The Broeker Bunch

Mission Trip - Chicago

2011-08-04T13:09:00.009-05:00

Our church, St. Mark's, allows our Middle School and High School students the opportunity to serve others as well as see some marvelous sights outside of our Lincoln community through work camp/mission trips. This year our church decided to see St. Louis, but two weeks prior to taking off our plans suddenly changed. The agency that allows our youth to participate made a mandatory age requirement of 15 years, which caused us to rethink this summer's trip. We (our church youth) received overwhelming love from last year's adventure to Chicago, that we decided to revisit them instead.

This year I joined Tyler much to his delight...not. Our first day we did some sight seeing in downtown Chicago. Tyler went with his buddies shopping and I visited Chicago landmarks. I figured I can go shopping anytime. What was Tyler thinking?

The Pier was a great place to take photos

and so was Millennium Park.

This fountain was so cool. The face changes every five minutes.

This huge Marilyn Monroe is a new to the area. I guess she's caused quite a stir and is a bit controversial.

I'm thinking this might be the reason why? You know I just had to look! ;)

Then we volunteered at several places in the Chicago area. This Head Start Center was so much fun. We broke into 4 groups at this children's agency. We cleaned out an office, took care of the outdoor area (mowed and picked up trash), cleaned and organized the kitchen and of course, played with the kids.

The lady in the white shoes runs the front desk and hasn't ever missed a day of work. The director had us guess her age. She's 106 years young and still goes to work (in a non-air conditioned building). Very inspirational!

The following day we headed to the 2nd biggest homeless shelter in downtown Chicago.

It provides beds to 200 men and about 50 women.

We sorted, folded and stacked over 4,000 bed linens.

So, of course, this scrapbooking layout will be titled "Holy Sheet".

We also took the fastest elevator in the Northern hemisphere to the top of the Hancock building. 100 floors in 40 seconds! Impressive!

We also enjoyed Chicago style pizza! Yum!

We watched the White Sox play the Detroit Tigers. Sox win!

Lastly, we spent the day at Six Flags!

A great trip and such a worthwhile experience despite the lack of showering.

Six days and one shower! Delightful!

Renaissance Festival in Colorado

2011-07-19T21:26:00.006-05:00

Two weekends ago....Madison and I took a fun, mini vacation through the Girl Scouts to Larkspur, Colorado to experience a Renaissance Festival, which neither of us has done before. It was a quick weekend trip, with driving on Friday, Festival on Saturday and home again on Sunday, but it was well worth it!

We saw fiddlers!

Took lots of photos!

Tried Henna tattoos...

Madison got a cool butterfly

and I got a design on my hand (not pictured).

Then the girls (four of them) wanted a

feather in their hair, which should last about 2 months.

Then we watched various performances

and my friend, Juel, tried out Palm Reading.

I thought it was weird that there was an "aura" around her head when I took the photo.

I'm sure it's how the light hit the camera, but still it's pretty wild.

We ended the performance with jousting.

We cheered on the knight in black...

and I still don't know who really won?

But my favorite was the "village idiot".

He asked a very tattooed lady if she got her a$$ kicked by an Etch-a-Sketch,

which I found incredibly funny!

Next week, I am off to do mission work in Chicago with Tyler.

I just might blog it! ;)

Baseball & Berry Picking

2011-06-11T19:35:00.006-05:00

Can you believe this? Two days in a row blogging. I really don't know who reads this stuff about the Broekers or who really cares, but I guess this helps me with my knowledge of my photos when I come back to scrapbook it.

Today Tyler's team (Blue Chips) played in a tourney in Seward. The first game was awesome with a score of 19 to 2. Tyler got the three outs in the final inning playing second base. The boys had their bats going and all was well.....

and then they played their second game.

The grandparents (photo courtesy of Grant) came to watch this one. Well, the outcome was slightly different with a loss of 14 to 6. Tyler did get a couple outs at 2nd again and he hit a triple!

Bummer, I don't think my parent have yet to see a winning game.

We call this the "relative factor" and it holds true for both sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and probably long lost cousins if they came. Ugh!

Grant did enjoy a nice snow cone.

Then it was off to Roca Berry Farm to use our gift certificate for 10 pounds of strawberries.

Here we are just beginning to pick...

It's back breaking work.

Grant loved picking strawberries and asked if we could do this all the time.

Sorry, Grant, this only happens for 3 weeks in June.

Nebraska is not a strawberry growing state as you can see. I believe Tyler is holding the largest berry found for the day.

This is the only photo that's not blurry of me. It looks like I am holding cherries.

The kids are showing their stained hands after our picking activity.

We picked 8.6 pounds!

Now what am I going to do with them?

Summer is Here

2011-06-10T14:37:00.006-05:00

Hello again! After the longest stint away from blogging, I thought I'd post again. I have no excuse for not posting now that I'm finally into my second week off of work. There are no good reasons now for my procrastination except for maybe....

Tyler's U14 baseball games. This is Tyler's final year of youth sports now that he's entering high school this fall. Tyler continues to play 2nd base and loves it. He's had a good year "at bat", but has not hit a home run since the day Michael Jackson died. How could I forget...two historical events in one day.
Madison also finished up her soccer season playing goalie and a mid-fielder. She loves this game and I look forward to seeing years of her playing it. Now she's currently taking a theater class where she learned to be a glass of water on Tuesday. This does make a mother proud. (ha, ha) She also is playing softball with the name Toros. I enjoy cheering, "Go Lawnmowers!"

Grant has his sports too now, which is enough to send me completely crazy. I did bring this on myself. He's in his second year of Little Greens Track and will begin T-ball on Sunday. More opportunities for scrapbooking for me!

Oh, in case you are curious, we still have Miss Penny the Shiz-tzu/Pound Puppyl She's darn cute, but does enjoy eating Grant's shoes. Grrr! We just give her loads of raw hide bones and everyone is happy. Ranger still tolerates her also. He does look at her like, "Where do you get all your energy?"

I also decided to post two things that made me happy today....

Huge sale at Bath and Body Works! I received a wonderful gift card from my neighbor and used it on some great buys. Woo hoo!
And the UPS guy delivered my Scentsy kit today!!! Yay! My house smells wonderful, just wish it looked wonderfully tidy too. My web addy is http://amybroeker.scentsy.us/...if you want to check it out.

On a sad note, Lincoln Public Schools lost their District Office over Memorial Day weekend. It's unimaginable all that's lost, thankfully not my job and of course, not my classroom.
Still as awful sight to see, but the community will rally and all will be well again!

Newest Member of the Family

2011-04-10T20:51:00.010-05:00

Yes, I am sure you are in shock. Not by the fact, that I got ANOTHER dog, but that I actually took the time to blog in over a month and a half. I guess I just didn't feel like anything was newsworthy even though we've been very busy with baseball, track, Heritage School, Girl Scouts, a new student teacher in my room and logging tons of hours at Bejeweled. I guess you could say that I've replaced that silly game with blogging. In fact, I haven't read a blog in over a week, so if you don't read this, I am surely can not be offended. ;)

Back in December I thought that maybe, just maybe our Miniature Schnauzer, Ranger, needed a permanent friend to play with at our home. However, I did NOT want to housebreak a new puppy or go through that awful chewing stage. So, I decided to look into a pet rescue. I found several rescues in and around Omaha and Lincoln, but they all required a huge amount of paperwork (which I filled out) and a home visit or two. I was starting to think that adopting a real person would actually be easier.

After much work and communication with one pet rescue I learned two things.

1. Rescue dogs can be severely needy and unstable for an active household.

2. Rescue dogs can be more expensive than just buying a brand new one and many aren't even house trained.

In fact, one rescue wouldn't allow us to adopt their "puppy mill" dogs due to their fear of our schnauzer and Grant. Really...Ranger? Grant? Okay, well yes, I can understand that concern.

That's when I started to watch the website for Pound Puppies and found this cutie. It only took 74 visits to find a female, non-shedding dog that behaves well with children as well as gets along with other dogs.

Meet Princess Penelope, which we will call "Penny".

She's now got her "furever" home with us!

We had to wait an extra ten days before meeting Penny, which the shelter called "Sally Jo" due to getting Kennel Cough due to being placed in confinement. Poor little girl! Miss Penny is a Shih Tzu or Shih Tzu mix and arrived at the pound lost and was found wandering 16th and South Street here in Lincoln. Her teeth tell us that she's about 1 - 2 years old and that's about all we know about her. Apparently, her previous owners didn't microchip her, come looking for her, or even feed her very well. She weighs about 10.5 lbs. The shelter also had to spay her, which hadn't been done before.

Penny's a very timid dog and was extremely nervous when we visited her Friday night. Then when we introduced Ranger to her, she quickly stopped shaking and she probably thought, "Oh, good, they aren't going to hurt or eat me. They already have a dog and he's looking quite content." That's when we knew she was the one for us.

Deciding on naming this little girl was extremely difficult. If you saw my Facebook post, I received around fifty-four ideas for names. I found a lot of them very cute including Junie B., Latte and Molly. Tyler quickly suggested the name Penny after the Nebraska character in the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" and eventually he won out. I would have preferred a non-human name, sorry Penny Laschanzky (my scrapbooking friend), but everything suggested to us seemed to sound like a great person name too. I even found a website for top dog names and saw that the name "Penny" comes in 33rd place out of a hundred for dogs. You might want to check it out to see if your name is a popular choice for canines.

I thought I'd try to get some doggie photos, which proved to be a very challenging task.

No longer the "Lone" Ranger and Princess Penny

Oops...another miss!

Finally, two faces!

And if you are curious...Ranger is liking his new friend just fine.

Presidents' Day

2011-02-21T19:17:00.009-06:00

Happy Presidents' Day to you!

Hope you enjoyed your day off, if you got one. I, myself, had an Elementary Plan Day. So, no school for Madison today and a quiet day at work for me...cleaning my classroom and ordering supplies for the next school year.

I can't say I've ever "celebrated" Presidents' Day before. I should do something since my kids all have presidential names. Just think of all those scrapbooking opportunities I've let go by over the years....hmmm? Well, we did have Cherry Pancakes tonight in honor of our first fore father of our country, George Washington. This wasn't my idea, but that of E-Mealz. A food program that I am still loving. Of course, the cherries were suppose to go on as the topping, but we (Andy and I) thought it would be more adventurous to put it in the pancakes or panpakes like Grant likes to call them.

The batter does make for a nice looking Valentine pancake, I think.

And boy do those cherries retain their heat!

Here are recent photos tonight of my favorite
Commanders in Chief

John Tyler - 10th President of the U.S.

James Madison - 4th President of the U.S.
(Interesting fact: James Madison married Dolley 206 years earlier on Madison's birthday, which is September 15th.)
Now you are probably wondering why I know that weird fact?
Wikipedia, of course!

Ulysses S. Grant - 18th President of the U.S.
Wouldn't Ulysses be proud of a character like Grant?

The pancakes were good, but I think that there would have been better flavor if I would have left the cherries for the topping. I'll remember that next time! ;)

February Blahs

2011-02-13T20:29:00.009-06:00

I've been having the February blahs lately, so I turn to crafting. I created this wall art out of a kit from Archiver's. I can't take any of the credit, it's designed by the Archiver's people, but I did adapt it to fit five pictures instead of three. I love the color combination. I think I may make another one too. It was fun and pretty quick to put together.

Part 1

Then I found the cutest classroom valentines off of a craft blog. I bought all the supplies and found two cute girls to make them. I helped a little, but did more of the photo taking.

To complete the project one needs Smarties, Lifesavers, Gum (long stick kind), string, labels and rubber bands.

Then the assembly begins...

Kate is a neighbor and friend of Madison's.

Madison and Kate were busy for over two hours.

They made the cutest airplanes!

Part 2

This is Tyler's Team B Basketball Team.

They look thrilled. I like how one (Nate) hid from getting in the photo.

Teenagers are awesome to photograph...not.

Tyler's team played on Saturday and lost 19 to 39. Only one more game to go.

Part 3

Today was Youth Sunday at church.

Madison gave the Pastoral Prayer...

in front of several hundred people.

She was a rock star! I am very proud of her!

Part 4

We are on week 3 of E-Mealz. We did skip last week and I regretted it. It's been very helpful in creating quick, healthy choices for the family. No more..."What's for dinner?"

We have noticed an increase in complaints from the minors in the household.

Apparently, we've feed fish sticks, corn dogs and chicken nuggets to our kids for too long.

Above is a picture of Beef Pot Pie. It was good and brought me back to memories of those frozen Chicken Pot Pies my mom use to buy from the store.

This was a lot better!

