Will You Do Push Ups With Me???

Yesterday, the boys and I somehow got on the topic of diamonds. Matthew said he had never seen one, so I told him I had one on my engagement ring and some earrings. I then explained what engagement was and tried to demonstrate to the boys how to propose to a girl. I told them to get down on one knee. Neither one of the boys would try it, being a little shy around Mom, I guess. Finally, Ben decided to do it. He got into a push up position and lifted one leg off the ground. I suppose that might work :)

The Price Was Right

This weekend, we went to Illinois for a three-fold purpose. First, we traded in the Vue for a used car. What's funny is that the used car is newer than the Vue! Rob had called my dad to get some advice about trading it in for something so we can lower our car payments. My dad called back later to inform us that he had something on the lot that might work for us. God allowed all the details to work out and we picked up our grey '09 Pontiac G6 last Friday. We absolutely love it. With no more baby equipment to haul around, we fit very comfortably in a car. And I have to say, we much prefer the car to the SUV.

Second, my sister hosted a Stampin UP! workshop. There were five people in attendance, three of whom had little to no stamping experience. It was fun to go through product with them, but even more fun to watch them open up and become more comfortable as the night went on. By the final piece of the final card, they were acting like expert stampers! So fun to see and always a joy to share what I love to do with others.

And third, we attended a family birthday party on Saturday. My cousin and aunt were celebrated with a lunch and big family get-together. There were an aunt and uncle up from Mississippi that I hadn't seen in years. The only problem was the oppressive heat. Mandy and I tried to keep the little ones indoors and boys came in and out as needed.

In between all of that, we enjoyed visits with family. Rob and I were treated to a date, as my parents gave us one for an anniversary gift. We didn't do anything amazing, but we did have three wonderful hours w/o kids and my parents even put the children to bed! So nice :)

Sunday we went to church and then had a relaxing afternoon with my parents. We left close to four and had a good time driving the new car home. God has been so good to us.

And, just today, we had a new nephew enter the world. Rob's baby brother has his own baby now, Davis Alton Litwiller. He can't believe his little brother is a daddy now, but I'm sure he and Kim will be wonderful parents. Even if they didn't take my name suggestion, I'll still buy him birthday presents. :)

Matthew's 6th Birthday

Yesterday was Matthew's 6th birthday. We had a pretty big day planned out. I always allow the birthday child to choose the meals for the day, and he chose muffins for breakfast, Kid's Cuisine frozen meals for lunch (yuck) and a picnic on the beach for supper. Not too bad and pretty easy for me!

After a muffin breakfast, I started in on getting ready for the party. The kids and I straightened up the downstairs, frosted the cake, and put up the decorations. Sounds simple, but it took all morning long to accomplish this task! We finally settled down to play some Wii a few minutes before our guests arrived.

Matthew had invited six friends over, and four were able to make it. We had opted for a party on his actual birthday rather than the typical Saturday b/c every one of our guests has a stay-at-home mom. Plus, I really don't like eating up my Saturdays with a big clean-up/party/big clean-up planned :) His guests arrived on-time and one joined him in playing Wii. After they had all arrived, we played musical chairs. The theme was Star Wars, so the kids marched around the chairs to Darth Vader's theme music. We did three rounds of that and then switched to 'Pin the Light Saber on Yoda". Rob had drawn a large Yoda (probably life-size, come to think of it) and I made some light sabers. We only did one round of that game b/c it always seems to get old fast. Then we dumped out Ben's Legos and the kids had a Lego-making contest. Ben was the judge, manily b/c he's not as proficient with the Legos yet. All of the game winners went home with their own "light saber" a.k.a. glow stick.

Then it was time for the cake. I did my best to make a Death Star cake, covering a round two-layer cake in grey frosting. I then drug a chopstick through it to make all of the lines. Not professional, but at least the kids figured out what it was :) Matthew wanted chocolate cake and strawberry ice cream, so the kids feasted on that. I had also found glow-stick straws, so they had fun drinking out of those.

Then Matthew opened his gifts. He had already received his family gifts. His Litwiller grandparents got him the TIE fighter Lego Set, shirt, and a color works book (all Star Wars), we got him a Lego Star Wars Hoth battle set, and his Fulkerson grandparents and his great-grandmother sent him some money. With that money, he has so far purchased a Buzz Lightyear and Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii (which we ordered on-line for $10 cheaper than the store price!) At the party he received a large bubble wand (looks like a lightsaber) a small Lego set of trucks, a set of Star Wars books, and another Lego Star Wars set. He is one happy camper right now!!

