Day 21 (August 10)

I can't believe it has already been 3 weeks!  To think about it it has been both a fast and slow 3 weeks, but either way we are still enjoying having him here and will miss him dearly when he goes home.

Today was Family Day at Zoo Boise, thanks to KTSY, the local Christian station.  Admission was reduced, not sure by how much but it made it seem to be in our budget! Snoh loved using some of his own money so that he could go see lots of different animals.  I think a zoo is a zoo so there isn't much to write until I add photos and put in the captions, but I was very disappointed not to see an elephant.  Snoh made no mention of seeing an elephant so at least he wasn't disappointed.  We visited the gift shop and Snoh bought a lion on a stick that has a handle to let you open and close his mouth (picture: a "grabber" to get things off high shelves) and a small drinking cup with a crocodile tail that serves as the handle with his own money.  He told the lady at the cash register that his favorite animals were the lions (who were asleep), the tigers (who were also asleep) and the snakes.  Thankfully for me, Marcel had been to the zoo this summer with work and was able to warn me about cages with snakes in them.  I did, however, watch while Snoh touched a snake that a zoo volunteer had around her wrist.  He thought it was cool and as we began to move away from the touchable snake Lilli starting being fussy, so Marcel tried to let her touch it, she didn't think it was cool and pulled her hand away before she could touch it.  Smart Girl!  Snoh didn't understand why I didn't touch the snake!

Him and brother then watched special features of Transformers 2 while I cleaned up from our day and started getting dinner ready.  After dinner, they watched the movie, while I layed in bed and fell asleep around 8pm!

MaryBeth's favorite at an elephant-less zoo

Snoh had just taken his turn petting the bobcat fur.  It was so soft

Wallaby Walkthrough
walk freely with the wallaby, all 6 of them actually

Pointing out the zebra

The Zebra!

The penguins
Plus I have about 10 pictures of the water in their tank from Snoh trying to take a picture of it as it swam by

Lunchtime and getting very comfortable!
She had both legs propped up just seconds before this picture

An oatmeal cookie and some pretzels.
Who knew the zoo was so family friendly they allow you to bring in outside food?

The coolest turtle in the zoo!

Getting food to feed the goats
We also tried to pet the sheep but as soon as he tried to touch them they pulled their heads back through the fence, as if to say "no food, no touching"

By this "chair" was one just like it that was the actual size of the male tiger in the exhibit.  Snoh wanted to climb on it but the sign we read him clearly said no.  He said "but there was a big kid that did" and he was right I saw that kid breaking the rule.  Here he is enjoying following the rules!

Seals

He loves Snakes

Lilli loved getting a ride this way compared to being in her stroller, which she actually doesn't mind.  She did great spotting all the animals in the cages, but I love this picture because it shows so clearly what our 3 weeks have been like.  If Snoh is around her, she has to be watching everything he is doing!

"Brother, after Lilli is back in her stroller, can I have a turn?"

$1 of his hard earned money!

Day 20 (August 9)

Snoh was very excited to see that Lilli's mom Jen brought us some of her kid movies to borrow.  He also is very excited that his brain remembers her name and Tom's name.  He even says it like that, "my brain knew her name!" 

We enjoyed Bolt this morning and as soon as he turned it off he was ready for another movie.  He also immediately asked what day we get to go to church again.  I'm so happy to see him enjoying it!

Marcel only worked until about 11am but was super productive and went and got signed up for subbing to start in August so when he got home around 12pm, Snoh was super energetic and I had a free pair of underwear at Victoria's Secret calling my name.  Smart brother Marcel decided we'd all head to the mall and then to Settler's Park.

