The Thomas Family

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

A Week in Review (March 29-April 4)

A Week in Review (March 29-April 4)

Watched: Jack at his first week of baseball practice. He seemed to have a great time. He is playing machine pitch and the ball comes out around 36mph. He got a hit at his second time at bat, so he did better than I would have! He really seems to be enjoying himself.

Read: I have fallen into a bit of a reading funk. While I am enjoying the Neil Patrick Harris autobiography, it just doesn't draw me like I am needing.

Listened: To Jack have a blast with all the Easter activities we did. We had an egg hunt with his classmates. We also went to an indoor swimming pool to have a water egg hunt. And of course we colored eggs. We tried some Wilton's dye and it made some vibrant eggs.

Made: Banana bread to celebrate a sweet 2 year old birthday. It was the first time

I was able to use my mixer to make it and that made it even more wonderful. I didn't even have to mash the bananas! What an awesome appliance.

Felt: Tricked. For all the jokes I had planned (see below), both Nick and Jack were able to still get me. Jack was so excited for the day that he couldn't sleep. He came to me just as I was on the verge of waking up and said "Mom, I pooped my pants." It startled me awake and the he said "April Fool's". I should have been prepared, he had even made two jokes for his teachers. For one we sneakily cut open a Hershey's bar under the back flap and took out the chocolate. Then he put in paper with about the same weight that said April Fool's on it. He did something similar to a stick of gum too. Nick, on the other hand, didn't pull any tricks on Jack and I thought he was too tired to pull any on me. I should have known better. He had the leader of the construction send an email at around 10 in the evening (which really is when an email like this would come in) saying that although Nick had been trying to pan the trip off on someone else, he was now booked to go to Phoenix on the 8th with an open return date. Of course, this meant that not only was our vacation ruined, but so was my birthday. I shed a few silent tears before he told me it was a joke. Ahh man, he got me good.

Planned: A ton of April Fool's jokes for Jack. My favorite was putting gel food coloring up in the faucet of his tub. When he turned it on the water ran pink. It was hilarious. It lasted quite some time. I also put Saran Wrap over the opening of the shampoo bottles in the house. I rubberbanded the spray nozzle on the kitchen sink. I drew a mustache on Jack as he slept hoping he wouldn't notice before he went to school (it didn't work!). I put a note on every door of the house telling them to try another door because I had something going on like wet paint, freshly shampooed carpet. I was busy!

Loved: Going back to Liberty Park and playing some catch with my boys. The space is just perfect and it really doesn't allow you to worry about anything else that needs done. It also fun to teach Jack some ball catching skills. Catching with a glove is a lot different than just catching a ball.

Here are the pics for the week:

April Fool's

Can't tell it's open, can you?

We finally rode the Ferris Wheel at Scheel's.

Check out the view that came with it.

Jack and Nick played Rollerball

I was craving try someplace new to eat so we went to The Bohemian. My quick and sweet summary would be go for the beer and dessert. Leave the overpriced dinner behind.

Our Easter activities

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

A Week in Review (March 22-28)

Watched: Jayhawks lose. It was pretty sad. They just never played with the fire that it takes for a win against a team that is really gunning for you. It will be interesting to see if KU schedules them in the next year now.

Read: I finished up The Bees. Have you ever read a book, got to the end, and thought WTF? That's exactly where this book led me. If it were an accurately fictionalized account of life in a hive, it might have been more enjoyable. Mostly I just kept thinking it must be about how caddy and power hungry people can be. And the over emphasis on the sexual prowess of the drones was just too much. Not a book I would recommend. Because I couldn't handle starting up another sci-fi book, I picked up Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography. I haven't made it very far, but it is quite funny.

Listened: Reader's Theater. I was so happy for the kiddos. They were so proud of themselves. They worked really hard and delivered their lines with feeling this time. They are still pretty hard to hear. If you want, you can watch Jack's performance HERE.

Made: Easter Egg Garland. I saw this floating around on Pinterest and thought I would give it a shot. It was an easy fun way to spruce up the banister. It's easily a craft that you could with kids to work on a lot of math skills.

Felt: Overwhelmed. I went in on Monday thinking we would put a plan together of when I would start. Turns out they wanted to be Tuesday. I drove over to the building as instructed. Turns out they forgot to tell me to take a few things. So I had to go back home to get them. As I was driving, I had a friend ask for help so, of course, I said yes. Jack was a big hello entertaining the little guy while I got electronically fingerprinted. My first day was crazy because people weren't really sure what to expect and my supervisor was gone all day in meetings. I feel like I am getting into a rhythm now. The time sure does fly while I am there!

Planned: On lunch entree at the House of Tibet, but when I got there they were only serving the buffet. I decided to visit because it was part of my New Years Resolutions to try a new food. I really enjoyed the beef MoMo's. If you want to read a bit more about it (and catch up on my other resolutions) you can do that HERE.

