Fun Moments to Remember

This is the collection of all the events that are too small to merit their own post, but are beloved memories none the less.

Juliet's bff, Kennedy, gave her a big bag of goodies for Christmas, but her favorite was the Flounder Squishmallow that is a perfect match for her Ariel Squishmallow!

Juliet recruited Grace, or maybe Grace volunteered to help her craft the gnome decorating kit, and once they finished the craft, they used the leftover as nail stick-ons and bracelets. <3

I found a more appropriately sized bin for our water bottles, and repurposed one of our food safe buckets to hold the chips!  It's a snug fit, but I was happy to use something that I already had.  Looking at this picture I realize how badly the inside of these cabinets need repainting, but I have a much more pressing list before we get to that!

Over the break we got to have Zoey over for a night.  I keep an ear out for trouble, but for the most part, I don't see much of my children when we have a guest over. = )

We went with Avia to the MSU surplus store and to the bargain basement at a consignment store!

On a different day, while out thrift shopping, we found some boots that made me think of Kristy, so she absolutely got a text!

We went out for a sushi(ish) lunch after shopping.

Grace and Juliet split a big bowl of Ramen!  Sadly, this is like the 90s over here, and this was the only picture that I took!  

Emily and I split a lunch bento box, and everything was delicious!

Update on my sandals, they came back with plenty of time to spare, and are beautiful!!!  Here's the before and after:

I'm waiting until it's time to wear them before resetting the straps, but I'm so happy to see how fresh they look!

One short Wednesday, we also got to bring Renae home with us for a few hours.  Grace was a happy little girl. = )

Last year, when my sister Sarah's insurance was rolling over, she had a lot of HSA money to spend, so she recruited us.  Amazon allows you to search for such items, and one of the items that I selected was a heating pad.  Let me tell you, it has been a favorite all winter!  In fact, I'm using while typing this up.  We'll put it away once the weather turns, but right now it's a favorite. = )

Not necessarily fun, but for the sake of posterity, I also filled out our yearly CSHCS paperwork.  Sadly, it's carbon copy paper, so I can't use my traditional cheat of filling out all of the common information and running copies. = (

Also not super fun, Billy has repaired this key at least twice, possibly three times with JB Weld, but this break was the final straw, and my mom came and picked me up from the dealership while they reset my key.  It took a couple of hours, and cost almost $200, but I do have a new key!

However, if had needed to wait in the lobby, it wouldn't have been too bad of a wait!  They had a very fancy coffee machine.

And popcorn, with toppings!  But it was way more fun to go thrift shopping with my mom.

Emily and William had a "conversation heart" theme during their spirit week, so I got Emily some special socks for the occasion!

Billy's been eating a lot of Broccoli lately, in the form of meals from Factor.  His first order, however, he over ordered, and a couple of the meals were going to go bad, so the kids and I ate them.  This one was pretty good, though I personally would have preferred a chicken protein instead of tofu.

I wrapped up a birthday gift for Kristy, but then we ended up having to cancel our day out because of the weather.  Luckily, we were able to make it up last week, and she really liked her book of herbs and uses.  And she gave me back the paper and ribbon to use another time! = )

After the twins' field trip we went to a rummage sale.  They knew exactly what to do in front of the photo op!

In December, the latest CB Strike videos came out in the UK.  I thought maybe now that HBO, an American company, is involved, I wouldn't have to wait the extra month for release.  But I did.  It was sad, but a few weeks before Christmas I marked the release weekend (it released on a Thursday) on my calendar, so as not to have any conflicts.

During my rewatch, I was reading an article that said they were releasing one episode a week, for four weeks.  I was soooooo disappointed. I know it's silly, but I feel like I went through all of the stages of grief! = (  So, on my calendar, I struck out Strike.

In any case, this coming Thursday (today is a Tuesday) the final episode of the four drops, so Billy took off Friday, since we already had Saturday plans, and we are watching it Thursday night and Friday!  I do already know what happens, since I read the books, but I'm super excited again.  Only two more wakeups!

Avia picked out a Dimondale shirt for Emily, and she wears it weekly!  Also, I had been reading the numbers as the zip code, not the date established.  Ironically, it's only missing one number from the zip code (48821!)

One of my favorite songs, Texas, by Blake Shelton, was playing in the car when I went to get a rotisserie chicken from Carl's; who knew what a good luck charm it would be!

Grace and Juliet were making up some bracelets, and made one for me!

