When Stuffed Animals Travel to Evanston, Wyoming

Now for the exciting part of our day ... part one of two parts of emails from Daddy from Wyoming. I think you'll agree that he's a rockin' dad for sending these emails from the stuffed animals the kids send along with him and for also sending postcards to all 6 of us! Here's the first one:

Dear Sam, Eva, Callie, Michael and Joel,

We are having a blast out here, we wish you were here.  Here’s some pictures to show you what we have been doing.

We changed hotels yesterday, because the other place was a dump, and here at the Hampton Inn we get points for free hotel rooms on our next vacation.  Anyway the maid was really nice and snuggled us up together.  Callie you would like the bed it is nice and cushy, warm and soft.  We think Sam and Eva would have a blast bouncing on it. 

Your dad is taking good care of us and sleeps with us every night.  But we told him that we wanted to get out of the room and go to work with him and see what he did.  He said okay and we got to go the very next day.    He had to make sure we were safe on site because they have rules to keep us safe.  Here we are with our protective boots, hard hat and reflective vest on.

We had a good breakfast and he loaded us in the car for the ride ‘up the mountain’.  Here is a picture of us riding to work with him.  There is snow all over the place, and it sure is pretty.  The gravel road is pretty rough and bumpy.

He said that if he had a pick-up he would let us ride in the back, like he lets Joe and Michael do, but since he didn’t he let us hang our heads out the window instead.  Notice that your dad’s Jeep is muddy.  It’s warming up into the mid 30’s so the snow is melting and making a huge mud hole here.  He likes to go through the mud real fast.

He even let us drive even though we didn’t have drives licenses.  He said that we drove pretty good, but not as good as Joel.

Here’s what it looked like going ‘up the mountain’.

And here’s a picture of what it looked like up on top of the mountain.  Way in the background you can see another mountain range.

The first thing we did when we got to the top was to play in the snow.  We didn’t have Michael here to make us a snow fort so we just had a snowball fight and made snow angels.

The next thing we got to do was really cool.  We got to ride on some construction equipment.  The first thing we got to ride on was a gigantic front-end loader. Your dad had to put us up here cuz it was way too high for us to climb. It was greasy and dirty, but it was a blast seeing them move mountains of dirt.  Sam you have to try this you would love it.

The next thing was even awesomer.  It was an excavator.  When you grow up and run one of these Sam you have to take us along.  It was even greaser and dirtier, but boy can you dig a hole fast with one of these. 

Anyway gotta go now.  We love you all and you dad says hi and that he loves you all and misses you very much.

XOXOXO,

Spike, Spots and Lucky

And because I'm all proud to be an Amazon Associate these days, I like to tie in a book or other rec for you on some of the blogs because I love books and I like being educated about stuff. So here is a book for those who are travel widows with kids like me:

"Lessons from the Hen House" Ebooklet Review

Carol J. Alexander has put together a great little resource with her "Lessons from the Hen House" ebooklet lesson plan (like a mini unit study). It's perfect for homeschoolers and kids in traditional schools alike. It's great for any kid who likes farm animals, in fact. And what kid doesn't like farm animals? I can't wait to start this with my kids!

At a sweet little price of $3.99, you'll want to own the whole series, called "Lessons from the Homestead." According to Carol, "Each one covers a different area of the farm. I launched Lessons from the Seed Catalog last spring. Lessons from the Tree House is almost complete and then I have Dairy Barn, Pig Sty, Bee Hive, Garden, and Kitchen yet to write. (And who knows what else I'll come up with!) Each booklet has over 50 lessons for teaching your children math, language, science, art, home economics, and more."

You can get more information from her new website http://LessonsFromTheHomestead.com. She also has a free monthly newsletter by this title that offers additional lesson ideas, interviews, and encouragement for those who are trying to homeschool and homestead at the same time.

Carol is giving away a free copy of "Lessons from the Hen House" to one lucky reader of The (Mommy)Kerrie Show. Just leave me a comment here with your email address so I can contact you if you win! Good luck! I'll be drawing a name on Friday.

Award-Winning McLoughlin Boys

What good is a blog if you can't post pictures of your kids doing cool things? So here are my sweet oldest boys with their dad's their prize-winning Pinewood Derby cars from Scouts from January. The secret is to put weights on the butt of the car so it will go faster. If you get a chance, check out the movie Down and Derby. It totally captures the essence of a dad's a kid's Pinewood Derby and is freaking funny.





I know who looks most proud in this picture!

A Great Gift for a New Parent!!!!

 I have these cool things hanging on the bedroom wall. My mom buys one each time I have a baby. They are from a company called Birthday Keepsake, and run about $10 plus shipping. Each one has my kid's name, birthdate, weight at birth, time of birth, place of birth and then a lot of stuff that was going on the year they were born. I love this kind of stuff because you can see how much a gallon of gas or milk was the year your kid was born. You can see popular shows and toys and which movies won awards and what was in the news.

I'm not getting anything to write about this company; just wanted to share it because anytime anyone comes over and sees these on my bedroom wall they freak out and want one for each of their kids! I'm a little sentimental and am pretty sure someday I'll sit and stare at these and cry when my babies are all moved out of the house. Hell, who am I kidding? I do that ALREADY. Some days they drive me INSANE, but always in the back of my mind I am aware of the fact that it is all zooming by too fast. And YES, old ladies, I DO appreciate it all right now and try to treasure every day!

Kids Kill Televisions Sometimes

shop.panasonic.com

Kids kill televisions sometimes, and so our Panasonic TC-P50S30 50-inch plasma flat screen TV is dead. I am writing this post as a public service announcement for all those who are researching before buying this TV (like my husband did). Here's the deal:

A tiny plastic ice cream cone from a Play-do set was tossed in the air (not even toward the direction of the TV). Slow-mo-like, it hit the month-old TV. It left a 3-inch "crack" like the star of Bethlehem BETWEEN THE LAYERS OF GLASS. The TV shut down and won't turn on at all.

No TV appliance repair place will touch it to try to fix it. It will be cheaper to buy a new $700 TV. Breaking stuff doesn't make the warranty kick in, folks. 

Best Buy is where we bought it and they do not sell screen covers. They are losing lots of money every day because of that. Also, we won't be buying our next TV from them because that's like rewarding them. We do, however, have to take our OLD TV to them so they can recycle it since the TV has nasty gasses trapped between the layers. Landfill fun for the future generations!

If you have small children, even hanging the TV on the wall will not prevent something being tossed at it. I suggest you find another TV option to satisfy your TV happiness until your children are older or else BUY A SCREEN COVER. Here is a place you can get one, and it's called TV Armor. Yes, it costs a lot but not as much as a new flipping TV that you saved for months to buy!

The irony is that my husband RARELY watches TV. He didn't own one when we met (I wasn't sure the relationship was going to work out but clearly it has).