Beginning of Summer

Wow. It's been a while since I've posted. Time has really gotten away from me. I'm really going to make more of an effort to post several times a week. Where to start.......

Let's start with today. We are one week into summer vacation. So far Kaleb has bought Monsters vs. Aliens for the PlayStation 2. He is really enjoying it. I'm just thrilled to hear something other than Lego _________ (fill in the blank) come from the T.V. We have also signed up for the library program and gone to friends houses.

Today has been very busy but very fun. After the boys made me breakfast in bed today, (Kaleb brought me cereal and milk. Dante made me a peanut butter sandwich.) we got dressed and did our chores. Around 11 we went to the Rowe School Playground. It is quite hot today so it only took about 20 minutes of playing freeze tag before the 3 of us were soaked in sweat and wanting to leave.

It was feeling like an ice cream sort of day so we went to McDonald for lunch and ice cream. Between the lunch and ice cream the kids played on the McDonald's playground. I thought I would be fun to shoot up to Parham while we were out and get some rocks so we got our ice cream to go and headed towards West Paris. I had all the windows wide open because it was so hot and when we were on the stretch going 50 Dante started whining that his ice cream was melting. I kept telling him to lick it but he was getting really up set. Kaleb said he had ice cream every where so I pulled over and turned around.............The site sent me into gales of laughter. Yes, Dante's ice cream was very melty. In fact, he was covered from head to toe and so was his seat and the door next to him. The best way to explain how he looked is this. It looked like someone had taken a squirt bottle of ice cream and got Dante and everything surrounding him at point blank. Still smiling I wiped him up as best I could and promised him he would live.

Unfortunately when we got to Parhams they were closed. And not just we didn't come at the right time. They are closed for good. (At the beginning of July is their big close out sale. Everything must go.) This of course made Kaleb cry because he had apparently waited his whole life to go there and when he finally got the chance they were closed. Oh well. I told him we would come back during their sale at the beginning of July.

On the way home we stopped at the Elk farm. We had never gone before and were all shocked at how big the Elk were. The 3 of us just stood there for a really long time with our hands full of corn to afraid to walk up to the fence. Finally Kaleb gathered his courage and walked up to the fence and threw the corn into the trof. We stayed for a half hour or longer and by the end we were all picking large hands full of grass and letting them eat out of our hands.

Next we stopped at Snow Falls. Together we crossed the bridge. The falls were really churning and Dante was so excited. He was jumping up and down saying he had never seen a waterfall before in his life. Which I suppose is true. It was nice walking through the wooded area, past the picnic tables and big rocks. When we had walked as far as we could the kids put their hand in the water and splashed a little bit. Dante said he was being a water bender. A little ways out in the water were some white caps. Kaleb really wanted to stick his hands in that part of the water so I held onto his hand, he balanced on a rock and reached out........he got his hand in the water sure enough. The rock was a bit slick and he slipped off into the water getting his entire sneaker and quite a bit of his pant leg wet. He was a good sport about it though and laughed it off.

After that we felt the need to come home. I know how uncomfortable wet sneakers can be. So here we are. I'm writing this, Kaleb is playing Monsters vs. Aliens and Dante is building a ship out of Lego's while watching. It's looking like rain out, but if the rain holds off maybe we'll head down to the lake later. Here's hoping.

Happy Easter

Today was a very busy but wonderful day. After Church we went to my best friend's house for lunch and an Easter Egg hunt. Here are pictures of our day.

Shayla pushing Dante on the swing.

Matt pushing Jayda on the swing.


Kaleb in his Easter Suit.


Trying not to laugh.


Kaleb on the tire swing.


Wow is he ever growing up fast.


Still swinging.


Jen and Scott.


Jen and Martha.


Jayda finds an egg stuck to the ceiling.


Our Family picture.


Easter Eggs.


Elder Duval. What else can I say.


It looks like they are killing each other but they are only playing.


Dante's turn on the swing.


Funny faces.


Class clown?


Dante shows no mercy when eating peeps.


Always the center of attention.


Elder Campbell pushes Jayda on the swing.

Bento Box Night

A couple days ago I discovered Bento Boxes. I had never heard of them before but I was reading a women's blog and she kept ranting and raving about them, so I did a Google search. Kaleb and Dante thought that they were so cool that we decided to have "Bento Box Thursday". Now we have a food theme for every day of the week.

Sunday~ Pasta + Garlic Bread
Monday~ Extravagant Dessert Day
Tuesday~ Pick from the Box day. ( We have a list of food names in a hat, which ever one we pick is supper)
Wednesday~ Big Breakfast Day
Thursday~ Bento Boxes
Friday~ Pizza
Saturday~ Picnic Lunch Day

Anyway.....This is Thursday so I tried to make my very 1st Bento Box. I went with a Easter Theme. (You know....cuz it's almost Easter) Here are some pictures.

