Presidents' Day Playdate

Thank goodness for Alyssa and her beautiful pictures! We had an "old school" playdate at my friend Diane's on Monday when the kindergarteners were off. The kids had so much fun, although chasing Justin was challenging for me and I felt like I didn't get to talk to anyone. Oh well, that's what Moms' Nights Out are for, I guess!

This is Molly and I do believe she has a bit of a crush on Justin. They played together a lot and she kept force feeding him sippie cups, which Justin seemed to like!

Monkeying around.

This picture made me laugh out loud. Lola, Daniela and Luke posing together?Really? How did that happen?

That is all kinds of trouble right there. See why I couldn't talk to anyone?

Hooray for sunshine!!

Ok, I'm not naive enough to think that spring is actually here, but it sure has been a nice preview. I've been so much more productive the last couple of days and I've been much better with the kids. Makes me realize how much the winter was grating on all of us! The entire side of the house and backyard are mud bogs and I had to don my rain boots this morning just to go out to the shed. Then I cut my finger opening it and decided that cleaning up the yard and garden could wait a while longer. The kids got out the bikes and scooters this afternoon and we found the push car for Justin. We bought it for Michael's first birthday, but Luke always wanted to hijack it, so we rarely used it. With the older boys so much bigger now, I think Justin might actually get a lot of use out of it this spring and summer!

Driving Home

So driving to pick up my kid every day is definitely not as easy as if he took a bus, but if I didn't drive him, then I would miss out on our car conversations. Here are some of the choice conversation bits from today's drive home. You can tell Luke was on a bit of a sugar high from Valentine's:

Luke: Why is the Veggie Tales Wizard of Oz different from the real one?
Me: Because Veggie Tales is trying to teach a lesson. It's teaching that you should obey your parents, but that no matter what you do, your mom and dad will always love you.
Luke: Mom, that's something I need to work on. Knowing that you love me even if I'm bad.
Me: You think when you get in trouble and we move your magnet that we don't love you?
Luke: Yeah, isn't that weird?

Luke: Jesus is the Messiah. We were all Jews before we were Christians.
Michael: I like lemonade.

Me: Luke, did you get any girly valentines?
Luke: Yes, I got some princess ones.
Michael: Why do girls like princesses so much?

Luke: (going through his valentines) Oh look, this one is from Audrey. She's such a sweet girl.

And there was also a lively debate over which is the best: gummy bears, worms or fish.

Can't wait until Justin can join in the conversation . . .or maybe I can.

Pizza Party!

Last Saturday, we celebrated Luke's Student of the Month honors at his martial arts school. In the chaos of getting everyone organized and out the door, I forgot the camera! These shots were taken by one of the instructors. I'm hoping Alyssa will email me any good ones she took (hint, hint!).
I was a little nervous because it was a mixed group of friends--some of Luke's fellow yellow-belts, some neighbors and some EBC friends, but everyone got along great. Master Circle led the kids in a bunch of games, which were hilarious to watch and then everyone had pizza. It was an awesome party!

100 Days of School

Luke's class celebrated 100 Days of Kindergarten on Friday--although I think they might have been off by a couple because of the snow days. Their project was to bring in 100 of something. Luke made this spider with 100 pipe cleaners. I thought it was pretty cool. Luke thought it was so cool that he was quite distraught when he found out that he had to leave the project at school through next week and couldn't bring it home right away.

What can I say?

Except that Ponesse boys like pasta!

What we've been doing

Pretty much just this. We're on Day 2 of no school due to ice and sporadic power outages throughout the city. Yesterday, we got out long enough to take Luke to martial arts where he got a private lesson by virtue of us being the only ones brave enough to venture out! Today, we went to visit some friends for a couple of hours to burn off some energy. Hoping we are back to school tomorrow!

Michael needs . . .

. . . a haircut . . .

and some chapstick.

Dragon Tank

It was cold and 2 out of 3 kids were sick this past weekend, so we stayed inside. There was a lot of video game playing, but there was also some lego and trio building action. Luke wanted a picture taken of his Trio Dragon Cannon Battle Tank.

Sack of Baby

Here are a couple of pictures of Justin, up way too late, hanging out in his sleep sack.

Boys at 9 months

Fussy, challenging, troublemaking balls of cuteness they were and are!

Student of the Month

Since this is the closest thing I have to a scrapbook, I wanted to post this image. Master Circle just emailed me this to use as an invitation for Luke's Student of the Month pizza party. Isn't it cute? By the way, if you're reading this, consider your kid(s) invited. It's an hour of pizza and martial arts games (Sat. Feb. 5th @ 2:30). Just let me know if you're interested. That is, of course, if your kid doesn't happen to be celebrating his third birthday on the same day!

Christmas the Second

I'm a little late in posting, but when we got back from Toronto, my laptop died. Luckily, we got the photos and files transferred to Matt's computer just in time, but I was without a computer for a few days. I got a netbook yesterday and I finally got the Toronto pictures uploaded.
We visited Matt's Dad at his office downtown. He works on the 30th floor. The boys could have stared out the window forever.

Honestly, I dressed the boys in nice sweaters for the big family party , but it was very late and very hot by the time we got to opening presents and the boys looked like a couple of hoodlums as they played with their new RC cars.

Our nieces Jacinta and Maeve get double presents since they have birthdays around the holidays. We gave Jacinta this sparkly purple dress for her birthday and she stripped right down to put it on. Maeve was fast asleep by gift time, but I got this picture of her earlier. She just turned a year old and used to be so chubby, but she's really thinned out. Justin is about the same size that she is now.

