At least once a week we drive through Lincoln Park and every time we comment on how nice the holiday lights are. Last night I decided that I would take the boys out to see the lights and to walk around and enjoy them. The boys were so excited to go, they each brought their cameras to take pictures.
One of the first things that I noticed was that they had Christmas music playing. We never noticed that touch because the windows on the car are always up. Watching my boys run around to look at the lights and taking pictures was such a wonderful sight. MJ said that it was one of the best nights he has had and AD agreed with him. I think I might have gotten my Christmas miracle, the boys getting along and agreeing with each other.
Here are some of the pictures that we took last night. If you get the chance, I would recommend spending some time walking around and see the lights.
Ahh, the Elf On The Shelf! Was this invented by someone who didn't have children and had lots of time on their hands? We have been lucky to avoid taking part in this holiday tradition. That is until this year!
Several of AD's friends have the "Elf", one day after returning home from a friends house AD asked me why Santa hadn't sent our elf to us. Not knowing how to respond I said that maybe Santa really needed our elf to help out at the North Pole. I was very hopeful that this would be a great explanation and he would forget about the elf. No such luck, the next morning AD again mentioned the elf and still didn't understand why we didn't have an elf to report back to Santa. So, like any good mother I told my child I would email Santa and ask him why we didn't have an elf. You would have thought that AD had won the lottery with how excited he got about this.
Now I had a very busy day planned and didn't plan to be at home until the boys got out of school. There was no time in my day for an elf visit, but an "elf visit we had. When I picked the boys up from school I made sure that everything I had picked up and done was evident in my van so it would look like I hadn't been home all day. We even had one more errand to run before going home after school. I told AD that I had emailed Santa, but I hadn't heard back from him yet. When we finally got home and walked into the house all I could hear was AD yelling "Our elf is here". I told AD that Santa must have gotten my email and sent our elf right away. The elf even came with his own book, which we had to read right away.
Now every night I have to remember to move the elf to a new location or do it first thing in the morning before the boys wake up. Well this morning, I was informed that our elf didn't move last night. UGH!!!! To say the least I had a very sad child. I finally told him that perhaps our elf didn't want to report to Santa because they hadn't been on the best behavior yesterday. He told me that today would be a better day so the elf can report to Santa tonight. Whew, I hope the elf remembers to move tonight.
Here is a picture of the elf in the same location as yesterday. He is sitting on the hat rack with my husbands cowboy hat.
I started this entry back in June and just realized that I never published it.
I totally suck at writing my blog, how hard can it be to write what I am thinking. There have been so many things that I wanted to write about, but I have talked myself out of them. Why, I have no idea why. Now summer vacation is here and the boys are home from school for the next three months. I should have lots to write about, at least I think so.
Here is what's happening this summer for us. Last week I spent 5 days chaperoning my sons Cub Scout Pack at their local day camp. These were fun days but very long (about eight hours each day). Each day the boys did something new and exciting. The favorite part of the week were the days they got to shoot BB Guns, Sling Shots, and Bow and Arrows. Every morning when the boys would arrive they would ask if we were shooting something. I am glad that our pack had these last on the schedule each day so the boys had something to look forward to.
This week my oldest MJ is away at Boy Scout Camp. We dropped him off on Sunday morning and left him and three other boys setting up their tent and cots for the week. I hope that they all survive the week in one tent. I know that MJ was looking forward to camp this year. He will be working on Rifle Shooting, Fishing, and Canoeing. Lets hope that he stays safe and dry.
While MJ is off having great fun with the Boy Scouts, AD and I started off the week by going to a FREE movie at the local movie theater. Apparently Rave Cinemas does free movies for nine weeks during the summer. Each week there is a different movie, we plan to keep doing this each week. AD is also participating in a Wrestling Camp this week in the evenings. He has been having so much fun learning new moves and meeting other wrestlers.
The rest of the summer should be low key with a couple of fun weeks planned. There will be lots of swimming at the pool and the local "Beach" at a state park.
UPDATE: This summer that boys and I ended up doing a "Jar Of Fun". I read about this in a magazine, and it was a lot of fun to put together and use. I got a plastic jar and used stickers to put the words "Jar Of Fun" on it and then let the boys put stickers on the jar. I then had the boys tell me some things that they wanted to do over the summer. We typed all their ideas in to the computer and then printed and cut them out. Each morning the boys got to take turns pulling a piece of paper out of the jar. Whatever that paper had on it was what we were going to do that day. The boys had so much fun taking turns and seeing what we were going to be doing that day. There were never any complaints about what we had planned. It made for a very relaxing summer.
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| Jar Of Fun |
This year for summer vacation we decided to take a long weekend trip instead of a big week long vacation. This year we went to Bloomington, Indiana and camped at a "Jellystone" campground. Both MJ and AD were so excited to be staying there. On the way down to Jellystone we stopped in Indianapolis and visited the Indiana State Museum (we used our Boonshoft Museum membership and got in for free). We had fun looking at all the interesting exhibits. On our way home we went to the Wonderlab,The musuem of Science, Health and Technology (again thanks to our Boonshoft Membership). This was a fun museum with lots of hands on science experiments for the boys to do.
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| Home Sweet Home |
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| Boo Boo and the boys |
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| Yogi and the boys |
Summer came to a close for us with AD's very first trip to King's Island.
I would say that we had a wonderful summer and are sad to see it come to a close. Both MJ and AD have asked if we can continue to use the "Jar Of Fun" during all of their breaks from school.
