Weekend Top 5 Written by Gregory Gorilla

Hi, my name is Gregory Gorilla. I go home with a different first grader every weekend and am required to go everywhere with my weekend owner for the entire weekend. This was a crazy weekend to have picked to come home with Noah, but I did. So I decided that since Noah's mom was required to take pictures of me doing all the fun activities this weekend anyway, I might as well write her top five for her.


Well, first I must say that Noah's family sure is a busy one. They kept me running pretty much all day on Saturday. I wonder if they're this busy every weekend. Here are the top five things I noticed in his house this weekend.

1. Weekend Visitor

I came home with Noah on Friday and played with him all day. Noah has to write a report about what we did all wekeend.



















While they were eating dinner, their kitten Pumpkin even curled up in my lap for a nap.













2. Pumpkin Patch

This was the one time this weekend that I saw Noah's mom get really upset. She took a cute picture of me with Noah when we got out of the car headed for the pumpkin patch and when we got there to start the fun, the tab on her camera (actually her dad's camera) was gone, making the camera virtually useless. Apparently, for a mommy who is addicted to taking pictures, and a trip that requires pictures of a certain gorilla having fun, this can be very upsetting. Thankfully, the other members came through and took a lot of pictures of me. I think most of the 20 people that attended the orchard this year on our annual trip held me at some point.



They wouldn't let me be in the annual photo of all the cousins at Post Family Farm...what a crew. The only one missing was Cousin Sara who was in a band competition all day.









Here are Noah and Aaron with their Daddy and Grandpa on the hayride














Here I am in the pumpkin patch with Aaron and his Daddy.


















I even had a chance to give Kristi a hug











3. New Camera

After the pumpkin Patch, where Noah's grandpa's camera got broken, Kristi knew that the evening activtivities (see below) were going to REQUIRE a reliable camera, being the main photographer for the event, I was left in the car while the whole family RUSHED into the mall to get a new camera at Sears. From the amount of pictures that Kristi has taken since the purchase, I can only assume that she absolutely LOVES it. She took 95 pictures at the party, and only had to throw away three from blurriness.

4. Party Time

I didn't get to go to this one...so I'll let Kristi take over for this one event.

My dad and step mom celebrated 25 years of marriage this week. About two months ago, several of our siblings/step siblings wondered if we could pull off a surprise anniversary party for them. I never dreamed that we would actually have it remain a surprise. But we did it. Two of my stepbrothers have opened a restaurant, a sports bar in an old renovated building in downtown Muskegon Michigan. (Shameless plug...if you live in the West Michigan area, check out Muskegon Athletic Club "The MAC" for their signature gourmet mac and cheese...it was awesome!)

We sent out invitations about six weeks ago to our family and their closest friends. About two weeks ago, when we were talking about our annual pumpkin patch trip (see above) Nancy suggested that maybe we could go to the MAC for dinner afterward since we hadn't seen it yet since it opened. She even went so far as to say she was going to make reservations for us (snicker snicker). I will spare any more details and show you some pictures of the highlights.




Nancy making the discovery














Dad making the discovery (holding Cousin Annabelle)










None of else ever knew (until last night) that they had never had a wedding cake. they got married kind of as an elopement when on a trip with their friends (who played a key role in pulling this party off). So when they were so excited about cutting the cake together, we were so happy that we had gone with the traditional wedding cake style.












The toasts were really neat. My brother Matt was the only one who actually spoke for us kids. He actually respoke the toast that Dad gave at his and Jenny's wedding 6 years ago. It was kind of neat to see it come full circle. What was the neatest one (and the second time everyone was crying that night) was when Nancy stood up and said "We have been so worried watching the stock market lately and I am just here to say I was wrong. We're the richest people in the world!" Of course, not a dry eye in the entire room.


There were a lot of other fun moments, but this entry just got really long, so here are just a few quick pictures that showed the merriment.



Uncle Andy teaching Noah how to play bowling on the HUGE Wii they have on one wall.












Aaron being silly













I couldn't get done with this point without Gregory taking back over...so here he is:



When they all got back into the car after the party, they were very tired. Noah used me as a pillow to fall asleep in the way home. It feels so good to be useful.














