Top 10

Well, I feel like I am reaching for things to blog about!! Here we are in the middle of the summer, and that's about all the news there is. I cook lunch when Chris is home during the day, the kids play, watch TV and play some more, we play board games, we tickle and play the Incredible Hulk (guess who's idea that is), and we swim. That's how the summer is supposed to be, right? Jordan goes to VBS next week, so that will give a little posting material, but for now, this is all I have to offer.

I absolutely love taking the kids to our local library to check out library books. I also signed them up for the summer reading program. The theme is "Catch the Reading Bug". They got to pick out a butterfly cutout and post it on the big bulletin board in the library. Each week we fill out their reading log and take it to be stamped. They get to put a bug sticker on their butterfly cutout (Jaron picks out spider stickers every week). Then they get to look through a big box of books and they can take one home. It is so fun to see what they are going to pick!!!!! After all that, we begin our treasure hunt. They wander up and down the many isles of wonderful children's books, pull out anything that looks good, and plop down somewhere to look at their books. Sometimes they sit in the big train and sometimes they just sit down right in the middle of the floor!! It is so precious! Then after they have decided what they want, we go get in line and they use their very own library cards to check out their books. So, in honor of enduring and timeless children's literature, I have made a list of the top 10 books any child's personal library should contain.


10~The Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel


9~A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles Schultz


8~The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein


7~Noah's Ark by Peter Spier


6~The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter


5~The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats


4~Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak


3~The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams


2~The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle


1~Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown


I could offer a page of commentary for each book as to why it belongs in this list, but I will spare you. Instead, I will say these two things: #1 I cry every time I read The Velveteen Rabbit and #2 who wouldn't feel at home in the great green room?

Do you have any books you would add to this list?

Let's Play Family Feud!!

A few weeks ago I got a forwarded email with this title, so I thought I would make my own and encourage you to respond! Just leave your answers in the comment screen, BUT they have to be different from everyone else's!!! Have fun!

1. Name a staple you buy at the grocery store.

2. What is something you use to clean the house?

3. For how many minutes do you brush your teeth?

4. Name a school supply you need on the first day of school.

5. What is something a baseball player needs to play a game?

6. What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word "cow"?

7. Name a carnivorous animal.

8. Name a celebrity you have seen recently on the news or in the newspaper.

9. What is something you take to the beach?

10. How fast do you drive over the speed limit?

More Summertime Fun

Well, for the last few weeks I feel like I haven't had much to blog about. It's just summertime, and here in NJ there is still alot of summer left. The kids don't go back to school until after Labor Day. So, many of our friends that we hang out with and play with are still out of town. And two of our friends from the apartment complex have moved!!!! But we're still enjoying our summer, with the occasional, "Mom, I'm bored"!!!!

Vivian is one of Jordan's friends from her class. They lived in our apartment complex, and we occasionally went to the library or the park with them. Vivian is very lively, and just plain funny!! She and her family have moved to Connecticut, only 3 hours away. We are planning to try and meet up one more time before school starts.
This is Vivian's mother, Meng. That is her last name. Her first name is very difficult to say, so everyone just calls her Meng!!
Jordan has really missed Vivian. They got along really well, even though they are both pretty bossy :)

Our neighbors moved also. They are in India for a month, and then they are moving to Las Vegas. They were such good neighbors. Their son, Sunny, is 3 and he and Jaron LOVED each other. Unfortunately this picture is blurry...they would hug and kiss each other every time they played. They were so funny because they would kiss in the most random places, like on the hand or on the shoulder or on the eyebrow!!!! Jaron and Sunny really are two peas in a pod. Their personalities are very, very similar.
And here's the gang. Aakar is Jordan's age, and they rode the bus together to school. Aakar gave us his bean plant when they left! I think he wanted us to keep his stick collection too, but his mother wouldn't let him give it to us!!!!!
This is Aakar and Sunny's mom, Hemanti. She is such a nice person. I always enjoyed visiting with her outside and at the bus stop. One day I locked us out of our apartment, and so I went to her's to get the phone number I needed. We talked until it was almost dark!!!
Last week after church we ate lunch at John's Pizza. It's right across the street from Chris's theater. It used to be a church, and we got to sit right under this amazing stained glass.
Isn't is beautiful?
After Chris took several pictures in the restaurant, I said, "Do you think we look like tourists?"
Thursday afternoon was spent by the pool. This is Harriet's pool, Jordan's friend from ballet class. I liked this shot of the girls, from left to right it's Jordan, Katie, Harriet, and Bethan (Harriet's big sister).
There's Harriet and Jordy!
Harriet and Jordan huddling to keep warm.
Jordan and Harriet being a little silly!!!
Katie is Bethan's friend and she's the one outside of the pool. Jordan and Bethan are in the pool. They ran Jaron off!!!!

