School Desk

For the next few weeks most of our posts will probably be about Painting & Refinishing. Because that is what we are doing. To date we have 5 rooms painted. The kids rooms and two bathrooms. The kids rooms are detailed - so they will be another week to finish because we are painting their furniture to match it all. While I am the one pushing it - even BigGuy sees the need. After finishing the kids walls (excellently I must add) it dawned on us that their furniture looks a lot like a mish mosh of garage sale pieces. Nothing wrong with that - when we bought them they matched what we were doing, but now as the kids stuff changes so does the decor need. We want to finish the rooms so that they really look like someone from HGTV had a hand in it - or at least so that it isn't Yard Sale looking.

In starting all of this off I was given the desk I used as a child. 2nd grade is when my grandmother gave my desk to me, one year younger then SuperStar. She was a flea market and auction attender and most likely picked these desks up somewhere like that. She refinished them herself. Through the years my sister and I did a little extra decorating and some carving was done. My mom dug them out of her attic and I have refinished them. Both Spidey and SuperStar will have one in their rooms once we are all done. So - step one in furniture refinishing is done. I would also like to add that I did this job - BigGuy did a final coat of poly, but I wanted to refinish them for the kids like my grandmother did for us.

Happy Birthday Nanny!!

Happy Birthday Nanny - We Love You!!!!

Honor Roll

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending a celebration for Passover. We are forever wanting to broaden our horizons and those of our kiddo's. I am going to post more about Passover later. This morning is going to be a blog by writing. So....we are at our friends home for Passover and they hand us the newspaper. The portion they kept us was an article about Straight A Students in various schools that partcipate in the Straight A Program in our community. There were maybe 25 schools listed in the article (we are sure there are more then that here in our twin cities). Each school then listed all their schools straight A students. For our school there were about 20 kids listed - one of them was SuperStar!! If all the teachers in the school participated then this means that SuperStar is in the top 20 of her school out of 380. Very impressive Miss SuperStar.

Happy Passover

A number of years ago I spent a few years celebrating Passover and other Jewish holidays with a friend and their family. The traditions in the meanings of how the holiday was celebrated seemed very familiar and comfortable. Not that I remember what the 5 symbolic foods are, what the hardboiled egg stood for, I do remember why Matzoh is eaten - and the lists continues. However, I also don't think I could explain all the symbolism in the Catholic religion that we live on a daily basis.

Anyway, what I am going for is that the world is currently celebrating Passover. The holiday began this past Sunday, the 20th, and will continue to be celebrated through this Saturday, the 26th. This year our family was given a treat. We were invited to celebrate the beginning of the holiday with our friends, The H's. SH had her brother, Ira, and his son, coming over for dinner. They were setting the table to celebrate the holiday, including Elijah's plate and the open door. I have long wanted to start having SuperStar and Spidey better understand that the movies they have watched (Prince of Egypt, VeggieTales, Jonah, etc.) are not simply stories, but part of a bigger religious picture. Celebrating Passover brought a movie they had seen over and over (The Prince of Egypt by Dreamworks) to life. Ira was kind enough to bring books that explained the symbolism of what we were eating.
Matzoh representing the unleavened bread - because when Moses agreed to let the Jews leave the city they left in such haste that the bread did not have time to rise and they ate unleavened bread during their travels.
A Hardboiled Egg representing the circle of life and continuation.
Lamb Shank representing the lamb that was sacrificed so the blood could be placed on the doorway to keep the first born child from being killed.
Charoset, which is chopped up apples, nuts and raisins mixed with red wine, honey and sometimes other spices - usually done to a very small chop as it represents the mortar that was used to make bricks in Egypt.
Morar (Horseradish) representing the bitterness of slavery under the Egyptians.
Karpas (parsely, lettuce), represent re-birth and the eternal hope that Spring brings with it.
Salt Water was also present to dip our eggs in - this represents the tears of the Hebrew slaves.


