U Week

I am finally getting around to posting about last week's "U Week," among other things:) These end letters of the alphabet are tough!

U is for:

Umbrella! This is Z's for his alphabet notebook. He cute out (most of) the pieces himself! That boy loves some scissor and glue time! I had to pry the glue out of his sticky fingers...

And S's umbrella. As usual pink substitutes when red isn't available:) He did a great job!
Underwear!! Who doesn't need new underwear? Okay, so we bought it just after U week ended. But who cares! Both boys got new undies and have been wearing them proudly:)

U Week is also for:

Books: "Underwear!" (a very funny book about a grumpy bison who learns to love underwear), "The Ugly Duckling" and....well, we didn't find too many U books.

Activities: We went to a special waterplayground and went underwater! I forgot my camera that day:) But we talked a lot about "Under" that day.

Words: Under, underwear, unicorn, umbrellas, universe,

U is hard!!
`````````````````````````````````````````````````````



Our new art display wall in the boys' room! I have been wanting to put up some of S's art from preschool (you may recognize the top 3 pics!) and didn't want to resort to tape. Soon Z can add his preschool art, too! Samuel is so proud to have his special art on display:)

```````````````````````````````````````````````````

I leave you with Ben playing his guitar he inheirited from his grandpa. He loves this thing and had to pull it out since his mom is here visiting. A son never gets too old to show off for his mama!

So boys, if you're reading....you are never too old to make me proud!! Man, I'm sappy. Must be a sign of getting older:)

Superwoman!!

I was so productive today! It felt so good. You know days like that where you just feel so accomplished, whether it's running errands or getting little things organized, etc? Today the boys and I dropped off library books, dropped off recycling (they don't have it here and we got too used to it at our old place!), got gas, went to the bank, did grocery shopping and came home. We were gone for 4 hours and I was surprised that I still felt pretty good when we got home and unloaded everything. So then I hung up a few more things on the walls (I'll show a pic later of what I did in the boys' room) and kept thinking, "wow! I should be so tired by now! I missed my afternoon nap...

And then I fell asleep on the floor playing with the boys about a half an hour later:) They were poking me in the face calling my name and I just couldn't even respond! But man, did I feel like an old lady when my hip started throbbing and I had to force myself up off the ground (not very easy these days!).

We are busy getting ready for Ben's mom to come visit for the next 4 1/2 days. She has conferences in Chicago and will be staying with us! I am excited for her to see our place not covered with boxes and junk everywhere!

Samuel at the Planetarium:) Zakkai did it, too, but ran away before I could get a picture. He's the one who wants to be an astronaut, too!

I'm off to bed now! The day has finally caught up with me...

Brain Lapse

I just uploaded pictures to post....and realized I didn't even take the pictures I wanted to post! There's pregnancy brain for you. I have it bad. I can't seem to talk right lately. I absolutely can't write and talk at the same time or I start writing what I'm saying or saying what I'm writing!

I told the boys to go sit in their carseats the other day. The only problem was we were inside. And I meant their chairs at the table. I also combine words very easily. I combined my name with a friend named Sarah while I was texting and started to send the message to "Harah." Unfortunately, this kind of, er, brain lapse does tend to run in my family so I think I'm doomed all the way around! Next thing you know I'll be finding my scissors in the refrigerator and my ketchup in the pen drawer. I'm in trouble!!