Tell me what you are doing to keep busy in this technically short (but seems forever long) month?

Snowdays = Productive Days

2011-02-02T16:11:00.011-06:00

I so love snow days! I like that I can't really go anywhere and I'm not expected to. I dislike having a school year where I never get to use even one up. However, I am hoping we don't exceed our 5 snow days or we will have to make them up like last year. That's a bummer!

I haven't blogged in a while and I'm thinking I'm losing my touch to keep it up. There's just so much to do and so very little time it seems.

Here's what we've been busy with lately....

Tyler decided to try his hand at basketball. I was a little shocked that he's not decided that this is the sport for him in the past, but I believe a beautiful, young girl had something to do it. Tyler has a girlfriend who loves this sport, so of course, Tyler does too. How sweet, huh?

Tyler is number 42.

I love action shots, but terrible at taking them. I so want a Canon Rebel and a photography class to go with it. I wish cupid would bring me one for Valentine's Day.

Tyler's played two Saturdays now and hasn't done too bad.

He scored 4 points in his first game and 2 points in the second.

Madison got to attend a free girls' soccer clinic at the University on Saturday.

Madison had no problem going alone, knowing she'll have a blast.

Madison dreams of playing soccer at the University.

I tell her...live the dream, work hard.

I'd just be happy to know that she could play at a high school level.

I am delighted that she LOVES something this passionately, especially since it's not BOYS!

Andy and I got tickets at the last minute (okay, in the last 12 hours prior to the performance) to the Blue Man Group.

It was PHENOMENAL! I find that kind of humor...hilarious!

I also won my second charm from Two Dog Pond.

I feel a little embarrassed now, so I guess I won't be playing the game for awhile.

It is so darling! Thanks Rachel!

Yesterday, snow day #1, Andrew cleaned out cupboards and organized my spices alphabetically. I did laundry and cleaned toilets. Too bad this neatness can't stay this way!

I also made chocolate chip cookies. This is how many are left.

Then I organized some layouts from my last crop.

This is the most recent picture wise layout.

It was taken on January 10th, which was our very first snow day.

I love to do sport layouts. I am glad Tyler decided to try basketball.

I needed some more variety.

This is my favorite layout.

I love Halloween and the color combinations in this design.

Andy's cousin, Janelle, called me this afternoon. She works for the Community Blood Bank.

She told me that they are in dire need of O negative blood.

So, I went and gave. I got an awesome t-shirt and a free whopper at Burger King.

My snow day is now complete!

Getting Crafty Today with Spray Paint

2011-01-17T17:00:00.007-06:00

Today is Martin Luther King's birthday (MLK), so we had the day off of school. It's also suppose to be the saddest day of the year with holiday bills due, forever gloomy weather and broken New Year's resolutions. Just hearing about this made me feel depressed, so I decided to do something fun and crafty. I thought I'd decorate for Valentine's Day on a small budget.

I got crazy with some spray paint...

and found some junk at the local Goodwill store.

This owl is kind of creepy looking, but I saw the cutest owl decorated on another blog. I just had to copy the idea. I wanted to find a larger owl, but this was the only one I could locate without using eBay. He was $3.99 and in desperate need of a facelift.

Isn't he darling now? Really..."Whooo do you love?"

Do you think his heart is little too big? I'd like to find a smaller one.

To help with the the height problem, I used two vintage books from the 1950's. The Little Women one is from my grandmother. She always wanted me to read it. I've tried, but it's a little dull with the text being rather formal and dated.

Then, I found these metal candleholders at the Salvation Army.

They were 99 cents each.

I cleaned them up and changed the charms (to hearts) since some were missing from the original pieces. I found discounted red candles at Pier One for a dollar each.

Then I filled two jars full of clear and red stones (on sale at Hobby Lobby) to create heart trees. One tree for school and one for home. Madison found the twigs from behind our house that I spray painted white. The foam hearts were hung from the branches. I used one of the extra hearts for the owl's neck.

I haven't arranged the Valentine decor exactly the way I wanted yet, but you get the idea. What a great way to celebrate MLK day!

Hope you had a fun filled, happy day also!

Happy New Year--10 Days Late

2011-01-10T19:55:00.011-06:00

This is my first post of 2011. As you can see...my resolution is not keeping up on my blog! ;)

Here's a belated New Year's photo of two of my kiddos. Tyler spent the evening with a friend, so he wasn't included in our New Year's fun or whatever we might call it. This picture was taken at 11pm since we couldn't keep our eyes open for our own New Year (Central time zone). I guess there were lots of fireworks going off around our house, but I was sound asleep at that time.

I mentioned that I was going to come up with some resolutions that I could keep this year and here are a few.....
I am no longer keeping single socks around so incase we might find it's mate. It's unbelievable how many mismatched socks we own. Of course, I did all the possible laundry before letting go of these single socks. I used many of these for cleaning the house before pitching them.
I am also no longer picking up my husband's laundry that didn't make the hamper that is less than a foot away. He crabbed at me the other day for taking his pants to the laundry room that had his wallet and keys in them. Then he realized that they were actually in a pile on the floor...untouched by me. He can now trip over them until he decides they should be put in their rightful spot. Now if I could only do this with the kids' laundry in their rooms.

My last resolution has to do with the toilet (no photo). I thought I'd spare you the sight of one. Yuck! Well, I can't stand seeing an open toilet seat, so I'd always yell..."Who left the seat up??" This went on with me just getting crabby and the toilet still remaining open, so now I am committed to just putting the lid down by myself. Stress be gone. Ha! So, with these resolutions I can say that yes, I am still committed and living up to them!

This sure beats trying my hand at weight loss, exercising or eating a balanced meal!

On another note...I won a contest! I love charms and found yet another gal, Rachel, who makes them. Two Dog Pond has a weekly contest to come up with a title to the photo she displays on her blog on Mondays. The winner is announced on Fridays and I was picked this past week. Yay! The charm came in today's mail.

My quote for the little boy in a tutu reads "After enlightenment, then laundry". It's a Zen Proverb that I found online. I thought it was fitting with the laundry hanging on the line behind the boy.

Today was also a snow day, our first for the school year. Very exciting and good to have one since Grant was throwing up at two in the morning. His bug was short lived (thankfully) and hopefully self-contained. This allowed me to sleep in, which I thoroughly enjoyed!

We probably received 8 to 10 inches of snow. The kids scooped the walks and did some sledding by our house. Another opportunity for some snow scrapping photos!

I love this last photo of Grant. It makes his eyes look so big!

New Year's Eve 2010

2010-12-31T19:25:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year's Eve to you! Hard to believe that yet another year has passed and I still think it's weird to write twenty-ten for the date.

The past two years, I've chosen a "word" for the year. Last year's word was organize, which made me think I did any thing but that, so I'm not choosing a word this time, definitely not this year. Instead, I'm going to come up with New Year's Resolutions that I can truly keep. I might already be doing them, so I think I'll stick with something positive and obtainable. Really...isn't obtainable the key to success and I don't want a repeat of last year. Organize? Smorganize!

I did get one project done, thanks to my hubby, that I decided to do back in 2007, 2006 or 2005....put knobs on the cupboards in the kitchen. We've lived eight years without and I knew I wanted to say at least one thing I accomplished while on winter break.

Before

After

Before

After

Thank you, Lisa Ford, the the use of the template. It came in handy!

New Year's Eve
We decided to eat out at Mazatlan tonight for dinner. Tyler had a New Year's social obligation, so he didn't dine with us. Madison got a darling new haircut, which I love!

Grant ate a ton of cheese tonight. He's going to "bound up" until mid-February. :)

So, what are you doing to ring in the New Year? Any resolutions for 2011? I'll post mine tomorrow!

Have a safe and happy 2011!

25 Days of Holiday Craziness Completed

2010-12-27T21:02:00.011-06:00

This whole taking five photos a day was a wee bit adventurous for one working mom like myself. Let's say I didn't get it done, but I did figure out a photo for each day and I, of course, wouldn't want to disappoint you without completing the project, so here I go.....

December 10th

I bought six fabulous holiday cookies and thought how cute would that look if I was trying to make a cookies for Santa photo. Since Christmas is still fifteen days away, I happily consumed it for Santa. I can't say that I needed the calories more than Santa either!

December 11th

It was a weekend of scrapbooking bliss with some of my scrapbooking friends...Angie, Amy and Kristi. We are wearing red waxed lips that were leftover from our last crop. We are always creating photo opportunities to scrap, of course!
December 12th

We attended A Christmas Tale performed at Calvary Community Church, which our neighbor kids (the Blacks) each were a part of. They are one cute family and we are fortunate to be their neighbor!
December 13th

I caught my co-worker, Katie, confiscating computer mice and gaming controls from my classroom. Oh, 'tis the season of naughtiness! BTW, she wasn't taking them away from me! ;)
December 14th

Andy and I went shopping by ourselves and it was incredibly peaceful. I found ready to eat fruitcake on the shelves of Hy-Vee and asked Andy to hold it up for a photo. Think of the possible titles for this picture?
December 15th

This is what it's like to go shopping with a teenage boy...not a lot of conversation going on.
December 16th

I don't have permission to take this child's photo, so I deleted his face. I thought it was sweet that he brought his homemade nativity set made by his grandma for Show and Tell. I so love when kids want to share their stories with the class. Such a proud moment for a five year old!
December 17th

It's the Campbell Christmas party at Rosie's house. I did take a picture of Rosie (the hostess) and many of her beautiful home, but I knew my two blogging friends (Mindee and Tracey) would be the only ones to look at this blog. It only made sense to use their photos! ;)

December 18th

I couldn't decide, so I'm posting two photos. My sister, Jill, and her family stop by on their way to my parent's house to let their dog run around and to let the kids stretch their legs. Jill is newly engaged and marrying a very nice man named Mirvin. This is Mirvin's son, Matthew, with Grant in the below photo. Aren't they the cutest?? Now Grant finally has a cousin that's just his age!

Then I needed to add the photo of Madison at the Nutcracker. I have been waiting for years to take her...just a mother/daughter bonding event. I can't say it was much to Madison's liking. She yawned a lot and said to me after the first applause, "So, there's no talking, huh?"
December 19th

I normally don't post my picture, but I thought this was a decent one of me. I love my new lime green vest from my parents. A vest from the Vest's....clever, huh?
December 20th

It's Girl Scout meeting night and the Cookie Train Car is complete. It is all totally the girls' idea and looks just like the girls made it, which is should. You should see our competition, some look like architects constructed theirs! I'll post pictures after the event on December 30th.
December 21st

I couldn't find much to photograph, but is this not the prettiest present? It's a watch for Madison that I bought at my new favorite store called Blu Velvet. I heart that shop!!
December 22nd

Yup, you got it. Tattoo time once again. Little did I know that foot tattoos fade and sometimes need to be re-done. So, I scheduled the tattoo project after my last day of work, so I could recoup over break. Nothing says the holidays like a new tattoo! LOL
December 23rd

We did some holiday light driving in Lincoln. This particular house made the news and definitely resembles the Griswold's house in my book! I wonder how much their electric bill spikes for the month of December?
December 24th

We spent our first Christmas Eve alone this year. We knew that we were, so we eagerly (okay, I eagerly) signed up the whole family to usher at the 6:30 service. We go to a very big church with five Christmas Eve services. We were expecting to serve about 5,000 people since last year's record was around 4,300 with extremely bad weather.
December 25th

I chose this photo since I thought it was a wonderful idea of Grandpa's. Grandpa Tracy had five coffee cups full of change just lying around his house and he graciously gave each grandkid a mug. The rule is that each grandchild must take their change and find a way to help someone else. They can't keep it. The money could be given to a food pantry, purchase a gift for a child off of a wishing tree or simply put it in the kettle for the Salvation Army. Each grandkid is suppose to report next Christmas what they did with the money. The coffee mugs had approximately $44 - $53 in each of them.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Updated Holiday Pics

2010-12-14T20:35:00.008-06:00

Day 7 - December 7th (of course) - Holiday Decor

I could not find much to take pictures of, so I took photos around the house.

The kids made a tree with presents out of clay, which is now displayed proudly at our house.

This is my favorite nativity set that I purchased in 1988 on a trip to Mexico. I was a senior in high school and went with my Spanish class. I love the look of this nativity! I know I've posted this before...this year minus the rubber lizard.

Another family favorite...1950 Choir Boys. These little guys once sold for 29 cents each with the bottom still marked. They were purchased from my great-grandmother's pharmacy in Iowa. I still have a photo of my Dad at Christmas with these boys sitting in the background.

Our Christmas tree this year. We decided to only put one up and we went with the vintage looking one since it goes with my "theme".

