First update in quite a while!

Finally! It feels so nice to be typing on the laptop and actually writing! I'm pleased with the work the computer repair place did. It was a great price too. While we had to wait almost 3 weeks because the screen was backordered, they replaced it within about 3 hours this past Saturday. We were using the laptop hooked up to our desktop monitor. Not very convenient. The only time we were even bothering was to pay bills or for Jason to do his homework.

It's been a very busy couple of months around here. Ethan and Alex finished swim lessons for this session just a couple of weeks ago, Catechism is wrapping up for the year this next weekend (I believe) and all the hard work they put in to play rehearsal paid off. Saturday was spent at Catechism in the morning followed by "call" at 5pm and the show at 7pm. I went alone to watch that night, while Jason stayed home with Jackson. It turned out so great! The director did a great job casting the parts. The actress who played Annie has an amazing singing voice! As well as many of the other actors and actresses. Ethan and Alex did good in their parts. I wish I would have gotten some pictures or video but no luck. On Sunday, Jason's parents came up for a visit and to go to the show. The boys had to be there at 1, and the show started at 3pm. Jackson slept for about half of it and near the end he got antsy so we stepped out. It worked out nicely since I had gone the previous night. Everyone else was able to enjoy the show.

We had the Blue and Gold banquet a few weeks ago for cub scouts and my parents came up for it. It was really nice.

My dad's SMILING!! For a PICTURE!!

My beautiful momma and handsome daddy! They just celebrated 41 years of marriage!

My dad showing the boys his Eagle Scout card!

Daddy and Jack-Jack <3

Our Pinewood Derby was March 23rd and Jason's family came to watch and to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. It was great to see Jason's dad, sisters, brother and niece. We missed having his mom come up but were glad his mom and dad made it to the play. Alex's car did really well coming in 2nd and 3rd for each race. While he didn't win a trophy OR a spot in the regional races, he had so much fun and loved making his car this year. We all got to see Jason in action emceeing the race. He's such a ham...

Last week, Jackson and I spent the whole week volunteering at the Scholastic book fair. It was crazy busy for a lot of the time, but we had a good time. He keeps begging to go to the "library" - where we held the fair - and to school, since he got to hang out in the preschool classrooms on and off throughout the week. I am so thankful to the preschool teachers and the other 2 moms who were also working at the fair, including the fair chairperson. She did an amazing job with it, while also working in the preschool in the mornings. She was always right there when I had a question or needed a hand and I hope I did as good a job as she says I did. She even bought pizza Friday night for my boys and I and her family! And took Alex to the spring carnival while E, Jack and I kept the fair open late that night! Talk about awesome teamwork. I would work with her again in a heartbeat. Plus she's such a nice lady! Shout out to CINDY!!

I wanted to write a quick update on our winter fun list so here goes.

We dropped a few more things: sledding; snowman/snowfamily; ice bubbles; s'mores; origami; coloring contest.

We did the following but mostly without pictures: paint a picture - just mom and Jackson; make a fort; play payday - just the boys.

Also I decided to move a few things to our Spring activities. It will be an "unofficial" bucket list and will most likely blend over into Summer. Just things we still want to do but haven't yet. No pressure. Those items are: Lego movie; bonfire; ice skating - indoor arenas are plentiful; go for a hike; video game contest; Detroit Institute of Art; Detroit Historical museum; library event.

The family portrait is being added to our 2014 goals.

Unfortunately, we fell very far behind on our "Saint studies". The nice thing about it not being required is that we can do it at our own pace and will catch up and keep going throughout the year :)

Tomorrow I'll share a 2014 goals update since it's somewhat long!

By the way, April is Autism awareness month! In fact, today is World Autism Awareness! Let's not just promote awareness, but acceptance.

Family Fun Day - a Winter fun list update

This Saturday, we had a family fun day, and knocked several items off of our winter fun list!

First we decided to head out for lunch, and since eat at a new restaurant was on our list, we chose Achatz Burgers. Jason was feeling a bit under the weather and decided against eating anything at the time. I chose a double cheeseburger with lettuce, ketchup and mayo and shared shared cheese fries with Jackson, who also ate a mini burger. Ethan had a single cheeseburger with lettuce and ketchup as well as a small order of cheese fries, and Alex chose a Koegel hot dog and chili cheese fries. We considered dessert - they had shakes, malts, footbeer or Vernor's floats, their "famous" pie and brownies, both of which had an option to be a la mode! - but were all very full from lunch.

