Why didn't someone tell me?

I'm feeling really silly right now. All because of a fact that I simply didn't know. Can you believe that no one told me?? What IS it you ask?


IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR THREE GIRLS TO PLAY TOGETHER WITHOUT SOMEONE'S FEELINGS GETTING HURT.

Now I could plead "ignorance" but really---you can throw 3 or 5 or 7 boys together and they play just fine. No squabbles, no tears. Wow, did I learn my lesson yesterday. The first 20 minutes were filled with "jockeying for position" as I call it. Who will lead? Who will decide what we play next? and of course the ever dramatic "She's not playing with me." Oh, the tears we had..... and they came from my daughter.

It's also good to know that after a change of pace (going outside) all of the issues worked themselves out and they played happily the rest of the day.
Have a GREAT weekend! Jill

Anna (on the left) and her friends

Creative Anna

Hey, it's finally a day to turn off the air conditioner--WA HOO! We're expecting a high today of 68 degrees! Very different than the last few days with temps in the high 80's/ low 90's! In spite of the weather, we found a way to have fun yesterday anyway...

First, go to your friends house and have the Mommies work really hard




Then, use your creativity to make the craft



Ta Da, the final result


and don't forget to cool off with a popsicle too.

Works for me....

Well, here we are at Wednesday again....the day I like to share a tip that helps our family out! Today's tip is a yummy recipe that I've given to MANY friends and It was passed to me the same way....It's for a fast and easy Chicken Pot Pie!

Quick and Easy Chicken Pot Pie
1 can cream of potato soup
1 (15 oz.) can of Veg-all, drained
2 cooked chicken breasts, diced
½ tsp. thyme
refrigerated pie crusts

Cook chicken and cut into bite sized pieces. Combine potato soup, Veg-all, thyme and chicken in a medium bowl and mix well. Thaw pie crusts for 15 minutes and place one crust in a pie plate. Fill with the chicken mixture; top with remaining pie crust. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Feel free to double the recipe for the filling!

Deja View

Andrew was eating lunch the other day and was flipping through the channels on the television. He was surprised to hear familiar music, yet he couldn't remember why it was familiar. Well, when he was about 3 years old, he watched a show called "Talespin"...it was on after "Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers." These were both cartoons that were popular in the mid 1990's. Well, these were the shows that were on the other day! He sat there at the table engaged in memories of his past and watched every second of the episode. He even would comment "Oh, I remember this now--it's a good one!" I couldn't believe that my 15 year old son would be sitting and ENJOYING a cartoon when he usually is wrapped up in such shows as "Mythbusters" and "Dirty Jobs." I guess this proves that we're ALL becoming antiques, I mean, getting older and more nostalgic. Jill

Highlights

Can you say fantastic??? It was a fantastic weekend here with warm, but not hot, weather. Our Saturday was filled with baseball.....the All-Star games! Both Ben and Luke made the teams for their age level and each really enjoyed playing with different kids and especially winning the "medals" and getting the shirt! Woo Hoo! Luke's day was made complete by hitting the ball over the fence! (He's been trying all season.)

Ben had the game of his life the night before (Friday) when he hit an inside the park homerun, made all 3 outs one inning and pitched like a madman-WOW!! In Ben's own words speaking about the Saturday All-Star game he said ..."I pretty much stunk up the field." That's OK, Ben we'll choose to remember Friday night!!!



Later Saturday night we were invited to a bonfire at some friends house...it was a hoot and Luke was asked to spend the night with them. I told Luke to get ready for the sleepover and gather the things he would need. He came out of his room empty handed but looked as though his shorts pockets were going to burst! So....... for all of you out there who are g-mas and g-pas, here are the necessities to take to a sleepover in the year 2007.




Front right pocket.....Nintendo DS
Front left pocket.....Pokemon cards




Back right pocket.....Ipod Nano
Back left pocket .... Wallet

What, no toothbrush?? No sleeping bag? pillow? Guess not. So consider yourself educated on sleepovers :) Jill

A typical summer day

It was a busy day on Peterson Hill yesterday. The day was filled with the typical running kids to summer school, golf, baseball, and taking friends to play dates. One thing that was fun was to have a neighborhood kickball game. Andrew had some friends that came over after golfing and we added our crew and a few neighbors and had a rough, tough, not rude, crude game of kickball. They all had fun and all I gave up were 8 water bottles and 2 bags of popcorn. Now that's good old fashioned fun!!




and after 2 losses in baseball last night, it was good to come home and see this.....it made me smile.... As Anna says.."God painted the sky pink and purple
just for me." Have a great weekend!! Jill

Reading

You would have thought that we had lost electricity or something. 2 of our boys have gotten very creative with reading at night. They thought it would be fun to pretend they were camping and use their coleman lantern to read. It gave off a very strange glow in their room as you can see. I'm sure they were just trying to save on our electricity bill....ha, ha , ha. Jill

Works for me....

