Sick of being sick!

So about three weeks ago, I started coming down with a little cough and a cold and Thomas had been coughing for a couple of days as well.  However, it didn't seem to slow us down much.  During the last two weeks we've

1) gone bowling
2) attended mass several times-the boys served on the altar
3) went to school
4) visited the library
5) set up and took down everything for the fun night
6) attended the fun night-I worked the snack bar and the kids played games-Grandma, Christin and James took the boys around to the games
7) went grocery shopping
8) went costume shopping
9) cleaned house, did laundry and dishes as usual
10) so far we've kept up with everything although Thomas did miss a half day of school and I felt pretty cruddy for a couple of days.
11) celebrated at Fun Night with a costume
12) celebrated Halloween with another costume
13) celebrated All Saint's Day with yet another costume

I just so tired of coughing and blowing my nose.  Really want this to end.

Learning to handle the Chipmunk

While I've been sick for the past few days, my wonderful husband has had his hands full with taking care of kiddos and keeping up with the dishes and house stuff.  He also took the three boys out shooting today.  They took the clay pigeon thrower, a box of clay pigeons and several guns with them to get in a little shooting practice.  Sorry but he doesn't take photos much so I don't have any.  All reports are that the littler boys enjoyed shooting the Chipmunk .22 rifle along with a 28 gauge shotgun.  Not sure what the 17 year old shot but everyone came back tired and happy.  I thoroughly enjoyed a few hours all to myself to watch tv and knit.  Hope I'm over this cold/cough/flu thing by tomorrow.

Blessing of the Pets 2013

 Once a year the students are allowed to bring their pets to school for the blessing of the pets.  This year we went for easy and opted to bring the box turtle.  However, there were lots of animals--cows, horses, chickens, bunnies, turtles, birds, and of course, lots and lots of dogs.

 Andrew carried around the turtle and was glad to show it off to other kids.

 However, Thomas was quite taken with this beautiful bearded dragon.

He even held it and posed for a photo for me.  I was surprised he wanted to hold it as he usually balks as holding creepy crawlies.  St. Francis, pray for us!

Learning to Cook

 Much of the conversation lately has revolved around food and lots of food.  We went to IHOP with Grandpa and Grandma the other day and the kiddos were quite impressed with the varieties of syrup on the table along with the fun pancakes available.  Since it was Sunday a.m. I decided to make a batch of pancakes for us and they went to town decorating and creating the toppings.  Thomas added syrup, home made apricot jam, banana slices, Flicks candy and a maraschino cherry to his.  He was so pleased with his "outrageous" pancakes and ate them in no time.

 Meanwhile, on another day, Andrew had been asking me to learn to cook so we started with scrambled eggs.  Easy enough.  He cracked all the eggs and whipped them together, put a little olive oil in the pan and scrambled them up with a little salt and pepper.

We're off to a good start so he'll make some variations on it next time.  We also talked about temperatures, washing hands, etc. to instill some basic cooking habits.  By the way, the eggs were delicious!