Beach Week

The theme of the week for Chuckles has been the beach. We started off on Monday going to Birch Bay with some friends. Chuckles managed cover himself like a donut in the sand. It's a good look don't you think. I imagine he still has sand in his scalp.

Then on Tuesday, he went on a field trip to Semiahmoo with all the kindergarten classes at his school. I met the school bus at the beach. The weather just managed to clear up enough for it to be nice. It was pouring down rain right before the bus arrived at the beach.

On Thursday, it was the K-2 Spring Program which was titled dive into the A, B, Sea. My dear friend Sandy lent us her son's Hawaiian Shirt. (Thank you!) They wanted them to wear beach attire. I am pretty sure that is the longest musical program I have been to in a long time. It was about 1.5 hours. It ended well past my Kindergartner's bedtime too. Did I mention the gym was hot, hot and they did not have enough chairs. The Giant Man Child was sweating up a storm. His hair was glistening. LOL Chuckles did a good job and seemed to know the words and actions. They ended the program by singing "The Yellow Submarine"

arrow points to Chuckles

Good Linkage

Totally copied the whole "good linkage" verbiage from Rocks in My Dryer.

update on Comfort - Comfort is home and has had her 1st heart appointment at Children's Hospital - Praise the Lord!

Ghana Adopt has a very interesting observation about hospitals in Ghana and the hospital they visited with Comfort. The author, Laurel, of this blog accompanied Comfort's adopted Mom on her trip to Ghana to pick up Comfort, Brian, and Josephine.

Lastly 6 Year Med and her entry about encounter in an elevator will make you smile.

The House at Sugar Beach

The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper was our Book Club selection for this month. I thought it was a fascinating book. It is basically Helene Cooper's memoir. Helene Copper is a New York Times correspondent who grew up in the elite class in Liberia. Her family fled when there was coup. I was very ignorant about Liberia and found the book a interesting read as well as enlightening about the history of Liberia. There was a excellent book review on Shelby's Liberia Blog.

License Plate

#1 Son has a license plate collection. The other day we were at a thrift store and found this license plate. We have no idea where the plate is from. (Maybe the Middle East ?)

Happy Memorial Day

Artwork by Chuckles -Age 6

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Giant Man Child is off to the airport to greet returning troops on this Memorial Day. Not all of us have that opportunity but several blogs such as We are that Family and Ali Edwards have some suggestions to send greetings to the troops.


It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~Dick Cheney

BOUNCE

We had an official birthday party on Friday for Chuckles. We had a really nice party at the Jump Around Fun Zone in Bellingham. I didn't get any good pictures of the jumping. There was a lot of running around and Jumping. I think everyone had a good time. We had giant Costco size cupcakes at the end. Some of us really got into it. LOL

The best part is that I didn't have to clean my house.

Padilla Bay

I have the honor and privilege a 5th grade field trip to Padilla Bay on Wednesday of last week. My #1 son had said these kids are louder than a boom box and I tend to believe that. I had been a field trip the previous week with kindergartner's to the fire station and they were not that loud. Other than being really loud, they were a great group of kids and no one got sopping wet. I guess that happens a lot on this field trip.

I had never been Padilla Bay before. We arrived there when the tide was out so we played a scavenger hunt on the mud flats. It was the kind of mud that would suck your shoe right off. They found a lot of crabs, sea snails, and worms. We even saw a heron. Later we when to the Interpretive center and look under microscopes and did other cool exploration activities. All in all not a bad way to spend a school day.

7 is Fab

It is hard to believe my youngest is 7. Happy BirThday CHUCKLES!!!!

Radiating Hearts and Stars

I saw this project a while back and thought it would be fun to try with the Diva. The Diva thought Stars were a better idea than Hearts. It was a fun almost doodling type activity and little addictive.

Hummingbird nest

Sorry to go all nature girl on you but I just had to share. I was over at Mrs Epi's house the other day and she showed me a hummingbird nest. The Momma bird let us take a peak at the eggs.

You can only see one egg but there were two. They kinda look like tic tacs.

WAJAT

What is WAJAT? It is walk a jog thon. Last week was #1 Son's WAJAT. He is on the far right of the photo. He ran 22 laps. The schools around here do this for their fund raiser. This coming week is Chuckle's WAJAT.

Oh, to be 12 again!

