Why is it that when it's the weekend, Chase and Claire wake up at the crack of dawn???

Whenever Aaron is out of town, it takes me forever to fall asleep and then last night Bell Tate woke me up in a panic to go outside. All I wanted to do this morning was sleep... at least until 7. I gave them a not before 7 "pep talk" tonight :) Hopefully, it works!!

So... today we found out our "Transformer personalities". Chase and Claire are both Prowl, I'm Bumble Bee and Henri is Optimus Prime. Chase wanted to be Optimus Prime and Claire wanted to be Bumble Bee. Since Chase is on a Transformers kick-- so much so that he's started his responsibility chart again in an effort to raise $8 to purchase a Transformer toy (it'll take him two weeks because he has to save half of his earnings)-- we decided to go to Barnes and Noble. Before we left, Claire had a MAJOR breakdown. She wanted to wear her flip flops (that she's had since she was 3) that just don't fit her right. She's allowed to wear them around the house, but not out! WHOA... she wasn't happy about that today!! I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that she slept in Chase's room last night AND woke up at the crack of dawn. We had a good time at B&N. We found a Transformers book for Chase, a Disney Princess Storybook for Claire and "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake" for Henri. Chase read his book the entire time we were in the car!!

For lunch, we all agreed on Taco Bell (for different reasons). Then, we went to Lewis Farms to pick strawberries. I didn't realize that strawberry season is about over... we were able to get a bucket, but the smell of berries rotting was a little too much to bear. We did see A LOT of ladybug larvae. I tried to snag some for our garden (since they eat aphids), but when we got home... I only had one. After trying our hand at strawberries, we moved over to blueberries and then had ice cream. Chase and I had strawberry cones and Claire and Henri had cups of chocolate. While we were eating our ice cream, I went up to get our water refilled and as I came around the corner, I heard a deathly scream (imagine a horror film!). Claire had ran from our table and was waving her arms screaming... yes, everyone was staring. Turns out she had a spider on her... it was very little... and when she saw it on the ground she said, "Step on it!!!!!". Henri did, and said, "I got it Claire". She was convinced that it bit her, but I couldn't see anything. Ahhh... I've passed on my phobia 10 fold!!

This afternoon, we rented a few movies.... each kid always has to have their own movie. We watched "Over the Hedge"... it was ok. At dinner, we made up silly songs like our version of "Damaged", which is reworked to be "Sandwich" (Instead of "my heart is damaged".....it's "I need a sandwich"). So our new song is Boom Boom Pow, switched from "I've got to get that boom boom boom" to "I've got to get that food food food". Yes, we were eating dinner... so naturally, food was on the brain!! We're working on the complete lyrics :) Tonight, we also watched "Chicken Run", which the kids thought was hilarious!! I'm sure they could only imagine what our own chickens do in the middle of the night!!