The boys (and men) all wore yamaka's. Babers didn't last too terribly long in his, but he did enjoy wearing it. The meal was wonderful - SH presented us with brisket, chicken broth with Kreplach, green bean casserole, potatoes, jello (which the kids ate and ate) and matzoh. For dessert we had chocolate cake and kugel. Very tasty. As an extra treat Ira hid matzoh around the kitchen and once the children found a piece they ran to him for a dollar. Sneaky - he put them all taped under the chairs. Took the kids awhile.

We really can't thank their family enough for including us. Hopefully we will get to celebrate more holidays with them and possibly share some of our own!

Shalom - Peace

Lots of Birthdays

This week we have 3 Birthdays for Family!!! And I have a good friend having a Birthday too!!

That is a lot of birthdays in one week. So we are sending cards - However, I am behind on getting them out and really wanted to do this in a timely manner - so we also want to shout out to all of you Big Birthday Celebrators.............


Grandma Brown - Happy Birthday!!! Celebrates the 21st!!! We Don't actually have a picture of our Grandma saved to this computer because old computer crashed and took all our old photos with it. So we used this image of a Double Rainbow - because we are two times lucky to have her and she is a true Treasure to us all.


Grandpa O - Happy Birthday!!! Celebrates the 24th.


Aunt B - Happy Birthday!!! Celebrates teh 24th!!



House Full of Boys - Happy Birthday!!!! Celebrates the 21st!! You can see more about her on her blog - House Full of Boys.

SuperStars Concert

Finger Paints

This is becoming the Babers Blog....

The olders started doing crafts and stuff when they were pretty young. Probably younger then Babers - but unfortunately for him (and maybe Spidey too) the thought of doing crafts with all three of them at one time is sometimes overwhelming for me - near to impossible for BigGuy (although he has squeezed out a few totally cute things for me through the years with kid power). Just yesterday Babers experienced fingerpainting. The first video is the beginning - then we had to stop taping to explain where the paint goes...

Neither Rain, Sleet or Snow - the Hikers Must Go

Does it seem like SuperStar has been doing a lot of Girl Scout things lately? Well, you are right. We have had 3 meetings in a row to make up for lost ones and 2 weekend events in a row. We have 4 meetings left and the GS Bridging Ceremony May 15th. If any of you Grands want to come and attend - please do - it will be cute and I am making the cake. So this past weekend we went Hiking at the GS Camp. It Rained, Sleeted, Snowed and was terribly squishy muddy. However, just like the mail carriers - we were dedicated to doing this and the council wasn't cancelling - so off hiking we went. There were spots that the girls just totally sank. I was so thankful for having taken another troop leaders advice in bringing trash bags to set their shoes on. Honestly - this was another event that with the weather the way it was I did not want to attend, but it was a hoot. We had a lot of fun and we even saw a Raccoon (although he was all rolled up in the trash dumpster - yuck!).

Sometimes You Do Things You Don't Want....

We have done a lot of blogs about Babers lately, but it will all balance out eventually. Really, while the base of this blog is related to him - the blog itself is about my experience (I don't get much face time on this blog so see where the balancing is happening?). Last Friday night I was invited to a jewelry party. Now, those of you who know me see me wear jewelry how often? While I do like cute little dangle earrings and I do like bracelets (although I never wear them because I am always on Mom Duty and bracelets don't go well since water is generally involved in most Mom Duty jobs) - necklaces aren't my thing unless I am dressing up. So in general - money spent on jewelry seems like money miss spent (although as a gift I wouldn't mind you all surprising me). Given all that you can imagine my interest in this party. However, I did mention to a neighbor that I was going. This party was given by another neighbor. She is nice, has kids and stays home with them. While her kiddo's are on the younger end, they could be potential playmates for Babers. Still....I decided not to go. Then BigGuy suggested I do go because I might meet other neighbors and he (BigGuy) is very shy and felt that the more neighbors I meet the better off he will be in the end - because I will get invited to things that he will be invited to and he will meet some of the neighbors (although our new dog Sunny is helping us with that because she keeps running off and neighbors help us detain her). So then I leaned toward going - and still decided not to. Then my friend SS weighed in and said I should go (but also said it was up to me). So then I leaned toward going, phoned the hostess and told her I was going - then I decided not to go, only I had called last minute to go and would have looked like a dope not going so I went. With the exception of one neighborhood person and her two sister in laws - everyone there was from her Lady Wellness fitness center. The neighbor I expected to be there never showed (no biggie I already know her). The new neighbor turned out to be very nice and I will search her out in the future - but the real stroke of good luck is - guess who the hostess' sister in law is................you probably didn't guess - it is related to Babers (that was the hint) - now can you get it? Her sis in law is Babers swim instructor!!!! Not kidding. At first she didn't look very interested in talking to me (can't imagine why). However, I figured if I made friends with her she couldn't kick us out of class. And I was right!! By the end of our conversation (we talked about how Babers really doesn't belong in the class - he is too immature to listen to the directions of how to swim -he is so gungho about the water that he does need to learn to swim at least by floating on his back). So she is in for helping him figure it out. Yea!!!! Sometimes you do things you don't want to and then they turn out to be totally beneficial!!

