Ferb is Four!

Phineas and Ferb's number one fan turned four last week! So, we decided the cake this year will say "Happy Birthday Ferb!" on it to keep with tradition. Last year, it was Devin, the year prior was Christopher and the first year was Bryan. As you may recall, it all started as an accident with the first cake so we thought that we'd do this "name game" until Grant is 21. We will skip the vowels and continue with our yearly joke until we end with the letter "Z". Right now, Grant still doesn't know the difference. Next year, he better notice or I will be concerned. It will be a "G" year, but not for "Grant".

We let Grant pick out his gift at Toys R Us and he chose a Buzz Lightyear, just like the same size as the one Andy has in the movie. It has all the lights and noises too. Very cute! Also, if you tell the clerk that it's your birthday, you get a free balloon and crown.

Grant also got a weekend play date with an old friend in celebration of turning

four. Grant and Cameron became buddies during the summertime at their older brothers' baseball games. Many a days and nights spent at the good ole' ballfield playing cars and eating snacks!

Grant chose to eat at Burger King and to play in the ball pit, which is usually off-limits when we dine there. I think it's gross, but it's Grant's day, so why not...

Cameron even gave Grant a sack of goodies for his birthday. Notice the look on Grant's face when he sees he got a bag of cotton candy! Sugar + Grant = Trouble

Then we visited the Lincoln Zoo to see the new penguin exhibit that just opened the week prior. Very cool!

Two cute baseball buddies!

Kindergarten Lesson #624

Today's lesson is #624...

Why?

I guess it's a good place to start since I've already learned so much in my four years teaching kindergarten. It's also my room number at school, so it totally makes sense to me.

Today's kindergarten lesson is much like many other ones. It's humorous, cute and one that I can share, maybe unlike other ones. Besides, if I didn't have darling lessons like this one at work, I'd end up looking like this....

And who really wants to put up with that kind of person?

I even thought I could probably write a book about my experiences as a kindergarten teacher. Oh, the stories I could tell. I've even created a title for the book "Pretty Please with Sprinkles on Top". So, if you see this title sitting on the shelves at Barnes and Noble be sure to snag a copy fast.

Okay...on to my cute kindergarten story.

Today I have a practicum student in my classroom. We'll call her Ms. Blurr (this rhymes with her real name). She's quite fabulous and I have no idea what I could possibly teacher her. Although she claims to be learning a lot so far in my room.

This morning Ms. Blurr did the student greetings and lunch orders for the day, while I got the students on task with their seat work for the morning.

Ms. Blurr says, "Jane, would you like a hot ham & cheese sandwich or cheesy breadsticks?"

Ms. Blurr knows that this child orders hot lunch everyday, so asking about cold lunch really wasn't an option until today.

Jane quickly responds, "I have cold lunch today. It's in my backpack."

Two hours pass....

I see that Jane has a hot lunch card in her hand and I quickly remind her that she ordered cold lunch today. Jane gives me that "I forgot" look and pulls out her lunch.

It looks like this....

Well...No, not actually.

It was two melted popsicles (thankfully in their plastic wrappers), one Yoplait yogurt and one very ooey, gooey chocolatey ice cream sandwich.

Where was my camera when I needed it? Too funny. I love kindergarten!

Lesson #624 - Ice cream and popsicles do not work well as options for cold lunch.

In case you are wondering, Jane's mom had no idea that Jane packed her very own lunch today!

A Quieter Weekend

We are having a much quieter weekend after last week's eight girl slumber party. That one was excitingly fun, but it about did me in. I need my sleep on the weekends. I'm so glad it's over.

This weekend we got some new furniture for upstairs. The fifteen year old blue couch went to Goodwill and the recliner with the broken spring is hanging out in the basement awaiting it's fate. Andy loves it, but it's looking rather worn and may need to be put down. Really...when you sit in it one cheek sits higher than the other. That drives me crazy!

I love the look of the furniture...soft brown and hopefully doesn't show stains easily.

I'm not so sure of the accent pillows, but they are nice and big and fluffy. These can easily be replaced by some super cute ones from Pier 1 down the road.
Tyler is trying out the oversized chair with matching ottoman. Okay, there isn't an ottoman yet, but it will be coming. It's on backorder.
As you can see, Tyler is all about those Colts and I hear that it's an exciting game since the Manning brothers are playing each other tonight. Go Indianapolis! Oh, heck, I really don't care...Go Giants!

