Birthday and Building

So we have had a crazy, busy last two weeks.

First came Sam's party. That week I was gone almost every night doing something or other so I didn't get to get ready for his party until the day before. If you remember, he was having a Harry Potter party at the theater for the last movie. We could not wait! We (or should I say I) went all out for this party, but it was worth it, and was so much fun. We had 25 people at the party and it was opening day so we were all so excited.

Sam doesn't like cake that much so he requested brownies. I didn't want to do plain, old brownies, so instead I made these.




Wizard Hat brownie cakes. They were cute. Not too hard to make, but it did take a lot of time. Sooo chocolatey. Yum.

Then I wanted to do party favors that related to the movies, so I made these.




They are chocolate frogs. They were cute and really looked like little frogs. Much better in real life than in teh picture. I don't know if they were good though because I never had one. I made hald dark chocolate and half milk chocolate.

And lastly, I made these.




I got 40 flavor Jelly Belly beans, put them in the bag, and made my own label. each bag also had a chocolate surprise, which were the chocolate frogs. They were wrapped in foil, so you couldn't tell what they were. These were my favorite part of the party. They looked so good and real. Loved it!

Anyway, we had a great time, the movie was great (can't believe they are over!), and Sam is 11 years old! Woah!





So since we moved in to this house, 6 years ago, I have been one by one changing the rooms and making them more grown up. :) All of our furniture was cheap Wal-mart stuff from when we first got married 13 years ago. It was crap and I hated it. I finally decided I had to do something about it. I couldn't stand it anymore. I had two rooms left, the music/piano room, and the office. So I searched all month for the perfect furniture. Boy, is that hard to do. I had specific stuff in mind, so finding them for the right price and exactly what I wanted was difficult. We went to several different stores and almost decided to build them ourselves, but then I was lucky and found the best furniture store ever! They carried the exact furniture I wanted, for half the price of the name brand store, and got it here in 4 days! Amazing! So my office is transformed! YEA!!!!!! Also, this week, we built (mostly I built with AJ's help thrown in here and there) a corner storage cabinet. We built it in like 3 days. It would have taken way less, but it is so hot here, we had to wait until 9:00 at night to go to the garage and build it. Anyway, it is FABULOUS. I love everything about it and it fits in the room perfectly. Almost looks like a built in. Yea for building cheap, better quality, perfect furniture yourself!!!!

Here it is before accessories and after. I need more decorations, but haven't gotten that far yet.



Here is the whole room. It isn't quite finished yet, but it's a start and WAY better than what we had.



I am so proud of the room and love every piece in it. Really, I could leave it like it is and be happy, but a few more things here and there will really make the room. We also finished the piano room besides art and decorations, but realized I haven't taken a picture, and the office far surpasses that room, so I am in love with it at the moment. My whole downstairs is exactly what I wanted. It's all cute and nice and all of it is REAL wood, not plywood or MDF and should last a long, long time. :) SOOO happy! Now, on to the upstairs.... We did all this in one week. Craziness, but worth it. :)

I also had a Thirty-one gifts party last night. It was fun, the stuff is so cute, and I get some good stuff, and got to show off my new room. :)

Tomorrow starts the getting ready for school process. I am going to help teachers get their rooms ready this week. Next week is a half day of school to meet the teachers and then the next week they start full time, which means I start full-time as a student teacher! Ahhhhhhh!Two week until real-life sets back in. Sigh....

July Beginnings

Now onto July. I will get caught up on this blogging thing, just in time to fall back off once school starts again. My poor family journal is suffering.

Our 4th of July was good. We had our cul de sac neighbors over, Lindsay and fam, and our friend Robin and her little boy. We grilled, played a game, ran through the sprinkler, and the guys played a game of basketball. It was a nice day. Yea for cul de sacs!

The 6th was Sam's birthday. He is 11! Unbelievable! He's so big! It's weird. AJ said yesterday that he will be in High School in just 3 years and driving in 5. That is tooooo soon! He is having a big party on Friday for the opening of Harry Potter. Each year we give the boys the option of either having a birthday party where they get 2 presents from us, or no party, and we take the money we would spend on a party and get all the presents. So, Sam chose a party this year. It will be fun and we can't wait to see the movie!

For his birthday he got a basketball goal. isn't it funny that our short little munchkin family has a basketball goal. Well, we do, and we love it! He also got a cell phone. Yes, I know, he's 11! You would be amazed at how many 3rd graders already have a phone though! We did not want to do it and were totally against it for a long time. He has asked for more than a year. We said no way. He is always with me, why does he need his own. Well, then I realized that he will be at a different school, I will be working, he will have extracurriculars, etc. I still was against it, but finally after several months, I decided it was a good thing with RULES. Plus, I needed a new phone. LOL! He has been very good with it, and hopefully it stays that way. It will make my life earlier, since I won't be around him as much, and can always keep track of him. Also, it is a good consequence for when he gets in trouble. We can just take it away and he won't be able to stand it. Muahaha! We're evil.