This is an awesome park.  It was recommended to me by a friend (thanks Teri!).  We didn't tell Snoh about the water fountains so when we were on our way to the bathroom to change him into his swimming suit he said, "we should have brought my swimming suit."  He was so excited when we had it for him.  He enjoyed the water, making music, climbing very big rocks, a HUGE playground, swings, and some more water fountains before it was time to come home.  We had more time to play but the water had gotten turned off for a few minutes, and Lilli decided to be her own fountain through her swim diaper and soak MaryBeth.  Not a pretty sight :)

Came home to send brother to the store to make an exchange and buy a vacuum part.  Little did Snoh know that the first store wouldn't have the part and they'd have to go to an actual vacuum repair store.  They were gone for a long time!  Lasagne for dinner, which is the first thing Snoh told me was his favorite, thanks to Wende Lady!

After dinner Marcel decided we needed to finally rearrange our bedroom.  We assigned Snoh the job of moving all our pillows and our blanket to the living room and folding the blanket super good.  He did do great until he pulled it down the hall to show us!  But we moved it back to the living room and set him up with Over the Hedge (thanks Jen!) while we finished.  He even loved having our blanket as his pillow!

Having so much fun!  At this point Lilli and I were in sight and Lilli found this very amusing

The side MaryBeth told Snoh to go down.
It worked, but would have worked better if Snoh or brother was taller

It is just a little too small for brother

Just her size

Her hat was in her eyes too much on my lap.
This is probably about the time where I magically had a huge wet spot on my shirt :)
Oh and she had fallen asleep on the swing with me but woke up as soon as I stopped

I've had so much fun!

And just because she is so stinkin' cute!
After the park, Lilli and I were sharing grapes, but I just absolutely love how she crosses her legs when she's sitting

Movie time
(don't mind the laundry all over the love seat and the messy couch)

Day 19 (August 8)

Snoh got out of bed, found me in the bathroom and asked, "Where is brother?" to which I told him that brother was already at church.  He got very sad and said, "but today we get to try to get a slurpee again."  Oh he remembered!

As we were putting on lotion this morning, Snoh was looking at all our movies.  This is how our conversation went after that:

Snoh: Why don't you have any kid movies?
MB: Because me and brother are grown-ups.
Snoh: But grown-ups have kids of their own. You should have a baby.
MB: Why should we have a baby?
Snoh: Because you and brother love each other!

I guess if the 5 year thinks we should...just kidding, we're still NOT on the baby train yet!

Church went so good today for him.  He was greeted at the door by 2 teachers who were VERY happy to see him.  When I got there to pick him up he was sitting with all the other kids waiting for his turn to get picked up and the teacher told me how wonderful he is and how much they enjoy having him in class.  He also spent the ENTIRE day singing the songs he learned at Sunday School: Our God is an Awesome God & Everlasting God.  He only sung about 1, maybe 2, lines from each but it still warmed my heart to see how much he is getting out of Sunday School in just a short time!  Also, he has always come out of Sunday School saying the kids didn't want to be his friend or he couldn't remember who he played with, but as soon as I picked him up he said, "my friend's name was Andrew."  He told me that he didn't play with any other kids (boys or girls) because Andrew was "just too friendly" and that they got to play toy cars on a carpet that looked like a road!

We enjoyed a little bit of computer games and then watched Flushed Away, mainly because MaryBeth needed an excuse to lay on the couch!  After Brother got home from getting a flat tire fixed, we headed to McDonald's for our smoothies.  I'm very glad I decided to stick to what I like and not try the Wild Berry kind, because I had a sip of Marcel's and it was not good. 

Brother and Snoh read a few books before Marcel went back to church for a special Sunday night service.  Snoh played more in the backyard with his squirt guns.  We made pancakes and scrambled eggs together which required a major clean-up but it was worth it, especially since we had gotten so far behind on the cleaning!  He also said our prayer.  The first night he said "thank you for the food" because we told him we tell Jesus thank you for providing us food.  Last night his prayer had a few sentences!  It went like this, "Thank you Jesus for our food.  Thank you for toys to play with and for being healthy.  We pray MaryBeth's friends come back to play. Amen."

I asked who MaryBeth's friends were, and here again is our conversation
Snoh: They are Hannah+Matt (which is said like one long name) and Emily.
MB: Those are my sisters.
Snoh: But they are your friends too.  Brother is my brother but we're friends.
MB:  You are right they are my friends.
Snoh: When are they coming back?
MB: You might get to see Emily when your mom is here, but Hannah lives very far away.
Snoh: Well, what is her exit?  We can find it.

