fun friday, 1.17.14...

Boppa and Aahma R came to visit!!!  Bakery treats, learning about electricity while fixing a baby monitor, reading books, the hand game, new games on Aahma's ipad, and lots of hugs and giggles made for a great fun friday!

fun friday, 1.10.14...

Goodness knows we all needed a fun friday this week, but still needed to be very low key, so Legos it was!  Fun snacks and lots of building things with Aahma B and Dadda and Momma made for some happy kiddos...

fun friday, 1.3.14...

After a week of family celebration and friend get-togethers, and with colds settling in for everyone, AND since there was a major flood in the kids bathroom upstairs that we had to clean up late into the night, our Fun Friday was very low-key.

Chocolate chip muffins for breakfast (recipe out of my new Cooks Illustrated Baking Book that Steve gave me for Christmas)

While Henry napped, the big kids got to go outside to play for the first time all week.  They had to take advantage of the heat wave that we were having (20F!!  windchill was still hovering around 0F though...and after 30 min outside, Willem's cheeks were already starting to show frostbite.  It is CRAZY cold around here).

Carsten also got to go over to Mrs. Lynne's all by himself to celebrate his birthday with her which he was pretty stoked about.  He had saved the last pieces of his birthday cake for her, and she gave him a new game, Cars Monopoly.  Super fun!  We love our neighbors...

It is going to go back into the deep freeze over the weekend (school has already been cancelled on Monday because of the cold), so we went out and ran errands - "new" ice skates for Grace and Willem in prep for skating in January at school, new tennis shoes for Grace, and groceries.  Steve was working late so we picked up chicken nuggets and mozzarella sticks and had a total TV supper.  We threw in apples and carrots to try to healthify things...=)

I was very proud of the kids for not whining about our low-key day, and for getting ready for bed by themselves without complaining...it's the little things, right?

fun friday, 2.22.13...

Still wasn't sure yesterday morning what we were going to do for "fun friday", until S made the suggestion for a snow day afternoon - perfect, especially since we had gotten 4-5 inches of fresh snow overnight and throughout the day, the wind was calm and the temps were not frigid.  (I think S was wishing he could have come home early to play in the snow too! =)

(I know there will come a day when shoveling will not be "fun")

(this was H's first official time out playing in the snow!)

(not so sure what to think at first =)

(being pulled in the sled was fun though)

(for everyone...except maybe the momma after many trips around the yard)

(they learned a new game...)

 

 

 (...and made snow angels!  the snow was just perfect for that)

(perfect enough that momma couldn't resist making one too)

(our 4 little snow bunnies)

 

(and the day was topped off with hot chocolate, tomato soup and grilled cheese)

(did someone say "CHEEEEEEESE!"?)

fun friday, 2.15.13...

(blurry photos brought to you by my cell phone and forgetting the big camera...=)

Anyone guess where we went?  An experience in and of itself that the kids had a hoot with.  S had the day off, we all went to pick G & W up from school, told them we were going somewhere crazy, and drove the half hour out to the large outdoor store where we admired the animal dioramas, camping supplies and aquarium, and resisted buying outdoor gear and large containers of mixed nuts and gummy peach rings...

fun friday, 2.8.13...

lots of love this Friday prepping for a fun holiday next week...

...and happy to have a very loving guest with us too!

fun friday, 1.25.13...

giggly girls sitting and knitting together... (sorry no knitting in this photo, will catch it next time)

silly mommas trying to re-create matching outfit photos for our babies, feeling like we did this just yesterday for our now preschoolers...(both sets are betrothed, by the way! =)

In the words of my lovely friend, "it was fun, in the crazy 7-busy-energetic-little-people way that we are so fond of..."

fun (farming) friday, 1.18.13...

Weeks with school can get long and there is never enough time after school before bed to do all the things everyone wants to do.  So we stay home during the week working on reading and other school things, but on Fridays we always try to do something fun after school.  I hope to post more about the things we do this year each Friday!

This Friday was an extra special one especially for W.  He asked his Boppa R to come and talk to his kindergarten class about Farming for the letter F.  What grandpa can refuse a request like that!

So Dad came up to the cities for a very quick trip and talked to the class after lunch on Friday.  It was awesome.  Farming is something that these city kids don't get a lot of exposure to so they all paid very close attention and asked good questions.

Dad did a fabulous job and had a bunch of pictures of his farm and fields which really helped show and tell the kids about farming and what he does.

The day was not only fun for W -  H had fun playing in the classroom with Boppa while I did my job as a room mom and helped with the once a month pizza lunch that happened to be on this Friday too.

And C particularly had fun too because he got to pretend he was a kindergartener for a couple of hours playing at recess with W, eating pizza lunch with the class, lining up with them and sitting in the big kid chairs to listen to Boppa talk too.

The kindergarteners were very excited for the fun stuff that Dad brought along for them too.  He had a tractor calendar and pencil for each of them (thanks to the local John Deere dealership!), and a little bag of soybeans and corn from the farm too.  Thank you so much for coming up to do this, Dad!  I think I might have been just as excited as W was!! =)

Now Fun Fridays are usually about doing something fun for the kids after school and that is how I try to plan things, but today was a much needed "fun" day for me too.  Got to see my dad and have lunch with him before he headed home, and enjoy all the bakery treats he brought up for us!  Then after school we headed to sister.in.law C's house to bring over a belated birthday gift for my niece G.  The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins and I very much enjoyed a lovely afternoon sipping tea, laughing at toddling H and the dog Pippen, and chatting with C while she baked bread!  The past few weeks of Jan have been particularly rough with sick and ick, so today was very refreshing to be out in the real world again!  So thanks to Dad and C for not only helping the kids have a Fun Friday, but me too.  Love you all!