Harriet, Bethan and their parents, Tracey and Ewan, are from the UK. They are very nice, down-to-earth people. Tracey and I and some of the other ballet mom's had a great time picking on the only dad that brought his daughter to ballet each Friday. Poor guy, he didn't have a whole lot going for him!!! Somehow he was convinced that Tracey's name was really Susan. She let him call her Susan until the last time we saw him, at the recital!! When she revealed her real name to him, we all just died laughing, and all of the other husbands were there too! Tracey and Ewan are also planning an "American Trash" get together. We were invited to their house for a 4th of July breakfast and we got to meet their neighbors who are from Arkansas. Somehow the topic of Cool Whip came up and that led to Cheese Whiz, which led to Hamburger Helper. Tracey said they were going to plan a meal for all of us to showcase our "American Trash" foods!!!! Those three things are on the menu, as well as bologna and who knows what else! I'll let you know as soon as we have it :)

Me First!!

My dear friend Ashley, who was one of the people who inspired me to blog, the other person was Traci Davidson, changed her blog list so that the blogs would list according to which one was updated most recently. So I told her I was going to update our blog so I could be first on her list!!! I know, that's really dorky. I haven't had much to blog about in the last few days, so I thought this was as good a reason as any! Thanks to those of you who have voted on the poll...Jordan and I are big fans of "Ghost Whisperer". So let's see...what else have we been up to. Oh, I know! NOTHING!! I felt bad last week about how lazy we have been this summer, but Chris told me not to worry about it because things would get busy again when school starts. And he's right! The biggest news for today was that we went to Walmart. I love the prices, but I hate the atmosphere. I wish we had a super Walmart, too, so we could get groceries and other things at the same time. Jaron is really starting to ride his bike really well. He is such a stinker...he has to have everything his way, and he has always been that way! He will only ride his bike if it is his idea. We watched two movies yesterday that I would NOT recommend. "I Am Legend" was stupid. That's all I have to say about that. "There Will Be Blood" was one of the strangest movies I have ever seen. Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor for it, which he probably deserved because he was very good, but the story line was wacko. And don't get me started on the music. It was absolutely pathetic. A movie with bad music is a bad movie. Anyway, Chris saw "Hancock" on Saturday between shows and said it was good. Have you seen any good movies? Well, I better finish this up so I can go have a cup of tea and get in bed. Love you Ashley!!! Thanks for letting me be number 1 (for a little while, at least)!!

Silly Philly

I forgot to add these to the post about the Philadelphia Zoo. These are squirrel monkeys, and they were putting on quite a show for us!!

I Don't Even Know What to Title This!!!!!!

Jaron mooned the entire swimming pool today. It was a hot day here in Jersey, so needless to say there were quite a few people partaking in the enjoyment of the pool when he decided to drop his drawers, bend over and show everyone his little white hiney!! I was mortified! The lady sitting next to me said, "Oh, that's a good one". Oh, man! What are we going to do with him?

The Philadelphia Zoo

Our exploration of the East Coast continues with our visit to the Philly Zoo. The kids and I decided to take a day trip there on Saturday. Actually we were just there for the afternoon because Philly is so close to where we live. It is so cool that just about 50 minutes southwest of us is Philadelphia, one of the oldest and most history-rich cities in the nation, and then about an hour (without traffic) north east of us is the Big Apple. The possibility for day trips is endless!! We have already taken several day trips to NYC since we have lived here, and I have a couple of mandatory things I want to do this summer. #1 The Museum of Natural History and #2 Wicked (the Broadway show). There are of course many, many other things that we would like to do, and will do eventually, but I don't want to let the summer pass without doing those two things. Anyway, enjoy the pictures of the zoo. We had a blast!!!!




















































On our way out...we were exhausted and ready to go home. We didn't even get to see everything at the zoo. We will just have to go back!!!!