Popsicle Fun

Bargain Finds

I hadn't intended on buying clothes for Adam and Matt today, however, both Walmart and Target had some great clearance sales. I usually don't spend a lot of money or go on big shopping sprees. Typically I'll buy an article of clothing or two every so often. Today, though, I spent $88. BUT...I got a ton of stuff: 6 shirts, 4 pairs of shoes, including a pair of snowboots, 2 swimsuits, 2 ties, and 6 pairs of socks.

Spring Break

We had Spring Break this week and we did a bunch. So, I'm going to do a quick recap of each day.
Saturday--I drove Adam and Matt up to Leavenworth, KS (near Kansas City) to visit G&G Kennington. Went to McDonald's the 1st time.
Sunday--Went to church at 1pm. For the past 6 years, we've had church at 10am so the boys and I were a bit uncertain what to do during the morning.
Monday--Spent the day at the park and helping with yardwork. It was a beautiful day. Went to McDonald's the 2nd time.
Tuesday--Watched the Leavenworth St. Patrick's Day parade, which happened to be the boys' first parade. Then went to the Moon Marble Factory--great fun; it's our 4th time.
Wednesday--Left for home but only got to Topeka (1 hour away) before Adam threw up twice. I decided to go back to Leavenworth. Grandma was nice enough to fix me Chupe de Camarron (shrimp soup/stew--yumm-O)
Thursday--Adam was better so we drove back to Garden City to find a sick hubby. Went to McDonald's a 3rd time--spent $43 on McDonald's this week.
Friday--Couldn't sleep, so I went on my daily walk at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Saturday--Dug up a bunch of weeds and put a berm in our front yard. I only know what a berm is thanks to my gardening cousins, the Clasons.

So, that's been our week.

Field Trip

Yesterday, Matt and I went on another field trip with Adam's class. We went to a dairy farm. It was awesome! I had never been to a dairy farm and found it fascinating. The owner took us on a tour and told us tons of info and statistics. Which, I love!! I love numbers! There are 13,000 cows at the farm and on average 25 new cows are born each day. Each cow is milked twice a day and gives at least 15 gallons of milk/day. The farm produces 55,000 gallons of milk every day. And it only takes 2 minutes for it to go from the cow to the milk truck. We got to go into the milking parlor and watch the cows being milked. All of the kids were squealing about how big the udders were. They were huge! Some kids even got to stick their fingers into the milking contraption to feel the squeeze and suction of it. We got to see how the milk then goes from the cow, through the filter and into the truck. Adam's class has gone on 5 field trips this year and they've all been really cool. It's times like these that I'm so glad I can stay home with my boys and have the opportunity to do things with his class.

Talking about cows--Robert and I are still doing weight watchers. Rob has lost 16 lbs and I've lost 10 lbs.

Matt-isms

We went on a walk last night with the boys. Usually they have no interest in walks unless we call them "discovery walks". Then they think they're fun because they try to discover new things. Adam spent the whole time running up and down the trail and didn't really look for anything new. Matt, however, kept checking out lots of things, especially rocks. He would find a rock and show it to us--over and over. Further into the walk, we noticed Matt had both hands full of something. We assumed it was rocks. He ran over to show us--it was dog poop!


The other night Adam was trying to convince Matt to play a game with him. Matt wasn't really paying attention to him and it was driving Adam crazy. Adam kept repeating himself, over and over. And Matt continued to ignore him. Adam was getting pretty frustrated and started to raise his voice. Matt then calmly looked over at Adam and said, "If you stop talking, I'll play with you". It was too funny. I couldn't keep myself from laughing.

I'm Going Broke

I looked at my fridge door this morning and realized there are four sticker charts on it. You know the ones that kids put a sticker on each time they do or don't do something--ex: potty chart. One is for Matt not wetting the bed at night. Another is for Adam reading books. The third is for Adam for NOT washing his hands and the fourth is for Matt FOR washing his hands. I bet you don't know any other family that has both a child that's rewarded for washing his hands and another child that is rewarded for not washing his hands. Those charts are both blessed and blasted in our house. They are great motivators but I'm going broke buying all these rewards.

All about Adam

This post is all about my sweet Adam. On Monday, his class went on a field trip to the airport. Matt and I went along to help chaperone. It was great fun. It's a tiny airport, so the kids got to do and see much more than if it had been a big airport. They checked out the security stuff (xray machine and metal detectors) and then went up into the air traffic control tower. They got to see two airplanes take off and two land. They got to climb in and around the new firetruck and run up and down the tarmac.
On Wednesday, Adam and I drove down to Liberal for another appt. with his OCD psychiatrist. He's doing really well. It was a great 3 hours together because Adam just talked the entire time. Adam and I have a unique bond in that I'm quite sensitive to what he's thinking and feeling. He senses it, too, and I think he tends to open up more because of it. I'm really grateful he feels comfortable and safe enough to share his feelings with me.
On Thursday we went to his parent-teacher conference. Since I help his class every Wednesday, I'm quite aware of how he's doing at school. It was nice, though, to see how he's testing. He had the highest scores in his class on everything. I knew he and another boy were the most advanced but I was a bit surprised that Adam had higher scores in every category. I thought it would have been a bit more divided between the two. His scores were very high, two or three times the average kindergartener. I once had someone ask me what I did to make Adam so smart. I do what most everyone else does--read (a lot), play, ask questions, etc. It's mainly Adam, though. He makes himself smart. He CONSTANTLY asks questions--nonstop. Sometimes it's exhilirating, and sometimes it's exhausting. I can tell Adam is getting more mature. He seems to be able to calm himself down better and to have more self-control. He's starting to be able to reason more and to be reasoned with. He's a great little boy, and he has all of my heart.