Mommathon

If you have a boy that is over the age of four and they have any interest at all in swinging lightsabers or fighting (that was a joke, all boys that age fit that description) you NEED to send them to Jedi Camp. I will admit that I was a little worried that it was going to be mayhem and it would just be a bunch of little boys bopping each other on the heads with their lightsabers. It was not-at all. Last night we went to their performance. They have been working all week on choreographing and practicing their two battle scenes and they did it!! One of the scenes had about seven kids in it and the other had three. They got up on stage and performed their battle scenes without a glitch. Their teacher has a degree in stage battle arts (or something like that) from the University of Hawaii. He taught them defense moves and offense moves and when you put them all together you have a battle scene. See for yourself.

I love to watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight, but if she talks about organic food one more time….Ugh….She acts like her kids are going to spontaneously combust if they eat something that isn’t organic. They had a handful of M and M’s at their aunt’s house and she got all pissy about it. Lighten up…if someone is willing to watch all of your kids for the afternoon I think you can relax a little on your eating rules and regs. Honestly, I think she keeps bringing it up so that some organic food company will sponsor them. Have you ever noticed how much camera time their Juicy Juice bottles get? Two words…product placement.

Another food-related story that made me snicker to myself. There is a mom at Colm’s preschool that was yammering on and on about how she doesn’t let her kids eat this, that or the other and how they always bring their own snacks to school not because they have food allergies but because she doesn’t let her kids eat what they serve for snacks at the school and how the kids are totally fine with that because they understand that they don’t eat certain things, yada, yada, yada. So, flash forward a week or so and the mom, preschool teacher and the child are all standing outside the classroom while the mom scolds her daughter for eating the snack they had served at school the previous day. They had eaten chocolate covered raisins that they had fashioned into ants because they were studying insects. It’s not like they had served them DIng-Dongs and there was a reason behind the snack choice. I just had to snicker to myself because clearly the child does want to eat what the other children are eating at least part of the time and she has started to flex her four-year old muscles to show that she can make her own choices and she will when her eagle-eyed mother isn’t there making the choices for her. Again, as mothers, we pick our battles. This mom has chosen to fight this one, but I still thought it was a little bit funny.

I am not a big garage saler, as a matter of fact, I never go to garage sales, except one. I try to go to our church’s garage sale each year to try and find the boys a winter coat. I can’t stand to pay full price for a winter coat that they will outgrow practically before the winter is even over. So, today I went and I got Colm a winter coat, a turtleneck, two pairs of shorts and a book and I got both of the boys a pair of snowpants for a grand total of $9.75. Not bad.

It cracks me up how much Colm loves to watch the movie Mary Poppins. Does he seem like the Mary Poppins type to you?

Liam came up with the idea this week that we should have Father’s Day Olympics. He came up with the list of events, we got medals for the “winners” of each event and I made an Olympic banner. It didn’t quite go as planned since the weather was not cooperating though. We had to move it to the basement and change some of the events, but it was still a good time.

Long Jump

Archery

Fencing

Happy Father’s Day

Last week Liam went to Chinese Culture Camp. It was great. They learned how to write using Chinese characters, learned to say a few things in Chinese, made and ate some Chinese foods, put on a Chinese opera complete with masks they had made and learned about Chinese art and some symbolism that is used in Chinese paintings. They also watched some movies about China, did some mapwork and made a dragon which I never did get to see. Oh well, here are some pics they sent.

Liam had his first sleepover last night. The boys (including Colm) had so much fun and are ready to do another one ASAP.

Playing the new Indiana Jones Lego game that we got especially for the big sleepover.

Playing Battleground

The mess they made of Liam’s room while playing Star Wars

Wii bowling

Midnight Snack-literally

Time they finally went to bed.

I think Liam is getting in spy mode for Spy Camp in a few weeks. This is currently posted on his door.

It is funny the things that can spark a memory. I made meatloaf tonight. I think I have made meatloaf maybe four times in my adult life, but every time I make it I think of my grandma. I spent a lot of time with my grandma when I was little and one of the memories I have of her house is making meatloaf. She would put everything in and then she would let me mix everything together by mushing it all up with my hands. The feeling of the cold hamburger and slimy eggs sticking to my fingers and even the shloopy goopy sound it makes reminds me of my grandma and her harvest gold kitchen.