JA Biztown

Emily, along with the rest of the 5th graders at her school, got to attend JA Biztown for a day recently.  Emily was "employed" at Chase Bank, and had to type in kids' account numbers (each child was assign an account number for the day, so they could deposit their paychecks and withdraw "money" to purchase items from the different shops), verify names, etc.  She said it was a lot of work, but she had fun doing it!

She was voted by the other Chase Bank employees to read their prepared "commercial" on the Biztown Q13 News. (She's in the middle)


Sounded like a very neat experience for all the kids! I didn't attend (didn't have the time to attend any of the training sessions the volunteers had to attend), but I had some friends who volunteered and snapped these photos of Emily.

Soup Bowls

After seeing a cooking show at a friend's house where home-made soup was served to the gal's family in bread bowls, I couldn't resist buying some for my own family! Here is home-made Bacon Cheddar Potato soup (super easy crockpot recipe!) served in bread bowls. Huge hit with the kids!

Crayon Art

I recently saw a Pinterest project involving crayons, a canvas, and a hair dryer; all items I happened to have in my own already! I immediately got to work creating my own. It's weird art, but I had a lot of fun making it.


My hands were a little messy after I finished with my "painting", and lots of splatters had overshot the plastic mat I'd set up, but they were so small they wiped right up off the hard floor without any problems. The crayons melted under the hair dryer in a surprisingly fast amount of time, and once you have the melted wax on your canvas, you can use the force of the air to move it around, blend it with nearby colors, make swirly effects, etc. I would do this again!

Who Knew?!?!

Connor bought himself a thing of Altoid mints with his own money at Jared's last swim meet. I can't stand Altoids and so have never bought a package myself. I don't know if they all come with this crazy message, or if there are other messages you can find??? Either way, we had a good laugh!

Birthdays

My parents took us out to dinner for my birthday the first weekend in May, and gave Dan and I each gifts for our birthdays. The kids got a kick out of the size of Dan's gift

Looks like a normal gift in this photo:


Now look at it:


It was actually a very nice gift, just came in a very small size! :)

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, there were these cardboard cut-outs set up in the entry area of the restaurant we went to

Gram's house

We stopped by to see Dan's mom the first weekend in May and the kids were having fun playing "Sumo" (where you stand in a circle and attempt to push the other person out before they can push you out).




Surprisingly enough, Connor was able to get Emily and Jared out of the circle far more often than they got him out!

When we were hanging out on the back deck watching the kids playing around, I was admiring the view


The kids ended up spending the night, and I admired the view again the following morning!

Madisen Grace

This little sweetie was due VERY near my birthday, and I'd hoped she'd end up sharing a birthday with me, but she ended up being born April 26th instead. I babysat her for awhile a few weeks ago and she snuggled right in and took a nap in my arms. I miss "baby" snuggles!



We recently celebrated her 2nd birthday (a bit late due to her brother cutting open his head and almost needing stitches just before her previously scheduled birthday party) and her Grammie made this awesome cake for her rainbow themed birthday


Madi is my little buddy, and always comes running to give me huge hugs and kisses when I see her. She finally started saying my name about two months ago ("yay-ya" or "ee-uh", or some similar variation of those as she works on perfecting it! LOL), so now adds in hollering my name as she runs towards me. Warms my heart immensely every time. LOVE this little girl!