Archive for the ‘lucas’ Category
Lucas and Meredith’s preschool has a Yankee Candle school fundraiser every year, and I just love it. Who doesn’t enjoy Yankee Candles? You can’t beat them ~ I have yet to find a candle that’s as fragrant. I just went through the catalog to see what candles we might want to purchase for our own home. The Sparkling Cinnamon smells so good! I also like Home for the Holidays and Eggnog (one of my favorite holiday beverages). Hard to believe that we’re thinking about Christmas goodies already, but Christmas is only about three months away!
If you’re interested in making a purchase to help out Luke and Meri’s preschool, check out YankeeFundraising.com. Send me an e-mail or leave a blog comment to let me know what you’d like to order, and I’ll get it taken care of for you. (You can mail me a check, send PayPal, or whatever’s easiest). Every dollar that’s raised goes DIRECTLY to Luke and Meri’s preschool class to benefit THEM, which I think is awesome. It’ll help buy new toys, supplies, decorations, activities, etc. as well as help cover daily classroom expenses. And when your order comes in, I’ll get it to you ASAP.
Thanks for your consideration!
Can you believe that I’ve never been camping? Lots of people look at me funny when I tell them that. However, we want to take the kids camping sometime this summer. When Jeff and I got married, we registered for sleeping bags and a tent. And for Christmas last year, we bought a family tent with lots of room. The kids have cute “Lightning McQueen” and Disney Princesses sleeping bags. Not sure where we’ll camp, but I’m excited to experience it for the first time along with the kids. Jeff loves the idea of rv camping, actually. He has a dream of buying an RV and touring America with it, once he’s retired and the kids are grown. I don’t know what I think about that. Living in an RV? I just think about Lucy and Ricky in “The Long, Long Trailer” (or whatever that movie was called!). Could be fun, though, perhaps.
Check out this neat snowman that Lucas created while I was in my moms’ group meeting yesterday! Really cute! And what a perfect photo for a day like today … the snow has been coming down ever since we woke up, and we’re supposed to have six to 10 inches by tonight. I sure hope that Jeff gets to and from work safely. Boy, it’s pretty coming down right now. I’m looking forward to staying inside all day and hanging out with the kids. Lucas said that tonight, he wants to build a fire in the backyard, lay down in the snow, and look at the stars! Wow, that sounds so awesome. It might be a little chilly, though! LOL! :) I’m thinking about taking the kids outside to play in the snow for a while today, but it’s only 16 degrees at the moment. That is just way too cold. I asked Luke last night before bed if he wanted me to make some hot cocoa today, and he shouted, “YES!” What can I say … our kids love chocolate! :) (They’re definitely mine …)
- Get the oil changed in my car (I keep putting this off, *sigh*)
- Take Meredith to the lab for lead testing (yes, this has been on my to-do list since October!)
- Drop off some files to a neighbor (today)
- Pick up our new bean bag chair today through Freecycle (yay!)
- Attend my moms’ group meeting on Tuesday
- Preschool
- PTA meeting Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m.
- Mail some birthday gifts
Oh yeah, and there’s cleaning the house, fitting in some knitting … whew, busy week (but Tuesday especially will be very crazy!). What do you have going on this week?
I think that it would be so much fun to host an Oscars party here at our house. We’ve never done something like that before. Problem is, even though we do the DVDs by mail thing, we aren’t able to get to movie theaters much at all anymore because of having two small children. (I think that Cars is the only movie I’ve seen in a while, LOL!) So, we end up not seeing a lot of the movies that are nominated! But I think that deciding which foods to serve would be the best part. It’s cute how people take the names of Oscar-nominated movies and turn them into party foods. If you’re looking for some fabulous Oscar party ideas, make sure to check out Celebrations.com. They’ve got everything there that you can possibly imagine ~ award statue invitations, how to create a champagne tower (I would definitely do one of those ~ champagne is one of my very favorite beverages!), recipes, movie trivia games, ideas for great party favors, and more. We are big into trivia here at our house, so we’d probably create a fun movie trivia game. It would be awesome to take lots of pictures ~ maybe the guests could recreate a scene from an Oscar-nominated film and we could snap photos of that! I don’t think that we would make it a “formal affair,” though ~ no making the guests wear ball gowns and tuxedos, LOL! :) I also think that it would be fun to “rate” everyone’s outfits ~ kind of like a fashion show/critique! Are you planning to do an Oscars-themed party this year?
I’m feeling kind of “eh” today. Nothing in particular, just blah. Probably PMS is to blame, but I’m not sure. (That’s nine days away.) My anxiety gets bad when I feel “blah” like this ~ and I’m hoping it’s nothing. Anyway, I’m finding myself wishing that I had the entire day to myself here at home ~ alone. That’s just not going to happen, though. The kids have trashed our house, and I just can’t keep up. I’m very tired of cleaning ~ seems like I never get to do anything else. Going around the house cleaning all day just makes me insane, even though I enjoy cleaning and seeing things organized. When I get one thing cleaned up, the kids have moved on to something else. It’s hard. And if I say to myself, “I’ll just leave it … I’ll get it some other time,” it makes me nuts to see the mess. I guess that I’ll tackle our kitchen and living room first, because that’s where we spend a good amount of our time. I had to buy more Magic Erasers yesterday because Meredith colored on our living room walls again. :(
At least I’m able to stay here at home today (for most of the day, anyway ~ just dropping Luke off at preschool and then picking him up, which is five minutes away). I keep thinking about where I used to work (a bank) and all of those people with finance jobs ~ and it’s days like these when I’m glad that I don’t have to go into an office. Before having kids, when I worked outside the home, today’s one of those days where I probably would have called in and then spent the day relaxing here at home. :)
Working out is a challenge with two little ones in tow. I attempted to do 15 minutes of step aerobics this morning ~ just 15 minutes ~ but the kids thought that I was dancing! So, they joined in. It was cute, but they kept running around my step platform and jumping up and down onto it. I accidentally knocked them both over twice ~ oops!