Waiting for their food :)

After lunch, we headed off to the bowling alley for a quick game. Jackson fell asleep on the way there, and slept for the entire time we were there, almost an hour! Next time, I'm hoping he'll be awake and get a chance to try a hand at it. Jason won with 110, E came in second with 88, Alex was in third with 84, and I had a score of 83. The best part? We all had a good game, with some laughs, and no yelling or arguing!

We have been wanting to check out SkyZone for a while now, and decided to go ahead and mark it off the list too. The boys had a ton of fun jumping, even Jackson. Jason didn't want to jump, so he stayed off to the side and snapped some pictures on his phone - still waiting for him to send them to me ;) One of us had to go in with Jackson, and they split the main court areas in to two, one for bigger kids, and one for smaller kids (if I had to guess, it was 5 and under). The girl at the counter told me that we would "split up" with the older boys on one side, and Jack and I on the other. I paid for the 4 of us and bought our skysocks. She made it seem like - by saying I would be with Jackson on the side with the smaller children and parents - that I would be able to jump with him... Yeah, not so much. Actually NOT AT ALL! I was trying to show him how to jump (in a separate square from me) and having fun, when one of teenage girls that work there employees came over to our side, and told me to stay off the trampolines, and stay on the borders. I proceeded to tell her that I had paid to jump and I also had to stay with my TWO YEAR OLD and the other teenage girl her fellow employee at the desk had told me I was to go on that side with him and did not tell me when I paid $10 for 30 minutes that I couldn't actually jump with him. I was seriously ticked off. If I couldn't jump on that side with him, why had I paid good money? That was bad enough. I wasn't the only parent told that by her/others, and the two other parents I spoke with briefly also felt the same way about it, why pay if not allowed to jump with them? What was the big deal? I understand the whole safety aspect of it, but seriously, we were all adults and the parents of these toddlers and preschoolers. We know how to be careful and safe. It wasn't as if it was a older sibling just playing all willy-nilly. It just seems ridiculous. Also a dad was sitting on the border by the wall in the court watching his young daughter bounce on the square in front of him, and essentially got reprimanded for that. If these are the rules, why not just post them somewhere? Oh well. Not worth $40+ to Jason and I for 30 minutes. If we go back, it will be just Jason or I taking Ethan and Alex, as they did have fun. When Jackson gets a bit older, he may go back, but for now, not happening. He would have just as much fun jumping on a mattress at home for free. With his brothers. Or mom ;) My review: Great fun for older kids, still fun for little ones, but not worth the cost, in my opinion. Also the cost is somewhat high in comparison to the amount of time. If you pay for a longer time, the value is better ($10 for 30 mins, $14 for 60, etc). I'm not saying the concept is bad, but post the rules somewhere at least.

Since it was time to go home and feed our children some dinner, and Jason was finally feeling 100%, we opted for a movie night and pizza. The older boys each picked out a movie to watch and we made it into a double feature. We have Amazon Prime, as well as Redbox Instant right now, so we searched on each for something good to watch.

Alex picked out Free Birds. We all really enjoyed it, and laughing filled the living room. Ethan picked Ender's Game. Alex wasn't sure he wanted to watch it, but decided to sit through it anyway, and ended up enjoying it. I liked it but the end caught me off guard a bit with its twist. I had never heard of the book series that it was based on, but it perked my interest, and I think E might enjoy reading them, as well as Alex. We filled up on pizza so opted out of popcorn.

Other items we crossed off our bucket list this week:
Play Twister - this one didn't go quite as planned, but we made into our own version with Jackson playing along too, and turned it into a learning experience, while still having fun.

We decided to remove the following from our list: Make homemade Valentines; Make cupcakes for Valentine's Day; Melty Bead Ornaments; and finally Watch Frosty the Snowman - we are all just sick of seeing snow right now, so poor Frosty loses out ;)

At the suggestion of a friend and coworker of Jason's, we added Detroit Historical Museum. Ethan and I have been there, for a field trip, way back in 4th grade. It was pretty neat then, and I have heard they added some new exhibits. Also adding in a movie that we ALL want to see, and since it's been a while since we've gone to the theater - other than the movie "festival" that the theater did back several months ago with free, newer movies for the kids and $1 for adults, and then it was just the boys and I - I thought it would be a neat one to go check out: The Lego Movie!

With less than a month left of it being officially the Winter season, we are doing pretty good on our list, having done 19 already, and started 2 (swim lessons and winter reading club). We still have 19 items left, not including our Saint studies and books to read. While we finished our Ohio book, the Michigan book we picked out has been less fun and more of a textbook style book. Not the ideal read-aloud book for a family setting. Our series book #1, Anne of Green Gables, didn't really seem to catch the boys' interest too much, and we haven't picked it back up since day 1 of reading it, only making it to chapter 3. While I am considering changing the series, I'd like to at least finish the first book before giving up on it entirely.