I then told him that if we leave for Hannah's house on Monday we won't get there until Tuesday, and it didn't seem to sink in how long of a car ride that is even though he wasn't a big fan of our 7 hour drive to Idaho!

Snoh told me "the teacher didn't even have to tell me what color to color my ladybug."

Storytime with Brother
I should have waited for 1 minute to take the picture because Marcel only read the first page

Trying to catch up on some much needed cleaning

"Hi Mom, I made this new picture.  I'm glad I got to wash brother's car yesterday.  I'm so so happy and so so excited to dream about being in the sky.  The end."
Snoh just looked at all the new pictures with me and wanted to tell me what to type, hence above.  He took this picture by himself and I didn't even have to rotate it for it to face the right way!

Day 18 (August 7)

After breakfast, we all enjoyed Alvin & the Chipmunks again and he was very excited to show us his dance moves through the entire movie!  We then made good on our promise to join him in running through the sprinklers.  I'd say he had fun but he still wasn't the most excited about actually getting wet from the sprinklers.  We did finally get out the water guns Wende Lady bought for us so long ago (in June!) and had fun getting each other.  I didn't like it when Snoh and Marcel were on 1 team.  They were too good!

We enjoyed more water time and washed our car in the driveway after that.  Snoh said he'd never done it before.  We're enjoying having him do so many things for the 1st time at our house.  I think that brother had a hard time letting it me a kid-washing at first, because he is such a perfectionist about washing the car but in the end it worked out (and turned out!) really well.

Then we had a trip to Famous Footwear and McDonald's planned.  Snoh was very upset that we went to FF first and was upset about having to get shoes for kindergarten because he just wanted a banana strawberry slurpee.  We told him if he was good picking out shoes we'd still be able to go to McD's.  Well, after him not being good and refusing to put his own shoes back on after many nice requests, Marcel told him No McD's and took him out of the store. 

Afterwards, Marcel told me I shouldn't have even paid for the shoes and we'd try again tomorrow, but the managers were expecting me today because I was using my employee number for FF (yes, I have an employee # because I'm technically working for my dad for the back to school season they just haven't gotten busy enough yet) without having my discount card.  Snoh cried through getting gas at Costco, the whole ride home and then still after getting home.  Most of what he was trying to say, I couldn't follow, but once we got home he asked if the policeman was going to come get him because he had been a bad boy.   So sad.  He asked for his slurpee a few more times but then he and Marcel went on a trash run to Wende Lady's house and that seemed to make him happy!

We're trying again tomorrow for our slurpees!

He loved the hose and getting to spray the car!

Day 17 (August 6)

After getting myself, Lilli and Snoh ready we headed on a few errands mainly because Lilli was refusing to nap and she always falls asleep in the car and because the last 2 days of staying at home all day weren't our greatest days.

We started off at Fred Meyer, getting 6 boxes of Band-Aids (Snoh picked out Lightning McQueen & Scooby Doo ones) for just $0.30.  My coupons were worth more than the band-aids so I only had to pay part of the tax.  SCORE!!  Then we went to the Karcher Mall and would have loved to walk around more but I forgot the baby stroller, but we did stop by the pet store.  Snoh was very excited to see a guinea pig, just like in G-Force.  We also saw kittens and puppies, a rabbit, rats, frogs and lots of fish.  The tanks were labeled things like community, semi-aggressive, aggresive and of course he needed an explanation of them each time he recognized the word from the last tank.  So I explained many times that the aggressive ones are the mean ones; seems that was just about all they had.  We also stopped by Bath & Body Works for a free 2 oz bottle of their new scent: Dark Kiss.  Snoh did everything there.  He had even helped me print the coupon this morning, get it to my purse safely, carry it through the whole mall, and then hand it to the cashier at BBW.  He thought it was so nice that they gave it to us and we didn't have to give them any money :)  Then to Albertson's for some cheese & trail mix.  Random, yes, but it is what is a GREAT deal this week and that's how I shop now.  The trail mix will be awesome for Marcel's lunches once he's back to subbing and has to pack a lunch everyday.  Because Snoh was good during all of our stops, he got to pick a movie from the Redbox and he picked Alvin & the Chipmunks 2.  He watched it during rest time and did a WONDERFUL job at staying on the couch watching it quietly.  Now we want to watch it again in the morning with brother to teach him all the songs.

