Lots of stuff to report – some big, some small, all in pictures:

The mystery object: Logan came home on Thursday afternoon and told me that he was the first one to guess “the mystery object”. His teacher put a paper punch in this small black zipper pouch and then gave the kids three clues to guess what it was. Logan, who was the first to raise his hand with the answer, got to take the pouch home and put something new inside. I’m assuming they keep doing the game until everyone has a chance to take it home and write down clues. Logan chose a fishing bobber.

While Logan was at school on Friday, the younger boys and I had a massive craft day. We did play-doh, then painted with fruit and acrylic paint (Aiden’s idea – which required a trip to the grocery store), painted more with water colors and then later I made Aiden some sidewalk paint out of cornstarch, water and food color (so fun!). Here is our fruit painting (below). It actually doesn’t work well to stamp fruit with paint as opposed to with ink, but I was a bit hesitant to let the boys use my craft stampers so…they just smeared the fruit around a bit. It was still fun!

Aiden ended up painting this cool Alien guy:

Then he did some words with water colors (did I mention that Aiden is now reading some basic hooked on phonics books??!) What he wanted to write was “snake”. He wrote “snac”. I explained how he was phonetically correct and that it was a great job, then I reminded him, “how there are two letters that say the ku sound” so he added the K and ended up with snack. Great writing and sounding out of words either way!

On Sunday, I had to run some errands for school cloths while Brian took Logan and Aiden to urgent care (more on that later). Logan needed a couple new pairs of jeans so we went to Children’s Place….where Brady spied a dog Halloween costume. The costumes were 25% off and I had another 25% off in coupons so I went ahead and bought it (he begged and begged, hugged it and basically refused to let go). HYSTERICAL! It’s meant for an 18-24 month old…that’s the biggest size they make in this particular one, but we just don’t hook it under the legs and it works. Hopefully he won’t change his mind last minute like he did last year!

Oh I wish I could have a video of this picture. He “shakes” his tail and wiggles his booty – tooooo funny!!

This is Logan on the couch after he got back from Urgent Care. Mommy and Daddy had a date night Saturday. While we were gone, Logan thought it would be fun to jump out of the playhouse window. (heart attack!) He couldn’t walk Sunday morning so Brian took him to make sure we weren’t dealing with a break. We highly doubted it since there was minimal swelling, no bruising and he wasn’t dying of pain, but he couldn’t bear weight so we wanted to be sure. The doctor confirmed that it was a sprain and needed what we were already doing: ibuprofen, elevation, ice and a wrap. He missed school on Monday because he still couldn’t walk, but he hobbled there today and it feeling much better.

He got this fun sticker and his very first (non tooth) X-ray.

All of the foot drama eclipsed the super fun and exciting news that Logan lost his first upper tooth (3 lost in total) Sunday morning. It’s hard to see in this picture, but the one on the right is gone.

Have you ever seen a group of children literally run to school? So much so that the parents have to yell to slow down so they can keep up? Have you ever seen a group of said school children be escorted by a rowdy crew of 5 other siblings who wanted to run just as fast? Here are 2 pictures of just such a scene:

 

Please slow down – I need to take some pictures people….memories to last a life time, people!!!! Check out the new “messenger bag” Logan requested this year. It’s got LMH on it as does his spiffy new, matching, lunch box.

 

And now rewind to the breakfast scene – who knew I would have another use for a “1” candle? We sang “happy first grade to you”. Logan wanted to know why the card had no money in it. Um….because I clearly don’t have to pay you to go to school when you RUN and dismiss your mommy the second you see your new classroom door. Love it!!!! Go Logan – you rock with your, “ain’t afraid of having fun and I’m outta here to get smart” attitude!!!

 

He read all the words on the front of the card (basically) by himself!

See the candle on the french toast? What could be more festive? ;0)

One more rewind to last night. Brian said I packed too much food! I actually had to re-pack some of it this morning because I was so eager to get everything ready “just so” that I didn’t put the lunch box in the fridge…I put it his backpack – overnight!! I also took out 1 or 2 things this morning after I let him pick what he wanted…plus I wasn’t sure if they have snack time. God forbid I let my child starve! The note went in his lunch as well as: a small mirror, a container of 2 baby wipes and some hand sanitizer. Love my little messy eater!! I gave him instructions to check his face and wipe it off after lunch cause I’m not there to do it anymore.

Brian even documented me writing the note!

