Killing time

I am really looking forward to this three day weekend as a way to relax and have fun with the kids. It's been go, go, go for the last couple of weeks. We all had a nice Valentine's Day. I got to go help out with Wesley's Valentine's Day party. His school has a no sugar rule for the Holiday parties which really surprised me. When I was in school it was a sugar free for all! Perhaps I was just remembering the Birthday parties (which sugar is allowed for at his school). It's been difficult planning a party where sugar was not invited. Ended up doing fruit kabobs and popcorn which the kids enjoyed. Room mom Jessica did another smashing job planning and executing the party, the kids are lucky to have such an involved helper in their class. Wesley's teacher told us that Wesley has "come out of his shell," which I assumed is a good thing (?). She said this as he was running into cabinets and desks while falling over and laughing. What a nutty kid.

We've had an adventure these past two weeks shopping for a new mattress. We've had our old one for about nine years and it was time for a replacement. My back has been hurting for about a year and it's gotten to point I could hardly walk when I first got out of bed in the morning. Lower back pain is for the birds! So I went out alone shopping for a replacement with very little knowledge of what I wanted. A nice salesman educated me about spring mattresses and foam mattresses and I decided on a Serta memory foam mattress after trying out pretty much everything in the store. This monstrosity is just what the doctor ordered, firm and supportive for my back. It was so odd to get out of bed and have no back pain. We have noticed that they run a little hotter than normal spring mattresses so I just got done ordering a wool mattress cover. They are supposed to allow your body to "breathe" and keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It wasn't cheap so I'm hoping it will work. It's so odd to be excited about a new mattress, I think I'm officially a grown up now.

The kids are happy and healthy. Greta is obsessed with baths at the moment. Yes, bathing. I kid you not, she asks at least 20 times a day "Can I take a bath?". She spends about an hour in there playing and swimming....it's her favorite time of the day. The water cools down so I have to put fresh hot water in there at least once. I take that time to play on the tablet and do whatever research I'm into at the moment. We returned the "el cheapo" tablet we bought after Sean used it and declared the battery life not acceptable (I was fine with it). He replaced it with a Google Nexus 7 tablet which I must admit is much cooler, more responsive, 8+ battery life and it's much prettier (yes, that was a chick review).  It's purpose for me is to play Netflix during my treadmill sessions, which it does smashingly well.

The bath crayons were a hit, thanks Noni.

Wesley's obsessions still lie in computer games. He loves getting on my facebook page and playing his games. Games like Magic Pets and Social Wars. He doesn't use the interactive part of the games (using neighbors and friends) so I don't care if he plays them. The kid nearly knows his way around a computer better than I do. I've been checking out Playstation3 games from the library that are geared towards kids and playing them at home. He's not interested in playing them yet but he loves watching me play them. In particular "Plants vs Zombies". Yeah, zombie games probably aren't appropriate for their age group (it says 10+ on the box) but we checked it out before hand and it didn't worry me. The zombies are cartoon and comical, no blood and do pretty funny things (re: disco zombie who dances under a disco ball). The kids love this game and we've had a ball playing it. You place plants in your yard, each plant does something (pea shooters shoot peas, venus fly traps gobble zombies) and you are trying to prevent the zombies from entering your house. It might be depressing to add up how many hours we've put into that game over the past few weeks.  Fun times!

Check out Plants vs Zombies for a great way to kill a weekend (or two...perhaps three).