Day 8 - December 8th - Letters to Santa

I asked the kids to write a letter to Santa for this photo.

Another night of no time to be creative!

Grant drew pictures and asked Madison to write "I am good".

Tyler is asking for basketball shoes. If you click on his picture to enlarge, you see he has errors in the Dear Santa. Thank goodness for computers and spell check!

December 9th - School Chorus Performance

Madison decided to give chorus a try this year. Tyler did not go out for chorus in grade school, so this was a new experience for us.

Madison had a part in ringing a cow bell.

No solos for her, but she did get to be a ding-a-ling! ;)

ps. Did you notice I didn't get 5 pictures a day? This is extremely hard to do!!

More Holiday Photos

2010-12-09T20:43:00.006-06:00

Day 4 - December 4th

Our neighbors, Dick and Sara, always have an Open House the first Saturday in December. They invite their friends, family and, of course, the Broekers who live two houses down.

Their home is like a photo out of Better Homes and Gardens.

I am not kidding!

Every corner is just beautiful!

Speaking of beautiful...our Girl Scout Troop #365 drove to Elkhorn and visited Clara's Closet.

The girls brought their moms for some dress up fun!

The activity included picking out the "just right" outfit complete with a makeover, runway walk, photo shoot, autographs and cookies. What more could a ten year ask for??

Day 5 - December 5th

Second Sunday in Advent

This nativity is in the youth center and I thought it was funny that there's a Halloween decoration sitting behind it. It shows that middle schoolers decorated.

Brrr....it's cold outside! Andy and Tyler were determined to get those lights up.

Our third year using my homemade yard sign.

We are a perfect bunch of flakes!

Grant decorated the ledge that leads downstairs all by himself.

Mom takes a deep breath!

Our front door looks like this.

Day 6 - December 6th

Today is my practicum student, Kayte Kerr's last day in kindergarten.

The kids made her a book and we gave the one she's holding.

Miss Kerr will be missed! She is a phenomenal teacher!

Andy and Tyler worked out at the "Y". So I said, "Please take the camera. I'm having a difficult time getting five photos a day." :)

We had our Monday night Girl Scout meeting, which I almost forgot about. We are decorating our train car for the cookie kick-off next month.

Are you ready for some Girl Scout cookies??

Every year (for the past three), I purchase a set of holiday towels. Madison picked out this year's "Naughty and Nice" towels. So cute!

25 Days of Christmas

2010-12-03T23:13:00.012-06:00

After being inspired by Ali Edwards, I decided to try my hand at the 25 days of Christmas. I have an upcoming scrapbooking retreat next weekend and thought it would be a fun challenge. I am using vintage paper and giving a hint of antiquing to all of my photos. I've chosen 5 photos for each day with a Christmas type theme. I'm going to try to post daily, but with how hectic life is (you can see by the photos), I'm not making any promises!

Day 1 - December 1st

We had "Souper Santa" tonight at church.

Andy wants to know how long I'm going to make Tyler have his picture taken with Santa. I'm thinking twenty-two? That's not too unrealistic, is it?

A cool tree at church

The start of our Advent Calendars

I purchased an evergreen spray from my neighbor boy who's selling them for the Boy Scouts.

Day 2 - December 2nd

Since we didn't have company over Thanksgiving, I made door decorations with my Cricut.
I love snow globes!

My aunt and uncle asked me to come over and take their Christmas card pictures. Calvin and Jalaine live just down the street from me, so it was no problem.

Jalaine and Calvin's dog, Rocky

Jalaine's beautiful nativity, which is similar to mine, but has more pieces.

I tried to take some outside photos, but I wasn't too successful.

Day 3 - December 3rd

Writer's Workshop is all about the holidays. I just can't escape it...excitement and all!

Aunt Patty's Attic had their holiday open house. They had all of their shopping by candle light, which created a warm, holiday feel. This little elf on a shelf asked me to adopt him, so I did. I think I'll name him Elvis.

Trader Joe's just opened in Lincoln and we were excited to check it out.

They had a 13 inch gingerbread boy kit for $3.99. It came already in one ready to decorate piece of gingerbread with frosting, sprinkles and M & M's. Very cute!

My apologies for this graphic aftermath of the poor gingerbread boy!
Gingerbread carnage!

Thanksgiving is Cancelled

2010-11-25T20:54:00.004-06:00

I woke up Wednesday morning at 4:40 am to the sounds of vomiting.

Grant got sick.

Bless his little heart, he hit the trash can too!

Darn it, what terrible timing.

No Thanksgiving at the Broeker household this year.

That means no sister and family, no parents and no sister 'n law and nephew coming.

I pouted.

I cried.

I got mad about it.

Then I wondered what to do with a 18 lb. turkey that was thawed.

Can't re-freeze and don't want to eat poultry for a week.

Then I realized that the Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach could use it.

They took it with much gratitude and thanks.

That's what Thanksgiving is all about.

Think of others and realizing life could be so much worse than the darn stomach flu.

After work on Wednesday, I went holiday grocery shopping (again) and bought 5 Banquet dinners and told the kids we were eating these yummy, little numbers instead.

They cost eighty-eight cents each.

And guess what?

They didn't say anything.

They accepted the idea.

I was disappointed. No reaction.

Of course, I did purchase a turkey breast too.

Before cooking photo

After cooking photo

Then it was time to eat and this is what Tyler looked like.

White and fatigued.

He didn't eat the Thanksgiving meal and took a nap instead.

Not again!

Good news...he never threw up!

Madison enjoyed pumpkin pie with me.

The house was the quietest it's ever been for a holiday.

There were only five of us and it was peaceful.

No company.

Lots of sleeping.

And time to wear my favorite, lime green, comfy socks with nothing to do!

Hope you all had a relaxing, peaceful and joyous holiday with much to be thankful for!

Already 14?

2010-11-24T22:19:00.005-06:00

Tyler celebrated his fourteen birthday yesterday, which I for one can not believe.
We celebrated by picking up PJ's Babycakes for him.
They are topped with his favorite candy...Butterfingers.

Andy was in charge of Tyler's birthday this year, so the pictures aren't really to my liking because I didn't take them, obviously. Tyler chose to take five friends out to eat at Cici's Pizza. No photos, of course, for odd reason guys don't like taking pictures? Crazy, I know!

I suggested going and catching a movie after the pizza. No response. Then Andy/Dad suggested going to Memorial Stadium and seeing the Class B Football Championship and it was a HUGE hit! Crete played Elkhorn and won 34 to 0.
My suggestion was a lot warmer, but I didn't have to go. Andy was freezing, but I guarantee the boys didn't feel a thing!

Add Sushi to the List

2010-11-21T21:02:00.007-06:00

Just call me a blogger slacker...I just can't seem to get this done anymore. Life consumes me, but I would not have it any other way!

As you can tell by my picture, I am wearing a "I voted" sticker, so I'm only a few weeks behind. We had November's Girls' Night Out (GNO) at Kinji's Japanese Restaurant. This was my first time trying sushi. I'm not a fan of fish, but I liked it and I'd go again. There were only three of us at GNO this month...Dawn, Lisa and myself. It's apparently a busy time of year for many.

Dawn is showing us her talent in eating edamame. I've not had those either and can't say I'm too fond of them. It's a food I'd eat when I'm thinking "nutritious, but no so delicious".

The waiter suggested California rolls for beginners. They are a good starter for the inexperienced sushi eater like me. Very tasty!

We also had some weird soup (not photographed) that smelled like the water from boiled hotdogs. It tasted better than it smelled. Here I am with my flaming entree' sporting that dorky sticker. When I saw that I could order something on fire, then I was all about that!

It was called Nebraska rolls or something like that. It contained corn, so that's where it got it's name. When one thinks of sushi, one doesn't think of the state of Nebraska. I liked it!

I love the look on Lisa's face. She's wondering what she's ordered, but I do believe she liked it.

Lisa decided we needed to try the dessert. It's ice cream covered in shell that was chewy. The ice cream was good, outer shell, not so much. Of course, I would have remembered the name of this too if I blogged sooner! ;)

The Patch '10

2010-11-07T07:08:00.006-06:00

I love pumpkin patches! I even love scrapbooking them even more. Oh, the colors and the fun! We went to Vala's Pumpkin Patch last weekend with free passes! Yay! This is one amazing pumpkin patch with 44 attractions and 3 live shows (so the visitor's guide says). Here are a few dozen photos from my two hundred that I took, so many to chose from.

Kindergarten Writing

2010-11-05T19:15:00.006-05:00

Last night, I was finishing my fifteen hours of entering report card grades that I stumbled upon this darling journal entry. I had forgotten about this little gem. It was drawn on September 24th after a week of learning about "Symbols of our Country". At this stage of writing in kindergarten, students generally are making simple drawings of their family and labeling them. They might be writing some "I see _____." sentences, but nothing of this caliber.

This child, I'll call him Dylan, asked me to sound out the words for him. For example: I'll say okay, the word draw is Da, rrrrr, aaahhh. You get my point. I don't spell the words for the students.

Is it not the cutest thing? I think it's my favorite writing sample in my four years of teaching kindergarten.

And is it possible to look at this and not smile?? So precious! Lady Liberty is standing proud, Dylan!

Boo at the Zoo

2010-10-31T13:51:00.002-05:00

Happy Halloween! This is one of my very favorite holidays...I love the colors, the costumes, the candy and the list goes on. I especially like that it doesn't stress me out like Christmas with the baking, the shopping, the wrapping...okay, you get the idea. So, I will be blogging a lot of Halloween pictures this week. My apologizes now for boring you.

Our zoo has this fundraiser called "Boo at the Zoo", which raises a ton of money to feed those animals over the winter months.

Here is John Chapo, the CEO/President of the Zoo. Every year we get our pictures taken with the wizard. It's so much like photos with Santa...truly part of the holiday custom.

This is also Tyler's first year volunteering at Boo at the Zoo. He worked Tuesday and Friday nights handing out treat bags and pulling the chains, so no one would walk in front of the moving train.

We realized after the first year that if you go at the end of the night you don't have to stand in any lines to get the candy. The event closes at 8pm and we began at 7:45.

We even found our friends off of Sesame Street.

Every booth sets up their station to look unique.

I am going to be sad when my kids are too old for Boo at the Zoo. Luckily, we have a few more years with Grant. This is one of my favorite events to scrapbook!

Friday Night + Bingo = Wild Night

2010-10-30T10:45:00.005-05:00

I have now completed finished my Project 40 x 40. I've been to the American Girl Store in KC, drank a martini (which cost me a quarter), got the tattoo and finally played Bingo at a local Bingo Parlor.

Yes, it's true...I've never played Bingo at least for money. Sure, I've played ABC bingo with my students, and played Bingo growing up, but never Bingo where I paid to play. And Wow was it ever ~~exciting~~ boring! My friend Amy and I went at 6:30 and stayed until 10:30. I believe we participated in about twenty-four games of bingo...all for $17.

We did learn about the Bow Tie, Mutt and Jeff and a Snowflake patterns on a Bingo card...

And the nachos were unbelievably awesome!

But we did notice the following...

an elderly couple making out,

a person trimming their finger nails,

several people missing their teeth (I was secretly hoping they'd win to buy some teeth),

a person picking their nose,

and random sounds of belches and burps.

Did you know that it is almost silent at a Bingo Parlor?

It's quieter than the local library.

I almost fell asleep.

Can you tell by this picture?

I even brought my "lucky" banana trophy that I use in my classroom.

It did not bring us any luck, but can you imagine what the bingo regulars thought?

I Got Inked

2010-10-26T23:04:00.006-05:00

Yup! I did it. I got my first tattoo at age forty and it wasn't so bad.

Nope, this is not my tattooed rear....thank goodness! Funny, huh?! I did send this photo to my friend Amy and said, "Let's get this done today. I'll be the one on the left." I knew that I could count on Amy coming along and being my photographer for this fabulous event. This is definitely one for the scrapbooks!

So, here I am signing the paperwork for the my "tat". Can you tell that I am extremely nervous? I have heard horror stories about foot tattoos hurting immensely, but I figured I had three c-sections, so can handle anything. Besides, I had three fantastic friends: Lezlee, Amy and Angie to cheer me on.

This is Cody, tattoo artist, at Sacred Heart Tattoos. He's been doing this for over two years and appears to know what he's doing. Heck, what do I know?? Can you tell by my body language that I am very comfortable about this entire process? Cody is looking at one of my scrapbooking magazines because that's where I got my ideas from. Some people look through tattoo catalogs for their perfect tattoo, but I tend to go for what I know best...scrapbooking inspiration.