Kaleb ate everything on his plate. Dante ate everything except the bunny and duck. Anyway..... you really should do a Google search for Bento Boxes. It'll make you laugh at how pathetic this one is. I'll post more Bento Box Meals as I get better at making them.

Honest

This is a hard boiled egg that I squished into a snowman cookie mold than painted with food coloring.

Easter is on the Way

Today the boys and I decorate Easter eggs. Instead of the traditional way to dye eggs we made Chinese Tea Eggs.....minus the tea. We soaked the eggs in food coloring instead. Dante colored his egg yellow, Kaleb's was blue and mine was red. It was a lot of fun.

After taking the pictures we ate the eggs. Kaleb and I did anyway. Dante took one bite.....said he didn't like it, than proceeded to dissect it. Until he discovered the yoke he said "mmmmm, cheese." and ate it. He is so funny.

Just another day

Not much happened the last couple days. Today is my day to volunteer at Responsible Pet Care. I enjoy working there. I can just hang out and do my thing. (Plus the cats are to friendly.)

Gerrett is getting quite big. I won't be able to call him a baby for much longer. When I sit on the floor he likes to climb up my back and sit on my shoulder. It's really cute.

Crystal and I hung out at my studio yesterday for a while. We had fun talking about photography equipment.

I guess that's it............

We're covered in Ink.......

We just got done making thumb print people. It was a lot of fun. Perhaps we'll play swamp monster later. We might as well, our hands are purple. Dante and Kaleb make 2 pages, one for Uncle Mike and one for Aldrin. I just made one for Aldrin. Maybe I’ll make a thumb print city for Mike later. We can't mail them until tomorrow anyway.

Last night the kids and I played Doctor for the better part of an hour. I was the sick patient and the boys were the doctors. I was treated for every ailment I could think of from a cramp in my toe to appendicitis. I got a good reaction from the appendicitis complaint. I claimed to be in immense pain and wanted to go under. I didn't want to remember anything when I woke up. Dante grabbed a Lego and gave me a shot in my knee. Kaleb panicked, grabbed the phone and called for backup claiming he wasn't experienced in this type of operation. After explaining to Dante I wanted more than a local anesthetic he asked me to count backwards from 100 and gave me another shot in the knee. While being "under" I felt Kaleb give me a fake slice from my pelvic bone all the way to my collar bone. Upon waking I screamed in shock at the size of my scar. Over all we had an awful lot of fun.

Both boys were excellent at church today. This surprised me only because they lost an hour of sleep last night due to day light saving. I guess it didn't faze them. I'm so proud.

My dad set up a game on the computer called "Battle Chess". Kaleb played for over an hour. He is really getting into chess.

Here is a picture of Barker. Isn't she cute?

I guess that's all for today. Dante and I are going to go make some brownies before we start reading our new book. (We picked "My side of the mountain".)

Update

It's been a bit since my last post. I've had the flu for a while and haven't really done anything. (including get off the couch.)

Just to bring everyone up to speed. Kaleb and Dante got their report cards a week or so back. They are both doing really well. Dante is being grouped with a boy from the 1st grade to study. They do a lot of reading and math together. Dante is reading at a second grade level even though he is still in kindergarten.

Kaleb and Dante felt that our virtual cat Cocoa was lonely so this morning we adopted a virtual dog. She is a German shepherd name Barker. (Kaleb came up with the name) I'm not going to add her to the blog because our load time is already suffering. You can meet her at foopets.com

Several weeks ago I brought home a ferret. He is so cute. Kaleb and Dante love him. They think it's funny when he hops about. I named him Garrett. (Laugh if you want.....I didn't intentionally name him Garrett the Ferret.) Here is a picture of him.

Dante is finally getting one of his two front teeth. He lost them before Christmas. We weren't sure he was ever getting them back.

Kaleb and Grandpa played several games of chess today. Kaleb is getting pretty good. Dante even tried a game, but when he started loosing he tried to distract grandpa so he could switch the board around. When that didn't work he quit. It was pretty comical.

Kaleb and I are re watching the "Lord of the Ring" movies. Today we watched the battle of Helms Deep. It's nice that he and I have found something we love so much. We curl up on the couch under many blanket and watch for hours. Dante isn't that interested in "Lord of the Rings" so he plays on Kidzui instead.