Loved: Saturday. Jack and I woke up to head down to the neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. I can't believe that we have so many kids in our neighborhood. Do they ever come outside? Jack was glad because his classmate that moved away around Halloween was able to attend this one with her grandma. After the hunt, which included a cool candy cannon. We went down to have some more Banbury Cross Donuts and play at Liberty park. The park was too busy, so we went exploring. It lead to a day full of fun. We visited Red Rocks Brewery, where they actually sell cold beer! Nick was even able to pick up an Elafino bottle opener keychain. Next we went to a park. As we drove by, we got the most beautiful view of the city. I tried to capture it on my phone, but it totally failed to capture the awe of it. We were getting hungry so we head to The Pie. Our brains were much bigger than our stomachs! We ordered way to much food, but it will make good leftovers. We ordered the Greek Pizza and it was yummy! Finally, we went back to Liberty Park. We were having lots of playing different games with Jack's playground ball from Grandma Teri. We were exploring the pond area and Jack kept bouncing the ball. Nick warned him several times that he should stop, but as 7 year olds often don't, it went in the water. He was distraught. I haven't seen him that upset about anything in ages. He was running all around the pond, crying hysterically, wondering how he could get it back. There was a lot of netting and it got caught up in it more than a time or two. He begged me to call his grandma so that she could tell him where she got it. He just had to replace it. At that moment, it broke free and made it's way to shore. It almost went down another canal, but luckily Nick was able to use a stick to get it to the shore. I have never seen a man more happily reunited with a ball. When it was all over, we came home and watched some basketball. Nick likes to call it "re-runs" because basketball season is over. It was a great day!

Here are the pics for the week:

The egg hunt

The boys building their Ninjago masks.

It looks cool, but its not even close to how awesome it really is.

Sunday, 22 March 2015

A Week in Review (March 15-21)

A Week in Review (March 15-21)

Watched: A lot of basketball. I love March Madness. It just thrills me to no end and you usually get a ton of great games. KU blew out their opponent, New Mexico State, on Friday. While it wasn't very exciting, I will happily take it. They did get poised for a match up with Wichita State, but that won't happen until Sunday, so I guess that will make next week's blog. My bracket is doing okay even with the upsets suffered by the Big 12. I don't think I will win any prizes, but I will be in the top quarter :)

Read: The reading has suffered since I am reading both a Sci-Fi book and basketball has been on well past my bedtime for half the week. I am not exactly sure where The Bees is taking me, but it's weird. It's about a bee of the lowest caste in her hive breaking into roles that the caste are supposed to perform well. As I left off last night, she was attempting to lay her second egg, which is apparently treasonous. Hopefully I wrap it up next week.

Listened: To Kevin Smith answer questions for about 2 hours. I can honestly say that I didnt ever think that I would be as close to him as I was on Monday. He has such a passion for his movies and it made me want to rush out and watch all the ones that I missed (these are the days that I miss the video store!). I tried to take a couple of picture but they didnt turn out great. Poor Nick had to go back into work after we got home, but it was so nice to get away and do something together. I have been very spoiled this last week in and half. He hasn't gotten a lot of good sleep, but I have gotten to spend a lot more time with him than I have lately.

Made: A cute little bunny banner for the mantle. It didn't take me long at all and I smile when I see it. I got the pattern for the bunny HERE. I liked using the bright colored pom-poms for a more cheery look. I also just needed four pages of scrapbook paper so it was cheap too!

Felt: Excited. I was approached by Jack's principal to be an instructional aide for the remainder of the school year. She wanted me to work 25 hours, but I wasn't comfortable doing that much in addition to the volunteering that I have already committed myself too. We agreed up 16 hours so I will be working Monday through Thursday afternoons mostly as math tutor for grades 3-5. The pay is bubcus, but I will enjoy working outside the home and I figure it will look good on the resume too.

Planned: On not doing anything for St Patrick's Day. But Jack's class did some fun activities and so many of the kids talked about their experiences that I just had to do something. He kept thinking he was hearing things which clearly had to be his leprechaun. Then the Minecraft game popped up "It's Here". Well clearly, I ran with the fact that the Xbox must be able to see the leprechaun. It couldn't have gotten better because then it said things like "Jason! Jason! Jason!", "From Sweden", "Free Dental Work", and so on. It wrote a pretty good story. So, of course, that night I painted some feet on the toilet, left a golden dollar, and gave him a permanent marker shamrock tattoo. It was a lot of fun.

Loved: That I finally finished up Jack's birth to five books. I have always had them on a back burner in my mind and knew that this was about the best time I would have ever to finish them up. I feels so much better having it all done. The turned out super cute and I love that both the books incorporate pictures of him in with the narrative that I wrote. I don't know if he will ever appreciate it, but I can hope that his spouse or children will.

Here are the pics for the week:

Look how close we were. There was no zoom used in this picture. :)

Jack had a piece of glitter stuck under his eye from his classroom leprechauns antics

Jason's handiwork

We tried out a local ice cream place, Leatherby's, that Jack really enjoyed. I would take Syla and Maddy's any day over it. Here is his with his bowl of Play Dough ice cream.