Speaking of Justin, he is now bigger than both of the twins who are a month older. Kayla has always been petite, but Kyan was really fat. Not so much now. I could not get a picture with all of them facing the camera.

Lots of presents, lots of eating, lots of drinking (for the adults, that is) and very little sleep for anyone made for an exhausting visit. We had fun, but everyone agreed that it's more fun in the summer at Uncle Greg's when we can all hang out by the pool.

Happy 2011!

We'll make the first post of 2011 a dance party. This is from our trip to Toronto. Michael and Claire are playing a dancing video game. Claire is almost 7 and is a very good dancer. Michael not so much. Check out all of the cousins, aunts and uncles in the background.

Christmas the First

To be followed by Christmas the Second next week in Toronto. Yesterday afternoon, we went to church. Luke wanted to be in the extremely low key Immaculate Conception Christmas pagaent. Everyone was sick the weekend of the Sunday School pagaent, so we let him. It meant getting to church an hour earlier than normal. Justin and Michael endured fairly well. None of the pictures came out because the lighting was weird, but Luke made a perfectly fine sheep. Then we came home for gnocchi, got cookies and ginger ale for Santa and got the kids to bed. It's become an annual tradition to make room for Santa by purging some of our old toys. We packed up some and got rid of two big garbage bags worth.

Good thing we did, because Santa was generous. Santa brought Luke a dragon, a Pterodactyl, a pirate book and some other things. Michael got lots of play food, a t-rex and Uno Moo. Justin got a shape sorter and a ring stacker.

Then came the grandparent gifts. Poppy and Nan sent each boy a different racetrack. Grandma Carole got Luke a Trio castle, Michael a Diego train and Justin a crocodile pull toy. Great Grandpa Bo sponsored a lightsaber for Luke, a video game for Michael and a ball toy for Justin. Add that to some Last Airbender and Cars gifts from Mom and Dad and it pretty much looks like Toys R Us just threw up at our house.

I made the kids roast chicken drumsticks and mashed potatoes for dinner, then we put them to bed, so that Matt and I could enjoy an adult dinner. Matt made a terrific rack of lamb. Too bad Justin decided he was going to have a bad night. He screamed and screamed, but is finally asleep. We are soon to follow. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Merry Christmas!

Meanwhile . . .

While I was busy uploading videos of my firstborn, this is what was happening to my thirdborn. Overtired Justin was trying to pull the baskets out from our coffee table and smacked his head on the table. I'm pretty sure the other two kids made it to at least 10 or 11 months before they got their first goose eggs. Poor baby boy.

Full Yellow Belt and More!

Tonight Luke was promoted at Tang Soo Doh. He tested for his full yellow belt a couple of weeks ago. Stupidly, I didn't tape it because the camera battery was dead and because, honestly, I wasn't sure he would pass. His curriculum routine seemed very tough to me and they didn't go over it all that much. Turns out he was spectacular the day he tested! Now I'm fuming because he'll never perform that specific routine again. Here he is receiving his belt. You can hear Justin cheering him on in the background.



And we were in for an extra surprise (well, I had a bit of a suspicion which is why I hastily turned the camera back on). Luke was chosen as Student of the Month because he performed so well on his test! There were two students chosen this month, so you have to listen to Master Circle talk about the first kid before he gets to Luke. Luke gets a patch for his uniform and a pizza party! We are super, super proud of him. This time, you can hear Michael asking to go home in the background.

Fast Food

Christmas errands inevitably leads to dinners-on-the-go. We went to Steak 'n Shake the other night and the boys had a blast. Made us wonder why we bother with McDonald's since it cost us about the same.And what do you do when you go to see Santa, but the line is too long? Stop for pizza instead.

Michael will do anything for soda. He will choose soda over dessert about half of the time.

EBC Holiday Party

I was too busy eating and talking to get any good pictures this year except for this one of our lovely hostess Ali and Justin.

Elf Yourself 2010

Christmas Card Outtakes

A post about laundry--exciting stuff.

I don't have the kind of blog where I recommend products or tell people how I manage my house or feed my family . . .BUT . . .

I realized over the weekend that I was almost out of laundry detergent. So what? So, I don't think I've bought laundry detergent since before Justin was born! Last spring, my friend Michelle posted a link to a recipe for homemade laundry detergent and non-crafty me decided to try it. It cost less than $10 for the supplies, all of which I found at Meijer. It took 20 minutes to make it. It made ten gallons (five gallons and you dilute it by half). It's lasted 8 months--with two little boys and a baby in the house! Today I had to make another batch. I had to spend $1.50 on a bar of Fels Naptha, but I had plenty of Borax and Washing Soda left from the first batch. Amazing.

I haven't really noticed any difference between the homemade stuff and the low end liquid detergent I was using before (Purex or store brand). I treat my stains with spray and they generally come out (as much as they ever have--I admittedly suck at laundry and let stains dry all the time). The high end stuff like Tide may work better, but I don't really know because I've never been able to afford Tide!! This stuff is awesome and it has really helped me do a better job of managing the laundry in the house because now I just do as much as I need to do without agonizing over how long the detergent is going to last.

Here is the link if anyone wants to try it: Homemade Laundry Detergent

Ok, so maybe they look alike after all.

Michael decided to have his first real violin lesson today.



And here's Luke at his first lesson when he was 3 1/2.

You know it's your third kid when . . .