Hi!

I'm back! Did you miss me?! I can't believe it's been 10 days since I last posted...I guess I've been busier than I thought! So what have we been up to? Well, here's our last week in pictures and video:

Saturday Brianna receives her 1st Communion. We are really excited, although I'm trying to figure out how I can possibly have a child this old! lol- this is the symbol that we made to add to the banner that hangs in the back of the church so everyone knows who is receiving 1st Communion. I think it turned out cute!

Last Monday I was shocked when I received an alert on my phone that there was a shooting at a local high school. As the story unfolded we learned it was one student who walked into his 1st period class, pulled out a gun and attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. Fortunately (unfortunately??) he wasn't successful. He survived the attempt and is still in critical condition at a local hospital. It brought up all kinds of feelings and memories though as it happened right around the anniversary of the Columbine attack.

My mom picked up this Jumperoo at a local consignment shop for Eli. He absolutely loves it and got the hang of it very quickly!

Micah was walking around Friday night while we were getting ready for a baby shower here on Saturday with a wrench up against his mouth saying "Mustache! Mustache! I got a mustache! Mustache!" It was hilarious...especially with the Handy Manny t-shirt that he was wearing!

Thursday Brianna brought home her ballet costume for her recital this year. I love it! I think it is so beautiful! We have really lucked out...since she started I think her class has managed to have the most beautiful costumes. I can't wait to see her in it on stage! It makes me such a proud mama!

This mess turned into an awesome luau themed baby shower. The mama-to-be loves ukelele music so I immediately thought of a luau when I started planning her shower. It came together perfectly! Everyone had a great time, especially the parents-to-be, which is the most important thing!

Micah made it through his first year of Sunday school. He loved going to "school" and asked all week long when it would be "school day" again. He learned a lot this year and experienced time in a classroom which is really good for him. I'm hoping to get him into preschool next year so it was great training! They had their closing on Sunday which is always a hoot!

And I leave you with one final picture...we wore ourselves out this week and it's not over yet. One more party for Brianna's 1st Communion on Saturday and then we get to rest for a while! While I love throwing a good party, I'm going to be all partied out for a while!

Weekly Wrap Up- Friday Phone Dump Edition

Another busy week has come and gone in the Fischer home! Steven spent Monday and Tuesday at home, sick with an ear infection and sinus infection. I've been busy trying to finish up some organizing projects that got started but never 100% completed (like the playroom! It's almost finished and then I'll share it with you!). I've also been doing lots of laundry and dishes. We are winding down the school year- the kids get out on May 22nd, which means that we have 26 days left of til summer vacation, and 24 until Jonah's Kindergarten graduation! Being out before Memorial Day is kind of nice, but it also means that I have 5 weeks from the time they get out of school until we leave on our big road trip to Yellowstone! There is so much to plan, pack and figure out still. I'll be doing some count down to vacation posts soon and show you how we camp (and keep our sanity doing it!) with 4 kids!

I'm doing lots of reading still about the new "diet" we are trying to implement in our house. I found a great website the other day on Pinterest called the The Gracious Pantry. It looks like she has some awesome recipes, and I've gotten a lot of inspiration from her already. I can't wait to start following her! Today I'm hoping to experiment with making my own pizza dough so we can do homemade pizza tonight! I've never made my own pizza dough before but I'm going to be trying the crust from Crystal at Money Saving Mom. I'll let you know what we think! 

On tap for this weekend: nothing tomorrow. I'm sure Steven will be studying for his series 7 test that is coming up. I'd like to work on painting the bathroom. We'll see! Then Sunday we have PSR and church and then a birthday party for Steven's stepsister, Kayla. That's always a fun group to be with! No, really! They are really fun! I wasn't being sarcastic! lol

Now for photos from the phone from this week:

Spring is popping up everywhere! My Dogwood tree decided to show off this week!

We love Fisher-Price Little People! Micah created a world with daddy's help on Monday. A little later they created a circus which I forgot to take a picture of before it got destroyed!

Getting out invites for a cousins' baby shower. I can't wait til next Saturday!

This one is perfecting the art of the temper tantrum! The funniest is when he throws his head back and "cries" while he rocks himself back and forth. But there are no tears to be seen. He's watching and learning very well!