Grace stayed home sick from school yesterday, and so when Juliet got home, she was tending to her, and stayed close to her, closer than usual, the entire evening!  Grace was feeling better today though, and went to school

And I thought, I love old-timey pictures of when buildings are being built, so why not snap a picture of the new elementary school as it's going up?  I figure the cars will just help give it that je ne sais quoi when it's a hundred year's old!  When the weather is better, I might take another one outside of the car.

What a fun time to be alive!

And one more story from our day, with no picture to accompany it.

Billy and I went on a coffee date to our local ice cream store a few days ago.  I saw on the menu that they had boba, and knew Grace would be delighted!   She was not home at the time, and I forgot to tell her until last night.  So naturally, today on the way home, Juliet asked if we could stop, but they didn't have money on them.  When we got home Juliet was pouty, but I had dinner to make, and several other immediate tasks (like hand washing the dishes, since our dishwasher doesn't arrive until Monday.)  So, I struck up a bargain with Grace and Juliet, if they would make dinner, tacos, I would take them to the ice cream store.

So, we loaded back up, and I drove them over and sat in the car while they went in.  While I was waiting, I saw that I had a missed call from Emily.  Apparently, the activity bus at her school failed to run, again.  = (  Therefore, I needed to go pick her up.  So, as soon as the twins came out with their boba, which wasn't quite what they wanted, but it was good enough to drink apparently, I turned the car around to go grab Emily.

When Emily got in the car, she was surprised that the twins got boba, because she thought the ice cream store only carried bull boba (red bull with boba balls.)  Queue my panic!  I told the twins to stop drinking, and attempted to remain calm the entire way back to the village.  Once at the ice cream shop, I went in and asked if they had given boba to the small girls who were in just a few minutes before, and apparently they won't sell the red bull to the children.  whew. thank goodness! I had visions of off the wall twins at 3am.

Next time, the twins are going to bring a picture in, so that they know more of what they are expecting, and I might just go in to make sure that there is no red bull boba. 

later days

All the Other Fun Things

As usual, a post with all the other small events in life, grouped into a single post!

Grace slept with buns so that her hair would be curly the next morning.  It worked pretty well!

Some toys are set aside, so that the pieces don't go missing.  Once such toy is the doctor kit.  So, it tends to garner quite a bit of attention when someone goes to the extra trouble of extricating it from its storage location. = )

I thought the drying rice looked like a tiny dragon head.  Alice said she couldn't see it.

On one of my shopping trips, I found a cute black and green dress for Emily.  She liked it!

Grace and Juliet enjoy putting our dress up collection to good use!

I thought this was an interesting statue, pictured in a book in the twins' school library.

A trip to Horrocks was full of interesting finds!  First up was in ice sculpture.

These were both labelled Red Leicester, but the flecked one is the one that tastes good.  fyi.

Sauce for me!

And, next year, I know where to find the cinnamon imperials for the wreath cookies!  They also have gumballs for the twins' gumball machine.

One morning, I woke up, flushed the toilet, and then found that I had no pressure in the sink faucet.   A quick trip to the basement showed the problem: one of the tubes that Billy had messed with the day before had come completely loose, and our basement was flooded.  

Nothing was damaged, but it was annoying to have no pressure.  I brought up the emergency water jugs, and Billy was able to reconnect the tubes and tighten the fastener enough, but even after repairing it, the pump was not shutting off.  

I called the company that installed it, and they were able to come out and get everything in order.  It has finally dried out fully down there too!

Grace inherited one of Zoey's old outfits, and she was delighted to wear it!

Juliet showing me her heart shaped chicken. = )

On one of the days that all 5 were off for winter break, WGJ had an appointment in Grand Rapids with their ophthalmologist.  It was a dilation appointment, so we were there a long time!   The kids opted to move to the 'movie room' which had more to do than the exam room. 

Daddy sat in one of the kids' places, and then was slow in getting his food, so they all decided to take his place. lol.

Another Fallout memory. = )

Sunrise & snow.

Sunset, but no snow.

Our trash truck looks like a trash bin that's been knocked onto its side! = )

Emily wanted cardboard for her Halloween costume. We scored some really large boxes from Billy's work, and the twins claimed them for the week that they were off, before giving them to Emily. = )

We drove up to Looking Glass Brewery one day, waiting for the rummage sale nearby to hit 'clearance' time.  Somehow, I only ended up taking pictures of the screen, at Grace's behest, so that she could show Juliet.  It was a neat place.  I didn't like their cider as much as I like Dimes (which is probably for the best) but they had some 'Crab Rangoon Nachos' that were unique and oh so good!  We might have to go back again just for those!

I went into Kroger, which I rarely do, to secure one of Emily's desired birthday gifts, and spotted these delightful seasonal treats.  I bought a single bag, opened it in the car, and proceeded to finish it before the kids got home from school.  oops.

