Friday Five!

Tomorrow is the LAST day of school before Spring Break starts!  I for one am so happy to have a week with my two favorite boys...so, here's my Friday Five (Spring Break style)!

Five reasons why we're ready for Spring Break in this house:

1.  No morning alarms!  For the next 9 days, no one in this house will be setting an alarm clock...pure bliss :)

2.  No drama!  I absolutely love my job (and I love teaching high school students), but I'm happy to say that I'm going to have a week off from all the teenage drama that circulates the halls!

3.  Benners!  For the next 9 days, it's going to be me and my Benners (oh yeah, Andy will be there too...just kidding honey).  I'm looking forward to lots of play time with my little guy.

4.  Easter...looking forward to spending Easter with my family and with Andy's family.  We'll be spending it as "one big family" at my parent's house.

5.  6 more weeks...until Summer Vacation!  Spring break marks the half-way point of the third trimester.  Not that I'm counting down, but I'm counting down...bring on summer, sunshine, the pool, and fun!

Click here to see what we did last spring break...brings back good memories!  Looking forward to making some great ones this year!

Random photos from our week without Daddy...

Ben and I missed Andy this past week, but we still managed to have some fun on our own!

 We started off the week with my sister and her girls.  We explored an outdoor art exhibit before heading to church.

We're "trying" to walk to church, but these three monkeys needed to take a detour through the bike racks!

We went to the St. Patrick's Day dance at my school...Ben thought the glasses were pretty cool (until he had to try and walk with them on).

We ended the week with a visit to my parents where Ben got to ride (and drive) the Mule!

Finally, here is a super short clip of Ben seeing Andy when he got home.  Andy wanted to just walk in and surprise him.  Ben was pretty low key, but it could have been the fact that it was late at night and past his bedtime.

State Swim Meet

My niece, Taylor, did an amazing job this past weekend at the state swim meet for her swim club.  She swam the first leg of the freestyle relay.  Taylor had her best personal time for the entire season, as did her team!  Great job Taylor!

Friday Five from Ireland!

In honor of St. Patty's Day, I decided to do this week's Friday Five over Ireland.  The awesome part of this, is that my husband actually WENT to Ireland this week, so these are all pictures that he took! 

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go, but Ben and I have been "visiting" Ireland through his pictures and through Skype (that is such a wonderful invention...especially for this mommy of a 2 year old, who "weally, weally misses his daddy").

I'm sure we'll have more pictures on here later, but I wanted to share a few with you today!

 Just a small part of the group at the Cliffs of Moher

 Cliffs of Moher

 Inside of a cathedral

 One of the farms they visited

One of the towns they stayed in

Friday Five (or maybe six)

This week has been a crazy one at school...there were three fights in one week!  Drama, drama, drama is all I can say.  Hopefully the students will realize that fighting is not a way to solve anything, and even more so, I hope they'll realize that what they are often fighting about is very trivial.  It only takes a few minutes of watching the news, reading a newspaper, or talking with a neighbor to realize that your own problems are often very minimal compared to those around you.

So, this week's Friday Five is actually six pictures (there were just too many to choose from) all centered around the theme of friendship!  I know I need a pick-me-up after this week :)

Friday Five

Number 1 - Thank goodness for barbers!
A couple of weeks ago, I thought I could give Ben a haircut.  It was a Sunday afternoon, and I didn't feel like going in to town just to get his hair cut, but it was REALLY bothering me how shaggy he was looking.  Needless to say, I am NOT a barber, nor should I ever be one!  Thank goodness he only had to have a bad haircut for a few days, until he and Daddy could get in to see the real professionals!  I don't have any pictures of my handy work (that did not need to be documented), but here's a picture of his new haircut.  You'll probably notice it's much shorter than normal...it had to be to fix all of the mistakes that I made! :)

Number 2 - Spring is in the air...
If you're anything like me, you're being bombarded with gardening catalogs right now.  I'm definitely getting the itch to get out in my flowerbeds and start planting my vegetable garden.  Of course, it's too early yet to do much, but I did find a great website that tells you what vegetable plants are companion plants (which ones to plant next to each other), and which plants are enemies.  You can find the article here.

Number 3 - Lessons in the Kitchen
Last week I was looking for an idea to keep Ben busy while I made dinner.  I put all of my pots and pans with lids out in the kitchen...separating the lids from the pans.  Then, Ben went to work putting them all back together.  A little lesson in the kitchen :)

Number 4 - For all the quilters out there...

I can't take credit for this, I'm not a very good quilter.  But, my friend Sarah has a grandma-in-law who is a great quilter.  She made Sarah one of these quilt squares a few months ago, and as soon as I saw it, I asked Sarah is she thought Barb would make one for me.  She said yes, and now I have a wonderful memory of Ben's childhood!  That's Ben's handprint on there...so sweet, and something I'll cherish forever!!!  Thank you Barb!

Checking it out!

Number 5 - Another idea for toddlers

I found this idea at this from Stephanie Klein's website, which you can find here.  As the daughter of a painter, I've seen my fair share of paint chips throughout the years.  This is a great idea to work on color recognition, matching skills, and fine motor skills.  All you need are some paint chips, clothes pins, and some glue!