Friday Fragments (on Sunday)

On Sunday. Better late than never, right?

Spring has sprung, FINALLY. I was beginning to think it would never get here! The temps have been beautiful so everyone has been kicked outside to play.

Soccer is in full swing. Benjamin scored his first goal at the first game on Monday. He was so excited. Lauren's team is being coached by the most wonderful coach (Mom!) but it might be a long season. Even though we aren't supposed to keep score, the opening game we thoroughly got our butts kicked. Saturday was a better game and more evenly matched. (Thank God!)

Saw my first bug splatter on the windshield of the car this week. It was a big one too. Noah wanted to know why the bugs got in the way of our car. They should be looking before they crossed the street. haha

I've decided that this year will be the summer of things on top of my roof. I've already pulled down the same frisbee twice from there. Currently there are a boomerang thing, 3 bean bags and 2 tennis balls in the gutters. I think I'm going to keep a running total just for the fun of it.

After completing a Lamb Watch with Lauren & Noah a few weeks ago, it was time for a turn with Benjamin. We got up at 3:30 AM last Saturday to head to the farm and check the lambs. I warned him ahead of time that he had to get up as soon as he heard me whisper in his ear in the morning, which surprisingly he did. Once he got to the barn, his inner farmer kicked in. He was so gentle and quiet around the ewes and the lambs. Very concerned with their conditions and how we could help him. The way he walked around with his hands inside the bibs of his snowpants made me wonder if he was a farmer in a former life.

Spent Friday morning at my friend Nikki's house helping her to wrangle her cows back inside the fence. They were more interested in eating the new grass than the bucket full of corn we were trying to lure them with. Since they were uncooperative in that regards, I had to bring out my lasso skills. Which aren't all that great to begin with. We caught one and dragged it back to the pen. The other 3 had to be coaxed back through other methods. What a sight we were. LOL

Dave is in Dallas this weekend attending his nephew/godson's baptism. He'll be back on Monday afternoon. To add to our excitement of Sunday, this afternoon we are going to the local llama farm where we are going to learn how to wrangle them and lead them. Llama is one of Lauren & Benjamin's 4-H projects this year. I hope we all survive.

Friday Fragments

Listen...do you hear it? Listen closer. Can you hear the quiet? It's the calm before the storm. Next week is Spring Break!! AAAAAAAHHHHHH. Help me now!

Springtime at the farm is in full swing. 23 piglets and 30 lambs have been born in the last few weeks. This time of the year makes it such a fun place to work. Here are a couple pics.

The full realization of the late April/May schedule at our house came to light this week. I thought we had a lot going on with soccer, Lauren's 1st Communion, her birthday and a 4-H performance. The piano teacher let us know that there is going to be a recital too. Guess which day.....wait for it.....yup, you guessed it, the same day as the 1st Communion. Of course it is! UGH.


Great quote from one of the kids I teach at the farm this week. Many of them have participated in this after-school program before and remember the dairy calf we had last summer. One of the girls asked me why the calf wasn't there any more. I told her that the calf was just loaned to us for the summer and had to go back home to grow bigger and get ready to have a baby. She gave me a puzzled look and said to me "I didn't know she was in love?" LOL. Ahhh, the innocence of kids. Gotta love it.

Happy Friday.

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For more Friday Fragments, visit Mrs4444 at Half-Past Kissin Time.

Friday Fragments

It's been a great week at our house. Lots of activities, both for kids and parents There wasn't any school Thursday or Friday due to conferences at school. Maybe one of these weeks there will actually be school all 5 days. ;)

**Lauren and Benjamin have started to learn how to use the sewing machine. That was one of their goals for 4-H this year. They have been practicing tracing patterns on a piece of paper without the thread. Benjamin is doing surprisingly good especially since I expected him to use the foot pedal to operate the machine just like the accelerator on a go-kart. We might try real fabric and thread soon.

**I discovered this week that Lauren has been wearing mittens to bed at night. I'm not sure when that started (and yes, her room is plenty warm enough grandma!). She just said she like doing it. This also comes from the same kid who used to wrap her blanket around her head, including her face, until she created a individual sweat lodge like experience. UGH.

**Benjamin braved his 6 year old well child visit to the dr. last Friday. He passed with flying colors including the vision and hearing screening. He was so proud of himself in showing the dr. all the things he knew how to do, had learned in school, etc. Of course all those things went out the window when the nurse came in with the needle for a shot. We had to pull him out from underneath the chairs to administer it. I'm pretty sure the people in the waiting room could hear him screaming.

**Noah loves going to preschool. He attends every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I go with on Tuesday for a parent education time and he goes by himself on Thursdays. Every morning he gets up and asks if he has school, if he doesn't he ends up in a heap on the floor in a "disappointment fit" When he asked Thursday morning, I said that he was going by himself after which he proceeded to lose it again. I was very confused by what was going on so I asked him. He said to me, with a very whiny voice, "Mom, I can't go to school by myself. I can't drive!!"

Have a great weekend.

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For more Friday Fragments, visit Mrs4444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time.

