10 on Tuesday

1. I'm constantly doing laundry. Constantly. I have to go switch a load now....

2. Ok- I just switched a load....Now hopefully I have motivation to fold it later. Have I ever mentioned I hate folding laundry? I do.

3. I told Ethan we would make cookies last night and when we went to make them I found we were out of eggs! Thank you, handy google, for a delicious egg-less chocolate chip cookie recipe!

4. We went to the orchard on Sunday for my mom's 50th birthday - it was beautiful weather and so much fun! I'll post more pics and details later:)5. My mom went for a motorcycle ride with Tyler for her birthday party too....
6. I've been using http://www.pocketyourdollars.com/ to find coupons for my groceries the last few weeks. I LOVE IT. I think I'm going to start tracking how much I save when I use coupons...watch for posts on that! So far I've saved $20 on my first order and $14 on my second...yeah!

7. The DG national conference is this weekend...I am so excited! Hooray for great speakers and a fun hotel room!

8. Ethan loves to read! Just like his daddy:)
9. Ethan also loves his school work! (which involves a lot of books) - he's been cruising through his workbooks....completed like 2 weeks worth in one sitting today:) I find it humorous that he gets mad when I tell him it's time to stop!

10. I can NOT believe it's almost October. Time is seriously flying around here.

Puzzle Maniac!

-Is my new nick name for Ethan. That kids loves them! He seriously sat and did puzzles for over an hour this afternoon - great for the brain:) I'm personally no good at them so I am so impressed with his skill...plus throw in there that he's 3 and it's stinkin amazing. I'm just saying.He's past those toddler-wood-put-in-the-spot puzzles (Judah loves those now) and onto the big boy kind! We are 'borrowing' a 3 pack of puzzles from my parents (they had them on the boat and Ethan discovered his love of puzzle-ing with them). They range in size and number of pieces...his favorite is the "hardest one!" (48 piece - shown below)
He can whip the 'hardest' one out in like 10 minutes...wow. I wish I could do that:) Maybe I should practice with him - I bet he could give me some pointers:) It's so cute to hear him articulate what's going on in his brain..."here's part of the red firetruck; where's the other parts of the red firetruck? Oh there's the red part! Does it fit here....oh here it goes! I need to find the little mouse; where's the mouse? Oh there's the mouse piece!" and on and on.....

I sit and stare and smile:)

Rain Rain

Nothing like a good walk in the rain and jumping in puddles!

10 on Tuesday

1. We're in full fall swing now! Routines are changing and so is the weather. Cooler weather is moving on in.....

2. Ethan is SO into drawing right now! We have a chalk board and he loves to create!

3. I went to the Farmer's Market today and love getting fresh produce! We walked away with apples, butternut squash, sweet carrots and a big head of garlic...hmmmmm.

4. I am getting over a cold (boo.) and I finally caved and bought a Neti Pot. It took me a few tries to get it to work (plus I think my nose was too stuffy) BUT now it works and it is weird. Good weird I guess:)

5. Joe brought us drums over to the bed the other night so the boys could play.....they (all 3) had a blast! I was making dinner and had wonderful (loud) background music:)
6. I'm (sorta) back into reading! I picked out a Christian fiction book from the Library and surprisingly finished it in 3 days! Once I got going it was hard to put down - now to get more books:)

7. I dyed my roots last night myself - my normal colorist (Joe) was too tired so I did it....it turned out pretty well...I was smart (not) and started with my normal part and then went about the rest of my roots...then started timing. Well, the roots at my normal part got quite a bit of time so they are really dark. EASY FIX: I changed my part today. I win.

8. Ethan made a 'raft' the other night that we could read our books on; of course the book had a raft in it:) Our raft was 2 pillows with a blanket over it.
9. Ethan can write 'MOM' and is getting close to writing his name:) ummm..weren't you just a baby?
10. MY BOYS ARE TOO CUTE. Seriously, it's almost too hard too much to handle.....

Transferring

This morning I tried out a new homeschool activity with the boys; we did spoon transfers with KIX! I gave each kid a bowl of Kix, a spoon and a muffin tray (Ethan got a mini muffin tray to make it a little harder)
The instructions were to take one Kix on the spoon and move it to one spot on the muffin tray; gradually filling up the whole tray!

Ethan showed me how many he had left to fill.....
I love the teamwork! Judah: "put that one there"
And of course there were some taste testing!
What a fun activity!

10 on Tuesday Train Style!

Last Saturday we went on a train ride from Osceola to Dresser, WI with Joe's parents and brother....

1. The boys were SO excited for this train adventure! We packed snacks, coloring books and stickers for the special occasion!

2. Everyone got a ticket to get punched once we got moving...Ethan and Judah loved holding onto their ticket:)
3. We started in one car that had chairs facing each other (Judah's in one above) and then we moved to another car with benches and tables (see us all below in that car..it was much brighter too!)
4. The train ride was a total of 50 minutes; we went to Dresser then back to Osceola. Grandma, Grandpa and Ethan got out at the Dresser station to check it out for a few minutes.

5. On the way back we had to make some stops; we also got to make other traffic stop! Choo Choo train coming through!
6. They had a concessions car that sold snacks (we brought our own)..the cool thing about the concessions car is that it was open with only gates between you and the moving scenery! Very breezy and cool - the boys loved it!
7. We did lots of coloring, stickers and had some yummy snacks together!
8. The windows in the cars with tables opened up and there were no screens...just the beautiful breeze created by the fast moving train! Saturday was perfect weather for a train ride! Sunny and low 70's:) ahhh.

9. After we were done the boys waved 'bye bye' to the train!
10. We spent the rest of the afternoon in Osceola, WI. They were having a fair and some other special events so there was plenty to see! We ran across a used book sale that was offering $1/bag - however many books you can fit in there! We got a ton of books for a mere $1:) There was a nice old playground we visited and then we finished off the day with eating at a delicious Amish kitchen...hmm...