Here Cody is putting on the inking transfer. At this time, the thought did cross my mind "looks good, that will be all, thank you" and considered heading for the door. However, I did not want to disappoint my "peeps", so I stayed.

Amy is getting a photo of the first line. I was thinking..."Oh, please don't blind the tattoo guy with camera flash this could cause problems and then I thought crud, this hurts!"

This is what I looked like from Amy's side.

This is what I looked like from Angie's side.

Angie was hilarious during this process. She was so nervous for me.

We thought it was clever how Cody covered his tattooing equipment with Halloween decor. Very festive!

Here's the finished product. I wanted color, a flower and swirls and that's what I got!

Now you might be wondering if I want another one? Um, probably not. They are kind of permanent. But, if you want to know if I want to tag along for yours? You betcha!

40 by 40 is Finally Finished...well, almost!

2010-10-24T22:37:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be turning the big 4-0! Ugh! I can hardly believe that I am that old. Turning thirty wasn't anything much, but forty seems so middle aged. I am not sure that I like the sounds of it, but what can I really do about it? I will just think of it as a number and one is only as old as one feels...and I feel twenty-two!

So, two birthdays ago I decided to try to get forty new adventures into my life that I hadn't tried before. There are some that I wanted to try, but with time and money I still haven't done them, so there's now hope for a 50 by 50 project that needs to start now. Here are a few things I hope to accomplish by then....parasailing, hike up a mountain side, attend a non-Christian service (maybe Jewish), visit Europe, white water river rafting, see the Statue of Liberty and maybe even eat Sushi, which I thought I'd get done this time around, but obviously didn't.

Here is what I did get done though. Please note that some are a little weak in nature, but I only had twenty-four months to get it all accomplished.

1. Started a Blog (11/08)

2. Went to a Movie in a Theatre by Myself (11/08)

3. Attended a Southern Baptist Church (12/08)

4. Sent my 1st Text Message (12/08)

5. Joined a Gym (12/08)

6. Signed up for Facebook (1/09)

7. Attended an actual Tea Party (not the political kind, 2/09)

8. 1st Ash Wednesday Service (2/09)

9. Donated Blood for the 1st time (3/09)

10. Shopped in Anthropologie (3/09) -- I am reaching on this one!

11. 1st Weekend long @ a Baseball Tournament (4/09) Too much of a good thing!

12. Touched Kasey Kahne's race car (5/09)

13. Went and saw "Wicked" (5/09)

14. Visited Carhenge in Alliance, NE (6/09)

15. 1st Trip into a Cave (4th largest in the world - 180 ft. down (6/09)

16. 1st Family Vacation with Five (6/09)

17. Survived a Colonoscopy (7/09)

18. Met Thomas the Train in person (7/09)

19. Attended my 1st Christian "Rock" Concert (8/09)

20. Went to my 20th Year High School Class Reunion (9/09)

21. Celebrated the Ethiopian New Year (9/09)

22. Visited Disney World (10/09)

23. Met Dr. Jean and attended her workshop (11/09)

24. Became a Mother of a Teenager (11/09)

25. Shopped for the 1st time on Black Friday (11/09)

26. Scrapbooked for an Entire Weekend long (2/10)

27. Rode in a Corvette for the 1st time (4/10)

28. Witnessed the Bodies Exhibit in Omaha (5/10)

29. Read all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (6/10) Another stretch!

30. Became Two Drips in a Drop for World Blood Day (6/10)

31. Won a Blog Giveaway for the 1st time (7/09)

32. Went to a U.S. Women's Soccer Team game against Sweden (7/10)

33. Visited the Iowa State Fair (8/10)

34. Made a Trifle for the 1st Time (9/10)

35. Survived a Slumber Party of 8 Tweeners (9/10)

36. Owner of a Smart Phone (9/10)

Note: Last four adventures aren't done quite yet, but will be done this week!!!

37. Drank a Martini (10/10)

38. Visited the American Girl Store in Kansas City (10/10)

39. Played Bingo at a Bingo Center for $ (10/10)

40. Surprise! Okay, not really, you've heard me talking about it....pictures to follow on Tuesday!

That's all...mission accomplished! ;)

Ferb is Four!

2010-10-19T18:20:00.003-05:00

Phineas and Ferb's number one fan turned four last week! So, we decided the cake this year will say "Happy Birthday Ferb!" on it to keep with tradition. Last year, it was Devin, the year prior was Christopher and the first year was Bryan. As you may recall, it all started as an accident with the first cake so we thought that we'd do this "name game" until Grant is 21. We will skip the vowels and continue with our yearly joke until we end with the letter "Z". Right now, Grant still doesn't know the difference. Next year, he better notice or I will be concerned. It will be a "G" year, but not for "Grant".

We let Grant pick out his gift at Toys R Us and he chose a Buzz Lightyear, just like the same size as the one Andy has in the movie. It has all the lights and noises too. Very cute! Also, if you tell the clerk that it's your birthday, you get a free balloon and crown.

Grant also got a weekend play date with an old friend in celebration of turning

four. Grant and Cameron became buddies during the summertime at their older brothers' baseball games. Many a days and nights spent at the good ole' ballfield playing cars and eating snacks!

Grant chose to eat at Burger King and to play in the ball pit, which is usually off-limits when we dine there. I think it's gross, but it's Grant's day, so why not...

Cameron even gave Grant a sack of goodies for his birthday. Notice the look on Grant's face when he sees he got a bag of cotton candy! Sugar + Grant = Trouble

Then we visited the Lincoln Zoo to see the new penguin exhibit that just opened the week prior. Very cool!

Two cute baseball buddies!

Kindergarten Lesson #624

2010-09-22T16:52:00.011-05:00

Today's lesson is #624...

Why?

I guess it's a good place to start since I've already learned so much in my four years teaching kindergarten. It's also my room number at school, so it totally makes sense to me.

Today's kindergarten lesson is much like many other ones. It's humorous, cute and one that I can share, maybe unlike other ones. Besides, if I didn't have darling lessons like this one at work, I'd end up looking like this....

And who really wants to put up with that kind of person?

I even thought I could probably write a book about my experiences as a kindergarten teacher. Oh, the stories I could tell. I've even created a title for the book "Pretty Please with Sprinkles on Top". So, if you see this title sitting on the shelves at Barnes and Noble be sure to snag a copy fast.

Okay...on to my cute kindergarten story.

Today I have a practicum student in my classroom. We'll call her Ms. Blurr (this rhymes with her real name). She's quite fabulous and I have no idea what I could possibly teacher her. Although she claims to be learning a lot so far in my room.

This morning Ms. Blurr did the student greetings and lunch orders for the day, while I got the students on task with their seat work for the morning.

Ms. Blurr says, "Jane, would you like a hot ham & cheese sandwich or cheesy breadsticks?"

Ms. Blurr knows that this child orders hot lunch everyday, so asking about cold lunch really wasn't an option until today.

Jane quickly responds, "I have cold lunch today. It's in my backpack."

Two hours pass....

I see that Jane has a hot lunch card in her hand and I quickly remind her that she ordered cold lunch today. Jane gives me that "I forgot" look and pulls out her lunch.

It looks like this....

Well...No, not actually.

It was two melted popsicles (thankfully in their plastic wrappers), one Yoplait yogurt and one very ooey, gooey chocolatey ice cream sandwich.

Where was my camera when I needed it? Too funny. I love kindergarten!

Lesson #624 - Ice cream and popsicles do not work well as options for cold lunch.

In case you are wondering, Jane's mom had no idea that Jane packed her very own lunch today!

A Quieter Weekend

2010-09-19T20:35:00.003-05:00

We are having a much quieter weekend after last week's eight girl slumber party. That one was excitingly fun, but it about did me in. I need my sleep on the weekends. I'm so glad it's over.

This weekend we got some new furniture for upstairs. The fifteen year old blue couch went to Goodwill and the recliner with the broken spring is hanging out in the basement awaiting it's fate. Andy loves it, but it's looking rather worn and may need to be put down. Really...when you sit in it one cheek sits higher than the other. That drives me crazy!

I love the look of the furniture...soft brown and hopefully doesn't show stains easily.

I'm not so sure of the accent pillows, but they are nice and big and fluffy. These can easily be replaced by some super cute ones from Pier 1 down the road.
Tyler is trying out the oversized chair with matching ottoman. Okay, there isn't an ottoman yet, but it will be coming. It's on backorder.
As you can see, Tyler is all about those Colts and I hear that it's an exciting game since the Manning brothers are playing each other tonight. Go Indianapolis! Oh, heck, I really don't care...Go Giants!

A "Madison" Weekend

2010-09-12T18:06:00.008-05:00

Madison had the best weekend ever, or at least I think she did. Well, she better have! We celebrated Madison's upcoming 10th birthday all weekend long, even though it's actually this coming Wednesday.

It started by picking up gourmet cupcakes at PJ's Baby Cakes after school on Friday. Delicious!

At 6pm, six girls (one arrived later) came over for a slumber party. Madison loves these types of events. Now her mother...not so much. The girls are enjoying pizza from Cici's.

The girls waited for friend, Aleni, to arrive by watching Diary of a Wimpy Kid downstairs. That is a must see movie. Very cute! "Zooemama!"

Then we played a game that I thought up. I scattered 200 of those popular, drive teachers crazy, Silly Banz all over the yard. The girls were each given a flashlight and a list of particular banz to look for. They were not allowed to just pick up any band, it had to be on their list.

The driveway was used for sorting and counting to see if all were located. Each girl ended up with two dozen banz. Only two were unaccounted for, which were the small ring ones. The hunt was about 45 minutes long and then another hour of trading pursued afterwards.

This Silly Banz hunt was a huge hit with the girls! Even one girl asked if we could do this again. I believe I could win "Mom of the Year" for this idea.

Then it was off to "sleep" in the tent. Yeah, right, I could hear them still at 4:00am. I took apology cookies to the neighbors on Saturday. So sorry!

Having Grant wake the girls at 8:00am did not make me feel bad. In fact, I could not have enjoyed it more. I probably wouldn't have disturbed them if it wasn't for one girl needing to go home by 8:30.

Even Grant couldn't wake the dead.

On Saturday, I tried my first attempt at making a trifle for Madison. Making those layers even is very difficult. It tasted great no matter how it looked. The trifle had devil's food cake, Cool-Whip, carmel and toffee chips in that order and then repeated. It was sinfully good!

Then on Sunday, we had a "party" at Kids Against Hunger in Madison's honor. We packaged 12 boxes of food that created 2,376 meals.

Hope you had a wonderful birthday my darling daughter. Happy Double-Digits to you!

Wishing for Acts of Kindness

2010-09-07T16:53:00.005-05:00

This is Tyler standing in a very long line on the night before Black Friday last year.

Tyler was willing to battle the chilling conditions by standing in line for hours for a free $50 iTunes card to go with a $200 iPod purchase. You may well know that iPods rarely go on sale, but retailers sometimes give out gift card to make the purchase more enticing.

Tyler wanted an iPod in a bad way. So, he saved up half the cost and his nice parents agreed to pay the other half for his birthday, which was three days prior to Thanksgiving.

Today I come home to see Tyler all red-eyed because someone despicable broke into Tyler's locker and stole his iPod. Of course, I've already had this conversation with Tyler about taking this item to school and it being any easy product of theft. I heard a "But mom...one of my teachers has us use it in class." Tyler rest assured me that it's under a password and it wouldn't be of any value to anyone else without that secret password anyway. Besides, Tyler has it either on him or locked up.

I guess so much for that.

This can be replaced, but I'm sad. I'm disappointed. I'm fuming.

Why do people have to behave this way with no respect for other people's property?

You can be assured that taking things that aren't yours will certainly be a topic of lessons learned in kindergarten by this teacher.

Boating Adventure

2010-09-03T21:36:00.005-05:00

I had several misgivings about posting this video, but I figured it is rather amusing to watch (and he's darn cute too). Please note that I was not on this boating adventure because if I was I would not have allowed my youngest to drive. The only thing Grant is allowed to drive is me crazy. There might be laws that govern this type of thing, so I won't disclose who he went with or where he drove the boat. Just know that all went well and he had an incredible time.

Letter to the Teacher (that's probably never been written before)

2010-08-31T17:45:00.003-05:00

September 1, 2010

Attention: Photographer or Teacher in Charge

Please allow Tyler Broeker to skip the first round of picture takings on Thursday, September 2^nd. We will gladly have his pictures taken on re-take day, which usually occurs a month later.

