Family Night - Nati's Half Birthday

Last night we had our last family night in Norfolk. Ben will be in Afghanistan for Nati's 4th Birthday so we decided to celebrate his 3 1/2 Birthday together and get Ben in some Birthday pictures. It isn't his official half Birthday but he doesn't know the difference and was very excited about his "hap Birthday."

During nap time Yared and I ran to the store and got the last minute supplies. As we were running around the store he looked at me and said, "I love having special time with just you sometimes." It made me realize we need to plan some more one on one time in with the kids.

He helped me decorate the room while his brother slept. We had half plates, half napkins, half cups and only half the guests had party hats.

We only decorated half the room and half the table.

I had grabbed black t-shirts at the thrift store and cut them in half. We started the night by pinning half a shirt to our shirts and taking a silly picture. As all this happened on Memorial Day we took a picture with our flag too:).

Our meal was made of halves too. Half a watermelon (sort of).

We had half hamburgers, halves of corn on the cob, halved roasted potatoes, and a salad with halved tomatoes and halves of cucumber slices. But the highlight for the kids were the half sodas. They were a HUGE hit. Yared and I tried to get the mini soda cans but the store didn't have any so we found these mini cokes.

I was trying to show off my pony tail that had been halved into pigtails but with the hat I looked like a wizard.

Of course we had to have half a cake too.

He had 3 1/2 candles on his cake.

We had decided that it wouldn't be about presents. But we did have two nerf guns I had picked up to give the boys sometime and tonight seemed perfect for it. They each got their own and I set up half a target in the living room.

Daddy gave each boy some instruction on using their gun right.

The instruction was a little more useful on Yared than on Nati but he had fun.
Side note on the guns. I am not super excited by the idea of the boys playing with guns. But I have caved with water guns and Nerf guns. Part of this is as they were playing guns no matter what I did. We don't watch violent cartoons or shows. We never have the news on with them around but the boys love guns. Nati has been turning toast, sticks, toys, and his hand into a gun almost since day one. I figured if he is going to make guns out of all that we might as well have some fun with them.

We had a fun night and are only hope is that the boys don't assume they will now get two Birthday parties every year:).

My Letter Campaign is working

BUT can I handle the guilt. I wrote a blog post about a month ago about the horrible service we received at Subway and Denny's. I actually took the time to write letters of complaint. But I didn't want to be a negative nellie so I also wrote some letters of praise to other companies who gave us great service or who had a great product. I just got an email today informing us that due to our complaint the girl at Subway was fired.

Honestly the service she gave us was probably the worst I have received ever, but did I want her fired? Not really. I thought they should give her a reprimand and remind her that it is her job to be nice. I feel awful that she lost her job. What if she really needed it? What if this sends her in a downward spiral? I think she pretty much hated her job but she was young and might have just needed a reprimand. I seriously feel sick to my stomach at the thought of her getting fired because of me.

Now I am going to live in fear that the poor manager at Denny's gets fired. Truly I didn't think any company would fire an individual based one customer's complaint. I am hoping that maybe we were just the straw that broke the camel's back. This will really make me reconsider ever complaining.

Maybe I will just stick to writing only positive letters to companies that have impressive service and stellar products. I have done this in the past and gotten perks like free products for my letters. That is a much better result than someone losing their job.

But for now I live with my guilt and consider this a lesson learned for me as well as the Subway girl.

Lancaster County - A GREAT family weekend adventure.

On our way home from Rhode Island last month we spent two nights in Lancaster County PA. I have always wanted to visit Amish country and as we are leaving the East Coast next month it was the perfect time.

We stayed a farm B&B. There is a website out there just for them. The kids had a blast here and would have been content to just play all day on the farm. I highly recommend this trip, especially if you have smaller kids. It was beautiful and had plenty to do for a weekend trip.

Here the boys are practicing their farm skills.

They got to gather eggs in the morning and terrorize the chickens.
Our farm had miniature goats and Nati got a huge kick out of holding them.
They let Yared tromp around in their gardening boots or wellies as I grew up calling them.
One of the many beautiful churches.
Our Amish boys.
Seriously, it is mind boggling the work that goes into something like this.
Yes this picture was taken just for the name. Ben and I are such teenagers sometimes:). We couldn't stop giggling about it.
The highlight of the weekend was stopping by at a working Dairy Farm and lets you play with the calves, cats and dogs. We ended up coming here twice as we missed milking time the first time. Nati bawled his eyes out both times that we left this farm.

This picture is for my friend Viv, who is the biggest animal lover I know. I knew she would get a kick out of it. This cat has figured out if he goes near the older calves they will lick him. He was literally covered in slobber and purrrfectly happy about it.

Day old kittens.
We spent 20 minutes watching the cows get milked and then Yared and Ben got bored. Nati on the other hand was enthralled and ready to stay for the whole time. We had to bribe him out of here with home made ice-cream made on the farm:). Yum.

One of the covered bridges. Ben, the engineer, was fascinated.

Cool train museums around too.

Ben being Ben:). This was the rope swing at our B&B.

I wasn't quite sure if I was allowed to take pictures of the Amish so I tried to do it all through the windows of the van. I am sure they get quite fed up of tourists snapping shots of them. I got caught by one girl:).

It really was a fun trip and a great family memory. Who knew farms were that much fun for the smaller members of our family. We might have to find some more farm Bed and Breakfasts in the future.

Now I know my ABCs Next Time Won't You Sing With Me

We are just about ready to finish up Kindergarten here in the Leppard Classroom. Yared is too easy to teach. He is reading and writing way above where I expected him to be. He seems to have a natural knack for math so I find I am not pushing us at all just kind of letting the days flow. One thing we started with the curriculum was an Alphabet Book. Every week was a letter that the week was themed around. Most letters where represented with an animal or something inanimate from nature. We did a small art project for each letter and collected them for a book. Both boys did their own book and so I took pictures of the year's work. Some pages are from Nati's book and some from Yared's book. They are quite proud to be authors and illustrators. I laugh as I look through it as you can see which weeks Mom/Teacher was feeling creative and which weeks she was just skating by:).

Enjoy!!