This Week at Our House

Ben built a toolbox at scouts. He has good hammering skills. He told me 12 times while I was helping him that “Maybe Dad should have come because he is really good at building things.” I tried not to be offended.

Emily taught Abby how to pump herself on the swing. Hurray for kids that don’t require pushing.

Abby had a couple of playdates with her friends. I tried to get her to wear jeans because of the weather. She wore dresses both days because “Cinderella doesn’t have pants like those.”

Elise and I spent some time practicing letters and sounds. She would get the sweetest smile every time she sounded out a word. She was so proud of herself.

Ben used random words in our dinner conversations . . . barter, idiom, modifications. He used them all correctly and in context, but for some reason they struck me as funny.

Emily read bedtime stories to her sisters. They loved it. Having two extra readers in the house makes life easier.

We had more crazy weather. Wednesday was especially eventful with lightning and thunder and rain and hail. Ben woke up early and watched the storm from our family room window. He was so excited about it. “This is the most lightning I’ve seen in my whole life!” The highlight for the girls was the trip to pick up Elise and her friends from preschool. It was during a huge downpour of rain and hail. We had to cross lots of mini rivers to get there and the water splashed up way past the windows on both sides of the van. They thought it was the greatest thing ever. (I thought it was pretty cool too.) The theme at preschool this week was weather. Elise got in the car just beaming and said, “There was every kind of weather on my weather wheel ON THE SAME DAY.” She was so excited about it.

Two out of three soccer practices were cancelled because of the weather. Yippee!

My friends came to town for a lunch party. We ordered pizza, Cyd made an amazingly delicious salad, and we had homemade FH’zzookies. The kids played together really well and we had a great time hanging out. I love my friends.

Elise made a windsock at school. Abby must have heard me call it a windsock, because a few minutes later I saw her trying it on her foot.

We got 75 free music downloads from a promotion at Smith’s. We had fun picking songs to update our mostly 80’s and 90’s music collection.

The biggest news of the week is that WE BEAT BOWSER!!! Ben bought Super Mario Brothers last month and it has since become a bit of a family project obsession. Ben is the best player in the house, but he also has the worst temper. We got within one screen of beating the game lots of times and Ben would FREAK OUT when we didn’t make it to the end. Today we finally made it. The sad part is that Ben didn’t even get to see it (he was in his room recovering from one of those freak outs). Nate and I were the ones who finally got to the end. Not to toot my own horn, but it was mostly me. :) Really I was just dang lucky, but I’m okay with reaching a new level of admiration in my kids’ eyes.