Nothing Fabulous, but the best things come in *Simple*

The last few days of the Spring Break The boys and I hung outside to just enjoy the slight grey sky and last bit of freedom of 'doing whatever we wanted'.
So I took some pictures to share, unfortunately they are not 2 things.... 1.They were not taken by my amazingly talented sister and 2. my kids just don't know how to let a picture be natural, if they see a camera they are going to ham it up for all they got!

Kace may have a future career as a professional ball player

I loved this pic of Cris, his feet remind me of a fancy ballet move he could be doing prior to an amazing jaw dropping dunk, however the poor guy had to have the basket lowered to "little Mexican" size. A true replica of his dad, ah well as long as you can reach the pedals in the car your good!

Ah yeah, I can smell the career now.



he may not be able to make a basket but he can fly!

Could this be a moment of brotherly love?

ah yes, so cool

This picture reminds me of johnboy...enough said.

A Splashing Good Time

Yes I know the title is cheesy, but it fits our Spring Break appropriately. I wanted to go on a vacation, but since the economy stinks and I don't make million dollar bonuses like some people I decided on something closer to home..a staycation as they are being called these days. The boys and I adventured off to The Great Wolf Lodge... Oh man the blast we had! The hotel stay isn't the cheapest thing, nor is the food located inside the lodge, but we made it work. I purchase and packed some items that could be made for lunches and breakfasts' back in the room. (a micro and fridge in the room) that allowed for us to spend more money on souvenirs and other activities. The fun began the minute we walked in the door where we were greeted with chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick as we waited in the check-in line. The picture above is of Kace and Cris instantly putting on their swim gear in a more 'dorky preteen- before girls are cool' boy fashion... if you have seen enough of Sponge Bob Square Pants that picture reminds me of Sponge Bobs idyllic superhero's... Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.The fireplace in the main lobby, notice the strategically placed wolves and the antler chandelier... that's fancy stuff right thar This pic is in the lobby, behind the boys is ginormous windows that allow you to see into the water world of funThis is a mid shot of the 1000 gallon water bucket on top of the water fort dumping... Im not sure how fast it takes to fill back up and dump but on the opposite side of fort is 2 water body slides and you got this huge bucket dumped down atleast 3 times while waiting in line, there is a sign in the front area of the fort to not hold or bring small children or infants in that area... I can only imagine it would result in their immediate drowning, the boys and other kids would lay down on the ground in front and wait to be plummeled by this blast of waterBehind the fort is a whole lot of stairs, to get to the best water ride ever you had to climb 6 flights of stairs, we hopped in our 4 person tube and slide down a dark tube only to have it open up into a "tornado" where we went high up on one side and back down to go high up the other side...Cris cried and laughed at the same time, now thats what we call a rush... the line was a horrible disneyland line though, but worth it everytime we went on it again and again.This is the milder part of the park where a lot of the younger crowd hung out, behind that is a hot tub that has a wall that opens to connect an outdoor hot tub to the indoor one.The Wave Pool... not that I was smart enough to take the picture while the waves were actually in motion...which is why below is a pic of Cris waving at me in the wave pool ;)There was so much more than the water park, although it was hard to get away, we took advantage of the arcade And a very trendy adventure to play... you buy a wand and it activates pictures, to trees, animals and treasure chests all over the lodge. It is interactive and takes you on 14 missions throughout the first 5 floors (there are 8 total and waiting for an elevator was slower than climbing up and down 5 flights of stairs) Each floor was named something and the walls were painted to resemble the place that it was... we spent a good part of our last day doing this.
The boys are receiving instructions on one of the missions I know there is a lot of pictures but not the ones I feel can really give the girth this place deserves as I was more busy having a blast with the boys.

Fools Gold

Consequences, that's the lesson today boys and girls. We set our Leprechaun trap and we got a sweet surprise and a not so sweet surprise, or I did at least...the boys didn't seem fazed either way besides their new found 'gold'. Cris calls me and exclaims that the Leprechaun left them dollar coins! and left me a big mess... ah man.. .the little green...wait til I get my hands on that short stack... Kidding, kinda. it was pretty cool to be attacked in Green and to be left a fun surprise!
Here is the trail he left across my living room floor... All the way at the top of the book shelve is where we found our gold 5 One Dollar coins each. The boys loved it... I secretly hope this is not a tradition, but I do admit it was fun! ;)

To Catch a Leprechaun

Earlier this month I was reading the 'Family Fun' magazine in the dentist office (I know fun and Dentist do not belong in the same sentence together) anyway the March issue had been attacked by Leprechauns and so they included a few good tips on how to catch a Leprechaun. We decided that we were going to make one of these snazzy little traps and see if we cant catch us a little luck. So here goes nothing... an over sized Leprechaun hat... it is said that they are pretty full of themselves so we made a hat to tempt him with, and if that wasn't enough..a little bit of gold should due the trick and for good measure a few rules...rules the Leprechaun would surely love to break.

We took a empty oatmeal container and covered it in green felt leaving the top with slits in it so when he reaches the top to reach the gold we leave him he will fall in and WaLa..we will be proud owners of a pot 'o gold.

Don't forget the rules: #1- Don't leave any gold #2- Don't steal our gold #3- Don't leave foot prints on our table. yes please NO footprints on the table... I beg of you.

