Per usual, I’ve let the blogging slip. I haven’t stopped taking pictures though so I have a lot to post. Yes, still no vacation pictures and no Easter (there are just so many!!!) Here are some of the things we’ve been up to at the 554:

 

This picture is actually from Easter, but I took it because it shows the hair style Logan wanted (for a very brief amount of time). Up until recently, I’ve just had their hair cut….the same….whatever I told the girls to do. Well, Logan has formed an opinion on his own style and at one of our recent hair-cut trips, he and I paged through a few books of boy’s hairstyles so that he could pick out something “better”. He had the stylist leave it long and we spiked it up like this. However, he soon tired of having me yang on his hair every morning to gel it up and has since gone back to wearing his bangs down….but longer.

Teacher appreciation week: This is the project Logan and I made together for teacher appreciation week (which was last week). The school sent home a list of suggestions like “send in a pack of highlighters and thank your teacher for making you *brighter*” etc. etc. There were some cute ideas, but I wasn’t sure if Logan’s teacher needed 29 packs of highlighters so Logan and I came up with something different. First, I asked him to name things he liked about his teacher, Mrs. Stith. He said things like smart, creative, caring etc. We then took the letters of her name (which worked out well since there are 5 letters and 5 days of appreciation) and made an acrostic poem (Logan told me it was called an acrostic poem….I looked it up and he was right!) For example S = Super Smart, T = Terrifically Creative etc etc. We matched up a small gift card for each letter (Michael’s = creative etc) and I made an envelope for each day using my cricut. We put his “poem” in each envelope with the day’s letter filled in and the corresponding gift card. I started the week with an envelope and a letter explaining our gift and how much we’ve enjoyed having her as Logan’s teacher this year.

These are the backs of the envelopes

The fronts:

I punched two holes in each one and bound them together with little rings to make a book:

Ta-da! Logan had a blast having her open one each day at school. I was in the classroom last Friday and spoke with Mrs. Stith - it was nice to hear that she had fun with our gift as well. She also sent home a very nice thank-you note. This will double as our end-of-year gift :)

Speaking of last week….Logan had his “Ozzie’s book club” trip to the local Kane County Cougars baseball game (the kids can win a free ticket for reading at school). Bri was out of town, but I took all three boys with me. I let them each have 1 ballpark treat – Brady selected cotton candy….and then it attacked him!!

Two weeks ago on Thursday, as we were driving home from Lacrosse practice (which ends at 7:30!), Aiden asked if I would push him on the swings outside when we got home. Well, bedtime is 8 so I told him I would do it Friday morning. He said something like, “you always say ‘in a minute, just a second’, but that means you never actually do it!” Well…didn’t that make me feel sad! I usually am doing something like dishes or straightening up or whatever. I really have been trying harder lately to drop my household stuff and play more. So…Friday morning, I told Aiden to make an agenda of things he wanted to do that day. I thought it was going to say “swing, play soccer, play a game” etc, but he made the list below (how frequently we change direction!)

So Brady and Aiden spent Friday morning “cooking”

Last Friday, Aiden was really pumped up about making a lemonade stand. I’m not sure where he got the idea, but it was just NOT going to be a good day unless it happened. I really wanted to say no – it was the middle of the day and no one was around, but I stopped at Walgreen’s on the way home from swimming and bought a big yellow poster board and some cups. Lemonade was donated from our house :) This happened to be the Friday of the town-wide garage sale so our good friend and neighbor “Mr. Pete” had taken the day off to run his own sale. He was solicited by Aiden and Brady (joined by friend and co-preschooler Isabella) and came down to buy a cup (25 cents please)

After the boys made a small profit from the stand (25 cents each from Pete, Anne, 3-year old Matt, Isabella and her mom Jen plus the $1.00 in quarters I put in for “change”), they took their earnings and negotiated the purchase of 3 stuffed puppies from Pete’s garage sale. They were marked for $2, but Pete is very generous and let them go for 50 cents each!

When Logan got home, he wanted in on the fun – but he wanted his stand to offer FREE lemonade….right next to the one charging 25 cents. As you can imagine, some disagreements broke out amongst the various stand owners until they all agreed that the drinks should be free….

Suddenly, we had lots of customers ;)

So….back to Pete’s garage sale. After Brady and Aiden bought their puppies, Brady saw this toy cleaning cart that he could NOT, simply WOULD not live without (ie: cried madly all up and down the block for at least an hour). I said no and I fought hard! It was only $3, but we’ve been having some pretty major issues with him asking for things EVERYWHERE we go – and then throwing temper tantrums when we say no. I had decided that we were NOT going to get him even a tiny little vending machine toy for at least 3 weeks. Well….after 2 days of garage-sale-action, Pete and Susan still hadn’t sold the cart. Brian was driving back to our house on Saturday afternoon when Pete stopped him and gave him the cart. !!

