I had to take Levi and one of the babies into Children’s for some testing, so we decided to make a day of it. Stopped at City People before the appt to pick up their amazing peppermint patties, spent the afternoon doing testing and appts then onto the much anticipated dinner out.

I had a gift certificate from my birthday from Benihana and thought Levi would get a kick out of it. I was right, he LOVED it. He couldn’t wait to come home and show his brothers how the chef made the food. He used his chopsticks as the knives. He is now convinced that he is going to grow up to be a Benihana chef!

As a side note – If you haven’t yet signed up for the Benihana Chef’s Table club online, I would highly suggest doing so RIGHT NOW. For your birthday you get a $30 coupon! It was a great deal for us, a fancy dinner prepared right before our eyes for cheap. Plus it’s right up the hill from the ferry, too so it would be easy to get to and have a night out.

Our resident underwear model….Carlos wanted to show off his boxer/briefs before heading off to bed tonight. He cracks me up!

Levi has been a tooth pulling machine the last couple of days. Started out on Sunday afternoon when he got whacked in the lip with a board (don’t ask…the brothers claim it was an accident) and finally loosened his big, goofy front tooth enough to pull it out. Whew, that thing was hanging on forever! He’s been talking with the cutest little lisp and having me cut up his carrots and apples. Tonight he crawled into bed, as usual, but came out a few minutes later with yet another tooth he pulled out. The boy’s gotta stop or we’ll be feeding him through a straw. He’s pretty damn cute with all those missing teeth, though.

Wooooo went the wind and OUT went the lights. In our last windstorm we were unfortunate enough to lose our power, yet again. At least this time our guys were prepared for it! I love this picture of them. They were so serious about making sure our flashlights were down and our candles were ready to light.

When we lose power, we also lose hear and since we’d made no plans for dinner, I figured I’d make a quick run to T&C for something warm to eat. Picking were slim, to say the least. We came home with the last of their fried chicken, a corn dog and a bag of chips. The biggest problem we had, besides being cold, was that we couldn’t heat up water for the baby’s bottle in the middle of the night. He was not real happy drinking a cold one, but you cope, and he did.

We woke up the next morning, power still off and saw that it was 7:25. Trey’s bus comes at 7:30 but we weren’t sure if he had school or not due to the power outage. I called teacher Kathy and she said they had power and all was a go. We put Trey on the bus with a banana and some trail mix for breakfast. I headed up to the school a bit later to get some warm water for the baby’s bottle but by the time I got back we had lights! WHEW!

This year Carlos and Trey were a part of the Wilkes Science Fair. It was tough to pull it all together. Nana came over at one point and helped out, then left laughing because getting the guys to sit down and neatly do a project was like herding cats. It was frustrating to say the least, and I can see why some parents do the work for their kids. But it was their science fair project and I thought they should do the work with my guidance. It turned out awesome!

We did the ol’ put the white carnation into colored water and find out how flowers drink. The coolest part was making a half red/half blue flower!

After the boys set up their display, we walked Trey to class and brought in one of the flowers they have changed. Kathy let them tell the class about the project they had done, which was great for both of them. They were proud of their project and mamas were proud of what hard work they put in!

The boys are all snuggled up on the floor watching a movie, sharing their special blankets with the babies. It was too sweet not to take a picture. Only wish you could see it for real. Gotta love these guys, hearts of gold.

Our boy is getting to big! He has amazing upper body strength for his size and loves doing anything monkey-like, Here he is at the playground at his school on the “big kid” bars. Of course my heart skips a beat when I see him attempting these things, but then relax a little because he is amazing.

Family dinner nights are always a highlight of our week…we get to hang out with Mary and Alice and the Lanning crew! Last week we had the added treat of being at the Lanning’s house, which is incredible and they have quads and lots of trails to ride on. Dee and Rick were like little kids out in the mud and the kids didn’t want to come in to eat. Looking forward to many more family dinners and more fun on the quads when the weather starts improving.

Try to look past the mountain of toys in the middle of the playroom….those all went to the Goodwill yesterday. If you see anything that you may have given the boys over the years, know that it was well loved. We were merciless in our cleaning and purging and now the playroom is once again functional. Feels good!

We have two foster babies living with us right now and they are super sweet. One is a tiny baby, one is pre-toddler. With the addition of these two we are more than busy. Seems we are at a dr. appt or on the go somehow everyday with one of the five kids. Then you add the getting up at night to feed the littlest one and it takes a toll. We decided that we needed a little baby break and had the two little guys go into respite care for a few days. For those of you who don’t know, foster kids can’t just be watched by anyone if it’s over a 24 hour period of time. So respite care is other foster parents watching foster kids (for a whopping $22 per day…and you can taxed on that but that’s another rant!).

So with the babies in respite, I surprised Dee and the boys with a night out at a “hotel”. It was actually the Kitsap Executive Suites, which is a company that rents out apartments on a nightly basis. It was close by, in Silverdale, and we had access to the apartments swimming pool, racquetball court, basketball court and stayed in a nice 2 bedrooom apartment all for the same price as a hotel. Boy did we use the services! It was a great spot for us, the layout was perfect and the boys were happy to have a big bed of their own to sleep in. We were able to make dinner in the room and snuggle up for a movie in the living room and play games at the kitchen table. Better than a hotel room for sure. In the morning, we got up and gave the boys a cup of Captn Crunch (they always get to pick out a sugar cereal when we go on vacation….same as I did as a kid!) and eat it in bed while they watched cartoons. Dee and I packed up and checked out and Dee took Carlos and Levi to play racquetball while Trey and I spent time in the pool. Th other boys decided they wanted to swim, too so they joined us.

We decided we’d stop and play some mini golf, since that is something we can’t do with babies. It was tougher than I thought it would be. Carlos was easily frustrated, Trey averaged 10 strokes a hole and there were 5 of us putting so there was lots of waiting. Levi has a natural gift for putt putt. It was fun, but I think would be better in a year or so.

Fun family getaway and much needed time with just our guys.