5. Playworld

Noah and Aaron were quite wild on Sunday morning from the crazy day on Saturday, so Kristi decided that I wasn't going to church that day. As a matter of fact, she left all of us home and went by herself. By the time she got home, we were all REALLY ready to burn some energy so we headed to Playworld. I had so much fun.

Noah pushed me around in the little cars


















I even had a piece of Steve's pizza











I am so sad that I have to go back to school with Noah, but I know I will have more adventures at someone else's house next week. Now here's a word from Kristi...


I hope you enjoyed my guest writer this week. If you actually made it all the way through this post, congrats. I hope you consider posting weekend top five. If you do, please add to Mr. Linky so I can visit soon.

Have a great week.

Weekend Top Five 10/13/08

This weekend had beautiful, unseasonably warm weather. I was determined for us to be outside for as much of it as possible, which worked out quite well for us. We ended up actually digging out the shorts. Here are for the top five for this week.




5. Weekend Top Five Becomes A Meme

As you will now notice, I not only have a button, but also a Mr. Linky. My Weekend Top Five posts have started getting a little more traffic, and although I love reading people's weekend recaps, sometimes I wish they would be more concise and quicker reads, which is why I established the weekend top five in the first place. With the help of Judy Thomas at Welcome To My World of Dreams, I now have a button and an "official" meme. Since I didn't quite know what to do with it, Deb came over Friday night to help me. I now have a code for you to "steal" and pass on this Monday meme (please look to your right and steal away) and also know how to add Mr. Linky when I want (please link so I can see how your weekend went).

4. Playtime

Noah has established his new best friend, "Otto" who is actually an old CD player that he found. I don't know why it has a name, or why the name he chose is that of my father's, but it has followed him everywhere for the past three days. He found some CD's in the living room and made them his own. His favorite is one he found in my old teaching stuff, "Peter and the Wolf". So Saturday morning, he had Aaron and me bring pillows and blankets to his room and line up to lie on his floor to all listen to it together.

3. Pumpkin Path

Every year, the city businesses host an evening of trick or treat stops along a path in the park. It is probably no less than 1000 people at this thing. We have gone every year for the five years since its inception, and it gets bigger every year. By the time we were maybe halfway through the park, the kids declared they were done and wanted to go play at the playground instead.


Gotta love a Daddy who will go out in public wearing a silly wig in the spirit of fun. This just a few hours after being to the med center with a whopper of a sinus infection. What a good sport!







Since the playground was too crowded, they settled for playing on the rings that usually spurt water in the splash pad during the summer. My monkey Noah turned them into monkey bars...quite creative I thought.









2. Noah's Lost Babyhood Round Two

Yup, tooth number two. The tooth fairy was sent scrambling when we realized we had no cash in the house. Steve found some half dollar coins in his top drawer that saved the night. And I am quite sure Noah has never seen half dollar even though they are talking about counting coins in school, so knowing Noah, he will be all over it, probably taking them on Monday for his day of Show and Tell.


I just hope these grown up teeth straighten out a little. Someone said it can take six months for them to settle into place...fingers crossed.







1. Apple Picking

Another beautiful Sunday afternoon in Michigan...perfect for apple picking after church. We went to this orchard last year and I think it is our favorite one yet for apples.



Thank goodness there is a Daddy ladder to reach the good ones on top











Maybe Noah will grow up to be a veterinarian. This baby goat rolled over and licked his hand.














I love Aaron's expression in this picture trying to jump the hay bales. He just looks so concentrated.











Can't leave the farm without doughnuts.












Like I said above, please consider sharing your weekend with me and joining Mr. Linky. I will be sure to visit you.

Have a great week.

Weekend Top Five 10/6/08

A very down weekend. We are having a rough couple of weeks in our household. It will hopefully be looking better soon. But for now, we are coping just like we always do. As a result, we did not leave the house all weekend (other than church, that is.) So, with a weekend at home, here is out top five...