Avery had his very first throwing up sickness on Sam's birthday. He was perfectly fine the day before. I was sleeping and just after 8:00 he runs in my room with his hand over his mouth saying he was going to throw up. I told him to go in the bathroom and he made it just in time. He threw up every hour until about 4 o'clock that day. No fever, nothing, just constant throwing up. It was very strange. He is rarely sick (the opposite of Sam) so it was very unusual. The most he ever has is a cold. He made it through it though, without even whining. Woohoo! Poor kid. I felt bad for him, especially on a day that should have been fun. Thankfully, Sam got his phone so he was occupied with that and didn't care that we didn't do anything special. Thankfully, we had gone out to dinner the night before since AJ had to go back to work. No one else got sick, and he was fine the next day. Whew!

He also lost his second tooth the other night. He thinks that is just the coolest thing. The tooth fairy brings 5 quarters for each loose tooth. When I asked him if she had left him anything he said, " Just about a doller in quarters". I said, "Cool! That's great! " He said, "I don't really use quarters for anything!" LOL! I told him quarters were just as good as dollars, and he should use them from now on.

I guess that is about it for last week. I will post party pics sometime next week. Who knows, maybe I will post something before that and actually have 3 posts within several days of each other. Weirdness!

June Fun

Yeah, I've been bad at this blogging thing! Oh well.

Yea for school being out! I love summer! We are non-planning, go with the flow, lazy summer people. Totally opposite of the rest of our lives!

June went by fast. I can't believe there is less than a month until school starts. Geez!

We went to Holiday World a few weeks ago. Yes, we go every year, and yes we LOVE it there! This was our best trip yet!

We went up on a Monday morning. We planned on leaving about 8:30. We got all packed and loaded up. The boys and I went out to get in the car, when all of a sudden, a bird flew straight into the garage and smacked right into our freezer! It fell down and went underneath the garage stairs. Poor thing was hurt and scared to death. Part of his tail was missing when he flew in, so he must have gotten attacked or stuck in something beforehand. Anyway, I was trying to find him, but all I could hear was his little chirping. I called AJ out and I was on one side of the garage, AJ on the other, trying to find the bird. Finally, he came out enough that AJ could see him, but he was far back under the stairs and we couldn't reach him. AJ moved everything and tried to crawl back there, but couldn't get to him. I started stomping on the stairs, hoping to scare him in the right direction, but he kept flying further and further back, the wrong way! Then all of a sudden, 4 other birds came and were circling outside the garage, screeching for their friend! It was craziness. I finally got the broom and tried to gently push the bird out. AJ had a bucket and we were trying to get the bird to go in the bucket. We tried forever and it was not working. Finally AJ said to just leave the dumb bird. I said no way! We were going to be gone for 3 days and he was going to die! I tried one last time with the broom. I got him to come out, but then we couldn't see where he went. AJ looked down and the bird had flown right into the bucket and we didn't know it! HAHA! Anyway, he took him outside and dumped him out with the rest of his bird family. They all tried to fly away, but that poor little bird crash-landed in the neighbors driveway. I felt bad for it, but what could we do. AJ was very annoyed at the bird and it had messed up all our plans. It took over 30 minutes trying to rescue him. WE cleaned up the garage really fast and were finally on our way. Whew!

We got to Nashville and got stuck in terrible traffic. This was like 9:30 in the morning! Why traffic?! Ugh! We finally got past it and managed to make it to Holiday World without any more trouble.

Since it was a Monday, the park wasn't very busy. Yea! We did some rides, camped out in the water park, and then did some more rides. Avery got to do a ton of water slides for the first time. We played in the wave pool a lot and just had lots of fun.






We left and went to the hotel. We immediately went to the swimming pool. I hate hotel swimming pools. THey are usually freezing and yucky, with too much chlorine. Not this one! It was the best hotel pool ever! It was warm, we were all alone, and it was great. We had lots of fun and stayed in forever. There was even a hot tub. Yippee! We have a water proof camera, so Sam loved experimenting with underwater shots. :)







We watched a movie before bed and then finally went to sleep. Boy, those boys were wild and crazy and sure tried to get in big trouble that night. Naughty, naughty. The next morning we woke up and it was raining. :( We checked the weather and it looked like rain the whole day. It took a while to decide what to do, but we had already paid for our next day tickets, so we decided to go ahead and go on to the park. It rained the whole way there and was cold. We got there and it was drizzling. Avery and I were freezing, so we went to the gift shop where we looked for sweatshirts or jackets. Um, $40, I don't think so. We decided to suffer. LOL. We rode several rides and then the boys were dying to go to the water park. CRAZY! It was only 66 degrees, but we went. I was sure, they would do one thing and be done, but nope. They rode water slides, rode the wildebeast (the world's best water roller coaster) and then went in the wave pool! I sat there and watched. I was already freezing enough. The good thing was that there were NO lines for ANYTHING! The wave pool did them in though, so we had lunch and then left the water park. By that point, the sun was peeking through the clouds, and it had warmed up some. Sam was tall enough for every ride this year (it's a miracle!) and AJ convinced him to go on the Pilgrim's Plunge (the highest water ride in the world. I LOVE water rides and they don't scare me like roller coasters, but i won't even go on this thing. It is REALLY HIGH!!! You even have to take a log elevator up to the top.I expected him to freak out, but he LOVED it. They were the only ones on the ride, and when they got back down, no one was waiting in line, so they went again!


