I love...

...Monday Night Special pizza and crazy bread at Little Caesars for 5 bucks.
...summer nights in Colorado.
...robins making nests and laying eggs in my hanging potted plants every spring.
...dollar movies.
...having a Super Target shopping center across the street.
...living 1/4 mile from John's work.
...new stuff.
...having a trampoline.
...cousin camp.
...living across the street from the library.
...the walking path behind my house.
...neighbors.
...our view of Long's Peak.
...the yellow canaries that flutter around in our bushes.
...bike rides with my family.
...going on dates with John.
...digital cameras.
...the internet.
...Big City Burrito.
...rain.
...snow.
...all appliances.
...the garbage man.
...college campuses.
...children's books.
...Spring.
...Summer.
...Fall.
...Winter.
...living in a cul-de-sac.
...my feet.
...bed time.
...firepits.
...thunderstorms.
...life.

Mother's Day

My family and I went to California over Christmas break. While we were at the beach we met a woman who was scouring the beach for sea glass. She claimed that she had been a successful restaurant owner until she was taken ill and moved near the ocean for health reasons. She said that she made enough to sustain herself by collecting sea glass and turning it into jewelry to sell. For some reason John and I were a little skeptical of her story but learning about sea glass was interesting enough. We had never heard of it but apparently it's somewhat well known because there was a story about it in National Geographic that we read a few months later. Basically what it is - is garbage. Back before everything started being made out of plastic everything was made out of glass. People would dispose of glass bottles and the like into the ocean. The waves shape the glass pieces over many years kind of like a rock polisher and they turn into pretty little stones. My kids had a hey day searching for sea glass with this woman. And they had an advantage because while the woman only looked on the surface of the sand, my kids would get dirty digging down deep in search of the glass. They actually found quite a bit. For Mother's Day John had some of the glass they found made into a necklace for me. Here it is.

I love it because it is sentimental and a one of a kind. Not to mention it cost about 10 bucks. And I'm not saying that to make John look bad because to me it is absolutely priceless. Thanks John. You're a stud.

May Day!

For my kids, May is always the grand finale of the school year. This is the month where they do their final field trips, their final programs, their end of school parties, their mother's day tea, field day, projects, etc., etc.. Today was one of those crazy days where each of my children had something special going on with their classes, and each event started at 9:00.

After a crazy morning I got to school just in time to see Brooklyn off on her limousine ride to the Fort Collins Lincoln Center to watch "Slim Jim Goodbody". Some sort of program they put on to encourage youngsters to make healthy choices. They got to go in a limousine because one of the parents in her class owns a limousine company. If she's lucky, she'll be in this kids' class throughout grade school.

As I was seeing her off I watched Bryton's class load on to their school bus (how lame) to head over to the Fort Collins Museum. Almost everyone was dressed in Cowboy/Indian/Pioneer attire. I embarked his bus to take a picture of him and his cuteness but when I saw him he was dressed in what he came to school in. When I asked him why he said, "I'm not really a dress up kind of guy." I decided to punish him by not taking a picture of him. (That will teach him.) Although I regret that decision now because, costume or no costume, he's pretty darn cute. And at least I could have gotten a picture of him on the bus surrounded by "dress up kind of kids".
After seeing them off on their excursions I went inside to Sydney's classroom where they were having a Mother's Day Tea. Sydney very appropriately wore her "mommy's girl" shirt. We moms sat with our kids and had a great brunch that the teacher had secretly organized with the dads. It was actually a pretty impressive spread.
If I'd known how much food would be there I would have forgone my Fiber One Pop-Tart and saved more room in my stomach. After our brunch we took turns going up to the front of the class with our kids and reading the poems they had written for us. Before Sydney and I had our turn one of the boys announced that Sydney's poem was the best. I watched Sydney's face turn red as she quietly shook her head in protest. Cute. She really is quite poetic and detailed for a second grader. Here is her poem:

Oh, did I mention that we got to wear princess crowns as we sat on our throne and read our poems?

Time Efficient Mush

Kids can be so amusing. I just caught Sydney taping tin foil over a cereal bowl. I asked her what she was doing and she proudly told me how she was getting ready for school tomorrow now so that she wouldn't be late. She had poured a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios with milk to have for breakfast in the morning. When I told her what they would look like by morning she just laughed and decided to have them for an afternoon snack instead.

Brooklyn's Candy/Fruit Robot

Brooklyn came home with this great essay last week.

"My invention is a candy cleaning robot. It can clean up my room and I can just say candy and it will come strat out

"of his moth. It is my favrit candy. My favrit candy is choklet egg those are good. I would biy it because it can never run out of batreas and it can give frit too so that is why my Mom and dad would biy it. I wonder if my

"Mom and dad would like it when I get home. I will ask Mom and dad if they would like it. I bet they would love it because it gives out frite and my favritee candy. So ill just ask Mom and

"shell say no to candy and yes to frite It is my favrite cinde of frute so I love that robot. My mom and Dad will toduly love it too, but they could say no to it. But I think she is going to say yes

"so that is so a asome robot. I wonder if my Dad could make one of them. I''ll just ask him if he can. I wonder if he will. I bet he will say yes I can't wait when I tell him I

"was going to tell him but I forgot to tell him all just tell him tomorow and if I forget agin then all put it on a pies of papper and then I can remeber"

John spent all day yesterday building it with Brooklyn just for fun (how could he not!). She woke him up on Saturday morning asking "when are we going to build it? When are we going to build it?"

It really cleans, it really dispenses fruit and candy. John even rigged it so that it didn't require coins to get the goodies. It was as fun as building a pinewood derby car, with the added bonus that we didn't lose in the end.