TN Mountain Cabin Trip

 

We are up in the Mountains of TN for a 3 night stay.  We decided to come pretty quickly, and luckily found a great cabin at a great rate within one day.  Everything has worked out perfectly.  We saw snow on the way here (picture above), and our view from the cabin is beautiful (picture below). 

We came with Scott's parents and the four of us just to relax and refresh.  It has been the perfect place to do so!  We even have WiFi access, which is fun even out in the mountains, so I can update my blog a little!  It is very cold (in the 30s), but there is a hot tub jacuzzi on the porch which is nice and warm and relaxing.  The boys even got to get in it a little this afternoon and warm up for a short while.  We headed into town (a 15 min drive or so) in the afternoon to get some Starbucks Coffee and walk around the outlet mall.  Then to Books-A-Million to read and let Caleb play on the train table a while.  Then out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was yummy.  Now we're back at the cabin for more resting and relaxation!

Splish Splash

When I taught preschool on Monday, the lesson was about rain. It just so happened to be raining outside, so I had the boys put on their rain boots and we were going to go out and stomp in some puddles. By the time we got everyone ready though, the rain had stopped and we couldn't find many puddles other than one big one in the center of the street. Before I started taking a video they were splashing a lot more, but then became a little camera shy. I got a few stomps out of them though. I think it's always more tempting when they're not supposed to be splashing in a puddle, rather than when you're all ready with boots, old clothes, etc. :-)


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

New Custom Tread Desk

Have you ever heard of a "Tread Desk"? There really is such a thing . . . google it if you don't believe me. I ran across this invention a few months ago online, and really thought it was an wonderful idea. I thankfully have the flexibility to work from home some when I need to on my days off and in the evenings. Most of my work in accounting is on my laptop. The tread desk allows you to walk while you work on your computer! Apparently some companies are allowing this in their offices to encourage exercise and it also has been proven to increase productivity. Of course you can't walk fast on it, but enough to burn calories! Anything is better than sitting still for hours on end and burning nothing, right? So, I really thought this would be beneficial to me. Some days I really want to exercise, even just walk, but I have to get work done in the few "free" hours I have after the boys are in bed, so I don't get to. Well, not anymore! Thanks to my skilled and amazing husband, he built me my very own custom tread desk to fit my existing treadmill. I got to try it out tonight for the first time. It was awesome!!! I worked for an hour, walked 1.66 miles, and burned 182 calories while walking at a speed of 1.5. A normal slow walk for me is 3.0 on the treadmill, so this was about half that, but hey, it was 182 more calories than I would've burned otherwise! Talk about multi-tasking! I'm so proud of Scott for making it for me. I think he should market it, what do you think? It is a little different than the "tread desk" in that you don't have to buy the desk and the separate treadmill. Scott made this one to fit on my existing treadmill. Pretty cool, I think! :-)

Ethan's 6th Birthday

Ethan turned 6 years old today!  We're so proud of our 6 year old.  I try not to think too much about how fast the time seems to be going, and just enjoy the moments.  For today, on his actual birthday, I was able to go and eat lunch with him at school and bring treats for him and his class to enjoy at recess.  It was a special time for he and I.  The afternoon was filled with an hour long Chutes and Ladders game, then outside races between him, Caleb, and I (had to get some energy out of those boys!)  Then tonight we let him pick where he wanted to eat dinner, and he picked Chick Fil-A of course.  We chose to get it and eat at the house, so we'd have more time as a family before bed-time.  He was quite worn out by the end of the day, and this is the pictures I was able to get out of him!

 

  

This past Sunday, we had Ethan's birthday party with his friends.  It was a transformers theme this year, which seems to be the theme of choice these days in a close running even with his beloved Star Wars!  We had cake and ice cream at the house, some coloring activity fun, Hullaballoo, and presents.  Then those that could come went to Monkey Joes for some bouncing.  It was a fun day!  Since we just had a small party with mostly friends his own age, he had another mini-party yesterday with his two friends, Elijah and Jacob, that my mom babysits once a week normally along with my boys.  So, he's had a lot of fun celebrating over the past week!  Enjoy some pics from his parties below.

Snow Day

 Last weekend we got snow!  We had originally planned Ethan's 6th birthday party for Saturday, but had to reschedule it for Sunday, due to the snow and ice conditions on Saturday.  Ethan wasn't too disappointed though, as he had been wishing for snow since December.  All during Christmas, he didn't want to watch any of his normal Christmas shows that he normally likes, like Frosty and Rudolph, because he said they made him sad that he didn't have any snow to play in.  On Saturday, he got his wish!  Here are some pics of Ethan and Caleb and their friends playing outside in the snow.