By this time Rob was home from work, so he had set up the pool and slip n' slide in the backyard. The kids trooped out the door and had a blast sliding and playing in the water. Anna was the only unhappy one b/c I forgot to cover her in bug stuff and she got several mosquito bites. We brought the kids inside 10 minutes before the parents were set to arrive and I set up Mario Kart. We have three controllers, so they were able to take turns playing the game. That kept them quiet and happy!

Rob and I had a bit of down time and I checked the weather. Looked like we were in for a storm, so we thought about cancelling the beach trip. Matthew was crestfallen and Mommy is very giving on birthdays, so we amended our plans. We did go to the beach as planned, but decided on eating at McDonald's instead of a picnic. Good thing we did because it had just started to rain when we were leaving. We also cut McDonald's shorter than usual, but we went home, bathed the kids, and let them finish the evening watching Return of the Jedi.

Matthw had a terrific birthday and thanked us lots for it. I'm pretty tired today, but birthdays only come once a year, so it's okay. And birthday parties only come once every two years :)

The Litwillers Go to the Beach

As stated in the previous post, we did go to the beach today. A friend of ours told us that there is a free beach in Lake Mills, just 20 minutes away. So with her directions, we headed out shortly after breakfast with our picnic lunch. We attempted to follow said directions, but got ourselves lost driving all over Lake Mills. It was less frightening and far more scenic than when I got lost in Milwaukee :)

We did stop for directions from a nice man and his son and discovered that we just read them wrong. We had gone right past our turn and had we even looked down that street, we would have seen the beach. Hard to get lost in a town of only 4,000 people, but we managed anyway.

The kids were a little timid at first because of the waves (small compared to the ocean, but intimidating when you're under four feet) but they got used to it very quickly. I took Anna out with me and she just loved bouncing in the water. I think next time we go we'll take some floaties so I don't have to hold her so much. But we had a ball as a family. We stopped to eat our lunch partway through then got back into the water. Rob bought us ice cream cones at Mc Donald's on the way home and the boys couldn't stop thanking us for the fun they had! I did layer us in sunscreen twice, so no one is too pink.

And Mr. Matthew James loved it so much, he has requested that instead of us taking him out to eat on his birthday we pack a picnic supper for after his party and hit the beach that night! Sounds like a good plan to me :)

Busy, Busy!

Whew! It's been a pretty busy week or so around here. I've been up to my eyeballs in stamping events (not that I mind all that much) but I haven't really had time to sit down and blog. I went to my last scrapbook club meeting last Thursday. We decided that since I'm getting my business going, we can't afford for me to continue in the club. I feel like I've got a good handle on scrapbooking now and that's really what I wanted out of it. Friday was my first workshop. I had two ladies attend, but both of them are very interested and one booked her own workshop. Woo-hoo!! Monday I attended my second demo meeting and had a good time getting to know the other demos in the group. And I won a game, so I have an SU waterbottle now. Tuesday I had the second workshop in my home (in two parts so I could hopefully get more people here!) I had four ladies at that one, one of which booked a workshop. With one final outside order yesterday and another booking, I'm good to go! I was hoping I wouldn't have to kick in anything extra to make the minimum for the workshop, and God was so good! The final order kicked it just over, so all I added was an ink pad. Rob has graciously granted permission for me to add one little thing for myself to each order...but it's so hard to resist all that fun stuff in the catalog!!!

So I'm off to a good start with four total workshops scheduled for the next month or so. I had alot of fun showing the new products and even teaching one person how to stamp. It's such a great hobby!

Rob has been a good sport about taking the kids places while I have my workshops. On Friday, he took our kids plus one to McDonald's and did his best to avoid the roving swarms of mosquitoes plaguing our neighborhood. During Tuesday's workhsop, he took the kids to a puppet show put on by the library. They loved it and had a great time laughing at a lobster in a pot and a funny French chef. Rob said they were very well behaved. Even Anna sat on Rob's lap the entire time.