Tyler had an unfortunate run-in with a crazy hairdresser who cut his hair much too short. This has caused much distress and heartache this past weekend for both Tyler and his parents. Thus having a picture taken at this time would result in further hardship. My only other option would be having Tyler skip school on Thursday, which we (his parents) think is a bad alternative. Both Tyler and I value his time in school and hope that just “passing” on pictures will work for you and us.

Please let us know if Tyler can skip Life Touch’s pictures tomorrow, so we can plan accordingly.

Thank you!

Amy Broeker

Tyler’s mother

(This just might give you some insight on my hectic life right now.) :)

Iowa State Fair '10

2010-08-28T21:32:00.011-05:00

Finally, I am getting around to putting some photos up on our first trip to the Iowa State Fair. It was spectacular! Iowa does know how to put on a State Fair! My co-worker's father shows cattle at several fairs and he said this by far is the best.

I can totally understand why....

Check out this cute butter sculpture! I think it would make a fine addition to my classroom. A little messy, but darling!

I just have to say that I think the ribbon is going to the wrong individual. I'm pretty certain that the bees get most of the credit, but what do I know about beekeeping?

I saw this sign and wondered how was this possible during an era where there weren't pesticides and fertilizers like we have in this day and age. Then I realized that this corn must have come from a seed that Don sold his cow for, just like Jack did.

Here's a metal replica of that same stalk in 1946. How in the world did they harvest that corn?

The kids tried their hand at the Great Grape Escape that was promoting wineries in Iowa. I thought this was funny to see Grant give the grape crusher a spin.

How much juice can you get out of a bunch of grapes?

Tyler and Madison went on this giant rubber band ride.

I really don't know what it's called, but it cost an additional $7. According to the kids, it was totally worth every penny. Kind of ironic though that it's my money they used.

We also watched a guy creating an ice sculpture with a chain saw. The sculpture is a cowboy, but it's hard to tell with a side view photo.

Madison and Grant tried their farming skills at "Little Hands on the Farm".

It was a series of stations where they planted the food, harvested the food and took care of the farm animals. At the end of the stations, kids sell their goods at the market and get paid with a piece of paper money, redeemable for an a real ice cream treat.

Do you suppose these are the recalled eggs that caused a Salmonella outbreak in Iowa last week? I'm telling you those chickens and eggs looked extremely suspicious!

One handsome looking farmer and one awesome day at the Fair!

My Zucchini is Bigger than Yours

2010-08-23T21:36:00.002-05:00

This morning I received the coolest gift ever....

One very large zucchini from one darling little boy.

You see, transitioning into kindergarten is a tough deal (maybe even tougher on the parent). This child, we'll call him Raymond, didn't want to go to Mrs. Broeker's class today and Mom gave Raymond a zucchini to distract him. This very smart mom told him that it was critical to give me this zucchini. Poor Raymond did come in sobbing, carrying this massive veggie in his arms, which made for the most precious gesture I've seen in a long time. The zucchini trick did make the crying stop after I asked more questions than necessary about zucchini. (Do you like zucchini? Can I really keep it? What should I make with zucchini? Do I eat it raw?...you get the idea)

Check out it's impressive size! I could make several foods with this beast, not that I know how to. So please send any delicious zucchini recipes my way.

Forgive my laziness tonight, I'm just way too tired to blog about the Iowa State Fair and upload multiple pictures. I'm just going to stare at my mammoth sized zucchini and think about tomorrow's day.

Maybe it will be rhubarb?

Adventureland, Part 1

2010-08-22T15:46:00.012-05:00

We had our last hurrah for the summer by taking the kids to Iowa last weekend for a day at Adventureland and a trip to the Iowa State Fair the following day. I just had to see that fair as I wrote in a previous blog. What a quick, but fun weekend of family entertainment!

My three cuties!

This was Grant's first time at an amusement park. He kept asking where Mickey Mouse was. I guess we'll have to go to Disney again or this child will never let us live it down that we went without him.

This ride is quite tame compared to other rides at the park. However, Andy knows not to go on any ride that spins in circles or swings back and forth. He learned that the hard way three years ago at this same park. So, while we were riding on this particular ride the operator was telling Andy that this is the most puked on ride. She said it's usually caused by adults who chose the seat that faces backwards while spinning in circles. While our ride was uneventful, this same ride had to stop for barf clean up five times that same day. I am glad I knew that after I got off the ride or I would not have gotten on.

Madison is looking thrilled to go on yet another ride with little brother!

This was taken while driving bumper cars. So sad that it came out so blurry. Grant thought he was top dog driving their car.

Thought this was a cute concession stand.

I knew you'd want to know what the other side looked like, so I took a photo from that end too. Imagine going to work and entering under the pig's tail?? Would that make you the butt of jokes? Just wondering....

This is what Grant looks like after a long day at the park.

And this is what he looked like at the beginning of that same day.

Thought this was a pretty sight for an amusement park. I'll share part 2 in tomorrow's blog....the Iowa State Fair!

Lancaster County Fair

2010-08-11T18:10:00.003-05:00

Teenage boys + sugary slurpies + excessive heat + carnival rides = a rainbow of fruit flavors

This is what we found out at our local county fair on Sunday. It is miserable outside right here, right now and completely unbearable! That means it's time for school. When the weather hits an all time high (with heat indexes of 110 degrees), it's always time for me to go back to work.

Here are some of our photos from our County Fair excursion. We do have plans for the Iowa State Fair this weekend, so hopefully the heat doesn't prevail. I'm guessing it will.

By the way, I like to antique my photos for the fair. It just seems to make everything look better.

I did not know that setting a table was something you could enter in the fair. It is darn cute!

My favorite even though it's not on a stick, but a fork instead!

Love that look!

What are the Odds?

2010-08-09T13:50:00.005-05:00

Madison's 10th birthday is just right around the corner (September 15th to be exact). I asked her what she wants to do for her birthday and her reply....Mom, I've never been to the American Girl store, so can we go?

Well...the closest American Girl store is probably the one at the Mall of American, which is seven hours away. Until now......

Get ready to explore the newest American Girl store,
coming soon to Oak Park Mall!

This store would only be four hours away versus seven. This might be her wish come true. Just think of the scrapbooking opportunites?!

State Fair, anyone?

2010-08-04T11:53:00.003-05:00

The Iowa State Fair starts next week and I am so wanting to attend. I've never been to our neighboring state's fair and I think it's about time. I've heard it's a fantastic fair to see! Also, I'm still mad that our State Fair moved away from Lincoln and down the road about two hours away, so I'm boycotting that one for sure.

Why do I enjoy attending the fair, you may ask? Well, I'm really not into seeing farm animals (induces allergies) or anything agricultural related, but I do like the parades, vendors, demonstrations, people watching, concerts and of course.....Fair Food!

Check this out...

Here's the list of foods on-a-stick as of July 2010 for the Iowa State Fair:

Fair Square
Chocolate-covered tiramisu on-a-stick
Turtle mousse bar on-a-stick
Strawberry cream bar on-a-stick
Twinkie log on-a-stick (frozen Twinkie dipped in white chocolate and rolled in cashews)
Octodog (hotdog in the shape of an octopus)
Frozen s’more on-a-stick
Chocolate-dipped cake on-a-stick
Chicken club on-a-stick
Buffalo chicken on-a-stick
Chocolate-covered peanut butter round on-a-stick
Chocolate-covered key lime round on-a-stick
Carmellows on-a-stick
Pretzel rods dipped in caramel or chocolate
Pickle on-a-stick
Pork chop on-a-stick
Corn dog
Cheese on-a-stick
Cajun chicken on-a-stick
Sesame chicken on-a-stick
Carmel apple
German sausage on-a-stick
Teriyaki beef on-a-stick
Corn on the cob on-a-stick
Cotton candy
Veggie dog on-a-stick
Turkey drumstick
Nutty bar
Fried pickle on-a-stick
Hot bologna on-a-stick
Shrimp on-a-stick
Chicken on-a-stick
Monkey Tails (chocolate covered banana on-a-stick)
Taffy on-a-stick
Honey on-a-stick
Ice cream Wonder Bar
Deep fried Snickers bar on-a-stick
Deep fried 3 Musketeers bar on-a-stick
Deep fried Milky Way bar on-a-stick
Deep fried Twinkie on-a-stick
Lamb on-a-stick
Meatballs on-a-stick
Deep fried hoho on-a-stick
Fudge Puppy (waffle drenched in chocolate syrup and topped with whipped cream)
Chili Dog on-a-stick
Funtastick Pork on-a-stick
Dutch letters on-a-stick
Turkey tenders on-a-stick
Deep fried hot dog on-a-stick
Chocolate covered cheesecake on-a-stick
Potato Lollipop (4 thick slices of russet potato deep fried and on-a-stick with dipping sauces)
Pineapple on-a-stick (Fresh pineapple dipped in funnel cake batter and deep fried)
Chicken lips on-a-stick (breaded chicken breast smothered with hot sauce, served with blue cheese dressing).
Cornbrat on-a-stick (bratwurst dipped in corndog batter)
Frozen fudge brownie on-a-stick
Ice cream cookie sandwich on-a-stick
Rock candy on-a-stick
Salad on-a-stick
Hard-boiled egg on-a-stick

Looking at all of those tantalizing choices, which one would be the first you'd want to try?

Tuesday Thoughts

2010-08-03T12:14:00.004-05:00

My final week of summer vacation....(sigh). I've totally enjoyed every minute of it, but it is time to get back into a routine. Chauffeuring my kids all over town has gotten old and so has their constant fighting, so off to school we go.

Here's what I've been doing this past week. I wanted some inspiration, so I went to Dr. Jean's website and found this idea. It's a scrapbook for my students telling them about me. You don't have to be good at scrapbooking to make this one. Very simple. This is her version....

http://www.drjean.org/html/monthly_act/act_2010/07_Jul/pg06.html

Then I felt inspired to cover my bulletin board. My classroom is only 4 years old, but the tack holes were starting to show, so I decided to cover it with material. I've never tried this before, but heard it's better than paper, which fades quickly.
On Friday, we had overnight guests, so my friends could go to a 40th birthday party out of town I had seven children to entertain, so we went fishing. I love free fun! Boy, did they catch a ton too. Emily, my friend's oldest, caught around 20-24. Glad the fish were hungry or this activity would have gotten old rather quickly!
I thought you might like to see the latest with Grant's foot. We never did get into the doctor's office (not for the lack of trying). They were booked solid, so I discussed the toe issue with a nurse. She was honest to say there's not much we could do anyway. So, Andy cut the nail off after a couple days. I wasn't about to volunteer.

However, I did spend another co-pay at the doctor's office this week. Tyler had an itchy rash all over his legs that were spreading to his upper body. Of course, we tried medicating it on our own, which didn't work. Can you believe Tyler didn't want me taking a photo of the rash? It was an impressive one too!

My charm (mentioned in an earlier blog) was also ready for pick up this week. I love it! Sarah does a fantastic job!

They're Back!

2010-07-28T09:17:00.010-05:00

Life is back to normal for the most part. Grant and Madison are now home. Tyler left on Sunday (making his return for 12 hours) for a Youth Mission trip to Minnesota. He'll be gone for the week and return FINALLY on Saturday for good.

As you can see, Ranger is getting all the attention once again and the doggie diarrhea is now a thing of the past. Hallelujah!

It has quickly come to my attention that I have less than a dozen days left of my summer vacation. I haven't even started to use my kids' Summer Fun passes, so it was off we go this week visiting several of our favorite places.

First, the Children's Zoo (Monday)
Grant was excited to go and thought we'd see Tyler working there. He was disappointed to find out that Tyler wasn't going to give him his pony ride. Of course, I paid for the ticket to ride the pony prior to Grant's realization and Grant was not about to budge without Tyler. No Tyler, no pony ride. The stinker! Someone had to ride that pony....
Thank you Madison! I knew you'd pull through for me.
On Tuesday, we traveled to my favorite ice cream shop, Ivanna Cone, in downtown Lincoln. It's located in the old Creamery building.
Check out those fun flavors....Andy chose Brandy Cherry, Grant had Grape Soda, Madison got the last of the Mint Chip and I had Strawberry. Delicious and the atmosphere is incredible!

We came home to a uneventful evening until Grant decided he had to go to the bathroom after 10pm and did this...

He stubbed his pinky toe on the trim in the bathroom. I ran to his screams to find the nail on his toe hanging by a thread. I about passed out. (Nursing would never be my thing.) I called for Andy, who was outside at the time, to bandage it. We gave the poor kid some pain reliever and this morning it seems to be okay.

Notice that his first toe has been stubbed twice this summer leaving it raw. This kid is extremely accident prone. I am starting to wonder if he needs glasses.

