Game Night !

Game Night is one of our favorite nights at our house.   I hope our kids remember how much fun we had.  
Right now our favorites are :

Hide and seek in the dark - the person that's it gets the flashlight and counts to 20 or 30.   We can only hide upstairs and once found you are supposed to go sit on the couch and not run around telling the seeker where everyone is help the seeker find anyone.   We pull names out of a hat to determine who goes first and  Nathan and Ryan are old enough to count and seek by themselves.   They don't always like to hide by themselves with makes it really hard for an already larger than life body to squeeze another person albeit smaller, into a space in which to hide and not be seen.

Colored Eggs - 1 person is it (the fox).   the rest (the eggs) pick a color.   The person (the fox) picks a color and if the color is chosen that person jumps up and runs around whatever was chosen to run around and if the fox catches the egg that person is out.   If not, the person picks a new color to be and the game continues.

Freeze dance - Music on, dance.  Music off, freeze.   We found out that the better the dancer....the easier it is to get them out. :)

Freeze tag -  1 person is it.   The rest of us run from one side of the room to the other without the person in the middle touching them.   If the person in the middle touches you, you are frozen.   Someone can un freeze you by touching you.  

Our latest game which seems to be a new house favorite is : 
Silly string fight- Everyone is armed with a can of silly string.   Everyone shoots the entire contents of silly string over anyone and it seemed anything.

I can't wait to play more games as they get older.    When they can be set free with a flashlight in the neighborhood. :)

I haven't posted anything about Syd's lunches for a while.    Probably because being cute and super creative only lasted through 1st grade and now just trickles in here and there.
I do try to put little notes or jokes in her lunch box during the week.    There are a ton of great and more importantly free printable notes and jokes online.

Today being Valentines day I wanted to put something special in her lunch.    and then I had no time.   SO.  as good intentions always are....I found this instead.    Cute and FREE and fast !
I love this site....they have the best recipes.   I have made several and even have their minestrone soup in my fridge left over from dinner last night.  SO yummy.  super easy.

Any ways.   Here are a couple of pictures of my lame attempts at being creative without embarrassing a 3rd grader who is "too old for all of that cutesy stuff mom"  :)
Lunch including drink = 5 minutes.

so cute right ?

and of course the Valentines box.    

Baby it's Cold Outside

    I really can't stay.
Baby it's cold outside.
     I gotta get away
Baby it's cold outside.
     The littles have been
Been hoping to say hi
     so very sick.
but I can't type as my hands are ice
     9 degrees had me a little worried
I really need to hurry.
    This should only last 1 month more.
Everyone is starting to roar.
     I need Spring to hurry.
My head is feeling blurry.
     Where's my pink pills I need some more
You'll need a drink here let me pour.

I suppose if you don't know the tune this just seems like a mess of words.  :)

It's been so cold that the kids can't/don't want to go outside.
Kids can't go outside = more fighting.   more messes.   more likely chance to spread disease.
Needless to say I never thought that I'd be LOVING and I mean LOVING this 30 degree weather we've been having.   I'm hoping Puxutawney Phil knows what he's talking about.   We could certainly use an early spring.

To pass the time my boys have been practicing their drumming skills.   They saw this video

and have since been doing this... 
 The percussionists in the first video are from Utah. The main drummer is friends with the drum :) What a good sport. The difference between the professional drummers and my little drummers is that the Samoan got paid for his abuse. Cam didn't :)

4 years later

drama

trying to recreate the drama :)

Lucille

This is a post from Sydney.

This is Lucille eating crickets.  She ate 24 today.  It's fun to watch her chase them around her cage sometimes.   She is really fast. 

We let her eat them on the floor today for this video.   I was afraid the crickets would get away but she got them all.

Sometimes when we feed her these big worms she will bite them in half and she won't get it all in her mouth and the head falls on the sand and it will keep moving around.    It's so gross.

She's about 12 inches long now and should be fully grown.

Lucille smiling for the camera.   Her spikes actually feel  kind of rubbery.

A picture of her Popeye arms.  And a close up of her ear.

A picture of her full belly

edited to add : we still have our roaches colony. Keeping them warm...especially this month isn't helping them breed super well. Plus Lucille is a pig. So we alternate between the crickets and the roaches.

 Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Enlisting Help

Syd came home from school yesterday and said, "umm, mom, I noticed that there were fresh vacuum marks in the carpet."
I told her that it was Spencer who had vacuumed the floors...Spencer sat next to me beaming..Syd blew out dramatically and said, "oh good.  I thought you had vacuumed and was going to say, oh no, your surgery"
I love that my kids help and look out for me.