The kids have been amusing us both quite a bit. I'll start with the toddler, because toddlers are just such funny little people. Miss Anna acquired the nickname "Miss Determined" when she was only a few months old. Just to prove that she still deserves the moniker, yesterday I was getting the order from my workshop finalized and she came and asked for some juice. I told her to wait a few minutes and she left. As I left the study to go get her some later, she came to me with a paper towel full of grape juice. Come to find out that she had gotten out the juice pitcher, put a cup on the ground, and poured it herself. She was just showing me that she had cleaned up her own mess. Can't really fault her much for taking care of it herself, but we did discuss that she should wait for Mommy next time :)

And Anna got ahold of the boys' new craft, these little beads that get put on a platform then ironed. Yeah, 6,000 of them spilled all over the dining room floor. Took the boys a LOOOOOONG time to get them all cleaned up, but they were good sports about it.

This morning Matthew and Anna woke up and invaded our bed. We tried to get Anna to go downstairs to play Legos with Matthew, but it was no go. So then we asked Matthew to go play dollies with Anna and she was WAY more enthusiastic about that. Matthew said, "Oh, okay, but I'm not really a big fan of dollies." He was a good big brother and kept little sister occupied while Rob and I stole a few extra minutes in bed. :)

Ben has really become quite a big helper recently. I think much of his bad behavior recently has stemmed from the fact that he doesn't have enough responsibility. So he's gotten more "big boy" chores and I've allowed both boys to do things here and there that make them feel bigger. I hate letting them grow up, but it is nice when they can take care of smaller things themselves!

Matthew's 6th birthday is on Monday and we're having a Star Wars themed party in the afternoon. I know the norm is to do a party on Saturday, but when I looked over the guest list and realized all the kids had stay-at-home moms, I decided we'd just do it on his birthday. So far we have four children coming. Matthew already found his gift from us. Rob left it under his desk in the plastic bag and I hadn't wrapped it yet. A few days later, Rob sent Matthew to find something under his desk, and of course a Star Wars Lego box caught his eye :) He didn't look at it too hard and doesn't want it until his birthday, but it was pretty funny to see his face when he found it.

Today we're taking off and going to a free beach in Lake Mills. Should be fun!

Vacation??

Rob has this whole week off work and we were hoping to get some things done around here. We had also made plans to go to the home of some friends for lunch. And then Rob woke up with some kind of sickness and my migraine from yesterday lingered into today. We had to cancel with our friends...AGAIN...and hopefully we can get together with them soon. We're not sure if Rob has some kind of virus or if it's connected to the vicious sunburn on his head. He burned pretty badly from the wedding on Saturday, so that could be it. My migraine had finally downgraded to a mere headache, so my sense of humor is back. Yesterday I was pretty cynical and sarcastic. We even watched a Star Wars movie after the kids went to bed so that my sarcasm could flow in a manner that wouldn't hurt real people :)

The kids weren't very happy about cancelling with their friends, so we tried to make it up to them. We had a credit at Family Video, so I went and rented Super Mario Galaxy 2. Matthew plays it like a pro and Ben is finally old enough to really start trying with the Wii. Some people teach their kids baseball, some fishing, we teach Wii. At least it's quality family time :)

And it's bedtime soon, so I think I may be sending four Litwillers off to bed. Then I have the Wii all to myself :)

The Zoo and a Wedding

Yesterday we decided to take a family trip to the zoo in Madison. We're trying to turn Rob's week off into a "vacation" of sorts without spending much money. The zoo in Madison is free, so it doesn't get much better than that! We all slept in, had breakfast, and headed out. It seemed like every single family in the area had the same idea, because the zoo was pretty packed. Thankfully, the exhibits are spread out, so it didn't feel too full. We walked through half of the zoo, had our picnic lunch, then did the rest. Highlights inlcude: riding the carousel, watching an escaped prairie dog make a run for it, and having Anna unstrap herself repeatedly from her stroller. Thankfully, Anna doesn't wander too far from us, but I thought I was going to get whiplash as I tried to keep track of her in the crowds! (And they did catch the prairie dog...poor little guy...all that digging for nothing!)

This morning we went to the wedding of our pastor's daughter. We have gotten to know her a bit working together in the nursery. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding, although we were in the direct sunlight. The boys insisted on wearing their suits and while they looked good, it was pretty hot. We all had water bottles sitting on our chairs when we arrived, so that helped. Anna went into the nursery so we didn't have a squirmy little one to deal with. Afterwards, we all had brunch. We were able to sit with Matthew's future "in-laws" and I wished I'd had my camera, because Matthew in his suit and Kaitlyn in her white dress were adorable! I was so proud of the boys and their impeccable behavior through the whole event. Anna was a good girl at the reception as well. We rewarded them for their good behavior by filling up the pool and getting out the slip and slide.

And let's hope we didn't all burn too badly :)