A day out with my little boy!

Connor and I went on a little lunch date today.  Hey why not? Sophia and Wayne were at the class field trip.

First we went to the Girl Scout office/store to get some stuff for the troop.  Wow was that an expensive trip, but now I have all the patches, pins and petals the girls have earned. They will be so happy!  Now I just need to get the money from those parents ordering uniforms and I will get those next.

Then we went to Old Time Pottery.  Got a few things there for the house and yard. That was fun.

Then the cute boy and I went to lunch.  Applebees!!  Connor had chicken fingers and fries. I had 3 cheese chicken penne with a ceasar salad.  For dessert (yes we had dessert), Connor had a chocolate mousse shooter, I had a strawberry cheesecake shooter. Both were delicious!

When we came home, Wayne was home and my sister, Kim, was here.  Now we are getting ready to go pick Sophia up in a few minutes from school.  I can't wait to hear all about her field trip!

Going green

What happens when you take a 6.5 yr old girl and her parents to the Smart House at the Science museum? 

A renewed effort to be better at helping the environment. Stop laughing. We are really going to try this.

What are we going to do you might ask. Well let me tell you.

First of all, Wayne has made a compost bin of sorts. He had already started it but now he's actually going to do it the right way.  So now we have a definite bin and we learned what we can and can't put in it. 

Next, he is going to make a rain barrel.  He will set it up under one of the downspouts from the gutters. We will then use that water for the garden, grass, whatever. Just not for drinking or cooking. That would be gross.

We started this part a couple years ago, but we have been planting a garden. We have already started seeds for carrots and radishes. We will also be planting tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, and not sure what else.  Oh we also have strawberry plants that we planted last year. They are already growing and have about 2-3 dozen flowers on them. I can't wait!

As we do more, I will be sure to post about it.  I will also post on the progress of the garden this year. 

Since we are talking about food. I figure I could add what we had for dinner tonight. We are also trying to eat better as best we can. LOL  It's not going too well but tonight we did well.  I made turkey burgers on the grill and we had corn on the cob.  For "dessert" we had grapes. The kids loved it! 

Off to do laundry and then hopefully head to bed.

New and Improved? Well maybe.....

Ah Spring. What better time to start over than Spring, right? Of course.

A lot has happened in the Kinker household since I last posted. After all it has been almost a year.

Where shall I start.... ah yes, the kids.

Connor is doing wonderful. He brings laughter and love every day. He is quite possibly the funniest kid I have ever met. Sure I might be a LITTLE biased, but I hear it from others too. Especially from his Uncle Don who always insists I get Connor into acting/modeling. Of course we recently found out that Connor has some allergies. Explains the constant "colds" he's been having. He's allergic to dogs, cats and dust mites which unfortunately meant we had to find a new home for the cat. more to come on the cat(s) later. Overall he's doing great. Takes his meds like a champ(nose spray) and rarely complains.

Connor starts Tball next month and we are really looking forward to it! he's going to have so much fun.

Sophia is almost done with Kindergarten. This year has been both a struggle and full of excitement! Sophia has proven to be quite the smarty pants. She is the top reader in her class, reading at a 2nd grade level. In February she was chosen to do a ribbon cutting ceremony at school because she was the top reader out of all the Kindergarten classes!! She's also excelling in other areas in school as well. We have been struggling with behavior issues but we think we have gotten them under control for the most part.

Sophia has been doing cheerleading for the past 3 months. She has a big cheer competition coming in up 2 weeks! She's enjoying but for those that know Sophia personally, she can be a bit stubborn about things. She wants to take the summer off and then possibly start up again in the fall.

Wayne has been working hard, both at his job and getting the yard ready for planting the garden and whatnot. We are trying to be more "green" and coming up with ideas on how we can do that. So look for posts from Wayne about all of that.

I'm done with work for the year. This tax season went so quickly. Now that I'm not working, I've gotten more involved at Sophia's school. PTA, Girl Scouts, helping out in her class. I am really enjoying it. I even went to the state PTA convention this year and had a lot of fun! It's all keeping me busy.

So now about the cats. Unfortunately, they are both gone now. Houdini ran away twice before Christmas. He came back once but then disappeared again. Unfortunately, Wayne found him dead in the garage while we were doing some spring cleaning. :( I am so sad about it, but at least now I know where he is. He is buried next to my peonies in the backyard. RIP Houdini.

The kitten, who never really had a definite name, was taken to the no kill shelter. It was a lot harder on me than I thought it was. I never really bonded with her since Houdini was my cat. I cried so hard when I had to sign the paperwork to turn her over.

So now we have fish. No definite names on them except I think one is named Ben 10. Have I mentioned yet that Connor is Obsessed with all things Ben 10?? Yep.


I have to go pick Sophia up from school and take her to get new glasses. Hopefully I will be back again later or tomorrow to report on our "Going Green" efforts.