Our week in a nutshell...

What happens when you combine

a shoebox,

a couple of bags of coconut marshmallows,

mini white marshmallows,

graham crackers

and alot of blue icing???

...and ALOT of gluesticks????

...and some toilet paper rolls???

....and ALOT of hours????

Around here, we call it a 7th grade Castle project. 

At the middle school, they call it an ant magnet...so about 12 hours after the icing dried, it was graded and promptly eaten by the entire 7th grade class....so as to keep from attracting a colony of ants.

It's not like I had planned to shellac it or store it in the attic...but SHEESH, all those hours of labor, and just like that - it's gone!!!!

In other news, the sun has come out...we've almost forgotten what it looks like.  After months of nasty winter weather, then days and days of rain in a row, the sun was certainly a welcome sight.  You can see the contrast in shoe attire I've changed into throughout the week. 

Also, we had lunch at McDonalds the other day.  Yes, we still do that, even though there are teenagers in the house instead of toddlers.  Long gone are the days of Happy Meals...we're much more sophisticated now, with our Salads and Medium sized meal combos.  Oddly enough, though, my kids never grow out of sneaking the tiny bags of Ronald McDonald cookies {that are probably meant to pacify people with toddlers as they wait in line}....also hard to grow out of are the Ronald tattoos. 

We just stick them in more interesting places....

Delighted as only a 16 year old boy could be over a nipply Ronald. 

We're anxiously waiting for Alex to return home from Israel on Sunday. I'm pretty sure he'll want to sleep for days...which is really nothing new. He's spent the last few days in Galilee, Mt Masada, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, and at the Temple Mount. Tomorrow they tour the Western Wall and the Judean Wilderness...

On the animal front:

One bird died.  He sure seemed healthy last week when they were mating every hour.

The cat found out how to sneak outside through the basement window.

She now knows that beyond our walls are BOY CATS.

And she hates us...and so do the BOYS.

As I type, there are BOYS outside crying for her to come out and play.

Spare me.

Seriously...that is our week in a nutshell - you can't make this stuff up!