Year in Review-March 2017

March 2017

In March the first Lamb became a teenager!

My mom enjoyed having Lamb 1 over to decorate his own cake. She taught home economics so was glad to use her skills to teach her grandson and spend some one on one time with him.

Lamb 1 received this huge Lego set for his birthday. He built it quickly and displayed it in his room. 

Lamb 2 took a gymnastics class. He loved it and would like to do more, but we only allowed him to do one session mostly because of the time commitment, but also the expense.

Ram had spring break in March and I thought we should do something fun during his break. I convinced my boys to go to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. I grew up about an hour from Indy and my family were members and went to the museum several times a year. The Lambs were a little old for it, but they put up with it to make Mama happy. I especially enjoyed the old exhibits that have been there since I was a child, even if they have updated some of them.

Same carousel that I have judged all carousels since I was a child . I think because of childhood memories, this carousel is the best!

One picture to prove Lamb 1 was with us. He really felt too old for the museum, but found some of the minerals interesting.

Some day I'll have to find the photos of me driving the Indy 500 car just like the Lambs are here.

Lamb 3 had the most fun at the museum as he was the youngest.

The special exhibit was about the circus. The Lambs had fun, but it was way too loud and too much stimulation all at once. 

Of course they had to go down this giant slide before we left. Even Ram did the slide!

We went on Pi day (3-14) and the only thing about Pi day that the museum had was this in the gift shop where you could jump the first several numbers of Pi. Everyone besides Lamb 1 had to do it in honor of Pi day. We had worn our old Pi day shirts.

After the Children's Museum we went to Blaze Pizza for $3.14 pizzas. This was the first time we went to Blaze Pizza and we were glad to hear that Fort Wayne was getting a Blaze later in 2017. Ordering pizza is difficult for our family. Ram wants gluten free; Lamb 1 wants dairy free; Ewe and Lamb 2 want as many toppings as possible; and Lamb 3 prefers just cheese. A place like Blaze can make each of us a pizza the way we want it! It was a great deal on Pi day, but it is always reasonable for our family because we can each get the pizza the way we want it. They are large enough that most of us take leftovers home.

We had a fun day trip on Pi day, but were glad to come home instead of an overnight trip.

My mom's cousin visited. He is actually closer in age to me than to my mom.  My grandma and his mom were 16 years apart and he is the youngest in the family. We had a fun afternoon with their family at my mom's house. Our two families had a total of 6 boys and just one girl. The girl is not in this picture, but all the kids played together well even though it was too cold and rainy to play outside. The Lambs don't have any first cousins, so I am glad they are getting to know some more distant cousins.

My mom and I worked together to cook lunch when they visited.  She is not used to cooking for large groups of people. She had fun making this relish tray and the relishes were quickly eaten once all the kids saw it. Days like this make me thankful that we are back in Fort Wayne when friends and family visit.

Field Trip to the Farm

We took one of the #ColorCogburn pictures out to the farm today so he could see his farm friends and go on a hayride.

http://books.cph.org/anthems-of-zion

#WearTheRooster 

I pre-ordered my copy of #TheHarvestRaise today from cph.org. I received a small bonus for pre-ordering. Did you order your copy today?

This was the best photo today of my EWE hat and Ram's RAM shirt.

Living in Boise

I will blog about our Jan Brett book signing when I get the pictures downloaded and time to write about it. First I wanted to share what happened at the book signing.

First, after Jan Brett spoke I took the Lambs to go check out books from the library. I was surprised that the auditorium went directly into the library and there was no security to go through first. Can you tell I worked at a big city library? There were many librarians ready to help. I had never checked out books at this main library so we had lots of questions where items were located. They were very helpful and prepared for lots of patrons during this event.

The library was prepared for this event-there were librarians helping at the front and back of the book signing line, one taking dressed up Hedgie around, and several other librarians helping in the auditorium.

There were tons of people at the book talk by Jan Brett including lots of school children that went back to school after her talk. I'm guessing their teachers were disappointed to not stay and have a book signed. The auditorium holds 250 and there were people standing every where.

After she spoke the librarian asked us to clear the middle aisle for the school children to leave. She then asked for two lines-one to purchase books and one to get books signed. She also announced that the first 100 hundred families to get their book signed would receive a free poster. She announced that Jan would sign books for two hours after her talk.

I would guess we ended up in line as number 97 so we did receive a free poster. I'll blog more about that later. After we had our books signed I was in no hurry as most of the people had cleared out. I thanked the local bookseller for being there even though I didn't purchase any books from them. That began a conversation between the bookseller, Jan Brett's husband, and myself.

The bookseller said several teachers did not RSVP and showed up with a school bus full of children ready to listen to Jan Brett. The librarians felt so bad to turn away so many children but there simply wasn't room for them. The teachers should have let the library know they were coming. He said that no one got upset about this and those buses just returned to school for a regular school day. He said Boise people are pretty laid back.