Now here's my dilemma, do I change the bandage myself or should I go to the doctor's office? I am wondering if the nail should be removed. I don't think the toe is broken, but I just don't know how to proceed. Any suggestions?

I initially thought to take him in, but now I'm wondering if they'd think I'm one wacky parent to bring in a stubbed toe. I'm a parent who can't handle blood, which is true. Not only do I not like blood, but I also don't like $30 co-pays either.

The Forgetful Fairy

2010-07-23T12:40:00.005-05:00

This has been a wonderful week for me without having my children around. Rarely am I not around children. Oh, of course, I dearly love them all (mine and other people's), but it is sure nice to get a break. The only drawback this week has been our dog who became so depressed that I needed to seek professional help for the poor guy. He had lost so many fluids (caused by making himself sick) that he was bleeding from his bottom and lost all the "good" bacteria from his intestinal tract. If only you could imagine the mess that I had to endure yesterday...it wasn't pretty.

Anyway, I was cleaning Madison's room this week and found a tiny baby tooth that she lost around the end of June hidden under her pillow in a zip-lock bag. Nuts! I had totally forgotten about it and she knows that I know "mom" is the real fairy. So, the joy of being a fairy has kind of lost it's appeal with me. I do recall that about two weeks ago she stated, "Mom, the tooth fairy still hasn't come." My response was have you emailed her about it. (Mental note to me: don't forget!)

Now having this week free to do as I pleased, I "the fairy" have composed a note to Madison explaining the situation....

Dear Madison,

I am so sorry that I was unable to stop by sooner to retrieve that tooth you lost several weeks ago. I could give numerous reasons for not remembering. For example: I was extremely busy running my fairy children to multiple functions around town or the constant routine of cleaning my fairy home, but that is just my excuse for forgetting what is important to a nine year old. So, I guess I just want you to know that tooth fairies also make mistakes and I apologize. I’ve also included a bit more money than usual due to the circumstances. Please spend wisely.

I just wanted you to know that the past seven days, of my fairy life, I was on a staycation (meaning home alone without responsibilities), which freed up much of my hectic schedule. This made it possible to get many of my tasks, including your tooth money, accomplished this week. I believe all fairies should get this privilege every once in a while. It was rejuvenating!

Please also know that I am now excited to get back to my regular schedule. I really do miss my darling fairy children and anticipate their arrival shortly. By the way, the fairy dog did not do well without his loyal, loving companions and can’t wait to see them.

Love and Smiles,

The Official Tooth Fairy

Our Depressed Dog

2010-07-21T16:19:00.007-05:00

We are working on day #4 without kids and Ranger, the Schnauzer, just can't take it anymore. He hasn't eaten much for me since they left and just lays around on the kids' beds. Now, this wouldn't be so bad except he threw up on Grant's carpet. Of course, it's the only carpet in the house that I did get shampooed this week, so I'm sure that was his reasoning for picking that one. Grrrr....

As soon as I got done cleaning that five by five (guessing) inch spot, guess what else he did...He threw up again and had diarrhea in two heaping piles in his kennel. Ugh! Where are those kids to clean it up???

Ranger grumbling: "Just leave me alone and get my kids back."

Ranger's thoughts: "You're going to put this on your blog, huh?"

As for me, I'm still enjoying the peace and quiet. Next year, the dog goes to Grandma and Grandpa's house too!

Temporary Empty Nest

2010-07-19T11:27:00.005-05:00

Yes, it's true. Andy and I are empty-nesters. Just for one glorious week without the sounds of "I'm hungry!", "Can I go over to my friend's house?" or "Are we going to the pool today?. This is the first time ever to have all three kids at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Yes, I'm definitely loving it!

So far, I've cleaned Grant's room and one bathroom from top to bottom. I've sanitized tubs, shampooed carpets, mopped floors and it feels great. I've even tossed a few toys away without anyone retrieving them from the garbage. It's very liberating to say the least.

Well, I gotta go and tackle another project (painting the kitchen) and just so I won't be bothered...here's what the front door says....

The Closest Thing to the World Cup

2010-07-14T15:10:00.015-05:00

Yesterday morning, I soon discovered that the U.S. Women's National Soccer team were playing Sweden in Morrison Stadium (Creighton campus) in Omaha, Nebraska. Wow! This kind of thing never happens in our backyard, so I quickly booked three tickets to go. When I told Madison about our luck she thought I was kidding.

You see taking Madison to a U.S. women's soccer game, like this one, is much better than....

a Justin Bieber concert,

a Miley Cirus concert,

or getting a whole new wardrobe.

Just look at her excitement on our way to the game. I figured this mini trip for Madison is similar to the one we gave to Grant last summer. Now Tyler is asking when he's getting to see his Indianapolis Colts play in person. I told him as soon as they play in Nebraska. That comment was received with a huge sigh and eye roll.

Apparently, Morrison Stadium was built in 2003 and is one of the nicer soccer stadiums in the country. This explains why they chose the midwest for this game. Team U.S.A's next match against Sweden will be somewhere in Connecticut on Saturday.
The stadium was at it's all time capacity, which I have already forgotten. Unfortunately, we didn't get there in time for a great seat (actually no seat at all), so we stood for the entire game.

The photo below is the kick-off. This is nothing like elementary soccer, I tell you. I didn't realize how many players were on the field at one time. You can hear their conversations on the field too, which Andy thinks is just like baseball. I disagree. I think it's kind of weird.
Madison said she's too busy to take any pictures when she's watching the game.
Believe it or not, there were some of those annoying Vuvuzelas that were like the ones blown at the World Cup. Thankfully, there were only a handful in the stadium. I can not imagine a sea of noisy Vuvuzelas.

Do you see the blue one being blown close by me?
Madison's soccer jersey number is #18, so we had to purchase Hope Solo's #18 jersey when we saw it. We thought it was especially cool that both Hope and Madison play goalkeeper.

The game ended with a tie, which kind of seemed disappointing at the time. Not too much excitement, but I can add this to my 40 x 40 project. The only goal for the U.S. was made by Amy Rodriguez. Awesome name!

This night made for a wonderful one for our #1 soccer playing daughter. She had some nice quality time with her parents and time away from her brothers. "Score!"

I finally WON!

2010-07-10T14:30:00.004-05:00

For over two years I've read blogs, commented on blogs and have entered numerous giveaways on blogs only to never have won. I've finally broken my unlucky streak and won my first giveaway that, of course, is scrapbook related from Creating Keepsakes. They must of known that I was going to their convention to spend loads of money there.

It's so exciting to get a package in the mail that I didn't have to pay for!!

This book is what I knew I was going to get. It's a novel about scrapbooking, which I had never heard of before. I'll let you know if it's any good. If it has scrapbooking vampires in it, I'm sure it will be a good read. Really...why wouldn't vampires scrapbook? They live forever and it would be an excellent use of their money.

Then I found this inside the box...(pattern paper)

and this (Fiskar punches),

and this (templates),

and that (adhesive and embellishments)!

Oh, happy day!

Thank you, Creating Keepsakes!

Creating Keepsakes Convention 2010

2010-07-10T07:05:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, my Mom and I drove to Des Moines for a fantastic, fabulous, fun day of scrapping at the latest Creating Keepsakes Convention (CKC). It's a three day scrapbooking event that has various scrapbooking vendors and classes all for the obsessive scrapbooker like myself. This trip required me to get up at 3:45 am, but it was all worth it!!

This picture is from the last CKC we went to in Kansas City, which was over four years ago. We even got to meet the founder of CK, Lisa Bearnson, who has now since retired (and done quite well) from the industry.
The below photo is what a class looks like. This was my Mom's SEI class. Notice she's the one who likes to stand while she's creating. This particular class was two hours long, but everyone completed a 12 inch album in that time. I took 4 classes (one hour each) and my mom completed three.
Here's a picture of one of the classes called City Life by Heartstrings Designs that both Mom and I took together. We don't mind separating and taking classes that interest only us.
It was a 16 hour event (driving included) and it was a blast! I'm hoping to attend the CKC in Kansas City this Fall. Anyone want to tag along?

Day at the Lake

2010-07-08T11:20:00.005-05:00

Isn't this a beautiful lake house? I wish it was mine, but, unfortunately, it's not. In fact, one of my wonderful co-workers (Raette) own it and she lets us have a fantastic time there, which is so very generous of her. I've blogged about this place before. It's like the closest thing for us to enjoy a large body of water...Big Sandy in landlocked Nebraska.

The kids loved fishing off of the new dock.

Going to Big Sandy means numerous picture taking opportunities for me. I heart taking photos of the outdoors.

Isn't this sweet? Brothers together on a kayak.

Madison got to bring her friend Aleni for some digging fun.

Grant was so good about allowing me to take some photos of him.

Such a Grant smile!

Grant had so much fun at Big Sandy that he didn't even last a mile out and was sound asleep!

Today we are off to Big Sandy again. Fun in the Sun!

Re-creating My Favorite Picture

2010-07-06T21:55:00.008-05:00

The above picture is my all-time favorite of my three kids. The photo was taken while sitting on our front steps on the 4th of July in 2007. I love their sun-kissed cheeks, Madison's darling freckles and Tyler's bleach blonde hair. I even find that Grant's ear smooched by Tyler's face to be very adorable. So, I decided to try to re-create this photo, now three years later. All for the sake of creating a cool charm made by Sarah at Brown Dog Studio.

It wasn't easy.

Madison said that the sun was too bright for her eyes.

Tyler had to sneeze, probably due to that sunlight that bothered Madison.

We decided to take a break for fifteen minutes to allow Madison's eyes to adjust. We also decided to change Madison's hair a little. Grant is giving me one finger because he said, "Only one more, mom!"

Grant was serious too. I told him, "No...one more, until I get it right." This caused some serious giggling. I really appreciated that they humored me on this one.

But I think I got it close enough this time. Tyler's smile isn't my favorite, but it will have to do.

Independence Weekend

2010-07-05T23:28:00.012-05:00

Hello again! It's been awhile, so I thought I'd share some of our busy weekend events. I've been a productive person since I last blogged. I finished VBS, saw the movie Eclipse (awesome), scrapbooked at a Twilight themed crop, had a garage sale and attended numerous baseball, softball and track meets. Phew!

I also figured out what was wrong with Madison's hands. It appears that the cream I have used for eczema has helped tremendously. I wished I would have tried that first before going to the doctor's office. The burn cream that they applied did not work and was billed to my insurance as an "office surgery" for $153. I would think surgery would imply some type of needle or cutting. Ridiculous! The doctor said she'd spare me the cost of the expensive cream called Silvadene. Little did we know that one week later, Madison would get a painful, 3 inch burn on her leg caused at Girl Scout Day Camp off of a metal fire pit ring. I'd post a picture, but it's disgusting and Madison protested that I couldn't put it on the blog either. So, you are spared this one.

On to our Independence Day Weekend, which seemed to last forever with an added day off....

On Saturday morning, we met my parents and my sister and her kids at the Henry Doorly Zoo. My brother had to work and unfortunately, his wife couldn't find a spot to park at the zoo. It was a mad house with the College World Series just getting over with and it appeared that everyone also wanted to go to the zoo. I didn't take many pictures since I didn't recharge my battery and it died. Instead of taking photos, I spent my time counting tattooed people. I lost track after 47.
Later Saturday night, we went to our friends, the Horner's house, for some barbeque and fireworks. This wasn't my day for photo taking because this above photo is as good as it gets!
Sunday it rained, rained and rained some more! We decided at the last minute to attend the 4th of July parade in Seward at 4pm. The rain held off for the parade and it was terrific. The crowds were less and the weather wasn't hot and miserable like most years. Tyler didn't want in the picture, so I took one of Madison and Grant instead.

I thought this float was hilarious. They made photos of all the graduates of 1970 and put them on foam board. As you can tell, there were a pretty good number of grads for small town Seward, but only two decided to be on the float forty years later. Either the majority experienced premature death before the age of sixty or no one cared to attend. I'm hoping it's the latter of the two.
After the parade, we drove back to Lincoln to catch a good ole' Saltdog's game. As we entered the stadium, Tyler was approached to participate in a (between the innings) game. He competed in a bat spinning/sack race and his team won. He's pictured on the right wearing a black shirt. His partner (a 5 yr. old) in the race had to spin in circles with his head on a bat and then run to Tyler in a dizzy stupor, tagging him as Tyler then hopped to the finish. Their prize each was a small bag of tennis balls and velcro mitts.
We called our friends, the Jensen gang, to meet us at the game. They have four kids and, of course, we have three, so I got a group photo with Homer the Saltdog mascot and Ronald McDonald. I thought it was very patriotic for the 4th....burgers and baseball.