After rest time, we walked around the subdivision to a nearby yard-sale.  It was probably one of the weakest yard-sales I've ever seen but Snoh found a Diego lunchbox to take to kindergarten for just 50 cents.  He even asked the lady how much it cost and then gave her one of his dollars and waited for his 2 quarters.

We also ran in the sprinklers in the backyard.  When Lilli and I were out there with him he was too shy and ran in any direction he could to avoid getting wet.  However, Lilli and I came inside for her to take a nap and when I went to check on him he was standing directly in front of the sprinkler getting very wet.  He wants Brother and I to join him tomorrow.

Dinner was a success!  He didn't ask to put ketchup on anything :)  I made Velvetta Chicken Pasta and like every night, he got sad at me about dinner because he promised he didn't like it, but after he took one bite he ate the whole bowl before he ate his salad (which he even asked me to put green peppers on) or his banana.  I was so excited that he ate something the same way the rest of us did!  When Brother got home the play wrestled and Snoh hit his head on the corner of our bed frame.  He cried, wanted a hug and then said all he needed was a Scooby Doo band-aid!  Then the 3 of us all played Wii Bowling, Marcel almost lost to Snoh which made him very sad.

We're excited for the weekend to have brother home with us for a few days!

Standing directly in front of the sprinkler

Getting ready for Wii bowling, sporting Scooby Doo on his face

Day 16 (August 5)

Another calm day spent entirely at home...

It did start off with some excitement though.  I decided to put Snoh in the bath this morning, since I'm home anyway and we always fight to have him in bed by 8:30pm.  I told him he needed to play until I came to help him get soap to wash his body.  Meanwhile I was feeding Lilli.  Probably 2 minutes later, he came out to the dining room wrapped in his towel, saying that I let his bath water get too cold and asking for spaghettios for breakfast.  When I told him no, he lowered his head, told me he's sad and left.  I assumed he went to his room like he always does when he has a feeling (he goes there when he's angry, upset, mad, sad...) but as Marcel was leaving for work and I was trying to throw away Lilli's diaper, I discovered that we had been completely locked out.  Snoh was not in there, but he had locked both doors to the bathroom and then closed the doors.  Marcel tried to fix it but didn't have time because of work.  I tried and was unsuccessful.  He told me, "I locked the doors because you were mean."  Was it about the spaghettios or the cold water that he chose?  Who knows but we spent the entire day with just 1 bathroom.  Later in the afternoon, he told me that he does it to mom too and they just call a guy that comes with a key to fix it so I just needed to call the guy. 

There was a lot of door slamming today as well when he'd run to his room with a feeling and no matter what I did he continued to slam doors.  Brother wasn't very excited about today's report and had a GREAT talk with him about being nice to people and treating their things nicely, etc.  It about made me cry listening in on their conversation.  Marcel is going to be a GREAT dad one day! 

Nothing much more exciting at our house today, except to say that he did get Spaghettios for lunch!  Oh, and tonight was leftovers for dinner because I got 10 strikes (we get strikes for kissing when it isn't allowed, and it turns out it isn't allowed to kiss him when Lilli is at our house) and he told me I didn't have to cook dinner!  How kind :)  He was so upset when the leftover spaghettios wasn't one of his choices for dinner!  At least he chose 2 types of fruit and a yogurt to go with his chicken nuggets.

Day 15 (August 4)

Today was a weird day.  MaryBeth turned off her alarm in her sleep so got woken up by Lilli's dad calling me from my front porch.  I learned that I NEED MaryBeth time in the morning to be able to deal with anything!