Sorry for such a late update. However, as you may know from my most recent Facebook update, I managed to break my laptop's screen. When I went to get up to help Jackson with something, I sat it on the small stack of towels next to the recliner - which had was reclined at the time - thinking it was safer there than on the stack of library books on the end table. Unbeknownst to me, it slid as I closed the recliner, and while I felt the recliner bump it, I didn't think anything of it because it barely touched it and didn't smash it as it closes slowly with a handle. Honestly, I though a toy was stuck under there. I took care of my very unhappy 2 year old (who, by the way, is dealing with a bit of a cold and it had just started that day with a low-grade fever) and then proceeded to pick up the laptop, realizing at then that it was in fact the computer and NOT a toy that I'd bumped. I noticed a small nick/dent on the outside top, but figured it couldn't be that bad. Um, yeah, I'd share a pic but it's just depressing me. It's got a visible smashed/cracked area under the screen, with it splintered out and the whole screen is distorted. The actual glass isn't broken, thank goodness, but whatever is inside the screen is destroyed :( Since it is almost the same price to repair it as it is to just replace it, we are opting to replace it. However, I feel the need to hold off on replacing it for the time being. It can still be used, and is hooked up to our desktop dinosaur's monitor and works just fine. The desktop PC is rarely, if ever used, so we just shut it off and unplugged it and now the laptop truly replaced it. It's not ideal, as I like to write in the living room, but workable.

Party time! (Winter fun list update)

I'm just a *ahem* little late in writing this up, but this is the first chance I've had to actually sit when I had a good internet connection at the same time this week. Looking back at the blog, I realize now that I never posted last week for the bucket list, and haven't shared at ALL since the 3rd!! Oops! Guess we've been pretty busy around here. I'll have to share more later :)

Saturday, our friends from Learning Life with 3 Sons (who is also hosting the link-up for the winter bucket lists!) for a small "party" and helped us knock that off our list. I think we had a good time, I know my boys definitely enjoyed having some other boys to play with - Jason included ;) We had pizza bagels, and pb&j snowmen sandwiches for lunch, with lots of fun foods too. Buckeyes, chocolate chip cookies, popcorn (in snowmen cups), Olympic torches (cheese curls in ice cream cones), cheese/grape snowmen, powdered donut "snowballs", fresh whip cream, homemade marshmallows, organic candy canes, mini chocolate chips, pirouette wafers, and hot chocolate. The marshmallows were, um, different, as Julie so kindly described. I would say they were not so good in the finished product. At least 2 of the boys liked them - E and Julie's oldest son did - and they melted great and tasted fine in the hot chocolate, but plain, they were not really great.

We all went outside and played for an hour or so - less than that for Jackson and I, but he refused to nap. He wanted to go play in the snow. In fact, at one point while trying to settle him down, he laid on the floor pouting, and I asked if he was ok. "No, I not ok. I go outside and play with snow now, mommy?" Too sweet to say no to him. The others were alternating between roughhousing, a snowball fight and football, from what I could tell.

At some point during the afternoon, the boys played in the basement, and also played some "snowman slam".

We didn't play the one other game I thought they might like, but the video games got turned on for a bit with Julie's oldest and Jason playing a vs. game on the PS2 and the others watching them.

So we managed to mark the following off our list this week:

• Have a party with friends
• Make homemade marshmallows and drink hot cocoa
• Make buckeyes
• Bake cookies and take some to neighbors - this one was half done, we didn't take any to neighbors. However, Jason did take cookies and buckeyes to work today, so I'm counting that as the other half.

We've made some progress on the following:

• Find and read a new book series to read - We've read the first two chapters and part of the 3rd in Anne of Green Gables.
• Library Event - changing this slightly to a library activity, as in the winter reading club. It's a bingo board for the younger two and for the teen/middle school group, they keep track of each book they read. Both groups have an opportunity to win prizes. Since we are already upping our reading around here, this coincides with our personal goals for the year.

This weekend is open with no swim lesson or catechism, and the boys and Jason don't have school Monday, so I have great hopes to knock some "big" stuff off of our list!

Update on our winter fun list

I thought we wouldn't have a lot crossed off this week but it turns out we did quite a few things on our Winter fun list!