We Love the Slowskys

We Love the Slowskys - this commercial especially cracks us up everytime!! There are a few others, but this one is currently our fav.

No Really.......

I do believe that Babers is going to be kicked out of his swim class. Not because he isn't ready to learn to swim, not because he isn't already demonstrating most of the skills listed to be completed in order to finish the class (jumping off the side into the instructors arms, kicking legs, blowing bubbles, dunking head under water and a few other things) - but because he scares the living daylights out of the instructor. Well, maybe scares isn't the right word - upsets, angers, makes mad, annoys....we will go with annoys the living daylights out of the instructor.

Today was our first class. There are three in his class (two cutie girls who didn't even want to get in the water). They all got in and hung on the side. I got in too foreseeing what might occur. Babers immediately pushed off the side and started to swim (in his random kicking around looking like he is drowning kinda way). The instructor grabbed him and told him to hang on to the side. She talked to them. Babers flung himself off the side again. She talked to them and then let Babers go first doing the floating in the noodle thing. All smiles. Put him on the wall hanging with the other two and took one of them out. Just as the instructor got out of reach Babers pushed off the wall and started his float swim thing. He did this a few other times. She finally decided to put them all sitting on the wall. To which he stood up and jumped in. At the end of the lesson she asked his age - I told her 2 1/2 years. She said the class is for 3yrs. I told her the booklet and the person running the water area said 2 1/2 and that she signed him up for the class instead of the H2O Exploration (which was going on at the time - all 6mth old babies crying because they didn't want the water in their faces). I comiserated with the instructor (who seemed totally uninterested in my interest to try again - heck it was only our first attempt at a class setting).

Later, while Babers and I spent some extra time splashing, I noticed that the instructor stopped her current class when the lady who ran the water area and signed us up for the class came in. The instructor pointed at us, said something and the director lady came over to see if we wanted to do the H2O class even though it was full. My fear (and BigGuy's) is his fearlessness about the water will get him drowned. The baby class isn't going to help us and he will just get bored and start acting out. I asked for a private instructor who could teach him some basics and work with him. She said she would look into it - looked at Babers jumping in off the side yet again - looked at the baby class - looked at the instructor who doesn't want him - and smiled at me. She said to try the class again next week and we will see what happens. I think we will get kicked out then and Babers will be wearing one of those giant floaty swimsuits next year. He can't be trusted around water.

What are we Up To?

Let's see - there has been so little time to blog anything that I am getting behind. What did we do this weekend? Well, we had the Cookie Sale Shebang Sleepover. Ever had one of those? My co-leader and I set a goal for the girls in terms of how many boxes of cookies to sell - then if they sold them we would have what we called a Cookie Sale Shebang. They made their goal and BigGuy and I hosted the Shebang - with the help of my co-leader and the attendance of Babers, Spidey and Spidey's friend (we had to have a few token boys).

