Family Game Night

We got a wonderful surprise from Grandmother C. today.  A package arrived with a special treat for each of us.

She knows how I love special things like soaps and lotions for relaxing and pampering myself so she sent me a huge bar of the most amazing smelling soap.  So heavenly!

Rachel got the Melissa and Doug Princess Elise magnetic dress-up doll.  She has loved playing with these types of toys at other children's homes and I'm so glad she finally has her own.

Nicholas got his package opened and didn't quite know what to think of it at first.

It is a game called Fasttrack by Blue Orange Games.  We had never heard of it before but the boys quickly figured out how to play.

The laughter was amazing!

Even Stuart was having a ball playing!

The concept is simple.  Each player has little wooden discs that they have to try to shoot through a small opening in the middle of the board.  They can only use one hand and they must shoot the disc with the elastic band.  The elastic band gives it the force but you are in charge of aiming it.  But don't take too long working on your aim because the first player to get rid of all of their discs wins.

Nicholas worked on trying to perfect his aim.

I loved the "high-fives" when one of them won.

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The boys were having too much fun to let others play but Rachel didn't mind.  She was quietly sitting at the table playing with her Princess Elise dress-up doll.

Meanwhile, the fierce competition on the other side of the table continued.

Grandmother happened to call while the game was going on.  I could hardly hear what she said for all the laughter in the room.

Victory!

Finally, they decided to take a break and break open the game that Grandmother sent to Stuart.  This was another Blue Orange game called Spot It!

Oh this game is so amazingly fun!

Two cards are played.  Only two pictures on the cards will match and the first person to shout, "Spot It!" wins that match.  It sounds so easy but you will be surprised how you get stumped at times.  

But even Rachel got in on this game.  She was quite good at it and beat Daddy several times.  

We had a wonderful game night.  Thank you Grandmother!

School Book Hunt!

Tomorrow is the first day of school so we had our school book hunt tonight.  

Last year I just hid the books for both Nicholas and Rachel.  That didn't work so well because Nicholas found most of Rachel's books for her and one time Rachel found one of Nicholas' books.  They didn't really know which books they were supposed to find.

This year I came up with a solution. You can tell from their expressions that they were a little shocked by what they saw when they came to play.

This year I made the book hunt into a yarn game.  Do you see the yarn tangled all over the room?

I gave each kid they starting piece of yarn and a cup to wrap it around.

Then they had to follow the yarn to find their school books.

Yay!  Rachel found one of her books!

I made the course a little harder for Nicholas.  He often had to crawl under or over yarn to get to his books.

Success!  Who knew that an English book could bring cheers of joy?!

Nicholas doing the yarn dance!

It took Rachel a while to really get the hang of what she was supposed to do.  I had to keep helping her roll up her yarn and reminding her what to do next.  But then again, she's still only 3 years old!

Nicholas actually enjoys these Perplexor logic puzzles.

That book is almost as big as Rachel!

She's going to like the AlphaTales book set.  We'll use it to review all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds that they make.

At the end of the yarn course, Nicholas found a pencil bag full of goodies.

Rachel took a little longer to find the end of her yarn but by now she had figured out the game and was having fun finding new books.

I guess the boy is happy with his loot.

Rachel found a wonderful little science book that is mostly involves me just reading to her about nature.

Finally Rachel found her pencil case hiding in the drawer of the coffee table.

Lots of Hello Kitty goodies for her.

Well, we will be up and at 'em tomorrow morning!

Broken Water Pipe

The other day our sweet neighbor came to the door to let me know that there was water pouring out of the driveway. Huh?

Sure enough I walked outside and this is what I saw.

Water was bubbling up out of cracks in the driveway.

And seeping out of the sidewalk seams.

Making big puddles of water along the street. That's a lot of water.

We called the town and told them there was a break in the water pipe. A very nice public works guy came out. He turned off the water at the point where the city line meets up with our line. The flow of water stopped. Poop! That meant that the break wasn't on the city line but in ours....as in its our problem. I may have become a bit flustered (i.e. panicked) about what I was supposed to do next. The public works guy said that if Stuart could find the break in the line and if it was in an easily accessible area then I could call him and he would come back out later that night to help Stuart repair it on his own. Yes, I may have been a little flustered and the poor guy felt bad for me.

