What's Up Wednesday

I wanted to give you all a picture of what's been happening here lately and I thought a good way to do that would be to link up with What's Up Wednesday.

 

image from here

What we're eating this week... Last week the kids and I went to Costco and they wanted to buy hummus. So we've been eating a lot of hummus with crackers or baby carrots. Yum! I just love hummus.

What I'm reminiscing about... Sadly, I'm reminiscing about when I had time to clean our house. It's a bit of a disaster right now and I just want a full day to clean it. It's hard to want to use your free time to clean the house when you're a working parent.

What I'm loving... The pansies in my window boxes. They remind me that sunny warm weather is coming.

What we've been up to... We just got through a crazy month with a road trip, Sam's surgery, Passover, and the readathon. We've been busy lately!

What I'm dreading... Working through this whole summer. I am going to miss being at home with the kids sooooo much.

What I'm working on... A sermon. I am preaching this Sunday. Pray for me!

What I'm excited about... It's my birthday on Monday and we're planning a little road trip to celebrate in a few weeks. Also we're making our first visit to the Skydome for this season to see a Jays game next weekend so I'm excited about that too!

What I'm watching/reading... I'm reading commentaries for the sermon I'm preaching. Ha!

What I'm listening to... The Jays play on the radio. I can't wait to see them in person.

What I'm wearing... all my new shoes I bought back in February. I LOVE wearing shoes without socks.

I don't usually wear one shoe from one pair and one from the other
although I suppose I could try and start a new trend! Ha!
 

What I'm doing this weekend... Preaching. Going out for dinner with Tim and Janice. Going to a symphony concert with the kids.

What I'm looking forward to next month... We signed Sam up for a t-ball team and his first game is on Sunday. He'll play about two-three times a week until the end of June so I'm looking forward to that!

What else is new... Rachel has been bringing home reading home lately and it's been fun to watch her learn to read.

Bonus question:

What is my favourite thing to give/receive for Mother's Day?

I often send my mom a bouquet of flowers since she lives far away. My favourite thing to receive is time to work in our yard and plant flowers. Ha!

working in the yard with the kids,

Mother's Day 2014

The Readathon/Passover Weekend What

This past weekend was full of Passover and the readathon. We had our first seder on Friday night at Dave's parents' house. Dave's mom came up with this pin the plagues on Pharaoh game which the kids really enjoyed playing.

Saturday morning at 8am (our time) the readathon started. Sam's plan was to read with me all day and Rachel and Dave were going to a concert in the morning and Rachel was headed off to a birthday party in the afternoon.

Sam was determined to start reading as early as possible and so somehow Dave ended up bringing all of us breakfast in bed. As you can see, Sam was the only one who mastered reading and eating!

It was a glorious day of reading. After going to a second seder in the evening, and after Rachel was in bed, Sam, Dave, and I read in the living room for almost two hours straight. And then I kept going on my own until 1:30. I decided not to stay up the full 24 hours but I did get about fourteen hours of reading in and read two and a half books.

 left: reading with Sam in the evening; 

right: the pile of books Sam read and the three I read

I know some of you think I'm crazy but I can't wait until the next one in October! Yay!!!

On Sunday night Dave wanted to try making matzah brei. He was rather disappointed that his ended up burnt and stuck to the frying pan. I asked if I could try making a batch and used a different frying pan. After the kids gobbled down seconds of my batch (I also added the secret ingredient of cinnamon), Dave declared me the matzah brei making queen.

And then we all went to bed early because we were exhausted. It was the perfect way to end our full weekend.

Project 366: Days 107 Through 113

April 16, 2016 -- We told the kids they could eat Cheetos if they ate a "good portion" of broccoli first. As you can clearly see, Sam earned his Cheetos!

April 17, 2016 -- The kids were in a crazy mood while I tried to get pictures of them this day.

April 18, 2016 -- This is just a taste of Rachel's home reading. She struggled with the word "sidewalk" and turned it into "savement" for "pavement." Sometimes I don't think she's reading as much as she is interpreting what is happening in the picture!

April 19, 2016 -- I spent about ten hours at work this day (in two separate chunks) and everything just got thrown on my desk at home. (Also, I was so exhausted this was the only picture I could think to take.)

April 20, 2016 -- Sam and I went to the grocery store to pick up snacks for the readathon. We were well supplied!

April 21, 2016 -- Rachel was very proud of this cube she made at school.

April 22, 2016 -- This was the seder plate on the first night of Passover at Dave's parents' house.

Friday Favourites

I don't normally link up with this blog carnival but I took an early morning walk today and thought about some favourites to share with you.

 

image from here

 

1) I LOVE the rail trail in our city. It gets me from my house to our uptown in about fifteen minutes. I've walked along this trail five times already this week, and already know I'll walk along it twice more today.

2) I LOVE these little flowers which are currently blooming in our yard. I think they are called pulmonaria (which I always get mixed up with "pulmonary" but it kind of makes sense because their common name is "lungwort.") Anyways, I LOVE these flowers.

3) The Readathon is coming this weekend and I am so excited about it. (If you follow me on Instagram, you are already in the know about this. I apologize in advance for the overgramming! If you don't follow me on Instagram and want to I'm "tashajk72.") I am excited to dive into some of these books.

4) And speaking of the Readathon some of the books above are for Sam. I am super excited that Sam is as excited about it as I am. I LOVE sharing my love of reading with this kid.

5) I am so happy that Spring weather has finally arrived in this area because it means it's laundry hanging time again! Those of you who have been reading around here for awhile are not at all shocked that this momentous occasion is making my Friday Favourites list.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a current laundry hanging picture

so this is from last summer.

And finally...

6) As I'm writing this post, banana chocolate chip muffins are baking. The smell of them is definitely a favourite of mine right now! Ha!

Happy Weekend everyone!

The Warmly Wonderful Weekend What

What I loved most about this weekend was how warm it was and how much time we got to spend outside. After having an unusual April cold snap, this past weekend was glorious here, weather-wise. We started out with walking to Vincenzos for lunch. Their sandwiches are my favourite and I would eat them every weekend if I could.

We stopped at Starbucks and everyone got fraps, my second one in three days. It must be Spring! And we gazed at the corduroy road which was uncovered during our city's construction.

Then we headed out to my favourite nursery to grab some pansies. It's way too early to plant annuals here but these pansies are hardy and my window boxes needed some colour. Unfortunately, the dirt in one of the window boxes was still too frozen to plant so I had to leave the job half done.

Then we had BBQ for supper with yummy broccoli. The kids were bribed with Cheetos and ate about two cups of broccoli each. Win!

On Sunday morning we went to church, and since the gorgeous weather trend continued, I got some pictures of the nutbars my lovely children.

They had just a touch of Spring Fever!

And then we spent the whole afternoon outside.

We ate pizza, our normal Sunday lunch, I did our taxes (why can't I always "earn" that much for an hour and a half of work?!?), we listened to the Blue Jays win over Boston, I read, Sam and Rachel did homework, Funny Bunny got sandy -- it was pretty much the perfect afternoon.

I think what I'm most excited about is that we have many wonderful, warm, fun weekends like this ahead of us. Bring it on Spring!