Ronald asked me if all seven of the kids were mine. I quickly responded "no". I now wished I would have replied, "Yes, they are all mine. I don't believe in using condiments."
Today was very much like a weekend, as many in the workforce had the day off since the 4th fell on a Sunday. It was a nice day to have Andy around for an extra day of family fun. Tyler had to work at the Lincoln Zoo today, so we dropped by for a visit. Tyler just recently moved to the Pony rides from the Critter Counter. Of course, I had to get that picture of Tyler giving Grant a ride on Butch the ornery horse.

Butch has the incredible ability to unhook himself and run away, which I'd give anything to see. I guess he plays "can't catch me" quite well. He's one smart horse and Tyler just loves his personality. Tyler said that you have to watch Butch if you put a rather heavy child on his back. Butch won't retaliate against the child, but did let Tyler know the weighty kid wasn't appreciated. He bit him on his backside when he did so today.

This summer is consisting of burns, rashes and horse bites on the rear end...

I just had to include this picture from the Butterfly Papillion. Grant got his fingers sprayed with sugar water to attract the butterflies. His crossed-eyed look makes me smile!
We even ran into Grant's buddy, Cameron, from Tyler's baseball games. They have loads of fun together.
We ended our weekend with margaritas and s'mores at the Jensen's house tonight. Angie, another of my scrappin' buddies, and her family were also over. The mosquitos were fierce, but we managed with loads of bug spray and a blazing fire pit to ward them off.
I thought I'd share my own s'more experience...yikes, no makeup! I even wore my s'more shirt that read..."S'more friends, S'more fun, S'more, S'mores!"

Hope you too had an enjoyable holiday weekend!

Really?

2010-06-23T15:32:00.010-05:00

Many people think I'm lucky to have the "summer" off to enjoy my children and for the most part they are right except for days like today. Today is one of those kinds of days where I long to be back in my classroom with my eighteen kiddos on a schedule. Where you know that you'll be teaching Math for 70 minutes and the day goes much as planned.

Schedules are wonderful.

Really, they are.

Then there are unscheduled days where I spend the morning at Vacation Bible School (VBS), drop Tyler off at the pool by one and then take Madison to the doctor to figure out what's wrong with her hands. Don't even get me started about Grant's behavior at VBS. That's another blog story.

You see, Madison has had raw, red finger tips for two weeks now. All 10 fingers are missing layers of skin, cracked and sensitive. I've tried numerous topical creams which have helped to no avail. Madison has slept every other night for two weeks wearing gloves (the winter kind) on her hands after I've coated them with large amounts of Aquaphor.

Really, I have no clue why her fingers are so fiery red, sore and bleeding. I am perplexed.

So finally, I decided to cough up the $30 co-pay and see what the doctor says. Madison is complaining that it's painful to use her hands, so it's now necessary.

And guess what....The doctor has no idea either. She said that if it was a fungus, it would have spread. She asked Madison if she touched something hot or something she wasn't suppose to touch and now's the time to confess. Still Madison can't think of anything she would have possibly handled. What I wonder is...if she did touch something, how is it possible it's on every finger, right in the center and above the first knuckle of each tip? The spot that you'd get finger printed at the police station.

Madison could possibly live a life of crime now that she probably no longer has fingerprints, but that too is another blog story.

Really.

So, the doctor asked another doctor and they decided to treat it as if it is a burn. The cream is very expensive, so the doctor frosted and bandaged her hands like this (which, I've fixed twice now in the last 2 hours)...

The doctor wants Madison to wear the bandages for 24 hours to see how she responds to this expensive burn cream. If it works, I'll have to buy the pricey, burn cream. If not, we will try another method.

Really, wear the bandages for a day and to VBS? Doesn't she know we do Arts and Crafts?

I then asked the doctor how is Madison suppose to use the bathroom. Her response, "You will have to help her."

I'm ready to go back to work. Really!

Two Drips in a Big Drop

2010-06-19T09:11:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was World Blood Donor Day, so I forced Andy go with me to a parking lot at a local community college to form the biggest human blood drop. Andy's cousin, Janelle, works for the Nebraska Community Blood Bank (NCBB) and they were sponsoring the event. That's how I heard about it. NCBB gave out bottles of water, red shirts and lottery tickets to participants.

They were hoping to form the largest ever recorded, but I don't think they quite made it. I believe 1,000 participants were needed to break the past record. I do know that it is very hot to stand in the middle of the drop. Can you see us?

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

Recipe Swap, Anyone?

2010-06-15T15:09:00.002-05:00

I find cooking in the summer almost impossible. Well, I actually find cooking anytime of the year undesirable. I don't like the added heat in the house and most nights we need something quick and on the go. I am thinking if I share one of my tried, tested and tasty recipes, then you'll want to share one right back. Correct? You can just post your recipe under the comments or if it's really long and easier to give to me just send it through my email, which is abroeker@neb.rr.com. Okay? Great! It's a deal! And if you like, I'll even try it and post it here. Just remember keep it simple....I only understand easy cooking concepts.

Bistro Chicken with Parmesan

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 cups cooked Penne pasta

1 cup diced cherry tomatoes

1 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing

1 TBSP Basil

1/4 cup chopped red onion

1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes

Grill chicken and cut into cubes or strips

Mix chicken and all ingredients together

Serve warm or chilled.

Serve with garlic bread or lettuce salad.

ps. This is an all-time favorite at our house. I like that it's good served warm or cold. Andy likes to take it in his lunch for work and I like that it's ready to eat anytime.

Book Suggestions?

2010-06-14T20:53:00.005-05:00

Now that summer is here, I am looking for some good reading material to entertain myself while waiting on kids at swim lessons. I was hoping to find a new series of books to get into.

This is what I "sunk my teeth into" last year. (pun intended)

I loaned out my Twilight book and can't remember to who, so that's why it's missing in the photo. I also just finished "The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner", which is a great quick read right before the launching of the new Eclipse movie. That Stephenie Meyer is one smart lady who writes some awesome books. I enjoy that whole "love triangle" concept. Go, team Edward!

I just finished reading this series, if you call it one. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I really thought it was funny too...laughing out loud kind of funny. I'll just chalk it up to being a Kindergarten teacher. I'm ready for the next one to hit the store shelves, so is Madison. Tyler told me that they are juvenile. Really...what does he know?

I've even read this series, minus the last two novels. I was a little tired of the wizarding world.

As you can see, my read ability levels have gone down, so I need some suggestions. I'm a sucker for children's literature.

Any must reads out there?

Fishin' on a Sunday Afternoon

2010-06-13T22:02:00.005-05:00

All of Tyler's ballgames were cancelled due to wet, saturated fields, so we had some nice family time together. I said we needed to find some "free fun". We narrowed it down to bicycling or fishing. I am still feeling the pain from yoga, so I opted for fishing. Sitting and reading a book in a lounge chair with camera in hand is just my style! Notice, no photos of me! Happy day!

I was reading and set it down to take this picture.

Tyler gave up swimming at the pool with friends to spend time with us, not that it was really an option, but I appreciated that he did not complain.

I just love those freckles!

It's hard to get a picture of Grant looking at me when he's focused on an activity.

There's nothing cuter than a 3 yr. old fishing, except maybe a 2 yr. old.

This heron was the only one catching anything, for a while.

Then after an hour or so, we got lucky!

The kids were catching a couple dozen Sunfish. Nothing big, but it's the catching that makes it worthwhile, not the size of the fish.

What parent allows a toddler to bait a hook? I'll admit, he is pretty good at it. I guess it's the third child thing...anything goes.

He can even take his own fish off the hook. He's a pro at this! Grant announced, "Mom, it's bweeding from it's mouff."

I'm glad he's still willing to give them a farewell kiss good-bye!

My Three Seamstresses

2010-06-12T17:54:00.006-05:00

I saw this cute idea on one of my favorite crafting blogs and knew that I needed one for the summer. Okay...four of them to be exact. In fact, I got so ambitious that I bought the beach towels, terry cloth material and thread to create the lounge chair beach towel covers and then I fizzled out on getting it done. I planned on giving two away for Madison's friend's upcoming birthday parties. So, I had to finish this project. I cut the material, pinning it in place and then my super, duper husband came to the rescue....

reluctantly helping me.

Then Tyler decided to sew the side pocket.

I'm sure this one will soon follow.

I live with three wonderful men!

Uninvited Guests

2010-06-10T15:35:00.005-05:00

Only one week off of work and I am already experiencing some uninvited guests...birds. Yes, much to my disliking, I have a nest under my backyard deck. This isn't the first time for these fine, feathered friends to take shelter at my residence, so I've installed action figures to prevent them from building their nests. I've tried Spiderman, Mr. Incredible and Superman, which all had success in past summers.

This year I used the ever, so popular Shrek guy. As you can see, they must have heard about his recent movie. He's actually part of their nest.

I guess Robins aren't afraid of ogres. Bummer!

At least, it's not those awful dive-bombing Barn Swallows, so the nest can stay.

MIB

2010-05-31T20:34:00.008-05:00

Sorry, I've been 'Missing in Blog' for a couple of weeks. I don't think I've ever been gone this long before.

It's because....

a. I really didn't have anything newsworthy of saying. Really, did you want to know about my own personal record of 18 loads of laundry done in a single day? Or my toilet scrubbing marathon? Probably not.

b. I was too busy to blog due to a plethora of kids' activities and work.

c. I was too tired to even think straight, let alone write a sentence.

d. All of the above.

(answer at the bottom of this blog)

Here's a hint:

I did a little of this...

And a little of that. (Forgot camera for three games, so I made Madison dress up at home for the picture. My children will never forget my photo opportunities. Doesn't she look enthusiastic?)

Not to forget some of this. Notice the parents who run with their children (not me, too busy taking pictures). By the way, Grant did get a blue ribbon for "Run for Ribbons" night.

This is how I spent my holiday weekend. I worked 11.5 hours, drank 2 McDonald's sodas, made a half dozen trips to the bathroom due to those extra large sodas and quickly ate two lunches for the completion of 18 report cards and 18 student files. Phew! I'm thrilled to be done!

Summertime and Blogging, here I come! Yay!

answer: Should be "d"....all the above. If you said "b" then you are also correct.

Seeing Dead Bodies

2010-05-16T21:05:00.006-05:00

Now that title should get your attention...That's exactly what I did on my personal day.

I could not wait for the exhibit "Bodies" to arrive in Omaha. I learned about this traveling exhibit a few years ago when it was showing in Kansas City and wanted to check it out, but didn't find the time to do so. When I heard that it would be within an hour from my home, I just had to go. This isn't something that I initially thought I'd want to bring my own kids along to see, so I had to take a personal day from work. This way the kids would be at school and daycare, while and Andy and I got a day to ourselves. It was truly a fascinating experience and now I'm wishing Tyler and Madison would have gone along. However, at $22 for an adult and $16 for a child's admission, I don't see us returning anytime too soon.

After our visit of seeing deceased people from China, we decided to keep with the "theme" and ate at P.F. Chang's for lunch. Yum!

Actually, we didn't plan it that way, but Andy brought it to my attention after the fact, which I thought was humorous. Incase you are wondering where they get these actual bodies, they are donated to science if no one comes forth in China to claim them. That seems like a sensible way to keep the tax payers from having to foot the bill for the burial.

Since we were eating by the Westroads Mall, I decided to stop in for a quick visit with my brother who works there. As you can see, he was thrilled to have his photo taken. He wanted to know what I'd want the photo for...blogging, of course!
Then it was off to my favorite place....Archiver's. I have decided that when I die, I want my body to be preserved (acid-free, of course) and placed at Archiver's. Really, there is no happier place on earth!!

Spring is in the Air!

2010-05-04T21:53:00.006-05:00

This picture was located on the floor of my classroom yesterday. It apparently was given to the boy in the illustration who quickly disregarded it. I couldn't help but smile when I saw it. The young lady in the picture was suppose to be busy at her literacy workstations, but instead is dreaming about her upcoming wedding. While being off-task is frustrating to me, I have to admit it is pretty darn cute....love the tuxedo and dress! Of course, the artist "Molly" doesn't know otherwise. Her response, "Stephanie (her workstation partner), made me do it!"

*Note: Since my 13 year old son has handwriting similar to a kindergartner, I had him write the "fictitious" names. The "I love you!" is the original part of the drawing.

National Scrapbooking Day

2010-05-01T22:26:00.008-05:00

Today is National Scrapbooking Day! It's almost a Federal holiday, I'm sure of it. At least, it should be!

