is it really friday already?

it's hard to believe i haven't posted since election day. i'm not going to post my opinions of this election. i'm just going to say how thankful i am that it's done now and we can begin praying for Barack Obama as our new president-elect.

it's been a rather busy week around here.

wednesday morning one of my hubby's sisters came over with her youngest daughter. we had a really nice visit and even enjoyed most of a game of Quiddler before lunch. maybe next time we'll get in a whole game! then we did our schoolwork in the afternoon and bubba had Awanas in the evening.

yesterday morning we learned about Old Fort Niagara with our local homeschool group. one of the families had recently visited there and thought it was something the rest of us might want to learn about. it was very interesting. i've never been to Niagara Falls, so i was glad to learn (and have my son learn) about the history of the fort and the historic significance it holds. the family who organized this class did a wonderful job. they had lots of pictures from their visit to the fort displayed on posterboard with descriptions, a model of part of the fort they had made with rocks glued together and toy soldiers, Lincoln Logs for the younger kids to "build a fort" with, and a 30 minute educational video about the fort with a quiz for the kids to see how much they could remember afterward. they gave out a packet to each family with a little book about Old Fort Niagara as well as a copy of the Declaration of Independence and a copy of the Constitution (these had to have been purchased and are a really nice resource that i'm sure we'll use later since we've begun studying american history this year). and they also gave out a few really nice door prizes too! amazingly, our family won first choice. (we rarely win anything!) bubba chose the Lincoln Logs--the same ones they had for the kids to play with...all i can say is woohoo! cuz i know those aren't cheap and my boys will really enjoy them. after the class, we came home, had lunch and then did our regular schoolwork in the afternoon.

election day

i voted today. it will be interesting watching the news this evening as the polls close. i think most will agree with me that it will be nice to be done with this election season. it gets so very old, hearing the same stuff day in and day out from the candidates. i've done what i can and performed my civic duty. all i can do now is pray that God's hand will be on whomever is chosen to lead this country for the next 4 years.

another cute video i couldn't resist!

okay, i know i said i probably wouldn't post any more videos, but these kids are just way too cute! my boys were playing with bubba's lightsabers this afternoon after coming in from playing outside. cj was so into it, that i had to take some pics and video of it.

here's a short clip that i find extremely funny.



maybe cj wants a room of his own...

blog code editing

as you may have noticed, i'm learning a little this morning about blogs and code. i wanted to be able to shorten some of my more wordy blogs so you only have to see the entire post if you want to. i knew it was possible, but had to find the code to do it with. and figure out where to put the code in the html. it took me a few tries, but i think i've got it working. :-) fun!

our weekend

we had a nice weekend...

we checked the theater friday night, but there weren't any movies playing that we'd want to see. instead we spent a quiet evening in. we stayed at a new country inn and suites and got a room with a kingsize bed, a separate cozy "sunroom" with a hot tub and fireplace, and 48" plasma tvs--one in the bedroom and one in the sunroom. we considered staying a second night, but we decided to save the money and sleep in our own bed instead. T and i got a lot of shopping done saturday. of course, we spent more than we should have, but most of it was stuff we need.

we got home around 8pm and after unloading the van, started watching "The Lord of the Rings--The Fellowship of the Ring." we made it a little over half-way through before we were too tired to stay awake anymore, so went to bed and finished watching it the next day.

we had both sets of grandparents over for supper last night too. T made "classy chili"--yummy yum yum! how do you make chili classy? well, T took his basic chili recipe that we like and added some bits of marinated and browned sirloin steak to it. i'm so glad there's leftovers for lunch!

btw, one nice thing about having a couple days away from the kids (besides a good night's sleep) is that you notice the sweet things about your kids more. last night, before putting the boys to bed, i was reading to cj. one of our favorite bedtime books is "Jesus Loves You" which is a read-the-pictures book. anyways, cj was pointing at the pictures as i was reading to him and saying what he saw: "rabbit" "squirrel" "rainbow" were all new words we hadn't heard him say before. his "rabbit" is especially cute...it almost sounds like "wabbit."