We did ALL of rides that day and had a great time with no lines and it was the perfect temperature after the first little bit. Yea!

That night was more hotel swimming and we finished watching out movie. After lots of threats, the boys settled down and went to sleep quickly. Whew! They learned their lesson. :)

The next morning we woke up to rain again! It was our last day, so we went on to the park anyway. There were a few more cars than the day before, but still not busy at all. By the time we got to the park, the sun was out and it was warm. We went straight to the water park where we spent the majority of the day. Yea, my favorite! We had lots of fun and went on tons of slides. We only had to wait a few minutes in the lines and only 20 minutes for the Wildebeast. It was great. When we left the park, we went to the rides and Sam finally decided he would ride the Voyage, which he has been scared of for years. The Voyage is the #1 Wooden Roller Coaster on the planet with one of the steepest drops of any wooden roller coaster. Scary! He went though, and loved it!! So Sam did all the #1 rides on this trip. He was so proud of himself. :) After the coaster, we decided to do our last favorite things and then leave to come home. As we were walking to the rides, I noticed heavy clouds rolling in. I thought to myself, "I hope the rain holds out until we get through with these 2 rides". AJ and Avery went to one ride, while Sam and I went to another. As we were waiting in line, I heard a lady tell another one that her family had told her a bad storm with hail was on the way and quickly. Again, I hoped it would wait until we got off. We finally got loaded on the ride, and the guy was coming around to check everyone's seat belt, when we heard the first clap of thunder. Oh, great! Then over the loud speaker they announced that all the roller coasters would be closing, but the other rides would still operate. Yea! They started the ride and we had fun. The ride was coming to a stop, when the lightning started. They announced over the speaker that ALL rides would then be stopping. We got off the ride just as AJ and Avery walked over. We started walking to the exit and I said, we needed to hurry because hail was coming. Just as I said that it started to rain. We started jogging to the exit, but by the time we got to the ticket booths, it was POURING rain. We stood under the awning for a minute, with everyone else in the park. I then said we should just run because we were already wet and when the rain let up EVERYONE would be leaving at the same time and we would have terrible traffic. So, we started to run and it started to rain harder, and harder, and harder. I couldn't see a thing, we were pretty much running blind. It was CRAZY. We got to the place where the tram picks up people to take them to their car and stopped for a minute. That is when the wind started. It was blowing big barrels over, the wind was going sideways, and it was hard to stay in place. AJ ran on to get the car. As he was running, the wind got even worse and it actually did start moving us! I grabbed on the kids and we were all huddled together holding on tight. AJ pulled the car up as close as he could, but we still had a run to do. We started and so did the hail! OWWWW! All of us were saying, "ow!, Ow!, Ow!" on our run over there. The van has an automatic door so the kids jumped right in and closed the door. Well, I was trying to get my door open, but the wind wouldn't let me! It was blowing so hard it kept slamming shut if I even got it open an inch. I kept wrestling with it and finally got it open enough that I jammed my hip in and slithered in. It then immediately slammed shut. Thankfully, I got my feet in just in time! Yikes! It was WILD. I have never been in a storm like that before! We sat there for a minute, just stunned. We then got out the towels and dried off the best we could, and by the time we finished that, the sun was out and everything had stopped like it never happened! LOL! We got on the road and started the trip back home. Holiday World is in the middle of nowhere. Just a bunch of trees and fields. The storm had caused a TON of debris in the road and trees were down everywhere, so AJ and I were really watching the road ahead. I was sure we would run in to a tree any minute. Suddenly, we came to a break in teh trees and Sam said TORNADO!!!! But we were back in the trees so fast, AJ and I couldn't see anything. I told him it was probably just the clouds, but he said no way, I saw it! Aj and I were trying to convince him it wasn't, when I looked back and saw his face. He had burst in to tears and was terrified!!! At that point, i realized he really might have seen one! I kept looking back trying to see, but the trees were too thick. Darn it! I wanted to see a tornado! LOL! Of course, we couldn't pick up the radio, so we didn't know what was going on. We kept on driving and ran into the same storm 3 times on our trip. We stopped at a gas station about an hour later and changed into dry clothes. We were still soaked! LOL. Craziness! When we got home that night, I checked the weather and 11 tornados were spotted in Indiana that day. of course I don't know the counties, so I don't know if one of them was what Sam saw, but I am willing to bet we were in a tornado and didn't even know it! Anyway, we had a great time, it was the perfect weather, no lines, and we had quite an adventure, so it was fun! We loved this trip. Our favorite yet!