Out of the ordinary

This week was "ordinary" but had a good dose of "out of the ordinary" events that give life some spice. Monday I did something I have never done before. I took my boys on a marathon clothes shopping trip (marathon for us...9:30 am to 3:30 pm). I rarely take them shopping let alone clothes shopping. Since I hate shopping myself, I usually relegate a few hours two or three times a year where I foray into the thrift stores and if no  success there, I take a deep breath and enter the Florence Mall. I've visited the Eastgate Mall 3? times since we've lived here and I by accident ended up in the parking lot of another mall in Cincinnati in the 10 years I've been here but it was purely by accident!

I despise shopping! The prices, the hideous music, the ugliness I have to sort through to find the "nice", the something inside me that starts thinking I "need" some of those trifles I see......it's just best if I stay away. But........

All that being said, my boys were starting to look a little ratty in their Sunday best and I finally dawned on me....my mom always bought their dress clothes and winter/spring coats/jackets. The last thing she bought was a jacket for Allan to have when he went to school in the fall of 2010. So we did the shopping thing together.....and you know what? We loved it! It snow squalled most of the day (as opposed to snow flurries which stick and don't hinder traffic) which added this Christmas/fairyland feel to the day. We hit two Targets, one WalMart, Once Upon a Child, Dillard's, Macy's, JCPenney and Sears. Never mind we only made purchases at Once Upon a Child and Sears..........we presented this as an adventure (which my boys are always game for).....on a hunt to capture some good deals for Sunday clothes. Now that being said, my boys are very verbal about the "ugliness" they saw and the "strange women", "bad music" and the "glittery stuff" (As Allan said, "Put there by people who are trying to steal your money!") but we had a grand old time darting in and out of clothes racks, riding escalators too many times to count, pretending we were on an Artic expedition as we tried to find our van during a snow squall. It was quite an adventure. We broke it up by eating out (always a treat) and riding on the carousel. And we even had some success! Whew......that's one trip down and perhaps only one more to go this year.

 Stephen (excuse the Kool-Aid mustache)

 Daniel - he said the train looked like "kids" clothes but I convinced him that because the train has a 5 on it, it's for 5 year olds.

Allan (Pappy....Allan said to tell you this is his "Lego" smile.....I'm not sure what that means)

We also are full swing back on the school wagon......YEAHHHHHH!!!!! Last fall I focused on Math, Reading, and English since we were keeping life to a bare minimum. Now it's time to get up to speed in spelling, handwriting, science and history. It's been good to be back to the books .

On Friday we had an extracurricular activity take place beside the library. They demolished a house that the school had purchased and so we watched for several hours. The boys thought they were in heaven. Smashing, demolishing, "hunching", and otherwise creating chaos is in their blood. Actually........it was very fun for me too!

The boys' comments were so funny throughout the whole process!

The video below is a shot of something that wasn't planned on in the process but it turned out okay.

It was one time I didn't have any problem keeping their attention all focused on the same place at the same time.

Have a wonderful week!