5. Babysitter interviews.

We have a had a very difficult time with finding/keeping babysitters this year. We have had a wonderful girl who has been with us since Noah was born. She had the gall to go and graduate and desire a "regular" job. How dare she want to actually make money? So, we have been through a string of people ever since. It is very hard to find a babysitter that only wants an hour to hour and a half a couple of days a week. So I posted an ad on Craig's list and had several inquiries. We found a girl who seems to be willing to try it this week and then we'll go from there. She is a married woman though so I don't know how long she'll last. We'll know more after tomorrow, I guess.

4. Piper's Birthday Party That Wasn't

It was my niece's 6th birthday about 45 minutes north of here that we had planned to go to. The boys were pretty excited and even helped to wrap her present (even though it was pink...Yuck!) About 45 minutes before we were set to leave, the kids were playing outside and Aaron came running, crying pretty hard saying he had fallen. He was holding his head and begging to go lay down (totally out of character). So I was pretty worried about a head injury and laid down with him. Within five minutes, he was completely sound asleep. He slept for over two hours, not really time to go to the party. The boys were disappointed, but I am glad we let Aaron get the sleep he needed.

3. A Major Disappointment

This is such typical, air headedness on my part. I know you all remember my camera debacle from a few weeks ago. My camera had broken and I have been borrowing one of my dad's. I have had a difficult time adjusting to it and the old one has been sitting on the counter ever since. I am a bit of a pack rat and don't like throwing things like that away, even though it was beyond repair. Well, lo and behold, when I was performing my overhaul to the kitchen last week, I THINK I figured it was time to get rid of it and threw it away.

DUMB, D-DUMB, DUMB!

Steve comes out to me Saturday afternoon, holding the 3 year warranty that I had purchased (again, out of character). So, had I kept the camera on the counter, we would now be sitting with a new camera in our hands. Instead, we have spent every waking moment since then searching in vain, praying that maybe I didn't actually dump it. I can't seem to stop beating myself up for it.

2. Random Activities at Home

The boys spent much more time outside than usually, which I think was great, and Deb's girls came over for la little while which helped as well. We also managed to do some family crafts, try out new recipes for dinner, and get to bed early. In the evening, while watching the end of the Michigan-Illinois game (UGHH!!!!!!) the boys got a lesson about football and now both want to play when they get bigger.

1. Hand bells had their second performance at church.

We did two songs this week, one alone and one with choir. A few more mistakes than last time, but still were pretty good performances. I am so proud of this group and I am enjoying being their director.

I hope you enjoy this video.



So, hopefully next weekend things will be looking up for us. It is frustrating when you're feeling like everything is falling apart. Steve and I have been thankful though that our boys are so resilient and they really haven't noticed anything different. The only time that it came up was when Noah said, "Mommy, what fun thing are we going to do today?" and I answered "nothing". "Nothing" ended up being dodgeball with daddy, decorating for Halloween, and spending time together with our family. Not so much of a nothing to me.

Please share your top five with me. Have a great week.

Weekend Top Five 9/28/08/

Disclaimer: Sorry about all the blurry pictures. I am having a VERY hard time with the camera I borrowed from my dad until I can get one of my own again.


So, here it is...Monday again. Lately I have been struggling to think of five interesting things we did within the weekend. I didn't struggle so much this time. We kept pretty busy.

5. Child Safety and Fire Safety Day

Steve discovered on the computer Friday night that there would be a safety day at the children's museum for a few hours on Saturday. Well of course we NEVER pass an opportunity to go to the children's museum.

There was a firetruck and ambulance for the kids to sit in and explore and a lot of rescue exhibits. The neatest one was an imaginary house. In the kitchen was a tic tac toe game where the kids could identify items that were potential fire hazards



















and then through the door was another room with a pretend bedroom and an actual fire alarm on the wall. The boys would lie down on the bed and practice different techniques of what to do if there was a fire. They practiced crawling instead of walking and also feeling a door to see if it is hot















but my most proud moment was when the fire fighter told Noah to have a meeting place if there was a fire and even though it has probably been six months since Noah and I talked about it, he still remembered that our meeting point was the fire hydrant a couple of houses away.

And related to #5..