The girls were Great - really. It was amazing. We have been working on "Being a Friend to Every GirlScout" this year. Doing team building things, activities that point out what it feels like if someone is mean to you, etc. So we only had one "get your fat ass out of the way" incident (yes, a little, cute, rosy checked girlie said that to another - and honestly, they spoke and were inseperable the remainder of the event). The girls worked on their Friends are Fun, Make It and Eat It and Caring and Sharing badges. They made all the meals, pizza, brownies, pancakes, eggs, fresh fruit and did all the cleaning (well, we helped a little, but they really did all the cleaning). Heck, most of them even fell asleep by 11:30pm. Might have been the movie, 'Escape to Witch Mountain' - remember that? Eddie Albert filled up his huge RV for $10.00!!!! Ain't gonna be happening today.

So anyhoo - this is what we did this weekend. Everyone left Sat. morning and then Spidey and SuperStar went to some friends to play, BigGuy and I did some chores, Babers slept - then on Sunday we relaxed a bit. Now you are pretty much caught up.

Accidental Swim Lessons

So this baby is going to be an accidental swimmer. After signing the Olders up for their swim lessons on Tuesday we thought about Babers. He loves the water - no fear at all in the past - but he is so young that anything more then a play class seemed like a waste of money. Then I got to thinking that with lessons being free it really wasn't a waste of money to get him in the water and learning to swim. We aren't being very good about using our membership that we pay $46 a month for - so free swim lessons aren't really free they are $46 a month (as that is the only time we are at the gym so we must be paying for that). Having thought that thru - but not willing to get up at 5:30am and stand in line for 2 hours to get Babers in a class (he would have been considered a New registration and those began on Wed. - which meant a wnole new long line) I figured we would wait until the end of registration and if God intended us to be in a class there would be an opening.

Last night I called and talked to the guy there - apparently God wants him to learn to swim - the guy signed Babers up for the youngest most beginning class they have (I specifically said, we want the youngest, play in the water with your parent, nothing too serious swim class). We had thrown our swim class explanation and schedule sheet away so we couldn't confirm that the guy was correct about what class - we did look for it, but Shrimp juice was on it and it was yucky - we took what he said was right and decided to just go to the gym and talk to them the next day. Turns out the guy wasn't right about which class we needed. Babers is signed up for a beginning really swimming class. So he will have to sit on the side of the pool and patiently wait his turn (HA!). I tried to get him into the baby class called H2O Exploration (get it - water?). That was totally full. The lady who runs the water program offered to come see what Babers could do. I actually planned to workout (really - I used the gym membership) and then we were going to swim, so her watching worked out great - Babers holds onto the side, pulls himself up and out of the water, puts his head under completely (by himself even), blows bubbles, swallows a lot, and generally has no fear. She said he was perfect for the real swim class - only I will need to hang out just in case (her suggestion because he is on the younger end). I still don't believe he is going to sit still and wait his turn.

So.......Babers is officially in swim lessons and now BigGuy and I have reasons to get our butts in the gym.

Forgot some Mooews

So we totally forgot to mention that we had some more newbie visitors. DS and her two boys, AS & TS, came to visit the few days before Easter. They were on spring break and our kiddo's had Friday off so we played.



We went to the Cheese Farm and they got to meet the babies - apparently babies are always being born on a dairy farm - then we saw the teenage cows (who aren't quite ready for milking) and we was the adult cows - the boys asked where all the boy cows were and we explained veal to them.



We had to explain that quietly though - baby cows don't need to hear about veal.



We were chased around by a big turkey - and he is not just big, I should apologize to him - he is a HUGE turkey. Gargantuan (sp?) turkey!! We were never really certain what he wanted, but he was patiently trying to convey it to us.



Aside from dairy farm excitement they kids all jumped on the trampoline. Then we made some pizza from scratch (ask and I will give you our dough recipe - wonderful and from my friend CC).



It was a lot of fun. The kids all hung out and did really well together and we had a great visit. Next time we will need their whole family to come - I don't think BigGuy enjoyed the part where we cut stamps or talked about stamping stuff. I believe he would have liked a beer partner.