So if I call you by the wrong name or act crazy around you...please don't judge me! Not for the next few months anyways:)

```````````````````````````````````````````````````

Here is a picture of the Applesauce Muffins I posted about the other day!! Yum yum!

We finally took the boys to see Toy Story 3 on Saturday!! It had rained Friday night and Zakkai woke up and saw the wetness and asked if we wouldn't be able to see Toy Story because it was flooded like last time:( Thankfully it wasn't!

We were one of two families at the matinee which was nice. Zakkai didn't like the previews at all (by the way, has anyone noticed how LOUD movies are??!! Maybe I'm getting old...) and pronounced them "scary." He sat with me a few times snuggling and clutching his buzz and woody toys the whole time:) (You can see them in the pic above) He also asked over halfway through if we could pause the movie:) They don't get out much..

Samuel is so quiet during a movie, taking it all in! He also had his buzz and woody toys (gifts from Grandma) and his toy story shoes:) He is still talking about things that happened! It was a really great movie. We really enjoyed it!

Yesterday towards the end of Z's naptime, I walked by his room and heard him humming as he sucked his finger (something the boys both have done) and thought he was awake. I peeked in to find him like this! He had fallen out of bed and gone back to sleep on the floor:) Gotta get that boy a rail for his bed; he falls out about every 2 days!

Hopefully I'll upload the right pics tomorrow and post about our meager "U week." 5 more weeks of letters....5 more weeks til school starts! Yikes!

Catching Up

Being too lazy to upload new pics, I am posting instead a few pictures from our weekend at Adler Planetarium a couple of weeks ago! After we visited the planetarium and left running due to someone pulling the fire alarm, we decided to have a snack down by the lake before we went home. We needed to make good use of our extra parking time on the meter!

Such beautiful views of the city.
There is never a shortage of tourists pulling up in their buses to take pictures:)

I should probably apologize to the boys for taking their pictures while they were eating:)

Darn it! I did it again... But isn't he handsome?!

And then I made Ben take a pic of me so that the children will believe that I was really around when they were growing up...

It's not very comfortable to sit on the ground for very long anymore!

````````````````````````````````````````

Be on the lookout for a change in the blog soon! As much as I hate to give up my cute blog name (well, I think it's cute anyways!), I need to prepare for the baby's arrival and update the name. Plus I'm bored and getting itchy for a new blog design. It happens every once in a while. Okay, every other month or so! I'll try to give you a head's up so you don't quit reading, thinking you've clicked on the wrong blog!

P.S. It's "V week" now. Any ideas? I'm getting to the hard letters!!!

Boys N' Muffins

The Face of Concentration:

I love watching Zakkai read books:)

```````````````````````````````````````````

Got in a baking mood the other day and made some Applesauce Breakfast Cake. It's always good to have a treat for breakfast! Something is terribly wrong with my oven. But only sometimes. Sometimes it cooks like normal and other times it won't heat to the right temperature. Like the time that I had to bake muffins for 50 minutes.....Or the Applesauce Cake. I was about to give up after 45+ minutes (it was in a small pan and should've cooked in 20-25min!) then Ben suggested turning the oven off and trying again. It worked!

So I remade the Applesauce Cake yesterday into muffins and changed a few of the ingredients to made it better and it worked! And it only took 20 min:) Everyone loved these!!

Applesauce Breakfast Muffins

*Half all ingredients except topping if want to make into a cake instead. Cook in 8 in square pan

Topping:

1/4c. packed brown sugar

2TB butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 TB flour

1/4 cup oatmeal

Muffins:

2 cups flour (I used 1 white, 1 wheat)

2/3 cups brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

dash salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash or two of nutmeg

2 eggs, beaten well

1 cup applecause (I use natural, unsweetened)

1/2 cup butter, melted (could use a little less)

Few TB orange juice

1 tsp vanilla

Preparation: Makes 14 muffins

1. Mix topping ingredients together in small bowl and set aside

2. In medium bowl, mix dry ingredients. In lg bowl, mix together wet ingredients until well blended. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and stir until wet.

2. Prepare muffin pans and add batter to pans. Sprinkle topping over all muffins. Dot muffin tops with butter (will explain how I do it below!)

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 min or until inserted toothpick comes out clean! Very yummy!

*Whenever I dot the tops of muffins or coffee cake with butter, I use about 1 TB of butter. I slice it into thin slices (not so thin it'll crumble) and cut each slice into 9 teeny tiny squares. I put 3 tiny pieces on each muffin top. It adds just enough flavor to make it yummy and is just enough to melt the topping!!