Haven’t found a step aerobics DVD yet, but a friend suggested that I could add a few to our Netflix queue and try them out before I buy one. Such a great idea. I’m going to search for some today. Also, I saw a lot of YouTube step videos, but most of them are only a few minutes long and not an entire workout. Or they’re just videos showing you how to do one particular step movement. Oh well. I just played some of our MP3s on my computer (the “Electric Slide,” LOL!) and created my own routine this morning. I need some structure, though.
Really need to make myself a good workout mix! (Tune suggestions are welcome!) By the way, if you’ve made a new year’s resolution to lose some weight, you can check out some Hydroxycut reviews here.
Our friend Jeannie came over to visit yesterday afternoon, and we had such a great time with her. She’s a student at Marist College (currently studying psychology and also on the tennis team) and recently got back from spending a semester in Greece. We loved hearing about her travels and experiences, and the kids had an absolute blast with her. Lucas drew her a map (so that she would know how to get back to her house!) and kept showing her our map of New York City. (He’s really into maps lately, if you couldn’t tell!) Every time I see Lucas and Jeannie together, I think about how she was the very first person to hold him right after he was born (besides us, of course!). It’s so cool that Jeannie got to see the old and modern Olympics stadiums in Athens when she was there. She also brought me a Greek olive oil soap, which I can’t wait to use! I think that she was really surprised at how much Meredith in particular has grown. It’s fantastic that she has gotten to travel so much.
So … I’ve been thinking about doing something different with my blog, but I’m not sure yet. Not too long ago, I came across a French word that I thought would make a perfect blog title: “lisible.” In French, it means “legible” or “readable.” The “lis” part sounds like my name, too. :) I hadn’t intended to change the name of my blog, but that word just kind of jumped out at me. Unfortunately, that domain isn’t available. :( Next, I thought about “lisanne.net,” but that too has been taken. So has “lvj.net” and even “summerset.net.” And understandably, “jensenfamily.net” and variations thereof have already been claimed. I’ve been “Bathtub Junkie” for so long ~ almost eight years ~ that maybe I just shouldn’t mess with it? I guess that I’m just feeling like doing something new, though. Any ideas? I thought about going over to WordPress.com and giving up my own domain just to save some money, but blogging is something that I enjoy so much. My domain is up for renewal at the end of February, so I guess that I have some time to think about it.
Our kids absolutely adore clementines. They’re kind of expensive (about $6.99 in most of our grocery stores), but they’re well worth it. I seriously think that Meredith would eat them all day long if we’d let her. And they’re great for kids because they’re so easy to peel and don’t have seeds (well, most of them, anyway). Clementine crates are also really pretty! A while back, Martha Stewart explained how to create a gift planter by using a leftover clementine box. I’ve been wanting to do that (just put it on my “someday when I have some free time” list!). (We are actually using a bunch of old clementine crates as storage bins in our master bathroom! I’d love to sew pretty liners for them ~ another item for the list!) Anyway, just a while ago I looked up some clementine recipes. This cake by Nigella Lawson looks super yummy! These Christmas clementine squares also look fantastic. Hmm, maybe I can find a good clementine recipe to make for my next moms’ group meeting ~ or maybe I’ll just sit out a plate of clementines with some yummy fruit dip! Here are some more uses for clementine crates, in case you’re interested:
Today is one of those “survival” days ~ where I’m so tired that I don’t count on getting anything done and am basically just trying to keep the status quo until the kids fall asleep tonight and I can head to bed, too. :) Last night, I knitted until 10:30 p.m. and drank a cup of Harney & Sons’ Paris tea right before bed (it’s caffeinated). Couldn’t fall asleep, of course. My throat was so scratchy, too, so I decided to take a little bit of Nyquil. Fell asleep, but then Jeff left for work very early this morning ~ which woke the kids up, and they were raring to go bright and early at 6:30 a.m. :( I’m totally dragging. I did manage to fold and put away a load of laundry, but that’s about it. I have to run two errands while Lucas is in preschool this afternoon, and I hope that I don’t fall asleep at the wheel.
Today is a special day for our friends Tricia and Jim … it’s their ninth wedding anniversary! Even in my sleepy state, I’m thinking about them and wishing them well. :)
Forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog entry that I’m taking a sock knitting class on January 24th! I’m way excited. So, attention friends and family … be prepared for a lot of ugly hand-knitted socks as gifts, LOL! :) Well, hopefully my socks will turn out OK. We’ll see. The owner of our local yarn store just called and said that I’ll need size six double-pointed needles. Two points? That scares me. But if it only takes a couple hours to learn to knit a pair of socks, that can’t be bad, right? I’m totally looking forward to an afternoon all to myself, too!