There is nothing like attending a sleepover for a bunch of 12 years old that will make you feel old. Ms Smarty Pants had a sleepover at her house. I went for a few hours. Oh my gosh, those girls have a lot of energy. Luckily Mrs Epi had a number of games planned. There was a nail polish game, badminton, spoons, and guitar hero. For the Fashion Show Game, she split them up into 3 teams and each team was given 2 rolls of aluminium foil and tasked to make an outfit with a head covering, top, bottom, and foot covering. It was a hoot. I had a hard time getting decent pictures as the girls all were quite animated. LOL

Bikini Clad Wonder Woman/Sumo Wrestler

Skinny Pants Outfit

They also had a crazy sock exchange. There were a certain pair of bright fluorescent pink converse socks that were being fought for. When I left, they were getting ready to have make your own ice cream sundaes and search for goodie bags. Mrs Epi ever the clever one made little draw string bags filled with the goods and attached glow in the dark necklaces. The girls had to go outside and find their bag.

New Arrivals

We have some baby ducklings in the retention pond next to our house. I am amazed they stayed swimming around in there all afternoon as the playground is also next to this pond as well. I counted 6 ducklings and a Mama Duck.

Garden Patch

This past weekend I had some help starting my garden. We put the garden against a gate along our fence that we no longer use. We planted zucchini, beans, peas, a few strawberries, tomatoes, and a rhubarb. I was able to get a few plants at the Master Gardener Sale or should I say I fought for a few tomatoes. Seriously, that is a where all the crazy plant people are. I did manage to get my hands on one sun gold tomato. I can't wait to have some fresh vegetables.

Happy Mother's Day 2009

Happy Birthday GIANT Man Child

Happy 37th Birthday!

Calling all Prayer Warriors

Photo by P.L. Chihuly Phoenix 2009

My Aunt P passed on this prayer request so I thought I would put it out there as well. I don't know Dina but I wanted to send my prayers. Her story is below.

Friends and Family,
My friend, Dina , was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She had just wrapped her head around dealing with that when she got the results from her PETscan yesterday - in a nutshell, the cancer has spread to her spine, her liver, and her femur. Her scheduled masectomy has been cancelled and all efforts are now on preventing the further spread of the cancer to her bones and liver.

This morning a group of us prayed over her at church for her complete healing. Two of the women who prayed over her both received word from God that Dina needs thousands of prayers covering her in this battle for her body and her life. I am emploring you to stop what you are doing right now and pray for her. Pray for her healing, her peace of mind, and for her family. We serve a mighty and powerful God, and we are confident He has a plan for her (although we all wish it didn't involve this!). Please, my fellow Christ-followers, pray for this young (38!) woman and her family.

Dina is wife to PJ and mom to Ginger (just turned 1) and Madeleine (4 years). I met Dina at MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), and she is a fantastic woman. Dina's faith is strong, and she is planning on serving on our leadering team next year. Although her diagnosis is frightening, she is a fighter. We've unofficially decided our battle cry will be ,"Game on!" as we are rallying around her to beat this.

Please join with me and pray for her on her behalf! God has said it will take thousands of prayers to conquer this. This is your chance to be part of a miracle.

In His Service,
Amy

May Showers bring May Flowers

The Diva

Chuckles

Mine

The idea is found on Deep Space Sparkle via the Crafty Crow. We took two days to do our project. We made just the vase and background the first day and on the second day worked on the flowers.

My Coupon Philosophy

I use coupons. There I said it. I am one of those crazy coupon ladies. Sometimes I save really big and other times it is just a small amount. But the key thing is I consistently save. Yes, it takes time to coupon. However, I don't cut out millions of coupons. I do get two papers just on Sunday. I try to shop with a list and have a meal plan. I don't do complicated deals. Couponing is my little hobby.

Recently I lost my long time coupon clutch and I did cry. (seriously) However some really nice person turned it into customer service. Don't you like the redneck duct tape patch. If that doesn't say classy, I don't know what does.

When I first started really getting into couponing, I used the grocery game. It is fee service that tracks the sales for you and tells you when to use your coupons and the rock bottom price of an item. However, I am pretty familiar with prices so I use Hot Coupon World Forums to figure out my deals for grocery shopping. I also use the site Money Saving Mom for other deals. $5 dollar dinners also has a feature which features the Bargain Meal of the Week for each grocery store as provided by other bloggers. This is really helpful in the whole meal planning aspect. However, only one of my stores is listed - Albertson's (Albies).

A long Week

(Photo by Giant Man Child)

I consider this blog my on line family journal so I am not going to gloss over this week. I had a bunch of stuff typed about all the crappy things that happened this week but I deleted it. Just when I am wallowing in what a mess things are and I read this. It makes all that I wrote seem so petty. Send prayers for Comfort.