(And All My) Work Be Praise

Okay, we don't actually go to school, but as of Monday morning, I have instituted some sort of organization. I've spent countless hours over the past few weeks wading through all of my bookmarked websites and downloaded preschool packets and never-read e-books, trying to come up with a plan that kept us busy but not too busy, educational but still relaxed, relatively clean and fed without complete mommy overload. I think I found it. I cleared the side of my refrigerator almost entirely of magnets (difficult, since magnets are the little trinkets I buy everywhere I travel to commemorate visits) and turned it into our command center. There are four pages, three of them simply placed in page protectors so I can write with a wet-erase marker and adjust weekly. (I discovered I prefer wet erase to dry erase. They seem to have finer tips and write more clearly . . . and I don't smudge them off accidentally nearly as often.) A friend from church gave us this clas...

Day 12: Friday Breakfast : Our usual Friday morning at Cracker Barrel.  Morning : A brief trip to Parky's Farm to play on the playground. It had rained the night before and therefore was a bit wet, but not so much as to prohibit running around. Owen had quite the pretend-school-bus scenario happening and threw quite the fit when it was time to leave. Levi, Silas and I walked over to the farm area to see the animals, prompting a rather lengthy discussion about how all animals poop. Hooray for seeing the goats first thing in the morning . . .  Later morning/lunch : Findlay Market . This turned out to be one long series of splurges: a Belgian waffle here, a bag of kettle corn there, a BBQ pork sandwich for the mama needing protein, some mint chocolate fudge for the daddy willing to bedtime alone (more on that later). Since we were there, I bought several pounds of Amish chicken at a better price than I usually see. Not the cheapest "lunch," but much fun to wander ar...

Day 9: Tuesday Morning : Our monthly trip up to a local farm to pick up our milk. We share the driving with three other families, so that nobody has to make the trip every week. Isaac doesn't usually get to come with us. Lunch : IKEA. Kids eat free on Tuesdays, so we often combine this with our milk trip, inasmuch as we're out and about anyway. Post-nap and dinner : another children's ministry swim time and cookout at church. I took along this garlic parmesan orzo . Good old Taste of Home magazines. Day 10: Wednesday Morning : Story time at the library, this time with everyone involved. Lunch : McDonald's, which happens to be directly across the street from the library. As such, it is very, very hard for me not to make this a weekly habit! (As healthy as we generally eat at home, I still have a soft spot for fast food. I keep hoping I'll outgrow it, but it hasn't happened yet.) Anyway, last time we went -- many weeks ago -- they'd accidentally mad...

Or, longest blog post title ever. Well, it's both! Days 1-2 , days 3-4 , days 5-7 . For our August family date, contained within our stay-cation, I went totally crazy: I decided we'd take our toddlers mini-golfing. I figured it had the potential to be either really funny, or really awful, and we'd never know until we tried. It was a little bit of both. :) We started with breakfast at IHOP (gift card included in the date envelope), then continued west to Green Acres Canoe on the border of Indiana (again, gift certificate included in the date envelope). I surmised from the picture on the website that they were prepared to handle very young children, and I was right. At 10:00 on a Monday morning, the place was practically deserted (except for a few very random beer-drinking men dressed like pirates waiting to go canoeing). There are ten holes of mini golf, all on a flat surface, all with a farm theme -- and live rabbits and chickens (in cages) to complement the theme!...

Find Days 1-2 here and days 3-4 here . Day 5: Friday Breakfast : Our standard Friday morning breakfast at Cracker Barrel with Great Grandpa (Isaac's grandpa) and Cousin Mark (my mother-in-law's cousin). We've been doing this for probably three years now, and it feels deliciously old-fashioned to know the waitresses by name and have them know our regular order. Isaac doesn't usually get to come with us, so it was an extra-special Cracker Barrel day! Morning : the Cincinnati Zoo . We have a membership card, so we get free entry and parking. We don't have the premium package, though, so it was a rare treat to ride the train. Sound-sensitive Levi kept his hands clamped over his ears for the whole time, but Owen (not surprisingly) loved it. It always amuses me to hear what animals they want to see when we go: this trip, Owen requested tigers and Levi was singularly focused on the flamingos. Funny kids. Seriously interested in something. Levi proudly sho...

Find days 1-2 here . Day 3: Wednesday Morning : Silas unexpectedly took a longer-than-normal morning nap, so Isaac took the big boys to library story time. Looking back at my blog from our last stay-cation two years ago, I realized that we started going to library story time two years ago this month! I think our days are numbered, however, as we'll have enough other morning activities plus Levi's little bit of school to fill up our mornings come September. Maybe we'll go once a month just to switch out books. :) Lunch : avocado and cooked carrots for the boys, the last of the leftovers for the adults. Just trying to keep things cheap around here. Dinner : Skyline (kids eat free at the Finneytown location on Wednesdays) followed by ice cream from the Mt. Healthy Dairy Bar. I like to be loyal to the Goody Shop that we pass going to and from church, but the soft serve at the Dairy Bar really is superior. Isaac's been hankering for a good soft-serve cone: mission acc...

Day 1: Monday Morning : 20-week ultrasound! We have another boy! We hired a babysitter (for maybe the third time in four years) for the younger two, but took Levi with us. Everything looks perfect! Lunch : leftovers. Post-nap : Washington Park . My boys have been notoriously afraid of the splash parks we've visited, but something about having their daddy along encouraged previously-unseen bravery. All three had a blast! Unfortunately, this is the only picture I snapped before the camera battery went dead. A lucky accident: the Washington Park farmers' market is on Monday afternoons. There weren't many people there, and most were selling artisan products rather than produce. We sampled a few fun things and then split a strawberry lemonade shaved ice, sweetened with cane sugar.  Dinner : I threw a slow-baked chicken dish  in the oven before we left. Either it needed an extra cup of liquid or an hour less in the oven, because the chicken was reall...