The teacher asked me to be in charge of the mother's Day the kids will make. She heard that I like to rubber stamp so asked it I can do that with the kids. YES!
Yesterday I went through my stamps and found a few that I thought would be easy to use and allow the kids to do a little bit of coloring in. After playing around I came to the conclusion that we will use only one flower stamp and they will have a choice of if they want to use the word stamps or not. Too many choices is NOT a good thing. I made my card, making sure it was easy and can be done in small groups. Above it the finished card. The colors are not as they appear in the picture. I also used Stickles on the front, which I proceeded to smear after 3 hours of drying time. I think we'll leave the Stickles out! On the inside, the heart pops out at you when you open the card. I added Stickles to the hearts so it will be dry for them to use.
I thought the kids would have fun with the back of the card using this stamp. It says
"This card was made by hand
If you throw it away, those same
hands will make a doll in your
Image and stick pins in it's butt."
I made each kid a packet with all of the pre cut supplies that they will need to make this card.
I will also bring a lot of duplicate supplies in case they mess up on theirs. I think they'll be able to handle this one. I hope they have fun!

I LOVE the smell of Lilacs when they are in bloom. My Lilac bush is covered with flowers this year. When you walk into the house, you are greeted by the sweet scent and then by the vase full of them!
On a side note... I lost 2.6 lbs this past week! Wha-Hoooo!

Today is a SPECIAL day. When I got home from work I was greeted by a sound that means to me that sunny, warm days are ahead of us. The nest that is under my awning above my stoop has baby birds in it that hatched today! I love hearing the little chirping from them!

Yesterday I had an appt with the cardiologist because of an irregularity with my EKG. So far all seems well but I do have to have a stress test. I thought it was very ironic that while preparing dinner when I got home, I found this HEART growth inside my pepper! I'm taking that as a good sign!!!

Today will be a lot of planning for the start of the
ZUKOWSKI BIGGEST LOSER
contest that starts tomorrow! PJ, Brooke, Alyssa and I are each putting in $10 to start and a dollar each week. The 1st person to lose 10% of their body weight will get whatever $ was put in.
We're all excited to get on this and become healthier. Alyssa bought a Wii Fit and we're going to use that as our scale etc. Brooke has one also so we'll all be doing this the same way.
I think I will sit down with Alyssa and PJ today and make a meal plan together so it's not all up to me!

I had a GREAT 2 days at work. I'm in a really great class and love the teacher and aide. Today when I walked into the class, the kidney desk was all set up with huge muffins and a big sign welcoming me to the class! I was so touched! I'm fitting in very well and I think all of the kids, teacher and aide like me. The teacher and aide were thrilled that I love doing crafts because they hate it! I'm in my glory!
My one on one child is the most difficult in the class and the only one that needs one on one. He is such a sweet boy though so the aggressiveness will be forgiven!
Getting into this class was so worth the wait!!

You Can't Make This Stuff Up...

I haven't been working in quite a while. Today I got a call for a one on one position starting tomorrow and going until the end of June. Figures! Now that I don't have a car!!! I accepted and PJ will use the work truck until he gets another car.
I'm very excited to get back in that school. It's like one big happy family, but with a lot of clicks as with anywhere else. Oh! What to wear????

NEW BLOG...... NEW BLOG.... NEW BLOG........

I have created a new blog to post some of my favorite pictures. I tend to take too many pictures, which isn't a bad thing. I wanted to be able to look at them without going through the stories of this or my other blogs.
Here's the link... http://mamazukesphotos.blogspot.com/

We just came back from an unexpected, unplanned trip to see Brooke in FL. We drove PJ's car down there to give to her and we were flying back. We left at 2:30 AM and arrived at our hotel in SC at 3:30! Out of all of that time, I only drove 2 hours! Poor PJ. He was one happy camper though, when we found a great Mexican restaurant near the hotel. We wanted a place to sit outside and relax and this fit the bill. Besides the food being cheap, the food was delicious and way too much!

We got the Chili Poblamo's to share... they were $4.99 and could have been THE MEAL. Then we got the "A Little Bit of Everything" so we could try different items. That included Chili Rellano's, Mexican Salad, Enchiladas, rice, beans and some Portabello Mushroom Au gratin thing and a taco. That was $7.99. A pitcher of DosXXX was $4.99. I wish they had a place like this on L.I. but then again, we'd be there way too often!
It was the Flower & Garden Show at Epcot. We had a lot of fun and got to go there for 2 days.

We ate at our FAVORITE restaurant in Epcot... Germany... The Biergarten





PJ making paper
Brooke making paper
Sitting in the yellow pansy's

Our favorite part of the trip, besides seeing Brooke, was seeing 2 concerts at Epcot of the Herman's Hermits. We had a BLAST to say the least. Peter Noone is such a funny guy.
Caterpillar in the Butterfly tent

The second night with the H.H's
The people in front of us were so funny. They belong to the Herman's hermits fan club and travel to see them. They held up babies and heart pillows when the words "Baby Baby can't you feel my heart beat" would be sung and the letters of HENRY for Henry the 8th and even one that said SAM with an X through it! They were just so funny! Here's a video of the same people from last year's concert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuyhYKwtxt8




My pics somehow got out of order. This is also from the second night. Peter Noone brought up this 3 year old boy from the audience. His name is William and has been going to the Herman's hermit concerts since birth. This boy danced WITH THE BEAT for 2 songs and just loved being up on the stage. He wasn't scared and just boogied to the songs. I wish I got his autograph! Here's a video of William: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YncGX5bRgo

Brooke's cat (FATSO) and Sammy the dog wait for her to get out of the shower. I took the pic because she'll never see what they do when she's in there. The cat was next to Sammy until I went to take the picture. Then she moved.
On our last day, we had to wait for Brooke to get us to take us to the airport. She had to leave during lunch which was perfect. PJ and I took the Resort boats, going from resort to resort, walking around and checking out the beaches. This was at Ft Wilderness.
On the resort boat. I hate looking at my hair! I dyed it a week before we left. I don't have any gray showing except in pictures! I just don't get it!!!


While waiting at Typhoon Lagoon, I took pics of the flowers and waterfall.



We had a great time. We landed to find that the airline lost one of my bags. It ended up on the next plane and will be delivered this morning.

We colored our Easter Eggs on Saturday. This was Dave's first experience with coloring eggs. He really got into it!
I was more interested in trying out something I found on the internet... coloring eggs using silk ties! (I will put the directions for this on my cooking blog... www.mamazukecooks@blogspot.com I went to the local thrift store where I bought 10 ties for $1 each.


My little egg pouches cooling off.
For a first try, they didn't come out too bad. Too bad the yellow one (LandsEnd tie) cracked. It would have been the best one. The upper right red white and blue was a J.Garcia tie. That was my favorite.
On Easter, Alyssa made Dave his first Easter basket. She hid it behind the curtain.
We took a walk on the boardwalk before dinner. It was such a beautiful day. I couldn't believe how far the water was up.
Looking down at the water and sand that is right up top the boardwalk.
PJ had Alyssa and Dave pose in front of the garbage pail to say "now stop talking TRASH". Stan then said "you certainly have a lot of garbage to talk about"! Those Zukowski boys... what a sense of humor they have!

We had a nice very relaxing Easter. It was great for Stan especially since he rarely gets a home cooked meal. It's also been about 40 YEARS since he was at Jones Beach so it was an experience for him!