Highlights

• Snoh and Lilli having quiet time at the SAME time!
• Enjoyed Cars
• Made brother a surprise: he cut out things he liked from some newspaper ads
• Enchiladas and homemade spanish rice that he ate like me...if I had a bite of spanish rice on my chip, he did too.  If it was a bite of enchilada for me, it was for him too
• Wednesday church to make up for not going on Sunday

another picture of the 3 of us per Snoh's request

Last night, Snoh asked if he could have one of these like me.  I told him he was too little, but then he said, "But Maya has one."  Maya had been in my profile picture from a family reunion picture.  So I had to change my profile picture to one that had him in it

I wanted to take this picture without being noticed, but was unsuccessful.  I just wish that I could lay comfortably when my legs bent like that!

Day 14 (August 3rd)

I have to start by saying that I have absolutely no idea where the summer has gone.  I can't believe it is August already!

Today, was fairly laid back while we were at home.  He chose to have left-over alfredo for lunch, as long as he could still put ketchup on it.  Lunch was after a super long shopping trip to Albertson's & Walmart.  Double coupons always get me into Albertson's and Walmart is where I do my grocery shopping for items I don't have coupons for.  Snoh (and Lilli) did so great through both stores, so after we were done with Walmart we crossed over to the non-food side to find some tablets to put into bath water to change it colors.  When we FINALLY found them (I don't know where anything is in that store), he said, "I'll just get one.  Wait, how about 2?"  And because I had printed 3 coupons to get them for FREE, he got 3 packages!  I may have to print some more of the coupons and stash them away for a Christmas gift :)  Yes I just said I can't believe it is already August, but I'm already starting to think about Christmas.  I wish I would have started earlier, but I'll get there!  Yesterday, Snoh told me one of his favorite dinners is pizza that you get from the pizza man.  I told him that brother and MaryBeth didn't have extra money for the pizza man, but that we could go to the store and buy stuff to make our very own pizza!  He was so excited to help me chose what to buy at Walmart for them.  He chose pepperoni and pineapple on english muffins.  He had a blast making them and has already been asking me if his Walmart will have the right stuff so he can make them at his house.  We enjoyed a night of swimming at Wende Lady's house, which we hadn't done in a few days.  Snoh was able to dive down to pick up a toy that was past the stairs, which he hadn't done yet.  He was so proud of himself.  After swimming, MaryBeth ran back to their house.  On the run, Snoh & Marcel caught up to me and sang me brother's favorite song (I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas), which would be more accurate to say it is Snoh's favorite song but he always insists that it is brother's.  A bath in orange water and off to bed with brother!

Working so hard making our dinner

Since only 3 pepperoni fit on each crust, he would only put 3 pineapple per pizza

This is how I found them after I was done getting ready for swimming.  It doesn't look like it but Snoh was really stuck there and fighting with everything he had to get out.

Days 12 & 13 (August 1-2)

Sunday, August 1st

I had planned for us to go to 2nd service at church because last week waking Snoh up to be on time for 1st service was no fun.  However, he woke up with plenty of time and instantly asked "is it Sunday so I can go see my friends at church?"  I was so happy he was excited to go this week.  We get ready, head out the door, get to the car to notice that we don't have a carseat.  Marcel has it with him at church.  I had to majorly disappoint him and say we'd have to go to church next Sunday to see our friends.  We enjoyed Free Willy (I had forgotten how good of a movie that is) and lunch waiting for Marcel to get home.  Marcel then took us to Steve's house while he floated the Boise River with work.  Snoh was very excited to jump on the trampoline with the sprinkler, but it didn't last long.  He noticed Cindy had a separate hose near her and so off the trampoline he went to start watering the grass.  Soon, he was also watering the plants, the fence, and MaryBeth!  He thoroughly enjoyed putting his thumb over the end of the hose to make it spray everywhere because that made me have no choice to get wet.  Next we tried a slip & slide, which he didn't like.  He couldn't grasp the concept of running and jumping onto his belly.  It was more like: run as fast as he could, get to the edge of the slip & slide, stop, and then fall onto his belly.  Needless to say, he quit that activity and was right back to gardening, even getting to feed the plants.  He also made cookies, even getting to frost and sprinkle them.  He beat MaryBeth at Memory, Trouble & Candy Land.  After dinner, which of course required ketchup, he played Super Mario Galaxy until he let MaryBeth have a turn.

at least this plant was big and strong enough to withstand his watering.
It is the poor little ones I think he might have done in!