4. Fun with Cousins

About five minutes after we walked in the door, Aaron came running up to me shouting "Mommy, my friend Jamie is here!" Sure enough, my sister had brought her kids to the museum as well and the kids were so excited to play together. All of the boys hugged each other when they first saw each other.



All 4 boys "treating" a patient in the pretend ambulance















3. Mommy/ Daddy Date night

As I've mentioned before, we like to periodically split up with each of us taking one boy and doing something one on one. I think the boys cherish this time as much as we do. So Steve took Noah to Wall E (for the second time thanks to a gift card Noah was given at church a few weeks ago...thanks Jen) and I took Aaron to the toy store.

I had an ulterior motive. Aaron's birthday is in a few weeks and we have no idea what he wants. So though I would take him and take pictures of things he wanted like I did with Noah. It was a bit less successful than Noah's.



Aaron and the jack in the box he wouldn't put down for 20 minutes









2. Apple Orchard with grandparents

I warned you the pictures were coming...

After church on Sunday, we drove about an hour northwest to an orchard that we hadn't been to before. We didn't tell the boys that Steve's parents would be there too. They were very excited to see them waiting when they got out of the car. The visit was PACKED with activities...





feeding the goats










Noah on his pony ride


















Aaron picks apples










they both loved the big tube slide















especially climbing up on top
















They even got mommy down the slide















wagon ride to the pumpkin patch...I love this smile on Noah's face








there were a ton of other activities too, but #2 got a little long

1. Tackle that will take several days (or weeks) to finish.

I won't share any pictures yet, but after six years of living in a REALLY yucky kitchen, it is time to do something about it. So after I put the boys to bed Sunday night, I started the first wall of painting. It really is going to take quite awhile and I don't want to share pictures until the entire thing is done. So hopefully mid-October, there will be one heck of a Tackle It Tuesday post.

Believe it or not, this is just a smattering of pictures from this weekend. I actually downloaded over 100 shots (after erasing probably 50 more)

As always, I wish you would share your top five with me. I also wish I could finally learn (hint, hint...Deb) how to do a Mr. Linky for weekend posts like KC did. It is such a fun idea.

Happy Monday!

Weekend Top Five 9/21/08

I know these are pretty much the most uninteresting posts I write, but it is kind of fun for me to have a record of our weekend events, and maybe share a laugh or two from our life.

5. Ladies night Out

Deb received two tickets to review The Women, so we went. I thought it would be pretty good because of the star-laced cast. It was okay. About half way through, I made the realization that there actually wasn't a single male in the entire movie (until the baby in the last scene). Not a movie that I need to own, but kind of a fun one for a night out.

4. Family Trip to the Library...Puppet Show Extraordinaire and another lesson for Mom

I take the boys every week. But it was kind of fun to go with all of us. I was treated to several puppet shows. Noah came over and started showing a puppet kind of "beating up" another puppet and I started scolding him, but then he kept going...complete with another beating. Then, when I was ready to put a stop to it, Noah picks up a different puppet and shows it being nice to the first puppet, and starts saying things like "and gives him money and pours oil on his wounds" and then I realized that he was telling the story of the Good Samaritan that they had learned about in Sunday School this morning.

I thought it was pretty cool.

3. Lunch at Moe's

It's a highlight because we haven't been in awhile and I was craving it terribly.

2. THE CIRCUS

Ringling Brother's was here. I have only been to a circus once in my life when I was young and I barely remember it. Every year I have wanted to take the boys when the train rolls in, so we finally went. I didn't take a lot of pictures, because we were busy watching the show, but here is Aaron with the free clown nose.



















Aaron declared at bedtime, "Mommy, I want to be a clown so you and Daddy can come see me in the circus." to which I, of course, replied, "Aaron, you already ARE a clown."

So, of course, following a visit to the circus, we needed to...

1. Create our own Backyard Circus

Complete with our own "trapeze artists"


Noah


















Aaron







and even a clown


You gotta appreciate Noah's latest "invention" around his waist. This is a toy ball, wrapped through a belt, stuffed with paper to allow his pen and a pumpkin straw to stick out the sides. He has put a play shirt OVER his pajamas and the gloves and glasses are to make him a super hero as well.











