Josh Makes a Lenten Pledge....

I know I already posted once today, but I forgot to mention our Shrove Tuesday and how it went.

In England it's known as "Pancake Day" and you have pancakes for dinner. We try to do this with the kids every Shrove Tuesday, but we don't always partake of the Pancakes ourselves.

This Tuesday I was supposed to go to our annual HOA Homeowners meeting but decided at the last minute I really didn't want to go. It really worked out for the best because Rich was at work and it would have been a rush.

Anyway, we gave the kids pancakes for dinner and Josh, of course, wanted to know why it was "Pancake Day." So, I go into the speil about Christ in the desert for 40 days and Lent and Easter and everything.

I told him how often times people give up something for Lent in order to try and become a better person or to do something difficult for them.

Josh was very enthusiastic and decided he'd give up something for Lent.

"Mom," he said, "this is going to be REALLY hard, but I'll give up homework AND reading before bed time!"

Somehow, I think he missed the point!

The Weekend Begins Early

We have a fun-filled next few days here at our house.

Tonight Josh is in a P.E. show at school after the PTSA Meeting. I'm not really sure what that entails, but I'll be sure to take pictures. I do know he has to wear a red t-shirt and has been singing, "I like to move it, move it. I like to move it, move it. MOVE IT!" for about 2 weeks now. So we shall see!

Tomorrow at Josh's school is the annual school sock-hop. We went last year and it was lots of fun, but we can't go this year. It's also Rich's birthday. And Josh has a birthday party/sleep over on Saturday night so we decided that was enough excitement for one weekend.

He's a bit disappointed but when we gave him the option of Sock Hop or Birthday-Sleep Over, he chose the birthday party. The party on Saturday is at a roller skating rink -- it should be funny to see Josh on roller skates. After the roller rink he's going to the birthday boy's house.

And like I said, tomorrow is Rich's birthday. He's going to try and knock off work a bit early so we can take the kids to the playground for a bit. Then take them out to dinner. Rich and I are going to have steak at home later, but we thought it would be fun to do something for the kids too. Plus then Josh will feel like he gets to do something special instead of the sock hop.

Sam and I are busy today making crayon hearts. I borrowed the idea from CrazedParent. Go check out her finished product on her blog and she's got the instructions too. She had a warning about cracking fingernails trying to get the paper off the crayons. I avoided this by splitting the paper with a knife very carefully. The paper just fell off.

Our first batch is cooling now. I can't wait to see the finished product. I'll post pictures of them when we're done.

Sam and I also went to Michael's Arts & Crafts to get stuff to make Valentines for the kids' classes. I decided to just decorate gift bags and put the crayons inside the gift bags. I may also add a sucker in there, I don't know. Just depends on how many crayons we make!

Wordless Wednesday: 50's Day at School

(please ignore the messy counter)

A Hunting We Will Go!

We finally had some really pretty weather here this weekend. It was warm enough to get outside, finally, so we did.

Josh spent the night at a friend's house on Friday. He stayed up too late and got up too early (of course) so we wanted to take it easy but still get outside. So in the afternoon we headed over to a local park. It was really nice being outside in the fresh air and just the thing both the kids needed to expend enough energy to tire out their bodies!

The weather on Sunday was even nicer than Saturday so we got up and headed out to our local Georgia State Park for a walk. Now normally when we go for a walk, the boys complain so we wanted to make it fun for them. We decided to have a Nature Scavenger Hunt with a "Treasure" at the end.

They were so excited! This was a stroke of genius if I do say so myself! I found a website that had lots of different ideas and lists. I edited this list and printed up copies for the boys, packed up pencils, water and a snack and we were off!

Sam inspecting the list. "Hmmm... What do we need?"

Eagle eye Josh finds "something orange" right away! I thought this would be the hardest one, but nope. First thing!

Checking to see what floats. Where we are standing is normally underwater. We watched fish jump up and catch flies one year where we are now standing. The drought has really lowered the lake levels and reduced this part to nothing more than a stream.

The boys each picked something to see if it would float -- Josh's stick floated and Sam's pinecone got stuck in the mud. But then it floated once Daddy "unstuck" it!

The "Future Scientist" writing down his findings.

Some other things on the list that I got photos of were: a tree with no leaves, something an animal would eat, something pointy (also worked for something brown), and something green.

Once the boys found all 17 items on their list, they found a treasure!

For a smart kid, sometimes Josh amazes me! He could not figure out how the "treasure" got there -- even though he practically caught Rich putting it there! And he kept wondering who put it there.

In the end we decided it must have been the Woodland Faeries!

And you know, the "treasure" the Faeries left looks just like the coins Santa left in their stocking! Imagine that!

Sam was quick on the uptake though. He said, "Thank you Mommy and Daddy for my chocolate!"

We continued on with our walk and stopped a bit later for a snack.

Finally, we reached the end of the trail!
See, I did go on the walk too!

Josh declared himself the "winner" and then it was time to go home for lunch!

We had a great time -- the boys thought the scavenger hunt was fantastic! The website I found has lots of ideas for future scavenger hunts too.

Next time, I may do a different one for Josh and Sam. I may have a place for them to draw what they see or put pictures on Sam's list so he knows what he's looking for. Make it a bit more age appropriate!

But it was lots of fun and definitely worth doing again!