Last week I had some extra kids at my house. All of a sudden I heard giggles and laughter and shouting and then more contagious laughing from the back of the house. I ran back to the boys bedroom and what did I find????? All of my kids and their friends playing this....



I couldn't believe it. No one was being picked on, made fun of, tortured, etc--it was this game... and you need to have it too. It works for me! Jill

A bat in my kitchen?

We will all be glad when Anna is done with her gymnastics class..... Jill

Our Father's Day

Hello there! Our Father's Day weekend was busy! Friday night we started with a family movie night...we needed to relax and reconnect after a busy week. Saturday, was a baseball day. We were at the park from about 10-4:30--three games, 10:30, 12:30 and 2:30. We did enjoy the day--seeing friends, cheering our teams on and even dining at the delicious concession stand. Woo Hoo!

Father's Day started with us waking up at 8:00 and Dad declaring that we would be visiting a church ( our church's off shoot) about a half hour away and the service started at 9:30! EEk! Good thing most everyone showered the night before!! Needless to say, Dad did NOT get breakfast in bed. In fact, I think he poured his own bowl of cereal! While at church we saw friends that we haven't seen for awhile. They invited us to their BBQ at lunchtime. What fun it was to hang out with their family! It was ironic that the families that went to the BBQ all had 4 kids. Even more ironic, we all had 3 boys and 1 girl. What are the odds of that????

Dad finally got to be pampered as we left him at home to watch golf, but mostly he just took a much needed siesta. Yea! Dad thought KFC (kentucky fried chicken) sounded good for dinner so that was his special father's day dinner.
Side note: Andrew informed me that KFC is no longer Kentucky Fried Chicken--it's KITCHEN FRESH CHICKEN...I stand corrected. We finished our day with a yummy strawberry shortcake and ice cream!! Sounds like a good day to me!! We really appreciate the Dad in our family- the hard worker, the commuter, the advice giver,
the spiritual leader, the encourager, the rollercoaster ridin' man himself! Happy Father's Day!

We're also blessed to have such wonderful men like Grandpa Phil and Grandpa Walt who have given us excellent examples of what it is to be a real man and father. Thanks to them! Jill

Ho, Ho, Ho

After a long day with temperatures near 90 degrees, having to put up with 2 extra boys in the house (friends over) and watching Ben play a 2 hour baseball game, a girl just needs a nice relaxing bath--complete with bubbles. Squeaky clean!!



and by the way, there's this war going on in my family room. It's been going on for 2 days now. I've been asked not to disturb it, but I'm getting a little tired of stepping on army men (accidentally, of course)and I KNOW our dog is tired of walking around it to get to the patio doors to get outside. We can only hope that the war will be done today!! TGIF! Jill

A nice surprise

Check these guys out! They want a yummy pancake breakfast. They are cooking these all by themselves.... aren't you proud of them??? Me too. But, next time, boys, you might want to spray the griddle BEFORE you put the pancakes on.......and clean up your mess too! Jill

Works for me!

Here's something that works for our family..it's short and sweet.

LAST ONE OUT OF BED MAKES THE BED!!

(Now that it is summer, unfortunately that is ME!) Jill

A Trip to the Grandparents

Hello! We've been on a journey the last few days. A very long journey (in the car with 6 people and a dog) to visit our Grandma's and Grandpa's who live 4 hours away. Here are some highlights from our trip

In Illinois....

Dinner with my precious 91 years old Grandad
Playing monopoly and using the hotels!!
Playing catch in the backyard
Fabulous breakfasts that I didn't have to cook
Sitting on Grandma's patio at dusk and getting divebombed by hummingbirds
A late night trip to Wal-mart after realizing I had forgotten to pack Anna's underwear
Seeing many childhood friends and their families at a 70th birthday party

In Iowa....

Playing a wild game of 4 square with Mom and Dad in Grandma's driveway
Conducting our own church service in a park, complete with bullfrogs serenading us
Climbing trees
Picking flowers at Grandma's neighbors house to make a beautiful bouquet
Yummy steak dinner

and let's not forget.. Anna's colorful eye (it looked worse a few days ago)...from a frisbee accident.