We caught up on our Saint studies yesterday (finally!) and learned about St. Andre Bessette, St. Hilary, St. Marianne Cope, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Some interesting take-aways for each of us? *I'm copying word for word what the boys wrote in their notes*

St. Andre Bessette
E: St. Andre Bessette died at 92, despite being sick very often.
A: He died at age 92 even though sick a lot.
Mom: He was highly devoted to St. Joseph, and built a chapel with very little money. Also he was an orphan at a young age, the 8th of 12 children, and sick very often, making it near impossible to work.

St. Hilary
E: St. Hilary was banished from France.
A: He was banished from France.
Mom: Even though he was exiled, he never stopped believing and professing his belief in God. Others tried to get him to renounce God as well as condemn Athanasius, who was a staunch defender of God from the East and he refused!

St. Marianne Cope
E: St. Marianne Cope's generosity did many good things, including taking care of people with leprosy, and opening a school for girls.
A: She opened a house for "unprotected" woman and girls.
Mom: Mother Marianne of Molokai willingly and lovingly took care of many people with leprosy in Hawaii, in a time when it was considered dangerous or awful. Sick people were basically quarantined and left alone and no one would go near them. She went with several others and nursed them, as well as opening a school for girls, a hospital and a home for "unprotected women and girls"! A true example of servitude, if you ask me!

St. Thomas Aquinas
E: St. Thomas Aquinas' feast day is on January 28th. Patron saint of students and universities. He wrote and teached. Lived from 1225-1274. Died at 48 years
A: Patron of students and schools. Born in end of 1225. Died at age 48. very intelligent.
Mom: He renounced the things of this world and decided to join the Dominicans. Even when his family didn't agree and even tried to tempt him, he stayed steadfast! He is a doctor of the Church, and has many great writings.

Mary, Mother of God
E: St. Mary (I know, she's not known as St. Mary, lol) was chosen by God to give birth to Jesus
A: Virgin Mary. Mother of Jesus.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
E: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first American born Saint, and started the first Catholic school in the USA. Died at 46, and had tuberculosis.
A: Made first Catholic school. Husband died when she was very young. Patron saint of Catholic schools. Had tuberculosis.
Mom: She converted to Catholicism.

On Sunday, the boys and I ventured out to the library to get a few books! We found many books on Ohio and Michigan, so each of the boys got to choose one.

Ethan chose the Michigan book and we haven't actually started reading it yet.

Alex chose the Ohio book and we finished it yesterday after dinner.





Since we are also hoping to start a new series together, and finish it throughout the year (it will count towards our 50 books each, also), we chose Anne of Green Gables. I'm hoping to start on it this afternoon, since we are all stuck in the house again today :)

Learning the Rosary is going ok, although we haven't been praying it daily as I planned. Ethan and Alex both know the Our Father prayer, and about half of the Hail Mary by heart. We will continue to practice the Hail Mary, Glory Be, and The Apostle's Creed - Alex knew that it's part of the Rosary, but is worried it's "too hard" to memorize. I told him that it's ok, because I don't even have that memorized, so we can learn it together!

Swimming lessons are still going on, and they are LOVING it. Since they are in two different levels but at the same time, I sit in between where they are so I can observe them. During this time, I've noticed a few things. First, Alex listens pretty well and tries harder when E is not there next to him. For example, when told to lie on his back and use his arms and legs to move but with differing motions/times, even though he had a hard time doing it, he did not get upset and give up! He just laughed a bit and said "wow, that's hard", and kept trying. Second, E's eye contact isn't the only thing he's struggling with right now. His attention and focus are hindering his ability some. I actually intervened on Saturday, because I kept seeing him duck under the water when the instructor was talking and explaining what they should do next. I just walked over, excused myself, and said to him "If you aren't going to listen, and you are going to play in the water, we can leave. If I see you go under the water again, while he's talking, rather than listening to him, you are done for today. What he's saying is important, and it will help you learn." He stopped playing and focused much better, and I didn't yell at him! Proud of both of us. Also I noticed that he did remember how to hold his hands while doing the one forward stroke, and did good with it. He still twists his whole body a lot though, and they are working on that.

A new recipe was attempted yesterday and turned out delicious, if not pretty.

Cinnamon roll pancakes!

I just replaced the 1 cup of white flour with 1 cup of King Arthur's white whole wheat flour, and the canola oil with an equal amount of (MELTED) coconut oil. Next time I won't make as much of the cinnamon roll "filling" or the icing, as we had a ton of each leftover. I also plan to try and find a "real food" or whole food substitute for the brown sugar and the powdered sugar but for our first time with a new recipe, we were all very pleased with the taste. Jackson ate a good amount for breakfast for the first time in a couple of weeks!