It’s not secret that we love cooking and eating around here. This past Sunday’s activities, for example, were basically molded around what we were eating for dinner. It started simple (one dish)….and then got out of control as things tend to do when daddy’s culinary mind starts a churning (tapas – perfect!). We hit: Costco, Cost Plus and Whole Foods for supplies. Top that off with a little basil from our (terrible disaster of a) garden (that basically ONLY produced basil) and we were set. Back at the 554, and after a mandatory cleaning dictated by mom who knew a kitchen disaster was eminent and wanted dishwasher space, we pumped up the tunes and got to work. The boys wandered in from time to time to help with: the home-made salad dressing, balling melons, testing bacon, pouring in ingredients for a zucchini cake <—my only real contribution. Logan even ran down the street to borrow some flour. He literally dumped 1/2 of it on our friend’s driveway coming back, but it was still helpful ;0)

So here are some gorgeous pics of what we ate…try not to drool on your keyboard

 

1st course: salad

Mixed Greens, Blueberries, Toasted almonds, jicama (a new ingredient we wanted to try) with poppy-seed dressing and goat cheese

Little men “taste testing” goat cheese

2nd course: Cantaloupe with bacon and agave syrup. We’ve had this before with honey…same yummy factor

3rd course: Shrimp crostini with pesto sauce (home-made with basil from the garden) and a tomato relish

4th course: seared scallops with a corn and bacon cream sauce….oh delicious…posting this is making me want to eat this all over again! Can you believe that we had have like 2 lamb things in the fridge that we didn’t even cook because we were all bursting!?

5th course: Dessert – Chocolate Lava Zucchini Cake (because we had some zucchinis that needed to be used) with strawberry shortcake ice cream (because Brady picked the ice cream and it was in a red package). I actually made muffins with the remaining batter (minus the chocolate hidden inside which makes the “lava”) and let the boys eat them yesterday. For a cake, this one is pretty healthy. I found a recipe that uses Agave Syrup instead of sugar. That along with the olive oil & zucchini makes it as acceptable as banana bread I would think ;)

This all reminds me that the treadmill needs some of my attention!!

I wish I could be posting about our big “summer vacation” (a long weekend…3 whole weeks ago, at a lake, for a wedding), but I just went through all the pictures and there are just gobs and gobs of them. Instead, I will post about today – the last day of summer vacation, at least for Logan. The younger boys still have 2 weeks…exactly. I had thought about doing something fun to end our summer together…like driving downtown and going to the beach and the Lincoln Park Zoo… or maybe a man-made beach and pool area near us. I wasn’t too diligent about checking the weather though. It’s pouring outside – thunder, lightning, the whole 9 yards. A quick consultation with daddy fun, who was heading back to his office from the airport after finding that his flight was cancelled to Michigan due to weather, produced the idea of a late afternoon movie (why didn’t I know that Spy Kids 4 was out? Where have I been…mother of 3 boys?! I shake my head in shame). I sat the boys down for a quick “change of plans” discussion as a text came in from our friends down the street. Sam, who is the oldest of 3, Logan’s total buddy and his classmate this upcoming school year, wanted to know if the boys would like to come down in PJs before the rain started in earnest. They jumped (literally…from the table where they were having breakfast) and ran down the street taking their uneaten toast with them. I in turn invited Same to come with us to the movie later. So now I have some free time…to blog, to finish laundry, to do the dishes….to inventory school cloths

 

Found some yummy chocolate peanut butter at Cost Plus the other day – shockingly, they love it on toast ;)

Run boys – rain’s a comin!

I hate massive rain on garbage day…I’m sure the garbage men do too!

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, we went with Brian’s family to the wedding of a family friend in Greenlake, WI – total blast – lots of hanging out, having fun, playing on the beach, boating etc. There are only 4 million pics to sort through so, in the meantime, here is a tidbit from last week.

The boys have been in summer camp for the past few weeks (Tues / Thurs only). Brady goes in the morning while the older boys go from 9:15 until 3:15. Last Thursday, I picked up Brady and told him I would treat him to a McDonald’s smoothie for lunch. He said he wanted “strawberry” so I drove through and ordered the strawberry / banana. Upon delivery, he started crying and wailing, claiming that it had seeds in it. I was simultaneously confused and not-at-all surprised. He’s had this smoothie before and liked it, but he does normally order the berry one. Also, raspberry jelly was recently boycotted in our house due to seed content. Feeling bad, I swung through the line again and got him a berry smoothie instead. Shockingly, delivery of the berry smoothie into the back seat only served to increase the crying. I started to get frustrated. Once he calmed down and explained the source of his woes, I understood completely: he was planning on having a Frozen Strawberry Lemonade. Unfortunately, right or wrong, I’m OK with smoothies for lunch, but not the frozen lemonade which I liken to a slushy in nutritional value. After an attempt to explain my position to Mr. Sweet Tooth, I ignored all cries and suggested that he try one or both of his smoothies while I continued on to our next stop, the grocery store. He finally managed to calm down and asked to take BOTH of his drinks inside the cart (which was awesome…because it had 2 (!) cup holders….fun, fun, fun for the double-fister!). They disappeared as we shopped. Crisis averted.

Brady at the grocery store