Routines - We love them!

I'm sure if my parents are reading this they will say a hearty ' Amen' to the fact that I love my routines and following a schedule. Even as a kid I loved the 'expected' instead of the 'unexpected'. It seems that my children have taken after me in this was as well, they thrive on routine and knowing whats coming next. In the same breath that I say I love routines and schedules, I also sometimes dislike the fact that I'm not more of a spontaneous person! I envy my friends that just drop everything, grab the kids and are off on the next great adventure, but that's just not me! :) Below are just a few things I was thinking about the other day about our routines and family traditions.

* I love the fact that I'm not expected to cook on the weekends, my husband gladly takes the family out to eat for a change of pace.

* I love watching Tim and Brianna make cookies together every Sunday night, they make quite a pair and usually quite a mess!

* My 2 'alarm clocks' sleeping in the next room, they wake each other and myself too, promptly at 8 o'clock in the morning.

* I love our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, all kinds of appetizers and of course wassil to drink!

* I love filling everyones Christmas stocking so they can be opened on Christmas Eve every year!

I could continue with my list for quite a while but you only have so much time to read this, right?! :) How about everybody else? Got any special traditions?

A close call!

For a while now, Brianna and I have had a long-standing little private joke between the two of us. This is how the conversation would go when she would tell me a joke.
Me: That's hilarious!
Brianna: Don't say hilarious Mommy, it annoys me! If you say hilarious again I will turn you into a frog! (It's very important to inject here that she is currently in a princess stage and has a magic wand she often uses to turn her little brother into a prince or whatever else she deems necessary that day!)
Me: Oh, don't turn me into a frog, then I won't be able to cook breakfast for you or drive you to school!

This continued for several weeks then it started to seem that she was really thinking about me being a frog and the consequences of it. A new conversation began:
Me: That joke was hilarious!
Brianna: You can say hilarious now, Mommy. You know what the best part is?
Me: What?
Brianna: I'm not going to turn you into a frog so that you can drive me to school tomorrow! :)

Well, here I am again, blogging from the library! This is not my idea of fun at all, trying to post while holding a very wiggly little boy on my lap! Brianna is great though, looking at books are one of her favorite things to do. I love that we have that in common, give us a good book and we are set for a while!

This Saturday is the much anticipated Eager Beaver Day!:) We live in such a small town that something can be made from anything. I imagine that the name of the days came from the town name, either way it has a certain 'corny' sound to it! Tim is planning on driving the little red truck in the parade while Brianna throws candy out the passenger window! She is really excited about the candy, not sure who will get the most, her or the kids on the side of the street! Tim was surprised that I didn't want to ride with them but when I told him that I wanted to get pictures I think he understood! That afternoon is the annual softball game against a neighboring town, they've been practicing enough that they should be pretty good by now! Wish them luck!

It will be probably be another week or so before we get our computer back, I really miss keeping everybody, until next time!

Bits of nothing

Well, after much pondering and shopping, we finally ordered my brand new washer and dryer last week! I am so excited, I can't wait until I can completely catch up on all my laundry! Right now I've just been doing the absolute necessary items, am I the only one who gets a bit stingy when it comes to poring quarters down the drain to wash and dry? :( At least it will be only for one more week! We purchased the pedestals that the washer and dryer sit on, it raises them up to a really nice non-backbreaking height, now I'm hoping that they last for the next 50 years, they better for all that we have invested in them! I'll be sure to post pictures of them when I get a chance, our computer is still in the shop so it will be another week or so. I know I usually put pics on with every post so this is highly unusual for me, I'll try to catch up when I can!

So nice right now, (not!), I seem to have caught a really bad summer cold, it's lasted a week now, even with guzzling all the vitamins that I can stand it just won't go away. Now, being the great mother that I am, I very kindly passed it on to my children. I was very sad about that, especially since yesterday was Brianna's first day of preschool, she went to school sniffing and sneezing, hopefully she doesn't pass it on to many children! She absolutely loved preschool, she didn't want to leave, she had lots of fun! She surprised me with everything that she came home and told me she learned, it's so neat to hear your children learning!

What a fun weekend!

We went to Lincoln State Fair this past weekend. We have really made our rounds at the fairs around here this year, we kinda live out in the sticks so we try to take advantage of what there is to do as a family and try to have fun at it! We stayed overnight there and did some shopping and just some extra running around too. We took Brianna to Chucky Cheeses, she had so much fun and I'm pretty sure Tim had just as much fun! I got some really cute pics but unfortunately won't be able to post them until we get our computer back. It had to be shipped back to get the hard-drive fixed, I think it's fried! :(
My washer's switch went out last week so I've been making several treks to and from the laundromat, not fun! We checked out the washers and dryers at Sears, they are so nice and also very expensive, really unnecessarily so. I guess they know they have you over a barrel, it's something you HAVE to have! I think we're going to just bite the bullet and buy a new washer AND dryer, I'm afraid if I just get the washer then by the time the dryer dies the matching model won't be available any more! Soooo, I think I'll be making a call to Sears tomorrow, I don't think the store near us has them in stock so they'll have to be ordered. That means several more trips to the laundromat, it makes me realize how much we take for granted things like that!