Happy 8th!

Before the clock turns over to a new day, I wanted to say YAY for our 8th anniversary! It's hard to believe that it has been that long already. But it's great to remember all the fun times that Chris and I have had together.

We had a low-key celebration this year--going out to Pei Wei with the kids. Though we hope to take advantage of The Cheesecake Factory's special tomorrow night of $1.50 for any slice of cheesecake! Yes, I know that's still pretty tame. But you have to enjoy what you can get, right? :)

Beware, you will lose sleep

So I happened across an internet game called Traveler IQ that can help test geography knowledge. Problem is that it's very addictive. I've stayed up until 2am the last couple nights trying to increase my score. Good news is that I am currently #2 on the leaderboard for the USA Challenge! :} See how you compare to this score:
98,726 pts
Level: 7
Trav. IQ: 156

I'm playing on Bebo so it will track my results. Click HERE for the link if you want to link up with me. I'm registered as tfviola on Bebo, so add me as a friend when you get there!

Who's been eating my candy?

As most parents--or anyone that's had to deal with children for an extended period--know, you sometimes have to be creative and a little bit sneaky to get children to do what you want. A couple months ago my husband came up with a brilliant strategy to get our kids, Mikhael in particular right now, to turn off lights, water, shut the doors, etc. around the house. He told Mikhael that if he let these things go, that it would eat up his candy. So now, for example, whenever he's in there washing his hands and just playing in the water, all we have to do is say "Mikhael, the water is eating your candy." And the water gets turned off faster than you can imagine!

I guess I'm just posting about this now, because it was finally tonight that it struck me how creative this was on my husband's part. We all remember our parents' saying things like "Do you live in a barn?" or "I'm not paying to air condition the outdoors" if a door got left open. Funny sayings to us now, but really as children what did we care? But this little phrase that he devised obviously hits home and is a very effective tool around our house right now.

New Bikes

So Mikhael wore out his first bike a few months ago. We finally got him a new bike yesterday. It's in his favorite color--green. And of course Kathryn had to get a Disney Princess tricycle to keep up with her brother. They rode around on the driveway a little bit this afternoon. As soon as mom and dad get their own bikes we'll start touring the neighborhood, so watch out!!