Staycation

John and I just finished our vacation, but we did things a little different this year. We stayed at home. Here are a few pictures:

We tried staying in our house for the first few days, but it just didn't seem like vacation, so we set up our tent in the backyard and camped out for a few nights. VERY FUN!!!

On our way into the theater to see . . . "Kung Fu Panda"

We went out to a park by the Lake to have a picnic, play on the playground and ride bikes.

The Bike riding didn't go so well. Logan was having a hard time and got so frustrated, he threw his bike down. He then ran off. Luke was so upset and concerned, he went chasing after Logan, it really was a very touching moment in the midst of a major meltdown. Once we got home we adjusted Logan's bike making it much easier to peddle, and he was much happier.

Other vacation highlights:
$5 Little Caesar's Pizza
Grandma Wentz and water fights :)
Getting out of China and getting stuck in Japan!
The slide in the pool, which Mikayla must have gone done a million times in a row!
Roasting S'mores in our new fire pit!
Me stressing out over Garage-a-palooza and John being patient with me ;)
Swimming at the YMCA
Escamocha!
Dinner with the Barutcu's
Cold Stone and Dutch Blitz with Clayton and Lisa
Going to Champaign for church

Yo Joe!

Logan's 5th birthday was celebrated with GI Joe fun. John recently got his GI Joe toys from when he was a kid. This sparked Logan's love for GI Joe. The kids had a great time going through boot camp. Cobra Commander even made an appearance! Stealing our base camp and relocating it into the neighbors back yard. Once the kids found the tent, they were surprised to find a hostage inside! Cobra had Grandpa tied up, but the boot camp graduates were able to free Grandpa and return base camp back to it's original location. Whew, it's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.

We have friends who let us borrow some dress up stuff.

Some decorations

Boot camp! Nothing is quite as funny as watching 5 years olds try and do jumping jacks!

Birthday pictures

Making fighter jets!

Listen up, sargents!

Even Mikayla joined in the fun! Sir, yes, Sir!

Yummy!

Eating their rations in the base camp tent.

10 things

I have been making a list of "10 things I did today", everyday for 6 whole days. Today will be day number 7 and I think in a small way, it is helping. It is much better to wind down the day making a list of accomplishments and ending on a positive note.

In other news, Logan will be graduating preschool on Wednesday. Although Logan has friend's in his class, he is handling moving on much better than Luke. Luke is so social and LOVED his preschool friends so much. It took months before we could even drive by the building without Luke crying because his preschool friends weren't there anymore. Today was Logan's official last day and he is completely content to be moving on. Next year I won't have any kids in preschool, because Mikayla isn't quite old enough yet. How strange it will be to have only 1 child at home during the day. Luke will be done with school the first week of June. I am really looking forward to summer and a new summer schedule with the kids home! Well, it's off to get Luke from school then go to swimming and tae kwon do lessons.

Did I get anything done today?

It seems like at the end of the day, the list of things I did NOT get done is constantly weighing me down. So, I am going to try and gain some perspective and make a list of 10 things I DID get done at the end of every day. Which may have the opposite effect, because now I've just added another thing to my list to do every day, ARGGHH! I know this list won't make it to the blog every day, but hopefully I can write it down for myself. I also know many of these items may seem unimpressive, but the life of a mom is not meant to be impressive is it?

Here is yesterday's list:
1. Made breakfast (eggs, sausage, cinnamon toast)
2. Took Luke to school.
3. Did 3 loads of laundry.
4. Picked up Luke from school.
5. Mailed scholastic Book Fair money.
6. Mailed invitations.
7. John and I coordinated our calendars.
8. Purchased train ticket for Luke's field trip.
9. Switched out toys from the toy closet and cleaned playroom (with a little help from little helpers)
10. trimmed Mikayla's nails

Hmmm . . . not feeling better yet. Maybe if I stick to it for a week, it will seem like a more substantial accomplishment?

john's birthday

For John's birthday we took a family day! Logan didn't have preschool, so we took Luke out of school and spent the day together. We went to the zoo and had a great time! It really made me anxious for summer. Here are a few ;) pics from the day.

Who knew we'd see this at the zoo! Luke got a kick out of it.

more zoo pics

Luke made a list of animals he wanted to find at the zoo. He marked off the ones he found. Can you make out his kindergarten spelling?
Mikayla was walking around with this list of butterflies, studying it so seriously. So cute! Like she was really finding them along the way, but the chart was upside down :)