look. We also have a marigold plant that Shawn brought home in a little paper cup from school. It looked pitiful but we planted it anyway and we finally have a flower! Here's what the garden looks like now:

The small blooms on our tomato plant

Lots of green beans!

Shawn's marigold plant and a close up of the lone flower

Pool time

The weather has been really nice for the past few weeks now. Several times I have considered taking the kids to the pool because it was definitely that hot out. However, our pool is not heated so I was a little hesitant but yesterday I decided to brave it and take a chance. You know what? It wasn't that bad. Yes the water was a little chilly but it was bearable and you got used to it pretty quick. I'm so excited!!! I really want to spend lots of time in the pool. It wears the kids out and I don't have to think about how to keep them occupied. There is less fighting too so that's a plus. Just in time for Spring Break!!! Now I just need to buy Joshua some new bathing suits because his are a little small. He can still wear them until we get some new ones though.

Things are growing

Last year during the fall, Don and I decided we wanted to grow some veggies. Neither one of us have ever had a garden before but I was determined to grow something. The cost of fruit and veggies at the store was getting ridiculous and unless you buy organic, you don't really know what's been sprayed and what you're eating. Since our yard isn't very big, we decided to do a square foot garden. We got everything set up last fall but then never planted anything :(

Well now it's spring and thanks to my friend Julie's husband David, we knew what to plant and got a few things into the ground. I'm so excited because I really didn't have high expectations for this planting season since it's our first time but we have a few things popping up. I just hope I can keep them alive until we can harvest our bounty. Here's a few pictures of our progress:

Shawn's second birthday party...picture heavy

Well Shawn's birthday party was a success! We had about 8 kids show up plus a brother and a friend of my cousin. The kids had a ball!!! I highly recommend having a party at Oakfield Lanes. It was so cheap compared to other places we have looked at in the past. Best part is you only pay for how many bowlers are there instead of paying for say 15 bowlers and then only 9 show up, you pay for 9 instead of the 15 you made a reservation for. The party was 2 hours long and the shoes were included plus pizza and drinks and we only paid around $120 (we ordered extra pizza and drinks). Here are a few pictures from his party:

Shawn's Batman Cake

We had quite a few balls going backwards, lol

The end of the soccer season

Yesterday was Shawn's last soccer game of the season. It's bitter sweet. I love him playing soccer and he has so much fun but it gets old going to practice twice a week and then a game on Saturday especially when I'm the one that has to take him. Of course Joshua is bored out of his mind while we are there too which makes my job even harder. So it's the end of soccer until next fall/winter. Shawn's team colors are turquoise and navy blue so I went out and bought some blue spray hair color. We brought the can with us in case anyone else wanted their hair blue. At first, only one other boy wanted to color his hair. After they were practicing for a while, another boy decided to color his hair. So we had 3 players out of 8 with blue hair. Then the assistant coach's son (age 3)wanted his hair colored but would only do it if his dad did it. I guess that's all it took because at half time, the rest of the team came running over and wanted their hair colored. I should have bought 2 cans because we ran out before all the kids got their hair colored. So we ended up with 6 out of 8 players, the assistant coach, Joshua and the assistant coach's son all with blue hair, lol. Here are some pictures from the game:

Joshua with his blue mohawk

After the game, eating cupcakes and watching Coach open his card.

Blue icing to match the blue hair.

Handing out the trophies.

Last team picture.

Klutz

I'm such a klutz! This morning when Don went to wake up Shawn for school, he told me that it smelled like poop in their room. Well, I thought the whole house stunk and had a hard time believing it was seeping out of the kids room, lol. I even made Don take out the trash because I wasn't convinced that's where the smell was coming from. At 8am, Joshua was still sleeping which isn't like him at all and I didn't want his schedule to get screwed up so I woke him up. OMG, the smell coming from that room. I can't believe Don said he THOUGHT he smelled poop. Anyway, I change Joshua's diaper and when I was in the process of throwing the diaper away I got a whiff and that was all it took to start the gagging. I almost threw up...had to go out to the garage for fresh air, lol. When I came back inside, I grabbed some air freshener and went right to the bedroom and started spraying. I was walking backwards not paying attention to where I was going when I walked into a step stool in the hallway (it's normally in the bathroom, not sure what it was doing in the hallway but I'm blaming Don, lol) and started falling backwards so I put my left arm down to break my fall. Oh the pain. I did something to it but not sure what. I didn't go to the doctors because after it happened, I was still able to move my arm. I couldn't bend it all the way without it hurting but I could move it in almost all directions and could bend it most of the way. I figured it wasn't broken so what would the doctors be able to do anyway. Well now it really hurts. I can barely move it. I'm kind of regretting not going to the doctors but I'm going to stick it out this weekend and if it still hurts on Monday then I will make an appointment. Not sure how I'm going to blow dry my hair in the morning.