Here are a couple Dante-isms from this last week. First off, both kids have water bottles that are label with permanent marker. The other day Kaleb said "My names washing off." With out missing a beat Dante replied. "Hi, washing off". Everyone laughed except Kaleb.......I think he was a little disappointed because it was a funny joke but he didn't think of it. Later Dante picked up a Star Wars cup and said. "Mom, I want a toy Yoda." My mom did a double take because what she had heard was......"Mom, I want a Toyota." We couldn't stop laughing when she told us what she had heard.

Today was the primary activity at church. Both boys had a blast. They were in such good moods the whole time. While they had fun, Kevin Levasseur and I rearranged the thumb tacks on the ward bulletin board by color and stuck them in a straight line. Then we talked a really long time about how we pretend we're OCD in public to mess with peoples heads.

This has been a busy month for me already. Whilst being immobilized on the couch with the flu I gave Sudoku a try and discovered that not only am I addicted to it but I'm also pretty good at it. I'm also Studying for the ACE Exam for Photoshop. (Adobe Certified Expert) I'm planning on taking the test in either May or June. After passing I intend to start studying for the ACI Exam. When I pass I'll be an Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop. (You have to have either the ACE or ACP to be able to take the instructor test.) I'm really excited. Then on top of everything else (Prepping to go back to school, running my studio, being a full time single parent, working toward my ACE, rapidly loosing weight, running 5 blogs, my marketing business and much more) I'm studying Biology. I've been watching Intro to Biology Lectures from MIT. It's all very interesting. I've already learned a lot about prokaryotes, eukaryotes and transgenics. I even read an interesting article about how they are engineering rice with beta carotene in it to counter the health problems in third world countries whose main staple is rice. Although rice is healthy it doesn't contain beta carotene which the body turn into vitamin A. Some of the side effects of vitamin A deficiency include diminished ability to fight infection and blindness. Hundred of malnourished children in the world go blind each year from a deficiency of vitamin A. It's interesting because the engineered rice is orange due to the beta carotene.

Anyway................Sorry I kinda got carried away. One last note before I'm done. On the right you can see our book shelf. Before February vacation we read the book "Hoot". When we were done we watched the movie. We were very disappointed in the movie. The book was excellent. The movie.....well, it stunk. They left out a bunch of parts and the parts they kept were watered down. It was very sad. Tomorrow we're starting a new book. I'm still a bit horse, but I think I'm able to read again. Stay tuned to find out what we're going to read next.

A New Addition

Yesterday we adopted a kitten. Her name is Cocoa, you can see her on the right panel of our blog. She loves to play with her toy mouse.

Restored Faith

My faith in the goodness of man-kind has been restored. There was an hour delay because of snow today. When it was time to go out for the bus we all bundled up and headed to the bottom of the driveway. I grabbed a shovel on the way down figuring it was as good a time as any to start shoveling. I let Dante have a turn with the shovel first. He could hardly lift it even with out snow on it. Then I started, promising Kaleb he could have a turn when I was done. Hardly 2 minutes into my turn a plow truck drove past, backed up and signaled for us to back up. We did and he plowed the whole bottom of the driveway for us. It did my heart good to know there are still decent people out there that are willing to give of their time to help others. (Kaleb did have a turn with the shovel but he found it more amusing to pick up clumps of snow and throw them.)

After the kids left for school I headed up to Lewiston to do some shopping. The roads were really bad on the way up. I fish-tailed a few times but managed to get where I was going safely. Shopping was great. I left with way to many bags of stuff. I love craft stores!! The way home the roads were a bit better. I was cruising with the windows cracked, heat cranked up, music blasting, eating cheese curls and singing as loud as I could. There's not much better than that. It all started when a really great song came on the radio. "Bartender Song (Sittin' At A Bar)" by Rehab. I love that song.

Because there is a bad computer virus on the loose my dad suggested that I password protect my computer. I did with a password I use often but he thought that it would be to easy for a computer to crack it so he suggested that I pick random letters, numbers and symbols.......so I did. I typed them in twice and saved it than wrote on paper what the combination was. When I got home today Windows had updated and needed me to restart my computer so I did. When it reloaded I tried to put in my password and it said it wasn't correct. After trying 5 or 6 times I asked Mike for help. He tried several variations of my password and couldn't get in. Luckily my dad figured it out. We got lucky and there was an administrator account that wasn't password protected and we got in. (I changed my password back to some thing easy......I'll take my chances with hackers.)

We didn't do much this evening. The kids wanted to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" during supper so we did. Than I played Play Station till bedtime so they could watch.

The whole week

I know I haven't posted in a week. It's been hectic this last week. Dante and I have both been sick. Yesterday he missed school. He woke up very lethargic (which isn't like him at all) and kept complaining his tummy was full. Although he didn't have a fever I kept him home. It ended up being a good choice because minutes after he bus would have come he threw up every where.