The original directions in the magazine shows a ladder made out of sticks, but seeing as how the sticks around our house are not to be used in that matter...we are collecting them and how dare we use them like that (see previous entry this month) than we got creative and borrowed the ladder from our Lincoln log set, its a tad shy of the top, but I am certain the little guy will jump up only adding to his demise of falling into our faulty top and trapping himself... this plan is solid.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see if we catch him. I cant wait! Cris asked me what kind of car I want as I will surely be able to get it once we get our pot of gold... sweet! crossing my finger and wearing my green proudly lets hope it works!

Good looks and Brains!

The boys and I have had a "Brilliant" day so far. Kace notified me that OMSI was having a free day to celebrate Einstein's birthday. I did a little research and it was a OSHU brain fair that OMSI sponsored, so I decided it would be a good day to do something inside since it is, yup, raining again.
I had wanted to see their DaVinci exhibit anyway, Come to find out it was only the OHSU brain fair portion that was free so we stood in line to purchase our tickets to the remaining part and as we stood in line a lady with 3 kids herself approached me and stated that she had a family pass that allowed for 2 adults and 5 kids and wanted to know if we would like to get on her pass. Like anyone will say no to saving 30 bucks right? It was awesome! I love the random acts of kindness that people do and that one is definitely a cool one. I myself am a holder of a few family passes to other places around town and now will be passing on my "pay it forward" when we go to these places.

The boys working on a Mad Scientist Experiment

These are real brains... the boys decided not to stay too long at this portion of the Brain Fair..the crafts and candy was definitely more their style.

One little... Two little...

It started innocent enough, Cris was attached to a stick that he found while we were hiking one day. I let him keep it, it was harmless and I honestly thought I could hide it in a corner until he forgot about it.
Let this serve as living proof that you can not ignore or hide a little thing, because it will grow into something bigger. I went up to the boys' rooms this evening to collect dirty clothes that somehow crawled out of the dirty clothes hamper and onto their bedroom floors...and this is what I found...


I guess he has a collection going now, or he has blueprints somewhere to build a fort, either way they are getting bigger and I am just not sure what to do with a piece by piece tree in my house. I'm laughing I really am, but for those of you that know me, I am also wincing inside. Sticks! and they're getting bigger! so I wanted to count them...... 13! a bakers dozen, but wood! What a silly kid!

Back in the Old Days

Our house has been busy with school projects, and I don't really mind...it is fun for me too, it brings back the memories and gives me and the boys some fun time together. I like it when I am able to help them with homework and we can enjoy time together.
Lately it seems that as our kids get older they bring up a lot of the "when you were a kid" or "is that how they did it when you were younger?"... I find it humorous because we did the same thing to our parents... you know "back in the old days".

So kace has been learning about the Colonies and the Revolutionary War. For a project they had to write articles as if they were writing the headlines for that time period and to obviously show what they learned. So a trick to making the papers look like they are older than dirt, or as kace put it 'these look like the real Declaration of Independence- did they have this kind of paper when you were growing up'....uhhh no, my child, but thanks for making me feel old... yet again:)
I was given a ginormous box of Lipton tea. I am not a fan of the regular stuff, but didn't feel like being rude so I accepted it, little did I know how handy it would be... I made a big cup of the worlds strongest tea(10 tea bags to be exact). I let the tea sit for a bit then we proceeded to yellow our paper.






Of course there was strict parent supervision in adding the finishing touch of the burnt edges... (it was I who played with the lighter the entire time, and even burnt myself a time or two, inhaled a few paper ashes and had a burnt smell in my house for 2 days.) Totally fun...just don't tell the boys;)

Growing a Poor Man's Garden

The boys had a Science fair a few weeks back. Entering the Science Fair was mandatory for Kace at his grade level, but Cris had a choice and he chose to do it, because he was offered to skip 2 weeks of homework if he entered. Little did he know that still meant some sort of work needed to be done. I saw this really cool activity come across my email a while back so I proposed the idea to Cris... he loved it and wa la we were off to making a mess, mixing chemicals and growing what I like to call a poor mans garden. It is actually called a 'Crystal Garden' I call it the poor mans garden because this fun experiment became popular during the depression... how appropriate considering we are sitting in the middle of a recession... wow, its like a history lesson too! A lesson on how history repeats itself. okay getting off track.
We started off mixing salt, water, ammonia and laundry bluing... we found some porous objects... a Sponge, cork and charcoal briquette. Oh and the colors are from food coloring to try and make it cooler.

Day 1... the beginning... please grow, please grow!

Day 2- the sponge and cork taking off like wild flowers


day 5- The Charcoal had awoken and started to bloom prettier than the others... proof something so dark and dirty can be beautiful. Also notice how it is growing on the wall of our container... its plastic, I guess it too was porous enough to grow on.


Cris at the Science Fair... he had his photo taken for the District newsletter, the school newspaper and is going on to the District fair. He had a lot of good responses, over 200 other experiments and one parent came back up to him after looking at them all and said "if there was a prize tonight you should get it, because yours is the best here"... that makes a mom proud.


And I was lucky enough to be doubly proud that night... Kace did an experiment on if age affects how a person sees in the dark. He wrote it wonderfully and we made this dark box to simulate a person walking into a dark room to see how long it would take a persons eyes to adjust and if they could see any of the objects on the back wall in the box. The hypothesis was that it takes an older person longer because just like the rest of our bodies, we are getting worn out. This amazing kid got an A...rightfully so.