First Day of 3rd Grade

First day of 3rd Grade! Only 6 boys at the bus stop this year - there may be a couple more some days - but it's gotten really small. When they were in kindergarten, there were 21 kids at this bus stop!

Getting so tall - this morning with Daddo.

This morning with me
I think they are happy to be going to 3rd grade ... they were already talking about End of Grade (EOG) testing ... these kids have no chance of being left behind ... I know it's been a long time since I wrote ... we had a great week last week. I took off work, and spent it with the boys. Monday we went to Paint Your Pot (see previous blog) and Tuesday I took them roller skating. Wednesday we just hung out at home all day, and the same thing on Thursday. They are finally calm enough to just hang out ... we did crafts, played games, watched TV. Friday we got Daddo and went to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. The picture above was taken in the butterfly house. We have lots of beautiful pictures of the butterflies ... of course, you can see the flowers but the butterflies are hidden (so I'm not posting them).

Oh Reggie - we saw huge horned caterpillars at the museum, but they were no where near as big as yours!!!

So, we're back to normal starting today. I'm going back to the gym each day, the kids will be doing homework quickly after school so they can either go to the gym with me, or Alek and Daddo can go to football practice on T/Th. Oh, btw, Alek is loving football practice. It seems to be a really good team, and the other parents and kids are nice, and have really accepted him. There are 4 new kids on this team this year, so we were a little worried. They were undefeated last year, so I think they have high expectations. First game is Sept 6 and we're taking end of game drinks.

Other than going back to school, there's nothing exceptional going on this week ... but just getting back in the swing of things will keep us busy.

Oh - notice my new profile picture - it's from this morning. I got dressed, put on makeup, curled my hair, made breakfast and even have dinner in the crock-pot already. Now, I guess I just need to get back to work ................... bye for now!

Monday

I've taken this week off work to spend with the boys before they go back to school next Monday. Today we went to Paint Your Pot to paint ceramics. Ben painted a dragon, and Alek painted a trophy for Gary upon which he wrote, '#1 Dad'. Does anyone else see the irony in me taking a whole week off to be with the kids and Gary getting the trophy????

This afternoon Ben went swimming with his friend Evan, and Alek and I went to Walmart. Always exciting - so manyt things I didn't even know we needed. Alek got himself and Ben a set of this new game - Bocedone, or something like that. Next generation Pokemon. New way to spend my money.

But, our family has a new pasttime. We've started playing Rock Band together. It's hilarious. I'm the singer ... and if you know me, you know I can't carry a tune. This thing doesn't seem to care about the key you sing in, just that you're saying words in a relative tone at the right time. I do very well!! Gary and Alek take turns playing the drums, and Ben and Alek take turns playing guitar. We're looking for another Rock Band for Wii guitar ...we've found lots of Guitar Hero guitars, but none for Rock Band yet ... few more months and everyone will be trading them back in, I suppose.

So, tonight I rocked on the All American Rejects' Dirty Little Secret, and the song Creep (can't remember the performer). It's so funny - I hope no one can see us out the back of our house! We must look crazy.

Good night ... I've started reading the Twilight series ... probably won't be blogging much for the next few days.

Bookclub

Bookclub met last week. We read Atlas Shrugged for the summer ... yes, 1168 pages so we took three months to read it. One of us read it all the way through ... the other 3 just read it partially. We had good discussion about it, but it's far too detailed for me to describe here, sorry.

We had a special guest ... our old friend Debbie stopped by! We all enjoyed catching up with here and she had read the book a few years ago and contributed to the discussion.

Sorry, no picture either ... but I have found my missing camera!!

Next month we're either reading Marley and Me, or The Last Lecture. I've already read Marley and Me, and I won't read the Last Lecture, so I borrowed the Twilight series from Debbie and started them tonight. I hear that I won't be sleeping again until I finish all four of them ... glad I'm off work this week!

I need a great lavish, epic series ... I miss Diana Gabaldon's Jamie and Claire!!! What a love story!

Happy 8th Birthday

Finally, I've gotten my new computer working well (ok, ok, Gary's gotten my new computer working well!) and I can blog again. Here's some video from Ben & Alek's birthday party a couple weeks ago. It was a fun, very small party. They each had one friend spend the night, and they played video games all night. This was definately the way to go !

I just have to say, I am loving this age ... the boys are so much fun now. They are so independent, and have such neat activities and hobbies and interests! They both do Tae Kwon Do, and Alek plays baseball and just started football this week. Ben loves rockclimbing, and rocks and growing crystals and science. We love going to movies and museums, and hiking and swimming.

We're ready for 3rd grade now too ... we got our teacher assignments yesterday. Alek's best friend, Kyle, is in Ben's class this year, so that caused some sadness yesterday, but we're looking forward to Meet the Teacher next week and I'm sure he'll have many friends in his class. Ben has at least 2 friends from prior years in his class, so he's excited now.

We always think we're ready for school to start ... but how soon does homework starts???

Gary's Dinner

Gary made a wonderful dinner tonight, from Rachael Ray's Just In Time! cookbook. Here it is ...

Lemon Poppy Chicken with Mint and Green Pea Couscous

1/4 cup EVOO
1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
Flour, for dredging (or whole wheat bread crumbs)
Salt and pepper
zest of 2 lemons
2 T poppy seeds
3 cups chicken stock
juice of 1 lemon
2 T butter
1 1/2 cups couscous (Trader Joe's Autumn Harvest couscous)
10 oz frozen petite peas
1/2 cup fresh basil (10-12 leaves)
1/4 cup fresh mint

Heat the evoo in large skillet over medium high heat. Dredge the chicken lightly in flour, add to the skillet, and season with salt and pepper. Brown for a couple of minute on one side, then turn the chicken pieces and add the lemon zest to the skillet and sprinkle in the poppy seeds. Continue to cook until the chicken is evenly golden brown in color, 6 to 7 minutes. In the last minute or two of cooking, stir in 1 1/2 cups of the chicken stock, the lemon juice, and 1 T of the butter.

While the chicken cooks, bring the remaining 1 1/2 cups chicken stock and 1 T butter to a boil in a saucepot. Add the couscous and peas, stir, cover the pot, and turn off the heat. Let stand for 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork and mix in the basil and mint.

Serve the lemon poppy chicken on a bed of the couscous.

Tax Free Weekend

Sorry, no pictures, as I've lost my camera. I do still have the Flip Video. This weekend we spent doing back-to-school shopping because it was tax-free weekend. Oh, joy. The boys each got a few new pairs of jeans, in the size larger than they currently wear, and many new socks and underwear. So boring, eh? Well, if you'd seen their socks you'd be as excited as I am. Once a year we throw the whole brown batch out and get nice new white ones. So, for a week we'll have white socks. Alek mowed the yard in his new pair Saturday morning, so he's got a green pair now.

Gary was busy tearing out the sterio cabinet he built-in in the family room back when we moved in in 1995. We've got a lot of work to do to get something else in there; moving cables, power, etc. It seems everything we do now involves an electrician. Luckily, we have a good one.

We took the toys off the landing (the 2nd floor space over the front door, which was an open atrium when we bought the house, but we floored it about 5 years ago), and got a small computer desk and put the boys' computer on it. It's nice, and it runs a lot faster over the wireless internet connection out there in the hall. It was here in my office and no one wanted to use it because it was so slow. Oh, yea, and MOMMY fixed the security issue that was causing the hangup. Had to point that out ...

I know, I still need to post birthday pictures, and we still need to write thank you notes ... soon! soon!

Hope you're all well and are enduring the heat.