Today he is feeling a bit better. Excluding his cough he is up and acting like himself. There is no school today because of the snow. I guess we are supposed to get 10-15 inches. This is me crying because of all the snow I'm going to have to shoved tomorrow.

Kaleb and Dante both got hair cuts this week. They both needed it badly. Saturday we watched a video on Elaine Dart and talked about what it would be like if we didn't have the use of our hands. We each tried to write our names holding the pencils with our toes. It was pretty funny to watch.

Monday we built a Lego city and took still frames of the Legos moving than made it into a small movie in photo shop. In the best video you couldn't actually see the city, but that's ok. I uploaded one of the videos to my website. The initial load time is long but after the first time through if you right click and press play you can see it at normal speed. I need to try to make the file smaller so it loads faster. Click here to watch it.

Today is Wednesday. Wednesday is big breakfast day. It's the kids favorite day of the week. They always look forward to it. The first thing they say Wednesday morning is: Yeah!! It's Big Breakfast Day!! Today we had Cran-Raspberry Juice, Sausage and Waffles with the choice of Raspberries, Syrup or Powdered Sugar on top. Dante just wanted syrup. I had mine with raspberries and syrup and so did Kaleb. (Although he had his raspberries on the side) For Dessert today Kaleb is making us pudding on a cloud. I can't wait.

Kaleb's basketball game last Saturday was at the Otisfield School. His team only lost by one point. That's saying alot because the Otisfield team was really good.

Yesterday morning Joe brought Danny home and they stayed and chatted for a while. They and Dvorah had spent a week in Florida on vacation. Dante (who was home sick) was very excited to hear about the Theme park they went to. He kept asking all day...."Can we go to the theme park now? We are all planning to go next January. There wasn't a point in going this year. Dante still needs to grow 1 ½ inches before he can go on the rides. Joe posted a few pictures from their trip on The Governale Family Blog.

I guess that's about it for today!

It's a Holiday!

Happy Martin Luther King Day everyone! We pretty much spent today at home relaxing and watching T.V.. Kaleb forgot his snow pants at school last Friday so playing outside wasn't an option today. I did go shovel snow for an hour. (We had gotten 10 inches of snow the day before.) Dante and I ran to the store in the afternoon to get Alfredo to go with our supper. He did a really good job in the store. It's the first time I've taken him to a store that I haven't put him in a cart. He only took off twice and he didn't go far.

In the snack isle I asked him to pick out fruit snacks for after supper. His first choice was "Strawberry Short Cake", he said she was cute. When I refused he chose "My Little Pony". Again I suggested he pick boy fruit snacks and with much glee he grabbed a box of "Dora the Explorer" and started jumping up and down laughing. We ended up getting "Operation" ones. (Like this kids game)

In the check out line he helped me take all the items out of the cart then struck up a conversation with the cashier. She was young, maybe 19 or 20. Dante said hello than told her she was "a good girl". She laughed and said thank you. He then asked her name. "Tonya" she said. "OH, I LOVE YOU TONYA!" he exclaimed as only Dante can. I've never seen anyone blush so much. She kept smiling and said good bye to him as we left. Of course he made a point to ask every person he walked past their name.....all the way to the car.

While we ate supper we watched "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull". I liked it. Kaleb saw it in the theater when it came out but I hadn't seen it yet. Dante didn't like it very much. He said it was scary. That was pretty much our holiday.

Our team won!

Kaleb had his first basketball game today. He had a lot of fun even though he never managed to get the ball. He was so cute out there. I'm really happy to see him involved in a sport. Dante only had a couple melt downs. I didn't realize they had a real buzzer there. It was very loud and scared Dante almost to tears. After we went to Church and Mike and I played basketball with Kaleb and Dante for almost an hour. (It was mostly for Dante, he was disappointed the didn't get to play during the game.)

In the evening we ate pizza and watched "The Three Ninjas". It was really cute. According to the case it's a mix between "Ninja Turtles" and "Home Alone".

Rock Star

A few days after Christmas I brought the boys to my Portrait Studio to get some recent pictures. I didn't end up getting any of Dante that day. He was way to hyper active. Kaleb was in a great mood though and had a lot of fun posing for the camera. Here is one of my favorite images from that shoot.

Christmas Pictures

I ran across a few pictures from Christmas and thought I would share.

Kaleb opening presents

Dante opening presents

Family Portrait

We never did manage to get a serious family picture. What can I say. It was Christmas morning, we were all giddy.

Use The Fork

Kaleb drew this comic about Star Wars. (His favorite movie series.)

Luke is saying "I can't eat." and Ben Kenobi is saying "Use the Fork."