A "Madison" Weekend

Madison had the best weekend ever, or at least I think she did. Well, she better have! We celebrated Madison's upcoming 10th birthday all weekend long, even though it's actually this coming Wednesday.

It started by picking up gourmet cupcakes at PJ's Baby Cakes after school on Friday. Delicious!

At 6pm, six girls (one arrived later) came over for a slumber party. Madison loves these types of events. Now her mother...not so much. The girls are enjoying pizza from Cici's.

The girls waited for friend, Aleni, to arrive by watching Diary of a Wimpy Kid downstairs. That is a must see movie. Very cute! "Zooemama!"

Then we played a game that I thought up. I scattered 200 of those popular, drive teachers crazy, Silly Banz all over the yard. The girls were each given a flashlight and a list of particular banz to look for. They were not allowed to just pick up any band, it had to be on their list.

The driveway was used for sorting and counting to see if all were located. Each girl ended up with two dozen banz. Only two were unaccounted for, which were the small ring ones. The hunt was about 45 minutes long and then another hour of trading pursued afterwards.

This Silly Banz hunt was a huge hit with the girls! Even one girl asked if we could do this again. I believe I could win "Mom of the Year" for this idea.

Then it was off to "sleep" in the tent. Yeah, right, I could hear them still at 4:00am. I took apology cookies to the neighbors on Saturday. So sorry!

Having Grant wake the girls at 8:00am did not make me feel bad. In fact, I could not have enjoyed it more. I probably wouldn't have disturbed them if it wasn't for one girl needing to go home by 8:30.

Even Grant couldn't wake the dead.

On Saturday, I tried my first attempt at making a trifle for Madison. Making those layers even is very difficult. It tasted great no matter how it looked. The trifle had devil's food cake, Cool-Whip, carmel and toffee chips in that order and then repeated. It was sinfully good!

Then on Sunday, we had a "party" at Kids Against Hunger in Madison's honor. We packaged 12 boxes of food that created 2,376 meals.

Hope you had a wonderful birthday my darling daughter. Happy Double-Digits to you!

Wishing for Acts of Kindness

This is Tyler standing in a very long line on the night before Black Friday last year.

Tyler was willing to battle the chilling conditions by standing in line for hours for a free $50 iTunes card to go with a $200 iPod purchase. You may well know that iPods rarely go on sale, but retailers sometimes give out gift card to make the purchase more enticing.

Tyler wanted an iPod in a bad way. So, he saved up half the cost and his nice parents agreed to pay the other half for his birthday, which was three days prior to Thanksgiving.

Today I come home to see Tyler all red-eyed because someone despicable broke into Tyler's locker and stole his iPod. Of course, I've already had this conversation with Tyler about taking this item to school and it being any easy product of theft. I heard a "But mom...one of my teachers has us use it in class." Tyler rest assured me that it's under a password and it wouldn't be of any value to anyone else without that secret password anyway. Besides, Tyler has it either on him or locked up.

I guess so much for that.

This can be replaced, but I'm sad. I'm disappointed. I'm fuming.

Why do people have to behave this way with no respect for other people's property?

You can be assured that taking things that aren't yours will certainly be a topic of lessons learned in kindergarten by this teacher.

Boating Adventure

I had several misgivings about posting this video, but I figured it is rather amusing to watch (and he's darn cute too). Please note that I was not on this boating adventure because if I was I would not have allowed my youngest to drive. The only thing Grant is allowed to drive is me crazy. There might be laws that govern this type of thing, so I won't disclose who he went with or where he drove the boat. Just know that all went well and he had an incredible time.

Letter to the Teacher (that's probably never been written before)

September 1, 2010

Attention: Photographer or Teacher in Charge

Please allow Tyler Broeker to skip the first round of picture takings on Thursday, September 2^nd. We will gladly have his pictures taken on re-take day, which usually occurs a month later.

Tyler had an unfortunate run-in with a crazy hairdresser who cut his hair much too short. This has caused much distress and heartache this past weekend for both Tyler and his parents. Thus having a picture taken at this time would result in further hardship. My only other option would be having Tyler skip school on Thursday, which we (his parents) think is a bad alternative. Both Tyler and I value his time in school and hope that just “passing” on pictures will work for you and us.

Please let us know if Tyler can skip Life Touch’s pictures tomorrow, so we can plan accordingly.

Thank you!

Amy Broeker

Tyler’s mother

(This just might give you some insight on my hectic life right now.) :)