Speaking of cardboard boxes, a system glitch ended up sending my BJs order to a different store, so my pickup order was not ready when I went there.  Luckily, I wasn't in a rush and was able to collect my order in person.  They weren't able to cancel my order, so we just had to wait for it to time out.  

As I was leaving I saw 10 grape boxes!!!  I grabbed them for the twins, and set them up as a surprise for when they came home.  It turns out, they make the best child trap!  I was able to trap William and Emily before the twins even came home!

Well, once Emily and William knew it was a child trap, and a very successful one, they were anxiously waiting and watching to see how long it would take for me to 'trap' the twins.  It didn't take long at all!

The twins have spent many hours configuring and reconfiguring the grape boxes.  They even stacked them to see how tall of a podium they could make!

William has also enjoyed the boxes, creating a double decker structure, with Grace on the 'second' floor. = )

The elementary robotics team is gearing up for next year, and many of the pieces from the robot kit were missing, so I was tasked with sorting what was in the bin and identifying missing pieces.  Took me the better part of two hours, but at least now we have an inventory for next year (assuming that the twins are eligible to return.)

I had parent teacher conferences with the big kids this past week, and since the big girls were at a band competition, WGJ had to attend with me.  The first hour they were awesome and well occupied.  After a while though, they followed me and came in to each meeting, making it a little harder to focus.

Poor Billy came home from work to an empty house and a simple dinner left in a warm oven.

Speaking of Parent - Teacher conferences, the twins' will have theirs next week, and the halls are filling up with lovely student artwork!  Grace and Juliet's class has poetry books on display.  I snapped a picture of my favorite from each book. = )

On Friday I went shopping with Kristy and we went to a Sushi/Japanese restaurant.  She hadn't ever tried sushi in a way that made her content, so I ordered AAC with cream cheese (my favorite) so that she could sample it.  She didn't much care for it, but she didn't spit it out!!!

Our teriyaki meals were both served in adorable boat dishes. = )

20 or so minutes before I needed to pick up the twins, we heard firetruck and ambulance sirens fly by our house (not terribly unusual, since Holt/M99 is a busy intersection with regular accidents.)  However, when I walked out the door to make my 2 minute drive to the school, traffic was backed up beyond the curve!!!  I couldn't believe it.  Apparently, they were funneling all south bound M99 traffic through our village. = 0

Someone kindly let me in, but it was slow going, and the twins had already been brought inside by the time I arrived.  It was still backed up when we returned, so at least they could see that I didn't forget them!!!

By the time Billy came home they had completely closed the intersection and he had to take a strange detour to get to our house.   Reports said it was a state trooper and other vehicle, but no injuries were reported, thankfully.

And....finally....you can now 'snooze' your alarms!!!!!  I'm so excited that I no longer have to turn off and then remember to TURN ON my alarms with every school break!!! = )

And lastly, today was Pie Day!  The band sold pies, and today was the day for all the parents, students, and any other volunteers they could muster, to come assemble pies.  It was quite the assembly line.

It was so well done that I have no complaints.  We were able to check in, put on our sanitary gear, wash our hands, and get to work!  We made over 500 pies in under three hours, with a short break when we switched from cherry to apple.

I personally was on the top crust machine.  My job was to grab the partially flattened dough, and pust it under the next roller to make it flat enough for the top crust.  My partner caught the dough and added it to the pie.  (We recreated our jobs during clean up, because it wouldn't have been very sanitary to take out our phones during the actual pie making process. = ))

During the cherry pie making, Emily was a human conveyor belt, pushing the pies from the filling station to us.  During the apple making phase, she was responsible for taking the boxed pies over to the pick-up tables.

Once all was cleaned up, they fed us a pizza lunch.  All the workers claimed the pies their band member had sold, and then we loaded them into vehicles.  After that it was just a matter of cleaning up what we could, folding the empty tables, and leaving the organizers to pass out pies to sellers who couldn't help out this morning.

For an entire week our family has been eating freezer food, in an effort to clear space in the basement refrigerator.  Even with all we'd moved upstairs and eaten, it wasn't enough.  I managed to squeeze 17 in, by taking out the drawer on the bottom, but still had to find room for three in the upstairs freezer and cooked two, because there was no room left.

But, our early morning volunteer day is over, and Emily has already had her first customer come collect their pies (the ones from the upstairs freezer!)  She'll deliver the remaining pies on Monday after school. = )

It's been a busy month so far, and it's only March 2nd.  And tomorrow, we get to celebrate our favorite 13-year-old!!!

later days