We made sure he understood that it was a gift from Mr. Pete and NOT us ;) He spent the next two days “cleaning” anything he could. Too bad he can’t run the real vacuum

Mother’s day pic: me and the boys

We hung out for the afternoon at Brian’s older brother’s house. The day after Mother’s Day was Grandpa's birthday so we all had cake. Here is: Grandpa with 2 of his 3 sons and 6 of his 7 grandsons

This is my mother’s day gift from Logan. It’s another acrostic poem (wow – I just love my new-found word) with MOMMY. M = Magical, O = Outstanding, M = Makes a grate sue chef (sous chef…the person who assists the main chef…as in daddy), M = Mothering and Y = Yummy Food

Here is the card Aiden made for me

It had cute things inside to go along with a poem

On the last page, he drew a picture of our house. I’m upstairs, Brady is climbing the stairs, Aiden is downstairs, the van is in the driveway and Logan is on the sidewalk “drawing with chalk”

Brady’s card.

He must have dictated to his teacher. It says “Mom, I love you! I like your waffles”. haha!

This is the card I got from Brian and the boys the morning of mother’s day. It’s a cute list of stuff they like about me. I have it in my “keepsake box”

And finally, this is the place mat Aiden made. It says I’m 36 (close), that my favorite colors are pink and brown (why not), that I like to eat salads, that I like to spend time with Aiden and his brothers and that I always say “go clean your playroom” (that’s true!)

For a few days after the lemonade stand, Logan took to stacking lots of the cups and having someone knock them down. I was impressed by his efforts, but REALLY impressed when I tried to duplicate this tower 5 times and failed miserably!

Here is cup stacking one night in our foyer

Here are Aiden and Brady on a field trip to the local fire station. The guys at the station have all these GIANT chairs to sit in at the end of the day in their entertainment area. Even 2 little boys don’t fully fill one up!

When I started writing this post (last week!!!), Brady and Aiden were playing with stickers. They first stuck google eyes into a People Magazine which I found hilarious (all those celebs don’t look so hot with wiggle eyes on – ha!), then they stuck them on their fingers. I drew the faces. Brady has: himself on one thumb and then me, daddy, Logan and Aiden on his other hand. I’m telling you – it’s just endless fun with those stickers!

Logan has been asking, off and on, for a really long time if he, Aiden and Brady can “sleep downstairs on the floor of the living room”. Not sure where he got this idea…maybe from one of his 2 sleepovers at his friend Sam’s house or from hearing about other sleepovers (the number of which is on the rise – everyone’s starting birthday party sleep overs these days). Anyway, most of his requests have been made on a school night so the obvious answer is “not tonight”. Last Monday night he asked again so I decided to let the three of them earn a “brother sleepover”. We have bunch of gold coins that we use for a variety of situations. I told them I would let them earn coins through the week and once they earned 50, they could have their sleep over. Our goal for the sleep over was this past Saturday night. Here is a partial list of the ways they earned their coins:

* Going to bed without getting up or talking in their room

* Earning either a smiley face (Aiden) or by “being on green” (Logan) at school. These are their respective, teacher-dictated, behavior-reward systems.

* Doing homework without complaint (Logan)

* Doing a good job at sports practices (soccer, lacrosse)

* Eating a good dinner and having manners (Brady mostly)

* Staying in bed all night

* Chores without complaint

So, these are things we typically expect, but don’t always get. For example, one night last week, the boys got quickly into bed…didn’t make even a peep and never came in during the night. These behaviors, I told them, were worth 3 coins for their “pot”. I was SO pleased with their determination, I ended up giving them 5. I don’t like needing bribes, but last week was kind of easy with the “brother sleepover” goal looming over their heads. They managed to get all the coins they needed by Friday night (still…sleepover was scheduled for Saturday). So…Saturday night around 6, we had them get into pajamas and list the activities they wanted to do. Logan decided first and foremost that there would be a dance party  before settling down. The rest of the evening involved pizza and a movie. We all hung out until about 9 when Brian and I settled them in and headed upstairs for TV in our room. Logan and Aiden slept on the couch (in sleeping bags) and Brady decided to stay on the floor. They fell quickly asleep and remained there for the entire night. A total success in my book.

They are now earning coins towards a trip (using gift cards we already have) to the roller skating rink this coming Sunday.

 

Here is a video of the dance party. I MUST remember to turn my ipad around the right way when I do these…next time! The thing that cracks me up the most is Aiden’s arm swinging. It’s hard to hear, but at the end of the video, he yells out “raise your hand if you can do this” and then starts swinging his arm around in mad circles.

 

I only took one picture – this is movie-watching time. We watched a movie on Netflix called Bands on the Run – I do NOT recommend it….seriously weird and bad, but the boys quietly watched the whole thing despite Brian checking with them a few times to make SURE they REALLY wanted to watch it. whatever.

One unrelated quick note: I took this picture on my phone a couple weekends ago when Brady and I went to pick Logan up from a birthday party. As we approached the door to the party venue, Brady pointed at this sign and said, “Look mommy! It’s like us! The big one is Logan yelling, Aiden is mixin’ stuff and I’m eating pizza!” It does kind of look like them too – hysterical!