Friday Fragments

Last Friday night the whole gang headed to the elementary school for the Family Dance. Mostly the kids dance and the parents sat on the sidelines and watched the chaos. Lauren spent most of the night front and center of the stage, cause "you know mom, I'm gonna be a rock star when I grow up" Noah's dance moves involved some sort of weird combination of tapping his feet as fast as possible while trying to do the splits. I'm positive those dance moves came from dad. Here's a video clip of Benjamin (in the red shirt) practicing his very best air- guitar & head-banging. Aerosmith, eat your heart out!

It was Pet Week at preschool and somehow I got roped into hauling 2 new acquired goldfish to school. Noah thought it was absolutely fabulous.

A Christmas present from Grandma Petersen got put to good use this week. Each of the kids received a pillowcase made by a friend of hers. They were supposed to have made their way onto a pillow. But I turned my back for a second and I saw them "boing, boing, boinging" down the hallway. Those cases have been jumping around the house all week.

I started back to work at Gale Woods Farm this week. For the next 5 weeks, I'm going to be working with an after-school program. The 1st-3rd graders come directly from school to help with farm chores and learn about the farm. Thursday was the first session and the kids were able to watch the annual sheep shearing. At first the other educator and I told the kids that they were female sheep but as the wool came off it became quite obvious they were the boys. I even overheard one of the kids whisper to his friend "oooh, I saw some private parts!" Ahhhh, yet again, another fun-filled summer at the farm.

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For more Friday Fragments, visit Mrs4444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time

Friday Fragments

**Around Christmas-time, Grandma earned 2 free unlimited ride wristbands for the Nickelodeon Universe park at the Mall of America. We got a chance to finally use them last weekend. The place was packed! All the kids were amazingly patient as we waited in line for the rides. We discovered that our very brave Lauren was freaked out a little by a couple of the roller coasters. And Benjamin (affectionately referred to as the Wimp) LOVED them. Noah was just tall enough to ride one of them and proceeded to do so about 7 times in a row.

**All the kids had Beach Day at school this week. Lauren always looks forward to this day. Every year she always tries to convince me that she should be able to wear her swimsuit to school! Nice try girlie.

**Computer genius, I think not! - Noah's newest interest is playing games on the computer. He is REALLY good at turning the computer on and getting to where he wants to go. Although this week he somehow pushed some button or combinations thereof so that the display on the monitor was tilted 90 degrees (just imagine turning your head sideways to look at what the screen was saying). Dave couldn't even figure out how to get it back to normal.

**During the whole computer monitor incident and my attempt to fix it (yeah right, like that was going to happen)Noah decided he wanted a snack. He came back into the office where I was fuming at the computer and asked if we could make some popcorn. We went upstairs to make some. He had already gotten out the popcorn pan and it was on the stove. As I came around the corner in the kitchen I was surprised to find the entire floor covered with popcorn kernels! UGH. He was sent to get the broom to help clean up. As I moved the pan from the stove it seemed a little heavy. I opened it to find the remaining popcorn kernels.....about 4 cups worth! Thank goodness he didn't decide to turn the stove on.

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Thanks to Mrs4444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time for the Friday Fragment idea. Friday Fragments are bits and pieces of your week that aren't long enough for one blog entry but are too good to miss.

Friday Fragment

Hey look, another new idea for my blog. Thanks to Mrs.4444 at Half-Past Kissin Time for this idea too. Friday Fragments are bits and pieces of your week that are usually brief; too short for a stand-alone post, but too good to discard. Visit her blog and click on the Friday Fragment link to check it out.

**Monday there was no school because of President’s Day. Luckily, Lauren was at Grandma & Grandpa Petersen’s all weekend so there wasn’t too much screaming between siblings. That day a friend and I hit our favorite thrift shop (think Goodwill) for their 50% off sale. You wouldn’t believe the deals we got!

**Noah had his preschool conference this week. The teacher said he is doing great in school. He’s starting to write his own name but there was some question about whether he was right or left handed. We chose for him. HA HA

**Lauren is making great strides in piano lessons. I know she understand the material more because the speed she is playing is getting faster. Gee, I wonder where she gets that from??

**Benjamin’s class celebrated the 100th day of school last week with a big celebration. Plus now he has been showing us all the different ways he can count to 100.

**I had 2 great visits from old high school/college friends. My friend Karen (from 4-H) called to tell me that she was expecting baby #2. Although I figured that’s why she was calling since she only ever calls me in person with big news like that. ;) My friend Sara and I had a great visit/dinner this week too in Minneapolis. She is in town because her little boy Levi was recently diagnosed with leukemia and he here being treated. He is making great strides and is just about to head home to ND. We figured that the last time we had seen each other was over 8 years ago at her wedding. Check out Levi’s website.

**The “highlight” for Dave this week was that he got to witness the fact that Noah knows how to make his own hot chocolate (hot water and everything!). He had been outside with the kids and they were just about to go inside. Noah headed in first. Dave came in the door not more than 5 minutes later. But in that time, Noah had gotten out the box of hot chocolate and a mug, both which are on shelves WAY above his head. He had taken the sharpest scissors in the house and cut open the package and poured in the powder. Then he climbed on another counter to get the glass measuring cup out, filled it with water and put it in the microwave. Dave found him standing on a chair in front of the microwave which was on (for an unknown amount of time) watching the water boil. He told Dave, “Look Dad, I’m making hot chocolate”. Remember people, he just turned 4!