Last but not least, on Saturday afternoon (after swimming and Catechism for the boys and grocery shopping for mom!), since Jason wasn't working, we decided to drive down to the Michigan Science Center for a few hours. While it technically wasn't new to all of us, we are counting it as our "find a new museum" on our list. E and I went there for a field trip when he was in fourth grade and had a blast, and Jason had been there when he was a little kid.

First, we went through the area where they have hands-on factory equipment, and the boys were able to try out a few things, like moving a ball with a vacuum hose, place gears on an assembly line and see Koka, the robot.

They crossed the Mackinac Bridge and walked on some roads with traffic lights while learning a bit about construction in the engineering area.

Musical instruments were played, as well as learning about magnets and electricity with the many hands-on activities.

We also went through the health and fitness area and the boys had fun trying out some of the exercise equipment!

Of course, their kidstruction zone was tons of fun, with toys ranging from lincoln logs to trains to giant foam building blocks to tents and tunnels to crawl through.

Join in the fun over here at Learning Life with 3 Sons!

Outside fun with a splash of warm water thrown in

Last Wednesday, we ended up making breakfast for dinner. Turkey bacon, sausage links and patties, scrambled eggs for the boys and over-medium fried eggs for mom and dad, toast, coffee, juice, milk. Yum! I love how easy and quick breakfast is, especially on a busy school night - not just for the older boys but Jason as well! That's right! It's back to school for Jason! This semester, he's taking not 2 but THREE classes. He's got a Monday/Wednesday class from 6:30-8pm, a Tuesday class from 6-10pm and a Thursday class from 6-9pm. It makes dinner time a little less of a family meal, unless we (I) prepare better. I've been not so good about that lately and it makes for a rushed, late dinner. Now that E and Alex will be having play rehearsals most Mondays and Wednesdays through March 29 and everyday that last week from 3:30-5:30, it's going to be split up even more! Not a huge deal, I suppose but Jason will most likely be eating alone those 2 nights, or with Jack and I before we head over to get the older two. Then they will eat once we get home (dad will leave before we get home). Tuesday's dinner time works out good, because even though it's cub scout night, we all leave around the same time :)

Anyway, the whole point of that tangent was to say we crossed off "breakfast for dinner" from our winter fun list!! We plan to have eggs and toast for dinner tomorrow too, and I'm sure several more times in the next few weeks.

While I didn't get any pictures, we did go out and play in the snow on Saturday afternoon. All of us, plus a friend! Alex had a friend spend the night, whom we picked up just after lunchtime and met his dad around 11 the next morning, so there was lots of fun had. We played in the snow, had a small snowball fight that more or less consisted of the kids trying to catch me unaware, and then me chasing them and trying to get them back. Ethan made some snow angels but nobody else did, so we will do that again. All 4 boys got towed by Jason on the tractor. They had such a blast chasing down the sled and the other boys riding on it. I'd say they were out there for at least 2 hours, and Jack and I spent over an hour out there before I decided to bring him in to warm up. I regret that I didn't snap any pictures of the kids, but I was just having to much fun playing with them! Jackson posed for a couple cute ones though after we came back in:

Swimming lessons started Saturday and E and Alex had so much fun. They were both unsure about going to lessons again, even though they love swimming and have gone there before. Last time, they attended the same level but Alex didn't get moved to the next level. Since E is currently in level 2, and Alex is repeating level 1 to get some extra practice with floating and such, they are in two different areas of the pool. In a way it's kind of nice because they aren't distracting each other, and have an opportunity to work independently of each other. Alex felt bad at first but then realized he's at the "top of his class" and could get moved up before the end to level 2 if he can show competence! That improved his confidence and put a smile on his face. Even thought they only get 30 minutes of class, it's a 10 week session and they learn quite a bit. E is currently learning the backstroke and another simple stroke (not sure which, breaststroke maybe?). I did make his instructors aware of his Asperger's after class, as I know he wasn't making eye contact as often as the other 2 in his class. I wanted them to know he is listening even if he's not looking right at you, at least most of the time ;) We haven't been able to start Jackson, as this sessions classes were full or already started for his level. Planning to start in March. The boys were grateful that the pool and building were warm, not cold as they both expected.

We are currently 2 weeks behind on our Saints and are going to play catch-up tonight before Scouts or tomorrow with St. Andre Bessette, St. Hilary and this week's Saint: St. Marianne Cope. I was planning to read a little something each week during one of our dinners and I either forgot or we were rushed so it didn't get done.