This is where Jan's husband interrupted our conversation and said he never saw another city in America like Boise. He said that he couldn't believe the way our library handled the free 100 posters. He questioned if they planned to give out numbers or tickets. He couldn't imagine with all those people what they were going to do. They said no numbers, it would work out fine. And it did! There were about 10 families in line after me. No one was upset that they ran out of posters. The line was very orderly and everyone waited patiently for their turn.

Jan's husband said that he just couldn't believe how nice everyone in Boise is. He said he grew up in Portland in the 1950's. He said Boise is just like Portland was then.

This was a great compliment for Boise both by how we acted at this book signing and with what Jan's husband said. Thank you to the Boise Public Library, to Rediscovered Books, and to Jan Brett and her staff for this event.

*Note: I wasn't positive that I was speaking to Jan Brett's husband, but he was with Jan helping her pack up and I assumed it was her husband. When I came home I looked her up and saw a picture of them from 2009 which told me it was her husband. He was (is?) a bassist for Boston Symphony Orchestra and their biographies are both very interesting. Just the fact that they did this book tour doing book signings at two different cities a day going across the country in a little more than two weeks is amazing. Even with 39 million books published, both Jan and her husband were so friendly and nice and took time with each person in line. You can tell they enjoy these book tours and meeting her fans.

Visiting Mr. Peanut

One day in July I went grocery shopping and Mr. Peanut was there. After I was done shopping I mentioned that to the Lambs and they wanted to go see Mr. Peanut. So we went back. The Lambs loved the free peanuts and I liked the coupons!

Schnitzel and spaetzle and bretzels

Tonight we took the Lambs out to eat at Idaho's only German restaurant. I had a coupon that was going to expire soon. It turned out that kids eat free on Sunday so that was a better deal than using the coupon.

When we got there the Lambs complained about the choices on the kids menu. They were out of one item so that left the kids choices of schnitzel, brats, or cheese spaetzle. Lamb 3 was not about to eat any of that. So we allowed him to order a cheese pretzel. Lamb 2 was willing to try schnitzel and spaetzle. (Lamb 2 went with the flow tonight-decided what to order right away, didn't complain that the food took a long time, etc. I can't express how huge that is for Lamb 2 to do that!) That left Lamb 1 who doesn't want anything with cheese and said he didn't want brats. He unwillingly ordered schnitzel with spaetzle because I told him there was no way he was going to order something that cost more than my entree on the adult menu just because he wasn't willing to eat anything on the kid menu. (Do those of you with pre-teen boys have this problem when eating out?) Ram ordered some German street food-brats with a curry ketchup sauce and fries. Ewe ordered brats with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. The mashed potatoes were excellent!

It took a long time for the food to come, the restaurant was busy and they make the food homemade. When the food finally came every one was very pleased with what they ordered. Lamb 1 and 2 ate all of their food (and the portions were not small even off the kids menu!) and Lamb 3 ate all of his pretzel. They claimed they were still hungry so Lamb 2 and 3 ordered cheese pretzels and Lamb 1 ordered a plain pretzel. Lamb 3 was not able to finish his second pretzel but the other Lambs ate all their food. Ram ate all gluten free and Ewe only took a few bites to try the Lambs food that was not gluten free.

The atmosphere was neat-it is in a fancy area of town but was made to look like an indoor beer garden with picnic tables and flags on the walls and lights. The Lambs enjoyed going over what German vocabulary they know and seeing the German signs on the restrooms. Ewe enjoyed the pictures from German places on the walls.

It wasn't exactly a cheap evening out, but it helped that Lamb 1 and 2 had their meals free and we just paid for their pretzels. Eating out is not cheap any place any more and we had huge portions of food. The Lambs liked it enough to ask if we could go there again. Ram and I thought maybe next time we would order what we want and pick up a carry out and just serve the Lambs something they like at home. Or perhaps some time we can have a date there without the Lambs. But I'm glad we took the Lambs this time-perhaps it will get through to them that it is fun to try new foods and places and you may be surprised, it might be really good! I would rather just go out occasionally to places like we went tonight instead of going out more often to chain restaurants. And I do enjoy taking the Lambs and giving them new experiences too.

First Field Trip

Our church preschool went to Albertson's grocery store for a field trip a couple of weeks ago. We asked if we could tag along. They were surprised none of the Lambs had ever been on a field trip before. I had my hands full with Lamb 3 being very clingy-I think he was afraid I was going to leave him with the teachers and students. We had told him he would start preschool after Christmas and this field trip was not part of what he expected. So I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked to. For the field trip they went to each section of the grocery store and talked about healthy food choices from that section-to buy bread at the bakery, but only occasionally buy donuts or cake. At each section they were given something to put in their bag. At the end of the field trip they had a lunch to eat-sandwich from the deli, apple, banana, granola bar, bottle of water, piece of bread, etc. They also received some nice coupons for when we shop there and since I have 3 Lambs I received 3 times the coupons! After touring the store then each child got to pretend to be the check out person and scan some items and then they sat down and ate their lunch together. It was nice for me to meet a few other stay at home moms. The preschool met at the store so parents had to bring their children, there was no bus or van to the store. We enjoyed our field trip and look forward to going on the next field trip with the preschool. Thank you Albertsons!