Rest of April

Well, the house was a mess and the boys needed some "encouragement"/"motivation" to clean up the great-room, so I put on the Music Man's "76 Trombones" song and told them to put their pails on and that they were going to be a marching band who cleans up toys.  For the first 2 minutes they were like this:

But then Charlie started marching and picking up toys

  ...and made a trombone out of his horse. If you look in the back you can see Ben is cleaning up. My tricksy plan worked, the room was clean, the kids had fun, and I didn't get frustrated with disobedient kiddos. Over all a win-win!! Plus these pictures are pretty great :)

 Ben came out all geared up for the fire with safety glasses on and all.  I just love my little boys!!!

 First picnic of the year!!!  They loved it and I captured some cute moments

 I love this one of them talking to eachother.




Well, one of the hardest things about being away for 4 months was not doing some of pinterest pins.  Today was the day to tackle the space ship!!!

 It turned out pretty good, but the packing tape was horrible.  I just bought some gorilla tape and I am hoping for better and more long lasting results.

 Space ship and first day of sprinklers...wow that was a fun day!

 Ben never went in, he literally looked like this the whole time he was by the sprinkler.

 he did, however love the spaceship.

 I think due to the poor tape our spaceship lasted only 4 short days.  But with our new gorilla tape investment the possibilites are endless.  I'm sure there will be many cardboard play things in our future.

 So, I have to share the story of my oven cleaning.  I have to admit I've never cleaned an oven.  The store bought sprays scare me...can't read any of the ingredients.  The oven cleaning setting terrifies me with my two small children.  So I turned to baking soda and vinegar.  And you know what...

 ...it worked pretty darn well.  Sure it's not perfect, but I had no issues with boys being in the same room and I wasn't worried about cooking in my oven and having my food exposed to and taste like chemicals.  Another win for natural, cheap cleaning and pinterest for the idea.

Also, I tried a carpet cleaning solution of dish soap and vinegar mixed with warm water.  It did not take out the stains you see here, but it did take away several other stains in my carpet.  Definitely worth the effort. Since I started out here it could be I hadn't done as good of a job as I did with the other 10 that did come out.  Practice makes perfect, right?  :)