Unfortunately, when Stuart dug all around he could not find a leak. He dug around the driveway edges and found water leaking out from under the driveway. Under.The.Driveway. That doesn't sound like something that my handyman husband can fix. And that sounds expensive. And it was.

The concrete work alone (removing and replacing) was $1700.

The repair work was another few thousand. They replace the broken line with a newer more up to date version. Since we know that this area has shifting soil, we decided to go ahead and have them replace the rest of the water line all the way up to the house with stronger stuff that hopefully won't break again anytime soon.

We had to live with caution tape across the front of our house for many days.

There was the 4th of July holiday that delayed work but the plumbing company had to wait on a town inspector to check the work before the concrete and soil could be replaced.

It cost a small fortune and a bit stressful but it has all been repaired now and things will be back to normal as soon as the grass grows back in.

Staying at the Grandparents' House

We stay at Stuart's parents' house when we go to Baton Rouge.  The kids love spending so much time with their grandparents but I know his mom goes out of her way to make sure everything is just perfect before we arrive.  She shampoos the carpet, turns her office into a guest bedroom for Nicholas, and makes everything so welcoming for us.

She loves to read to the children at bedtime.  She does all the silly sounds and voices that bring a story to life.

She plays with the kids.  We especially love that she plays with the kids when they get up in the morning so we actually get to sleep in a little.  Wow what a treat!  Thank you, Grandmother!

Here is Grandmother's office...with a twin bed in the middle of it.  I'm not sure where she stores this bed when we aren't there but Nicholas loves having "his bed" set up for him when we arrive.

I couldn't help but take pictures of him but he started waking up and making a grumbly face at me :)

Rachel has slept in the room with us and one time she slept in a toddler bed that was set in Grandfather's office.  But this time she insisted on sleeping in "Nicholas' room" so we put a mattress on the floor and they had a little slumber party in there.  She rolls around a lot in her sleep and was half way of the mattress my morning!

There is always wonderful food.  It helps a little that Grandfather works at a bakery and brings home gigantic Texas-sized cinnamon rolls for us to have at breakfast.

I'm always amazed at Grandmother's patience with our kids.  Nicholas found a little gecko and decided to keep him for a pet.  He put him in a box and even put toys in it for the gecko to climb on.  Grandmother didn't complain although I'm sure she wasn't excited about the extra visitor staying in her house!

Playing in the Rain

If there is one thing you can count on in Baton Rouge is a little surprise rain shower. 

Of course, kids are attracted to water so the next thing we knew they were all completely drenched....and having the time of their lives!

There is a bit of a crater in their grandparents' driveway so this made for an awesome little pond for them to jump in.

They found pieces of styrofoam to float in the water and use as scoopers.

Scoopers then became vehicles for throwing water at each other!

Then as the rain drops stopped falling, they decided to "wash" Uncle Steve C.'s car with some wash cloths they found.

They scooped up the dirty ground water to re-wet the car.  Sorry Steve!

They were all working very hard and so proud of the job they were doing.  They also decided that they should ask Steve to pay them $50.00 for it.

It was fun watching Rachel who was very meticulous about the way she folded her washcloth.

She had so much fun!

Alyssa came out for a while and Aunt Donna let Rachel push her around in the wheelchair.  Rachel loves spending time with Alyssa and she is very proud when she gets to do things to help Alyssa.

Back to the giant puddle, Rachel found an empty water bottle and started scooping up water from the driveway.

She thought it was cool to look at all the dirt floating in it.

The kids then devised a way to try to filter out the water by letting it flow through a wash cloth over another container.  I love watching Discovery Learning in action!

The kids were wet but they weren't clean.  They had bits of leaves and dirt stuck to their wet clothes.  Grandmother tried her best to hose them off but they were awfully wiggly!

I absolutely love this picture of the cousins sitting together.  I'm just sad that Alyssa wasn't outside when I took it.