For all those non-scrappers out there, I thought you should know a little more about this favorite holiday of mine...

1. National Scrapbooking Day (NSD) has been a holiday for "scrappers" like myself since 1994. That's longer than I've been married, so I can hardly remember life without this fantastic holiday.

2. It's officially the one day when my husband can not complain about my scrapbooking hobby and the rising cost of creating worthwhile memories for our children. My children's children will be thanking me, I'm positive!

3. NSD is also a day when I can truly just think of doing something for myself, without any worries about the daily life of a working mom. No laundry, no fighting, no cleaning, no work... It's all about me!

So, this year, I signed up for a 12 hour crop at a local community college and look.....

All 46 participates received a beautiful rose on their table! I felt very special!

Yippy! I won THIS as a door prize. In case, you don't know what it is, it's the same thing as a tackle box for a person who likes to fish.

No more excuse for disorganization! Someone must know that's my word for the year!

And, of course, I accomplished getting a few of these done as well.

Also, I didn't have to listen to the doorbell ring all day long. Now, that's a silly holiday!

And I didn't forget the sunscreen like my husband did at Tyler's baseball tournament. Being indoors all day = no skin cancer risk.

I was a little concerned about missing these two ballgames, but Tyler promised no fantastic plays on 2nd base or home runs and he did live up to his word! Besides, we have more games tomorrow!

Hope you had a Scraptacular day like I did!

My Unbirthday

2010-04-25T21:11:00.006-05:00

Today I am 39.5 years old!

I am now closer to the age of 40 than I am to 39. (sigh) I'm feeling it too. I am even too tired to create a blog post.

However, I did do something to commemorate this historical day. I purchased this.....

It's my favorite cake, German Chocolate. Okay, who am I kidding...any cake is my favorite. It's only about six inches across and made four small pieces, which should make it almost calorie-free. The best part...it was on sale for $3.40 because the expiration date is today. I figured it was meant to be mine, a perfectly, chocolatey unbirthday cake!

I also purchased this book called "40 Things to Do When You Turn Forty" yesterday. I've only read the first page (which did look interesting), when I got distracted by the kids' fighting. I figured I needed the book if I'm ever going to complete this. Funny how I came up with the idea and there's a book with a similar title. If I don't get my 40 things done in time, now I feel like I can reach that goal in my 40's. No more pressure!

Happy Unbirthday to me! It's not everyday when one turns 39.5!

Kesha in Kindergarten?

2010-04-16T22:32:00.006-05:00

I don't often share stories of my daily life in Kindergarten, but this one is a must. It happened last week and I am still smiling about it. The names have been changed to protect the identity of my students.

The time is right at morning check-in when two girls approach me prior to doing seat work.

Caitlin: "Mrs. Broeker, Paige and I want to sing a song for you."

Me: "Okay, let's hear it." I'm expecting to hear to a song from the students' music class, when they start to belt out this one...

The girls sing the first seven lines until the "boys blowing up our phones, phones" part. Then they pretty much forgot the rest of the words, but the first half of the song was pretty impressive, I'd have to say.

Me: "Wow! That was some song!" I was a little caught off guard and now I noticed that there are several boys who stopped to listen too.

Dylan: "What does it mean to brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack?"

Me: "Hmmm...I'm not quite sure." Really! I'm not going there with this one.

Ian: (quickly pipes in) "They are meaning something you drink."

I was about to change the subject when Caitlin said....

Caitlin: (matter of fact) "It's licorice."

What's Happening

2010-04-11T21:18:00.004-05:00

I thought I'd blog about a little of what happened this week at our house. It's not really worthy of blogging, but very busy with laundry, house cleaning, the school carnival, and ball games (soccer, baseball and volleyball). I don't think we could possibly fit another activity in this month! I guess you won't see me blogging much.

Andy and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday. I had parent-teacher conferences, so we didn't go out for dinner until Friday night. Andy spent Thursday night with the kids at Madison's soccer game, which I was very disappointed not to see. Of course, it must be a written rule somewhere, that the game I miss is one that was well worth watching. Madison made the winning goal for her team! (sigh) Andy considered lying about it to me, but Madison's enthusiasm was too much to hide. Good for her, I say!

These beautiful flowers did make my day, even though I missed the game of the season!

Grant and his worms

I had a cute conversation with Grant yesterday, while I was doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Grant was helping Andy till up the back area (berm) that's covered in weeds.

Grant: Mom, wook at this worm. Sebastian woves worms. I wove worms too.

Me: That's great Grant. Do you want your picture taken with the worm?

Grant: Yes, it's very swimy (slimy) and wiggly.

Grant: Can I keep it?

Me: No. You have to put it back in the dirt pile.

Grant: I can keep it in my bedwoom.

Me: Nope.

Easter Weekend

2010-04-07T20:03:00.004-05:00

We had one super busy, but very nice Easter. Here are a few of the things we did with our three day holiday weekend....

Grant got to hold a real "hamster bunny" at Christi's house.

The annual coloring of the eggs

We went to Easter service, which I only took one photo and it's blurry (of course).

The kids got their Easter baskets full of candy and books.

We had our own hunt in our backyard.

I added this picture only because I liked the colors!

Grant and Tyler decorated Grandma's cake with jellybeans.

AND Grandpa brought his new wheels, his dream car, his pride and joy,

his beloved CORVETTE for Easter at the Broeker's!

Photo time...Tyler and the Vette

Madison and the Vette

Grant and the Vette (Grant couldn't even see out of the car!)

Then our nephew, Xander, stopped by (so did his parents) on Sunday afternoon. Xander's a cutie and is enjoying Grandma's coconut cake. He's really not into Corvettes!

April Fool's Day in Kindergarten

2010-04-01T21:28:00.010-05:00

It's April Fool's Day.

Today is one of two days that all educators across the country dread. The first being the day after Halloween when kids are recovering from a sugar-induced coma and are worthless to instruct. The second being today. If either holiday lands on a Saturday or a Sunday (better yet, Fall break) I find this similar to a "bonus" that other employed individuals get. I'm almost 100% positive that other teachers share my feelings on this one.

The day started off pretty much like I thought.

"Mrs. Broeker, I have a joke for you. Your eyes are blue." Which they aren't, but that is almost too much to bear for a 5 year old joke teller.

"There's a bug on your shirt." (This one is a classic, so it's repeated about two dozen times.)

"Your shoe's untied." (Probably their second favorite)

Or my personal favorite that I haven't heard until this year...

"Mrs. Broeker, are you wearing any underwear?" (snicker, snicker)

I really try my best to play along for about the first hour. I say things like, "Oh, you got me!" "What do you know...It's April Fool's Day?" or "You've got to be kidding!"

I also got a "Mrs. Broeker, I think I'm going to throw up!" Lucky for me, I took her seriously and I found out by mid-afternoon that she wasn't kidding. Lucky for the custodian, she had a really good aim for the trash can.

I met my quota of April Fool's jokes at about 10:30 and I responded with this statement..."Yes, I know it's April Fool's Day, but you need to get busy or we won't have time for recess." That seemed to do the job since we had a beautiful, 80+ degree day.

Last night, I started to think about how April Fool's Day was going to feel like a longer than any normal day. Listening to jokes by Kindergartner students can be draining to say the least. So, I decided that this year I deserved to get those little pranksters back. I came up with a clever, entertaining, yet appropriate game plan with kindergartners in mind.

Every day I serve a snack to my kids right after Specials (P.E., Computer, Art, Science or Music) at about 2:45. The snack is something small like animal crackers, Cheese-Its or Vanilla Wafers (whatever parents decide to donate). When kids don't get their daily snack they feel slighted. Rarely does this happen because they can forget a backpack at home day after day, but snack never! Snack is truly a fourth meal for five year olds or so it seems.

I thought it would be so funny to purchase raw broccoli and break off pieces and tell them that we are now going to have a healthy snack like this one on a daily basis. No more crackers, cookies or trail mix. Raw vegetables from this point forward!

So, that's exactly what I did. We have a small refrigerator to store the broccoli in our kindergarten-wing, which helped with the plan. I then retrieved the broccoli right before picking the kids up from Specials.

I instructed my "helper of the day" to dish out the hand sanitizer while I gave my healthy eating speech. To my surprise, I got nothing but silence. Carefully, I then pulled out the broccoli and heard a few moans, but they were quickly overpowered by Hoorays!! What? I could not believe my ears! I would say that about 2/3rds of my class were excited to okay with the thought of eating cold, raw broccoli for snack. One student was a bit disappointed that I didn't make some accommodations by bring the Ranch dressing. Silly me!

Happy for me, there were five children who were thoroughly disgusted by the thought.

One of them being "Miss L" whose mother gave me permission to use her photo on my blog. At least she lived up to my April Fool's expectations!

You'd think with those rabbit ears she was wearing, that eating broccoli would naturally be her thing?!

It's safe to say that the Kindergartners got the last laugh. The joke's on me.

Happy April Fool's Day!

I'll try harder next year.

Spring Break Draws to a Close

2010-03-28T21:19:00.006-05:00

Spring Break is just about over.....sigh! Tomorrow it's back to work, back to school and a crazy week ahead of me filled with volleyball, softball, soccer and baseball practice. The good news, it's a shortened week. We have this Friday off due to the Easter holiday. I can't beat that!

Well...here are a few random pictures of our nine day of festivities that I haven't blogged yet.

Madison had one sleepover and several play dates with her girlfriends (Emmie, Kate, Jessi, Clare and Aleni). I can't say I've ever had this many of Madison's friends over before in a week's time, but I wanted it to be a fun week for my kids as well as myself.

Tyler spent the majority of his week hanging out with his buddy Seth. They were together, I believe, 7 out of the 9 days. I'd think they would have been grown tired of one another. Guess not.

After taking this photo, I noticed a rogue snowman hanging around. I quickly removed him. No more signs of winter anywhere!

Then I worked on finishing my Spring Break To-Do list. Today I looked at last year's list and realized they were ironically pretty much the same. Unfortunately, I still did not get the painting done, which I now listed two years in a row. I did get all the rest on the list accomplished AND I did do my fair share of scrapbooking, book reading and movie watching! Really...that's what a break is all about anyway!
This is a quick picture of my co-workers (Kristi, Kathy & Sherri) in a parking garage. I forgot to take a picture earlier of us eating at Panera Bread or at the theater before the movie. They were really glad that I didn't forget altogether! :)

Did I also mention that I watched the Moon over break again and again? I'm definitely a "Twilight Mom"!

Saturday for Grant

2010-03-27T21:30:00.013-05:00

It was a sunless Saturday. It was incredibly dreary and rainy today, but isn't this a beautiful sight? A family (Larry and Ruth Ann Bartels) in our church donated this incredible bronze statue to St. Mark's and it will be dedicated this weekend. I heard it was created somewhere in Colorado and it traveled to Lincoln via Interstate I-80 uncovered. I think I would have kept pace driving alongside with Jesus knowing it would be a guaranteed safe trip!

We had a "Grant" day today. Often I feel like he's left out on activities that are just suited for him. We often drag him to all of Tyler and Madison's ballgames and require him to sit and be good. So, today we had fun doing things Grant enjoys...

Like meeting the "Hamster Bunny" at our church's annual Easter Egg Hunt. We're not quite sure why he doesn't say "Easter Bunny". It's just one of those Grant things.

Grant also played games like Bowling Bunnies.

The weather was so cold, wet and yucky that this year's egg hunt was relocated to the Family Life Center (gym) instead of outside.

It should have been called an Egg Scramble or Scrambled Eggs instead of an Egg Hunt.

Later, after picking Madison up from indoor softball practice we went and ate at Cici's Pizza. It's not my favorite place to dine, but it sure is Grant's!

Grant is having his favorite pizza called "Cheese with Circles".

Once again...Grant lingo.

And who couldn't resist having Pop with your pizza?!

Window Washing = Wimpy Kid

2010-03-26T18:18:00.006-05:00

Spring cleaning is still going on at the Broeker household today. The house is almost spotless, but Grant is on a mission. Anything that's clean only lasts for a few minutes with this active three year old around. You'll see what I mean as you scroll down.

Tyler and Madison had several jobs today...including washing windows. I chose not to take pics of them picking up after Ranger in the backyard. Ick!

Madison is looking at me and wanting to say..."I don't do windows!"

Oh, but she does.

I thought that this cleaning deserved a reward, so I took the older two to the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It was so cute that I think I'll even read the books. I would highly recommend it!

We purchased the large popcorn and soda, so we could get free refills. Unfortunately, we decided to be kind and bring back some popcorn for Grant.

What was I thinking?