Graceworks

Our church participates yearly in a "get out and help the neighborhood" weekend. This year it was 2 weekends in a row. Will graciously participated both weeks and got quite a bit done at several schools in our neighborhood.

The second weekend, me and the kids tagged along. I was excited to get my hands dirty, clean some classrooms, feel like I was making a difference...

But while Will was doing this...
with all of them...I was taking care of these...
...with help, of course. Several of my friends and I were given the large responsibility of keeping everyone's kids out of trouble while they got their hands dirty and cleaned/fixed up the school. Now, this wasn't my idea of my role at Graceworks and taking care of kids isn't usually my first choice when it comes to "things I'm volunteering to do" but with the other moms, it was actually pretty enjoyable. It ended up being a great time of serving, in our own way. We got up to 27 kids. Add to that the Saturday school kids that came out several times to play, it was quite an exhausting morning...5 hours of morning.

The 4 of us must have gotten some jewels in our crown for this one.

In the end, the school looked great. The sandbox was the best part! Oh, and the kids were pretty tired...

Oreo

You wanna squish it, don't you???

I know I do. This little girl is our newest family member. She's replacing (if you can call it that) our old, shriveled, mommy-starved-me, baby lizard that met an untimely death a few weeks ago. Live crickets aren't my thing. I'm sorry. I kept it going for a good 10 months. I'm glad it's over.

So, on to the newby. She's a Russian Dwarf Hamster and her name is Oreo.
The best part is, she was free. Yes, free. At Petsmart. Can you believe it?

Here's the story (you're right, Ben, there's gonna be some great blog stories in the future).

The kids had been exceptionally good...after they'd been exceptionally bad. I had instilled a "rules" board that they must follow in order to earn points to make up for being exceptionally bad. Those points earned a pet if they were exceptionally good. Are you kind of getting the gist? That pet eventually turned out to be a hamster. It took 2 weeks to rack up points (lots got erased in the process) and, let me tell you, it felt like months.

Which brings us to the pet store. On the day of the purchase, we looked at all of the hamsters; fat ones, thin ones, lazy ones, white-rat-looking ones, and fast ones (hilariously called Robo hamsters). None of them were looking like "Lee #6". Then the Petsmart employee mentioned that she had a baby in the back, along with the other hamster overflow units (ok, who knew there were hamsters in overflow in the back? It felt like a shoe store with a stock room. Strange).

So, back to the story. I guess there had been a little mistake in male/female lodgings which had produced 9 babies. These babies could not be sold, according to Petsmart rules, but they could be adopted. All of the other 8 were gone. Oreo was #9.

Of course, as soon as Mikayla heard the word, "baby" she immediately decided that was the one, sight unseen. Luckily the baby was a cute one and had been handled a little bit so she wasn't as apt to make a run for the nearest exit.

We signed the paperwork to make her ours and then proceeded to buy the store out of premium hamster bedding, the perfect "silent" wheel, and wood chew toys just to make up for the $14 we weren't spending on the rodent itself. Well, to be honest, I was feeling a little guilty for just taking the thing!

So, here she is, beady eyes and all, and the kids love her. I do think she's pretty cute. I could do without the rice-sized pellets she flings all over the house when she's running in her exercise ball but I'll forgive her for that. After all, my kids can produce way worse...

My Preschooler

"Open House" usually conjures up images of an amazingly colorful, no-inch-left-undecorated, lovely display of every craft project the class ever did and Tyler's open house did not disappoint. Let me just be the first to say that I saw projects done with craft supplies I didn't even know existed when I looked around the classroom! I've got to hand it to his teacher, I gained a whole new respect for a 60+ year old woman who can handle 5 boys and 2 girls with "safety scissors," gallons of glue and wood blocks. Mrs Lovell is an angel!
Tyler had so much fun pointing out his projects, his alphabet book......and his best friend, Bradley. These 2 (and another little boy) cooked up a lot of mischief this past year but Tyler loved every minute of it. It was the first time he actually had a friend that was all his own and not his sister's.
Tyler investigated the plant he helped plant (yes, redundant but I have no idea what plant it is. Yes, me, the green thumb...no comments, please.)
And I had to practically force the camera into my husband's hand to get a shot of me with my little man. Honestly (and you moms will agree), unless I force a photo here and there, I think my children will forget that I was even there. There's evidence that I exist in each photo I take but there are very few of actual me. Also, let's be honest, I'm not looking any younger and I'd like my kids to have at least a few photos of me before the few crow's feet I have become a flock of crow's feet. So, after that monologue, here's a picture of me and my precious boy...almost ready for kindergarten. I know I'm going to have to bring kleenex to his graduation.

Best. Tea. Ever.

I'm sitting at work...on a break...and I just took a sip of the most glorious, satisfying tea ever. I know this sounds strange but if you worked 5 hours straight (in the wee hours of the night), you'd appreciate the little things as well.

Sweet without sugar (and those who know me know I love my sugar). A little cinnamon spice. The box even says it is a great source of antioxidants. Who doesn't like that?

Anyway, just thought you'd like to know. Carry on...

Better late...

...than never, right?

Mother's day this year was so much fun. I was invited to a beautiful mother/daughter tea with my 2 lovely ladies and had such a great time hanging out with other moms and enjoying some yummy food and delicious dessert.