But the best thing yet....GRANDMA and GRANDPA LOVIN'

Sweet Summertime

Today is the last day of school for Luke and Ben. They are so ready for school to be done. This time of the year is so hard to get the kids to bed at a decent hour. With baseball until 8 o'clock at night, then shower, then snack, then relax with a book--I think they climbed into bed last night at 9:30. That's practically MY bedtime!

We also had a family meeting last night to discuss the rules for the summer as far as computer use, chores, daily ..ahem..hygiene, etc. The rules are....

No computer use until 9 am (maximum 1 hour limit per child)
In order to use the computer, you must have chores done and be dressed for the day.
These simple rules will hopefully save my sanity over the next 3 months. Let's hope!!
Enjoy your weekend! Jill

Let us not forget about Anna...

Today was Anna's last day of 4K. The students in Anna's class held a concert from 9-11 this morning for the parents. They have been practicing their songs so much--they were awesome! They sang "What a wonderful world" by Louis Armstrong and held up pictures showing the words to the song. Here's Anna...sing along with me...

"I see trees of green, RED ROSES TOO, I see them bloom, for me and you and I think to myself--What a wonderful world!" (Here's Anna with her picture of roses that she held up at the appropriate time in the song.)




We had a fun reception in the classroom after the concert. We had cake and snacks and had a few photo opportunities too. Hubby and I were so proud of her! I guess it's official....We have a Kindergartener now!!!

Last Day of Freshman Year

It's a happy day at our house today. Andrew completes his freshman year today. He was even up and out of here at 6:00 (that's a.m.) to get to the bus stop ten minutes early.
He's had exams this week so has only gone for a few hours each day. He was supposed to go to school tomorrow too, but with the way his schedule works, he had a study hall and Honors algebra final. Early last week he received an exemption pass (for one of his final exams) because he made high honor roll all year..a very nice surprise! So, he used his pass to skip the Algebra final (smart kid, hey?)

The first words out of his mouth this morning were... "No more getting up at 5:20 am for awhile--yea!" I agree, it will be nice to "sleep in" this summer! What a great school year for Andrew--Way to go, buddy!

Works for me!

Wow, it's Wednesday already and the last week of school for us! I have mixed feelings about summer vacation. I'm ready to "sleep in" a little in the morning but I'm not ready for the arguments over chores and whose turn it is on the computer.

Today's tip will sure help me this summer when those kids tummies are growling. I keep a HUGE, I mean huge, bowl of fruit on our counter in the kitchen. When it's time for a snack, it will be very convenient to just take a banana or apple out of the bowl instead of having to open up the refrigerator and search for a snack. It's healthy too!
The only downside is that you have to restock it every few days because they really hit it hard!! Oh well, another excuse to go shopping! Any time of shopping is fine with me!! :) Jill

My dog is OLD!

You know your dog is old when... you throw her a cracker and half of it sticks to her mouth and she doesn't even know it!!! Poor Annie Bananie! Jill

Wrestlemania

The man that lives at my house is cool. I mean, he's is super cool. He knows what gets the kids going at our house. All it takes is Dad getting on the floor and our family room becomes "Wrestlemania." Here are a couple of shots from our wrestlemania this weekend. Notice that "the princess" gets her own special, more gentle, wrestle. Heaven knows, we don't need any tears!! Jill

The Progression of Pancakes

It seems to me that people around my house are getting a little too "uppity" about their pancakes. Hubby was gone overnight a few days ago and, well, I just didn't sleep that well and I was up at 4 am. I decided I would be a good Mommy and make a big breakfast for everyone. I made pancakes and sausage- YUM!

The kids pulled themselves out of their warm beds and made it to the kitchen table with no problem. I had set out the butter and syrup and everyone's plate so they would be ready to go. Then the commotion started. Ben was up scurrying around the kitchen, digging through my pantry. You see, it all started with a trip to Missouri.....

My cousins children taught my children that the "norm" for pancakes was to put peanut butter on them and then top them with syrup. Whatever happened to just butter and syrup??

Have my children become high maintenance??

Then came the 6th grade trip to an overnight camp. Ben was then taught not only to put peanut butter and syrup on top but ALSO the pancakes needed to be sprinkled with powdered sugar. Give me strength!!

So by the end of breakfast, my table was full of dishes, peanut butter smears, syrup drips, sticky utensils and powdered snow! Whew!

What's next for the progression of pancakes?? If your family does something different with pancake toppings, please don't invite one of my kids over...we can't fit much more on our table!!!! Blessings- Jill