I can't wait to hear about your top five.

Happy Monday!

Weekend Top Five: 9/14/08

A wet, sticky weekend. What happened to make this weekend memorable...good or bad?

Let me share...

5. Truck Woes

I called Steve to ask him to stop and pick up some "scoops" chips on the way home to go with the taco salad for dinner. About 30 seconds after I got off the phone, he called back to say that his back window had just EXPLODED. As he was driving down the road, it just shattered. He can't see anything that hit it. So after several calls to window places, the estimate to replace it is more than the truck it worth. So for now, my husband will drive his truck around with a duct taped back window. And at some point this week, Steve will be visiting junk yards trying to find a back window that the neighbor can transfer to his truck. We are such icons of class...

We are thankful that the boys weren't in the truck when it happened.

4. Another adventuresome ride in the car

It seems to me that a few weekends ago, our trip to visit my brother and sister in law had one bullet JUST for the travel there. Well, here is a repeat performance but for different reasons.

Long story short...the next time there are FLOOD WARNINGS for an entire travel journey that we have planned, the better choice would probably be to heed the warnings and not travel the roads. Silly us. As we were driving, we would encounter various degrees of lack of visibility due to down pours of rain. Add on top of it, hydroplaning and you would think that would be the worst of the trip.

WRONG!

As we passed the Michigan border into Indiana, we noticed a slow down ahead... Then, cars turning around in the middle of the highway...then a stream of cars driving BACKWARDS toward us on the shoulder. HMM.... Let's turn on AM 530 to hear traffic conditions...

Oh yeah, the entire highway is shut down due to flooding.

So now comes time to do the same 180 in the middle of the highway that three other lanes of cars are also attempting and join the parade on the shoulder, drive off the nearest entrance ramp, and detour south to a different highway.

Notice the WRONG WAY sign we are about to pass as we travel UP the entrance ramp to get OFF the highway.





Then of course, discover that this highway is a toll road and we left the house with NO CASH! So now, it's stop at an ATM at a truck stop to acquire the $1.25 toll necessary to pass.

On the way home about 6 hours later, we were less surprised to see that the highway was still closed but now we knew the detour route and we were not even slightly phased.

3. Birthday Celebrations

Once we finally got there, the kids had fun even though it poured all day and they were stuck inside. My sister in law puts me to shame every year with the cakes she makes.

My nephew Ronin had his 1st Birthday. They have discovered that he has several allergies so Jenny found a gluten free, egg free, cake recipe and it was quite delicious. How cute is this dragon?











Ronin had NO desire to eat the cake whatsoever, so there will be a lack of chocolate all over the face first birthday pictures in his baby book.













The other guest of honor, my niece Kira, turned three. Her cake was just as impressive and I was glad that I got her a crown and wand to go with theme.










She played the part of the princess so well.


















2. A Costume party?

Noah started the madness coming into the living room wearing this, complete with the very loud roar. Although most of the kids got into it, there were two little daughters of my brother's friends that got so freaked out that they cried until the costumes went away.














Every few minutes, a different child came down wearing something else...

Kira the kitty cat


















Noah in an INFANT lion suit


















You truly can't get the full image here. Odin has a beast nose, knight armor on his arm, and a dragon tail.

















I guess the daddies were jealous and wanted to join in on the fun...

My brother with the mask inside out...


















and my adorable husband with the bunny ears.


















Who says we need to wait until Halloween to dress up and act silly?


And after an eventful Saturday, what do you do on a cold, wet Sunday when everyone is tired, grumpy and worn out?


1. Sunday Family Movie Afternoon

Although the humidity has subsided, it was still very wet and cold all day. Stuck inside again! Noah found a movie that had received from a bloggy friend awhile back that we hadn't watched yet. "Joseph Prince of Dreams". Everyone is so far behind in their sleep from the nine hours total in the car yesterday, that we enjoyed lounging around watching the movie together.

I will be interested to hear if anyone else's top five were affected by the weather this weekend as well. And my thoughts and prayers are with all of you who are returning home after Ike's destruction down south.