Sunday, March 18, 2012

Unbelievable

This weather has been completely unbelievable! All week it has been in the 60-high 70's!!! For mid March, that is just unheard of! The kids loved it and we took advantage of getting some early yard work done. We also had a nice night out last night with friends for St Patty's day.

Some of Blake's latest quotes...
"momma, I need to eat a lot because I'm a growing man."

"I don't think I should wear these jeans anymore, because they make me fart a lot."

"Mom, can we take a break from getting library books for awhile? Cause I want to read my bible more often"

Cora has been talking a lot, we are able to understand pretty much everything she says. She can even say the entire Lord's Prayer all by herself.

The kids are really at a fun age and we are enjoying them everyday!!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Falling behind...

I received a "gentle" reminder from my mother that I'm falling behind on my blog.  Which, I knew.  As I told her, we are just very boring people this time of year!  We tend to stay home and get inside projects done on these wintery weekends.  This is truly the first wintery weekend we've had.  We finally have about 5 inches of snow which is the most we've had all year.  It has been a very unusal winter compared to most years, especially last year! 

The kids have been staying healthy (knock on wood!), which sure helps.  Cora has become a real chatterbox, but I guess that is to be expected because she has some fierce competition with her brother!  The other day I was in the bathroom getting ready for work.  Cora came in and told me that she "turned the winds on".  It took me a minute to realize that she turned the ceiling fans on in the living room. :-)  Then on the ride home the other day, the roads were super muddy and would pull my van from side to side every now and then.  Cora kept on telling me "stop wiggling momma!"  Then yesterday as we were driving into Sandusky, Blake pointed out a truck on the side of the street, "Mom...I think that's a Transformer truck!"  I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he has been playing with his big transformer truck at home quite a bit lately!

What have we been up to?  Well, the girls and I had our annual scrapbooking weekend up at the Arbaugh B&B in Harbor Beach last weekend.  We had a great time and the time away from everything is a much needed annual event!  Tom had it pretty easy too, as the kids were at Dad's one night and Mom's one night, so I didn't feel too guilty!

I have the Kiwanis Crop fundraising event coming up next weekend.  This is the 6th year that I have organized it, and quite honestly I am looking forward to it being over with! LOL!  It gets easier each year but would be even more easier if I weren't such a perfectionist!  Lyn has been very helpful with organizing it along with me, so that makes it much more manageable.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Disneyland

My conversation with Blake the other day...

Blake: hey momma, I wanna go to Chuck E Cheese for my birthday when I turn 5.
Me: we'll see Blake
Blake: then for my 6th birthday I want to go to Disneyland
Me: i don't think so Blake
Blake: why not?
Me: it's too expensive, Blake
Blake: no its not mom. It's free when it's your birthday
Me: (under my breath) damned commercials!!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Canning & Pressure Cooking

Couldn't help but snap this shot when Cora made herself at home in the canner!  I made a huge batch of cabbage soup last week and am looking forward to canning some more chicken this week!!

I have also had fun experimenting with some other homemade goodies lately.  Over the past few months, I have made homemade laundry soap, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, febreeze spray, wrinkle release spray...I think that's it.  I was going to make some handsoap as well, but I'm still pretty stocked up!  I'm pretty sure I won't be buying any of the above items for a very long time.  The savings is unbelievable and the quality is excellent as well!!

Alvin Sightings....

Over the holidays, our elf "Alvin" was a little more creative than last year.  However he is always sure to stay where little hands can't touch him, because if they touch him....he loses his Christmas magic.  The story of our elf..he arrives once we put up our Christmas tree and each night he goes back to the North Pole to report to Santa how the kids have been behaving.  When he comes back, he is always in a different spot the next morning.  The kids love coming downstairs in the mornings to find out where Alvin might be.  However, at their ages...if they don't find him right away, they get bored and forget about him.  He leaves Christmas Eve when Santa arrives and goes back to the North Pole until next year.  Each Christmas Eve morning he brings the kids a farewell gift of new Christmas pajamas.  Blake named the elf Alvin (he was really into Alvin & The Chipmunks at the time).  The kids just adore him and it keeps the Christmas magic alive in the Arbaugh household!



Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Christmas morning 2011

The kids actually "slept in" a little on Christmas morning, until about. 6:30am. They enjoyed opening up gifts and wanted to play with everything right away! Blake's favorite gift was his remote control helicopter (which lasted about 3 days before crashing into the wall and breaking! Cora's favorite gift was her Chapstick (which was accidentally flushed down the toilet within 24 hours) and her bike helmet (or space helmet, as she called it).

We spent Christmas day at home. My mom came by in the morning for a bit, and John and Florence came for a lasagna dinner. Dad and Lyn came over on the 26th to see all the kids goodies!! A great holiday overall!!

We went to Christmas Eve service in Argyle with mom (see pic of mom and Blake below).

Making Christmas cookies for Santa

It seems to be coming a tradition to make sugar cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve morning. The kids had a great time decorating the cookies and could not wait to taste them!! The kids left Santa a couple cookies and chocolate milk!!