First batch of homemade taco seasoning. I really liked it, except that I felt like it dried out. I'm going to try to tweak it more to our liking and then I'll share it with you!

So that's our week in a nutshell. How was yours? I hope you have a great weekend! It's FRIDAY!!!

That's a Wrap! Week one

So I was thinking that each Friday I will start to write a weekly wrap up post. I hope it will make me more intentional in taking pictures of things that happen during the week (with my camera, NOT my phone!!) and give me another reason to write on the blog until it becomes a habit again and I don't have to think about what to write about! ;-) Some weeks will be way more exciting than others. This was one of those not so exciting weeks. But next week holds Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday and the first Friday of Lent. What's not to get excited about!?! 

This week I spent most of it sick with a cold. I got very little done around the house but I did get my food storage container cabinet organized, cleaned out my cooking utensil drawer and experimented with my first batch of homemade dishwashing detergent. 

Once I decide whether or not I like this recipe and will continue making it I will share the recipe with you. And I'll also make my container cuter...I have some ideas to put my Cricut and some vinyl to work! I also started getting order back into the Master Bedroom but the cold totally sidelined that one. Hoping to finish that up this weekend, and maybe even get our paint on! (Thank you Federal Tax return!!!) If we do get some painting done I will totally take before and after pictures and show you!

Brianna had a great assignment at school a few weeks ago. They had to use recycled materials and create an animal. She wanted to make a penguin! So we used a coffee creamer bottle, some cups of an egg carton, some newspaper and recycled boxes. A little bit of paint and this is what we came up with:

Cute, huh!?!? She did such a great job! It came home from school on Monday with a note from the teacher that said "Awesome!" and a 100% written on it! She was pretty excited and we were really proud of her!

Jonah is our gamer. For Christmas the kids got Skylanders Giants for the Wii. There are over 100 different characters that you can collect and use to place on the portal while you are playing the game. Yesterday was a big day for Jonah. We went to Walmart while Brianna was at dance and the boys were being so good I let them each choose a new character for the game. And Nina bought them a case to hold all their characters. (They started with 3, they now have 10! lol) If I could tell you how many hours a day this boy will spend playing this game I'd probably be ashamed! As it is, I can't, so I'll try not to feel too ashamed!

Micah is a little obsessed with pirates right now. It all started with Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Now his obsession is Treasure Planet. It gets watched every day around here. (We are on the 2nd play rotation just today!! Ooooh....bad mommy!!!) While he watches he runs around the house with his Jake and the Neverland Pirate Ship and makes it fly through the air like Treasure Planet. He has such an imagination and I love that he uses it to entertain himself, especially when his brother and sister aren't around to tell him what to do! (As I write this he has the Skylanders pieces on the ship and is using them as his crew! lol- Jonah would be proud!)

I swear my TV didn't look that dirty until I was editing the picture! Guess I need to get out the Windex! lol

This week Eli discovered a new (to him) toy. We bought this walk-about from a friend when Brianna was a baby and it's still going strong! 

He's been in this quite a few times but only this week did he decide that he really likes it. He even spends almost an hour at a time in it without making a peep except to squeal when he gets something spinning. He has even figured out how to turn the seat around to get to other toys AND gets the whole thing moving in circles on the floor. Yup, it's my new go to toy when I must get something done around the house and have him some place safe! 

And like I shared in his 6 month post this week he really decided to sit up unassisted. He can't get himself into the sitting position but once he's there he has decided that sitting up is pretty cool.

Go me! Go me! Go go go Me!

This week Steven was busy with Confirmation for our 8th graders. They had a rehearsal on Tuesday evening and then a retreat most of the day Wednesday before Confirmation Wednesday evening. We got to spend some extra time with him on Wednesday after the retreat before he had to leave again. It was nice to have him home for the afternoon, especially since that was the day my cold hit really hard. So now Confirmation is over, nothing really big for him til 1st Communion in May. (As far as his church responsibilities go that is!) Other than that he has spent a lot of time working overtime. I can't complain too much, at least the pay is worth it! But boy I will be glad when tax season is over and the overtime slows down a little! 

Well, that was our week! Looking forward to a slow weekend with nothing scheduled (except PSR on Sunday morning)! Have a great weekend everyone!