What a wonderful Saturday!

Frugalista and a cute drawing

We're trying to watch our budget (who isn't these days right?) and I love the challenge of cutting our grocery bill down to size. I use up what's in our pantry, utilize all our WIC groceries (free food! love it:), search for sales and coupons and have a detailed list when I go to the store.

I went grocery shopping this morning for the week and was very pleased with my grand total. $15.something. yep. 15 dollars! I had 2 WIC vouchers (that in itself is a huge savings/blessing!) and I'm using up all the stuff we have at home.

I totally re-purposed our leftovers for dinner tonight. Friday we had tacos: taco meat, black beans, corn. Tonight I mixed the leftover taco meat and black beans with a little enchilada sauce, rolled it in tortillas, smothered it with remaining sauce and cheese and baked away! Served it with the leftover corn and some new rice...how's that for watching your budget? oh yeah.

To top off my Target grocery run I walked by the shoe section and saw sandals for 75% off....I haven't gotten new sandals for 2 summers - I got some super cute ones for $3. booya.

Onto the cute drawing part....during school today we were doing leaf rubbings and Ethan wanted to draw a person next to the leaf; the person later was identified as 'mommy' :) I may be biased but I think that's a pretty stinkin good drawing for a 3 year old!! *pardon the orange leaf rubbings in the background....*
My little student is turning into quite the artist! I love it!

*I have some GREAT pictures from a train ride we took on Saturday I'm going to get up soon....the boys had an absolute blast on it! Choo Choo!

MN State Fair

Last week we brought the kids to the MN State Fair! It was their first time and they absolutely L.O.V.E.D it.
The park and ride was a great way to start the trip! Both boys were thrilled with riding on a big coach bus (and Joe and I were thrilled to save money on parking!)
After walking around for a few hours we met up with my grandpa and my parents - my grandpa had a full-time job at the Fair (a management job) and was able to show us some really cool spots and gave us some sweet coupons!
We visited the Little Hands Farm and both boys were in their element:) Judah didn't quite grasp the whole thing but Ethan followed ALL the directions to a 'T'
They got to gather corn; feed chickens; gather eggs; moved hay; picked apples; got wool from a sheep; milk a cow; and sell stuff at a Farmer's Market! Then they got a 'dollar' for selling their goods and got to 'buy' a treat:) Ethan chose an apple and Judah chose Cheerios. (Of course all the animals were fake) so.much.fun.
Ethan saw the kiddy-midway and wanted to try a ride; we said yes:) He tried the 'pirate ship' with daddy and loved it!
He then convinced us to let him do one more; I got to go on the 'whale' ride with him:) It went "up and down" as you can see from our hand motions...
In good Fair-style we had LOTS of food! The most unique thing we had was a "Tator-Twister" - oh.my.gosh.good. I could've eaten 3 of them. alone.
Joe got a German Root Beer and all of us sipped out of it - not too sure what made it 'German' but it was good! I love how Judah was trying to get his mouth on the straw:)
We brought the boys to see the 3rd Lair Skatepark show - there were skateboarders and bikers - I ADORE the boys' faces of DELIGHT when the show started! They were sooooo excited!
We met back up with my parents again before we left and Ethan got a special Carousel ride; Judah saw and wanted to do it too!
He got his special ride too:)

What a wonderful day at the Fair! I'm already looking forward to next year! I love you Great Minnesota Get-Together!

10 on Tuesday - Wednesday Edition

Somehow Tuesday slipped right by me....so here's a sweet and quick 10 on Wednesday!

1. We brought the kids to the State Fair last week; both boys (plus me and Joe) LOVED it! Can't wait for next year!

2. We spent Labor Day weekend up on my parents boat in the Apostle Islands; a little chilly but beautiful sunshine all weekend!

3. I tackled our breakfast bar last Friday. By tackled I mean I de-cluttered and re-organized everything! That was our catch-all spot and now it's sparkly clean:)

4. Ethan and I started homeschool preschool this week! He loves it! We got almost a week worth of reading (Lit, Science, etc..) in one sitting....he loves to read:)

5. Judah has started to sing:) He sings a 'dad-oo' song....."dad-oooo; dad-oooo" music to Joe's ears!

6. Sylvan went back to their school year schedule which means I know work in the evenings...over the summer I was able to do late afternoons but now it's back to evenings...

7. I know how to perfectly (and I mean perfectly) hard boil an egg. My brother Luke taught me and I am so grateful.
*cover eggs with cold water
*bring to boil
*boil for 10 min
*transfer to bowl of ice water for 3 min
*wipe dry and you have yourself a perfectly hard boiled egg!

8. I think Ethan's in a growth spurt: he slept in till almost 8 (yes, you read right - 8!) this morning and then fell asleep during his rest time for a few hours! My little man is growing up...

9. I get old fashioned rolled oats on WIC and am constantly looking for new ways to use them up (me and my kids don't prefer hot cereal) - I've done cookies and muffins so far...

10. Joe and I are going to the National DG conference in a few weeks and just booked our hotel room! Yeah!

I'm hoping to find some time to load pictures soon....stay tuned!

Animal Fun

A few weeks ago (2..3...times going too fast for me to remember) Lino Lakes had their annual Blue Heron Days - one of the MANY things they had going on was a free petting zoo. At the last minute I decided that Ethan and I would run up there while Judah napped (and Joe stayed home with Judah)

I'm so glad we decided to go last minute! It was a blast! Ethan loved all the animals:)

It was a fenced in area where the kids (and us adults) could roam around and touch/feed all the animals!

They had a basket of brushes that the kids...

How cute!

Ethan chasing a duck...typical toddler:)