Monday, March 24, 2008

holiday spoilers, yankees games, and my brackets are doing horrible.

SPOILER ALERT: if you still believe in fairies, bunnies, leprechauns, etc. then this post is NOT for you!!!!!



So. My kids KNOW me and john are the tooth fairy, T has questioned abt. Santa and since we wont lie to them abt. it he is pretty sure we are Santa (and partly bc we want the credit for all the hard work, darn it!!), they question EVERY holiday or occasion where a animal or older person dresses up weird. M kindly pointed out sat. at an Easter egg hunt that you could see the Bunny's human arm under their costume, and the boys asked again if there really was an Easter bunny, T's voice heavy with disbelief at the time. By Easter, I think he had forgotten all of that and was just excited that he was getting a basket. Anyway. despite ALL of that. St. Patricks day morning, the boys woke up super excited. They were RACING around the house. I got up wondering what in the world they were doing. They informed me that they KNEW the leprechauns had come and were looking for the treat they had left. and then it hit me. Last year, after they had gone to bed, I thought it would be funny to have them "come" by putting green paint all over the kitchen to look like footprints and tons of glitter over that and leaving a candy treat on the stove for them. Well, i had totally forgotten abt that and had nothing for them. They were so upset. I was floored. My unbelieving, cynical children were totally shocked there was nothing for them. thinking fast, i assured them that they would prob. come while they were at school. That appeased them. John ran to the store and grabbed some sugar cookies and green frosting for them, and when they got home from school they got to decorate their own cookies. The next morning, i had moved Jo's booster seat and just tossed it over the back seat, where it landed upside down. The boys were so sure the leprecahauns had played a joke on him. My kids are so weird.
so, in other news: John was one of the 5500 last week who earned a ticket to the yankees/hokies exhibition game last week! He went with a few guys from church and they had a great time! I was so jealous I couldn't go, but it was only open to students at tech who were students last year in April, or current students, which he qualified under both. I am so glad he got to go though, and he got some great pics of Johnny Damon for me!
the hokies wore the coolest pinstripe uniforms for the game, and they sold special Yankees hats that had the yankee symbol in hokie colors. Very cool! A-Rod spent a ton of time in the hokie dugout, signing balls, hats, etc. It was so fun to watch it on tv w/ the boys since we couldn't be there in person. One of the kids at our preschool is the coaches son, who just came from Boston. His boys who were bat boys wore red sox shirts under the yankees uniforms! I thought that showed some nerve!





EASTER!!! I got the ties and the cutest argyle socks for the boys from Children's place a few weeks ago. I love matching them, and I can only get away with it twice a year, Christmas and Easter. John wore a 2 toned blue striped tie, and I wore a blue button down that had all the blues in it. It was fun to match everyone!
M- age 5 years, 5 months, Jo- 7 years, Van- 2 years 6 months, T- 7 years 11 1/2 months.







When we got home from church, it was time to hunt baskets. vans favorite was his Reester bunny. (in fact he liked it so much he did Jo a favor and finished his this morning....) I hid them while John fixed the kids lunch. T found his in the laundry hamper in the laundry room, Jo in the extra shower downstairs, Min the goodwill box, and vans was hidden in plain view in my closet. The boys had a great time hunting, and it took longer then i thought it would.


Later that afternoon we had a few friends over for Easter dinner. Johnny Stackhouse makes the BEST ham, so we put him in charge of that, Others brought green beans, bread, dessert, and the best ranch red potatoes. I made a pot. casserole and John made mashed pot. and we had a feast! It was so great, i love not having to cook a full meal for holidays and sharing the workload! After that we headed back to church for a devotional, which was awesome! A Methodist church sent their partial choir, which was amazing! I played prelude with some friends, and it was just such a great evening! I love holidays that center around Christ. They are just so special!

great self pic. from Ginger!




oh, and before i forget.... my brackets are doing Terrible... I won the ward brackets last year, and this year 25% of my final 4 have been knocked out... Yikes. I am currently in 10th place out of 23rd.... so sad.
On better news: John and I have been clinging to our poor digital camera last leg of life. Sat. morning we went to a fun town egg hunt. WE pulled out the camera, which had been VERY temperamental lately and it would not turn on at all. Sat. night we finally opted to just replace it. We had missed so many awesome things, the egg hunt, Jo's birthday pics came out bad, John wore his army uniform for the first time, etc. We went to best buy for date night and picked out a Cannon power shot. The price was under our budget price, it was on sale, and it has everything we needed! WE are so excited to finally have a reliable camera back in our hands!!!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Catching Up...






I spent a bit of time last week updating, adding photos, etc. and then when I went to publish, my computer froze, and I couldn't even access the saved draft. I gave up and decided to just come back to it, so over a week later, here is my update:












I went to L'burg in mid Feb. for a 3 day scrapbook retreat with 2 of my good friends, Melanie and Elizabeth. We had a fantastic time staying up late, eating GREAT food (mmm, kotos!!!), and running around my home town shopping, browsing, and enjoying great conversation with our friends. This is my third year going, and about 50 people turn out every year. I LOVE it!! Unfortunately, I came home SICK... I spent 2 weeks trying to recover afterwards from catching a flu while I was there. After being great for a week, a stomach bug swept through preschool and I got that too... It has been a long month for us, but John has been AWESOME! He has had to cook, take all of the kids to church by himself, and clean for me while I was drugged up on sudafed (and that stuff knocks me OUT!). THANKS JOHN!!! YOU ARE THE BEST!!! We celebrated Jo's 7th birthday a week and a half ago. He invited 2 friends over and we took them to pizza, then home for a transformers cake, ice cream and tons of pokemon play time! HE had a great time, and I love his friends. It is always so nice when your kids have GOOD friends. (now we have to plan Ts 8th birthday...)


Feb. 24 one of my former students passed away. It was so hard. His family had gone to Switzerland in Jan for sabbatical, and while there, he developed a stomach ache and turned critical in minutes. He stopped breathing, and rescue workers were unable to revive him. (he is one of the sweet boys in the front row of the top picture). His funeral was March 4. It was so hard, as he is just a few months younger then M, and I look at all the things happening in his life right now, kindergarten registration, soccer starting, etc. and my heart just break for the family. 5 years is such a short time.


Soccer stated this week for the boys. T has 1 1/2 1 day a week, 1 hr another day, and games on sat. Jo has 1 1 hr practice/week. M starts on the 28th.


Violin lessons..... well.... we have refused to rosin vans bow. he is just so loud anyway, I cannot imagine how loud he would be. T has a great bow hand, and we start with music tomorrow.

We took a while to get started as the kids who the boys are taking lessons with had parents in hawaii..... so lucky!




Anyway, i really don't know of much else... i feel like we are so busy right now, but that we aren't DOING anything...