Of course, I had to take a picture before we left and this is the pose Lynnea gave me..So Mikayla followed suit...Oh, and her dress was made by her Grammie. Every time my mom makes Mikayla a dress, she wears it out. She loves her handmade dresses!The cake and dessert table at Aly's house was amazing. The whole afternoon was even color themed. Mine would have been, "what-do-i-have-in-the-decor-box-in-the-garage" party. It blows my mind how creative my friend is when she throws a party. I don't think I got the themed party gene.

So, just to show you how awesome it looked, here are a few pics. I didn't take many because my 3 year old decided to whine through half of the mommy-daughter tea so much that I wished I would have left one daughter home.
Handmade, yes, HANDMADE pom poms on each table in the coordinating color scheme.
Hand iced cookies on the table as well. Aly, you outdid yourself yet again and we had so much fun. I can handle being a mom when I get mommy celebrations like this one!

Easter Past (or passed)...

OK, I know it's been a few weeks since Easter and I've had these pictures downloaded but just haven't blogged about the Easter egg hunt until now. I'll do a quick rundown of the day's activities.

First of all, our friends brought 10 little chicken chicks for the kids to love on. And they did. Those poor little chicks were so loved on they would probably have chosen a life of solitude after Saturday. Of course, Mikayla loved to hug and cuddle each and every one and it added a little something to the celebration.
My little one and her friend love playing together. I caught this pic of them playing in the playhouse. I just love the look on his face - pure mischief.
After we all ate ourselves silly, we continued the tradition of "guys hide the eggs, girls go out with the kids and sing/tell the story of Easter. Now, as you can see, the guys get a little carried away when they hide those couple hundred eggs and yes, my friend Robert is actually placing an egg on the top of the swingset. Don't worry, someone picked up a child so that they could reach it. Eggs were going in the trees, in the flowers, anywhere you could think of.
Can I just mention that I can only dream of having a backyard this large? I think I would shove my kids outside every day and figure that they wouldn't wander off very far until I called them in for dinner. Honestly, I am so grateful that the couple who owns this house has let us invade their place for several of our Fellowship class' activities. It's amazing.
Here is a child of one of our couples quoting a verse for all of us. I was pretty impressed and vowed that I'd be starting to teach my children verses longer than 5 words. It was inspiring. Oh, and I hope you noticed minivan row behind the kids. Yep, where there are children, there are large cars...and lots of minivans.
The hunt is on!
I tried to get a picture of all 3 of my children during the feverish egg hunt but it didn't work out well. I did get a few good ones of each of them.
Mikayla finally sat down to investigate the best pieces of candy...
...and when Lynnea was done...
...she joined her. Unfortunately, my youngest decided, not only, to unload her entire basket on the ground but to do it on an ant highway. In -1 second, all of her candy and her legs were covered in ants believing they'd found the jackpot. We were able to salvage most of the candy but I think her fear of ants was intensified just a tad.
We all had so much fun. It's amazing I can still remember what we did 2 weeks ago but pictures do help. I feel like it's been so long since Easter. Life has a way of speeding by. Enjoy every moment!!

Sister Love

My iPhone. It's usually off limits but it's home to many, many games. Those games keep little fingers busy during grocery runs but it is fought over. And there's only one. That is why it is usually off limits.

Today, as my oldest and I were chatting about nailpolish and white teeth (I know, random), she asked to play on my iPhone. I said yes. Soon, her siblings came over to watch their big sister play on the "dream device" but didn't fight her for it. They just wanted to watch her play. Unusual, yes, it's true...which is why I had to snap this picture. I wish every day was this calm and loving...

Do not be afraid!

Ya, this guy looks scary. But don't be alarmed! It's actually a dragon from the movie "How To Train Your Dragon" and is a pretty popular toy at the Lee house. We gave it to Tyler for Christmas since he loved the movie.Now, if you're looking closely at the photo, you'll notice that there's a red circle where the large wing used to be. That's where Tyler "pounced" while demonstrating how fun it was to jump into waves at the ocean. The dragon just happened to be under foot during the demonstration. Well, I tried to glue it. It broke. I glued it again. It broke again. I glued it a third time with super glue and NOTHING seemed to keep the parts together. Then I looked on ebay to find a replacement. Talk about highway robbery! If you didn't get it the week they sold it for $12 at Walmart, you will have to mortgage your house to get it! One thing is for sure, this dragon has been loved. A lot. And loved not by the person you would think. No, it's been loved by Lynnea. So you can imagine the pain and despair Lynnea went through when Tyler de-winged the creature. Then my smart hubby tried something new to save the beloved toy. It involved a small screw and a lot of skill. Here's the result...
Finally fixed! So, instead of paying an exorbitant amount on a new one on ebay or just trashing the dragon and living without it, we fixed our little guy, good as new (well, kind of). A new leash on life!

They fit!

You know how it is. One day they're best friends and the next day (or hour) they're fighting like cats and dogs. You actually have to bring out the "time out" phrase and pray that a little time apart makes miracles happen. So, it's nice to see this every once in a while...Yes, they're watching a "chick" movie. It's called Aquamarine and Tyler actually likes it. It's kind of a tween movie but it's a cute friend movie. Since I had just folded laundry and hadn't put away the hamper yet (this actually happens quite often), they used the small, yet perfectly sized bowl as their theater seats and snuggled in together. It was such a sweet sight. Then the perfect moment was broken when they asked me for snacks...