February 2018

The month of love!  I teach Xander and Declan's primary class and I often bring little activities to keep them busy during the FOREVER 45 min class time.  

Sometimes we need activities to get through Family Home Evening too!

I suppose turtles crawling on Easton's face also serves as entertainment!

 Cache found this cute little box turtle in our front yard.

Cache had a rough season with his basketball team.  His friends all got together and joined a team.  Unfortunately, all the other coaches picked their teams to win.  This was the last game and the first time we were ever winning - 6 to 4.  It didn't last though :(

Cheap tiny pixie cups = endless hours of entertainment.

The 100th Day of School = Dress like you think you would look if you were 100 years old. 

The kids decided last minute to tackle this theme and it was a crazy morning, but they turned out great!

This is what the kitchen island looked like after they left for school!

It's February and all we have received is a slight dusting of snow!

Since we went to Maine and enjoyed popovers, David has become addicted!

Time to trim the Crape Myrtle tree...except the one branch with the cute nest in it of course!

We enjoyed an amazingly warm day this month so I decided to pull the kids out of school and let them enjoy the weather.  For a few hours, they actually played awesome with each other!

School activity / stem night with Declan, Tyler, and Xander.

This winter I took a 6 week course with some friends to learn how to use my DSLR camera on manual mode (as opposed to the auto mode I have used for the last few years).  

This was amazing...taking a picture in a room with bad lighting...then with a few simple adjustments...look what happened!

I also had a too dark / too light picture of this...but liked the way the snow looked with this lighting!

This week we learned how to focus on different objects...first the center, then I blurred the front to get the back!

We learned how to stop motion this week!

Different perspectives this week!

This winter is my second lego class.  This time I decided to put all the grades together and it was basically organized chaos, but we did survive!  I tried to change up the table arrangements each week to keep it interesting.  I also provided weekly themes, but somehow it always became a battle or war theme (I guess that's what happens with 22 boys and 2 girls in a class!)

Cache's food - hamburger, popsicle, and cake!

January 2018

In January, I went to my boss' beach house and helped prep it for the season.  It was beautiful, but absolutely freezing!  David and the kids joined for a weekend and froze as we combed the beach (but did find amazing shells).  Then I stayed the rest of the week sans children = true vacation!

What does January mean for a household of boys....PINEWOOD DERBY!

The very night I got back from my beach work-action, David tasked me with helping the boys with their paint job.  Not exactly professional, but as always, the boys dominated!  Easton and Cache both got first in their age groups and Easton got second overall!  At Districts, Easton got his sweet revenge and got 2nd overall again...beating the kid from our own pack!

Putting our Magnatiles to good use.  This is Ben and Cache.  

This January we instituted a little activity called 'run for your computer time'.  How does it work?  Every mile run = 15 minutes computer time

Yep, this saved us this month!

These two tried running their time together!

Easton and Cache at The Zone for David's 11th birthday party!

Brothers can be the worst!  Cache threw a ball at Declan's face just for fun ?!?

Easton loves to eat at his friend's house and even convinced his friend's mom to come over and teach me how to make his favorite snack... bbq shrimp nachos, they were amazing!

I love this little nugget.  Lindsee and I got to spend some quality time together.  I invented toys from the recycling bin and she was in heaven!

I tried to keep her off the stairs, but I forgot how sneaky toddlers are!

For our second time (and my first) our scout pack slept over on the Battleship USS Wisconsin.  

It looked super amazing.

But let's just say, the sleeping situation was TERRIBLE!

Not sure how those sailors handled these tiny quarters.  Ugh.  I didn't sleep at all and I kept worrying the kids would fall off the very narrow bunks onto the very hard floor!

The next morning was rainy, but we still managed a quick deck tour and really enjoyed the huge museum attached to it (in Norfolk, VA).

One of the cool hands-on exhibits (we also pet baby sharks and sting rays).

And for the take-home souvenir the kids bought theses cool lava toys...what does that have to do with the battleship?  Absolutely nothing.

Next year I have a middle school child and they have mandatory music class.  When I went to the music orientation night, they gave us these awesome flyers.  My friend finds it ridiculous that music is mandatory (she is a computer science nerd and would much rather see more coding!)  Of course I forwarded this flyer to her because of all the clear benefits of music, I mean - who doesn't want to make more friends!!!  

I love that our school collects the un-eaten food from the school every week and donates it to the local shelter.  I got to be the special delivery person this week.

I always get caught up in making really cute signs  with check boxes and pictures, typing them, laminating them...and then sometimes I actually get around to using them.  My friend just threw this up on her wall and it works great!  I must remember to simplify (after all, that is the name of this blog!  Why is the simplest thing to do sometimes the hardest?!)

December 2017

Wow, not sure how our December pictures make us look so boring!  4 pictures.  That's all I took on my nice camera...4 pictures!!! I will have to go back through our cell phones, surely we were more exciting than this!

Merry Christmas!  Declan hung up 2 stockings...and to his great surprise, both got filled (even though the total was equal to the other kids, he didn't seem to mind!)

Let the chaos begin!

Our good friends have these Magnatiles and the kids love them.  Although I'm trying not to buy any more 'toys' for the kids, I thought building toys should be an exception!

(ok, yes...millions more pics on my phone...stay tuned!)