Monday, August 2nd
We had a pretty calm morning of Snoh being perfectly content just playing with his toys in his room.  After lunch, we all headed out to Rite-Aid for some coupon shopping.  Lilli slept and Snoh was a great helper until he found his mouthwash except that now the logo has a magnifying glass which made him "need" it.  Telling him no, resulted in him sitting down in the aisle saying, "MaryBeth, you're making that choice" and being sad at me.  When I told him that Lilli and I were going to pay so we could go home, he instantly got up and helped push the cart towards the registers.  We went to McDonald's and each got a Strawberry Banana smoothie with a free coupon I had.  He loved his "special drink".  We also used my free redbox code for it being the first Monday of the month and rented G-Force.  The first redbox only had 3 movies under the genre "Kids" and so he picked G-Force, but when the machine didn't read my card and we had to go to a new redbox (now I appreciate them being directly across the street from each other) there was a HUGE selection of kid movies and I was hoping to have him pick Alvin & the Chipmunks because he sings the songs all day long and I've never seen it but he was already sold on G-Force.  He watched it during quiet time.  At dinner, we made him try a bite of his fettucini alfredo before putting ketchup on it since he said he'd never had it before.  He said it tasted good but still wanted ketchup, so ketchup he got!  A little bit of time at Wende Lady's house and then it was time for bed!

He calls it Banana Strawberry Slurpee.  Either way he enjoyed it and he's looking forward to taking brother with us next time to use my last 3 free coupons.  We both decided we're going to try the other kind

Days 10 & 11 (July 30, 31)

Friday, July 30
We went to the park for lunch for the first time this week.  Unlike all the other kids, Snoh enjoyed the lunch: a "soup" with noodles, ham and pineapple.  He also shared his apple and grape juice with Lilli.  Wende Lady, Hannah, and Matt met us there and then we were off to the fair.  Snoh liked seeing all the animals, but was much more excited for the rides.  He was the only one who rode any rides, but that didn't bug him one bit.  We headed to Wende Lady's house for dinner and Snoh LOVED making his very own steak kabob until it came time to eat it, because "I don't like barbecued chicken."  Also I made him eat the pepper he chose to put on, he didn't like that either.  Once there was ketchup on his plate he ate everything!  We swam one last time with Hannah & Matt and had a good time playing tag.  Then we went home and played a few rounds of Apples to Apples with Snoh before he watched a movie in the other room.  The grown-ups played a few more games before it was time for bed.

There are a few pictures of him and the animals but I think he looks the happiest here

I love this picture

The 10 minute swing ride.  The attendant had a 1/2 full ride and kept them all waiting until he got every seat filled.  Snoh entertained himself by swinging his seat and then pushing off the guy in front of him until we finally got his attention to tell him to stop

I was amazed by all the "big-kid" rides he went one

Saturday, July 31
We had a very low-key day.  I don't think Snoh even left the house.  I had a lot of catching up to do on coupon clipping, cleaning, budgeting, etc.  Marcel was awesome to help dust the whole living room with more detail than I've probably ever given to it combined!  He then decided to rearrange our living room which I already like and he had Snoh vacuuming the carpet everytime furniture got moved.  The boys enjoyed Garfield: The Movie while I cleaned the bathrooms and then after dinner (BBQ Chicken Legs, to which Snoh again said, "I don't like barbecued chicken") we all enjoyed Buzby before bedtime.

Vacuuming down the hall to help brother