Smoke detectors...

I know you need them, but right now I hate them... yes, our smoke detectors (SD) are driving me nuts! They went off at 3:45 this morning and I had a terrible time getting myself back to sleep. Thankfully, both kids slept right through them going off! :) We had issues with the SD when we first bought our house but since we replace the batteries regularly and vaccuum them monthly, we haven't had problems. So, I vaccummed them today. And they still kept going off. Jemma is totally freaked out. They went off every 10-15 minutes for about two hours... finally, with the help of our wonderful neighbor (who I called during his 20th wedding anniversary dinner... felt horrible about that!), I turned off the circuit breaker and removed every battery. Yes, it is dangerous to be without a smoke detector but I'm just going to have to risk it until we can figure out what is wrong... I can't take the noise and poor Jemma is going to have a nervous breakdown if it goes off again! She just covers her ears and gets this scared expression on her face... so sad!

We went to the farmer's market after I picked Jemma up from school and got fresh asparagus and strawberries. I had not planned to get strawberries, but Jemma insisted. James put a whole one in his mouth, including the green top, while we were walking and I could not fish out the green leaves... he ate the whole thing. Normally, he spits out strawberries, so I was surprised that he fished it out the bag and ate it! Then, I treated the kids to ice cream at Yoder dairy. James only wanted the waffle piece from the cone, and Jemma gobbled up the ice cream. It was a special treat because Jemma's teacher said she had a fabulous day at school... yippie!!! :)

Trina and Derek, and Carol and James came over for dinner. I made chicken with pineapple and raspberry vinegrette in the crockpot, rice, asparagus, and salad for dinner. Trina brought mac-n-cheese for the kids and cupcakes. It was a very delicious dinner. The kids all had such a great time playing together and it was nice enough that they played outside!! :)

I took no pictures today, so here are some pics of the scrapbook pages that I made for Jemma's display at school.

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Here is Jemma on 5/6... I think it is such a cute little picture!

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School lunches: I try to make sure that Jemma has a healthy lunch that she will actually eat every day. I mentally plan for the week on Sunday (I should probably write out a menu to just make it easier) to make sure that I have plenty (and a variety) to send to school. I was quite proud of this lunch (ham, grapes, tomatoes and cucumber) because it looked so pretty and her teacher said she ate everything, including the string cheese and butterfly shaped crackers!

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Now, I'm off to bed... I hope for a nice, long, uninterrupted night of sleep... and I am counting the hours until my wonderful husband is home!!!!