This Week

I have been busy selling my house this week, so not much blogging going on here.  But we're still undecided where we'll go.  We're still waiting for our buyers to sell their house, so hopefully it won't fall through.  We'll see how it all turns out!  Hopefully we'll decide here pretty soon where we're going to go.  Do we build?  Do we wait?  Do we find a house?  I have no idea.

But the weather was great this week, so we cooked hot dogs over the fire pit.  Joey loved them.  Lots of them.

Dad about had a conniption fit when Haley's friend came over, and it was a boy.

Matt wanted out in the front.  He settled for the back, but he felt like he was in jail.

I love that he can go down the slide all by himself now.  That makes me look forward to playgroup!  Maybe I'll be able to sit and talk with the other mothers without having to follow him around the whole time.

And we had a great time with friends.  That's what sandboxes are for.

And thank goodness Grandpa Fred always has time to beat the kids at a quick game of checkers.

Today

I think Grace would make a great author someday.  She constantly has a story going on, and usually I tune it out (because it goes on all day).  But today I turned the radio down and listened to her narration in the back seat.  She was telling a story to an imaginary friend that was a little hard to follow.  Some of the interesting things she's said today are:

"Mom, I just got married."

"I just found my spirit!"

"My mom died.  She fell out of a plane."

"My dad is so great.  He teaches me lots of things."

The ladies at the grocery store were laughing when they heard her narration.  She also quietly sang the alphabet, emphasising her favorite letters ("A, B, C, D, E, F, G).

She tried really hard to make him look at the camera.

I have been lamenting today at my little baby growing up.  I am going to miss my kids' little baby fingers and toes.  But good thing for cameras.  At least I'll still be able to look at them, wishing I was kissing them.  Although I kissed Matt's fingers yesterday, and they smelled like onions.  Gross.  But I love them anyway.

I stuck a pair of shorts on Matt today, and I'm looking forward to gazing at his little knees, toes, and ankles all summer!

I have a great friend who is training to run a marathon for a great cause.  Here is a link to her video.  Please watch and if you can give, please do.  Mandy, I wish I was closer so I could be running with you.  Keep going, you're doing great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4W0Q26hGjA

St. Patrick's Day Parade

Haley thought it would be fun to go to the St. Patrick's Day parade this morning.  Nevermind that she wanted to go because her friend was going to be there (although she never could meet up with him because there were too many people and they couldn't figure out where the other was).

We had a great time at the street fair and parade.  Can you believe they had hot dogs, chips, and a soda for $2?  I couldn't either.  So, although I had no intention of buying anything, especially since I couldn't read labels and I forgot the Epipen, I got us food for $10.  We sat and ate elevensies while waiting for the parade to start.  We got a great spot right on the curb.

The kids were delighted to have candy hurled at them from various characters.  Grace liked the clowns the best because they make funny noises.  Joey liked the fire truck and all the motorcycles.  Andrew has been talking non-stop about the Young Marines group that went by.  He thinks that would be a great thing to try.  We'll see.  Matthew yelled "tank to!" everytime he got a candy.

Ben and I watched in delight as four DeLoreans went by.  We decided it was time to watch "Back to the Future" with the kids and let them in on why they are so great.  They couldn't figure out why we were so excited.  I should have just told them that it's because we're a couple of nerds, but I didn't want to out us just yet.

I also liked the horses with green hooves.  The last one left us a present that we got to enjoy aromatically throughout the rest of the presentation.

It was a successfull family outing.  We came with five kids, and left with the same five kids plus a bag of candy.  What more could you ask for?

Happy Birthday, Linds!

It's my older sister's birthday today.  Happy birthday, Lindsey!

I thought I'd share a little of our "good old days":

We each had our own issues -- Lindsey with her fingers, me with my binkie.

But who cares?  We were so darned cute!  And sweet, too.

We always found intelligent, exciting ways to occupy our time out on the farm.

And we've always had a great backside.

We have always been at the height of fashion.

And we've got talent to spare.

Here's to the good old days!

It's "Miss", Please

This is a note to all of you young service people (usually boys).  You know who you are.  The ones who bag my groceries, check out people at Office Max, workers at Target asking me if I am finding everything okay.  Yeah, you.  I'm talking to you.  I know that I may have a few laugh lines, my boobs may no longer be in the upper-half of my chest, and I drive a mini-van, but I am only 31 years old.  I am not old enough to be your mother.  I don't wear clothes from the old lady section yet.  Nevertheless, it seems that lately, even when I don't have my 5 children trailing behind, leaving a wake of destruction in our path, that you have the audacity to call me "Ma'am".  You should know that every time you do that, it makes me want to hurt you.  A little tear escapes my eye when I get into the mini-van I swore I'd never drive.  Then I go home and run another two miles on my abused treadmill.  I pull out my college ID card and wonder what happened to that girl.  So please, for the sake of my sanity, from now on, it's "Miss" -- not "Ma'am".  Thank you.

Good News and Bad News

The good news is that we've been enjoying some great weather here -- I think it was 60* yesterday!  We went to the zoo and played outside.  We actually like to think of our zoo as a great nature walk, because if you grade it as a zoo, you would have to give it a "D".  But if you grade it as a Nature Walk, it gets and "A+"!  So Nature Walk it is.  How many times can you go for a nice, wooded walk and find tigers and bears and pandas?

The bad news is that the Steward found our camera card sticking out of its port in the computer, and now it is lost forever.  So no pictures.  That darned Steward!  He also left a mysterious glob of something brown on the light switch.  We'll say it's chocolate.  Yep, let's go with that.

Grace and Matt were so happy to go to the zoo.  And guess what -- I DIDN'T BRING A STROLLER!!!  Yes, I went to the zoo without a stroller for the first time in 14 years!  It's the dawning of a new age....

Grace decided that she would "pretend" that she owns the zoo, and she introduced me to all of her animal friends and led me around like she knew where she was going ("And over here is lake... and this is my duck... please come this way").  She is so much like Andrew -- always in la la land.  Always a story going on in her little head.  Can I live in the land of make-believe, too?

Matthew loved it, although he was very upset about the peacocks roaming around, and the various waterfowl at the barn.  He thought they were stupid and gross and horrible.  He yelled at them and ran at them to scare them away.  He showed him that he knows how to use the word "no!".  I just wish I had the camera to show you the disgusted look he had on his face.

So since I haven't been able to take pictures for a few days, I thought I'd share some of my favorite pictures of the kids from years gone by.  See if you can tell who's who:

Third Place!

Matthew was very disturbed this week when he found his favorite baby -- the other kids call him "Bob" -- without a head.  Those naughty kids.  They thought it was pretty funny, but Matt did not.  He wanted his baby fixed.  So I made the culprits fix him.

Andrew worked very hard on his car this week for the Pinewood Derby.  He drew the design himself, and when Daddy saw it, he said, "Wow!  That's a really good design!"

They went over to a friend's house who has whatever it was they needed to cut it, then Andrew very carefully sanded and painted it.  We put vinyl striping down the middle, and Andrew wanted the number 94.

At the event, Joey found Josh, who he describes as "so cool", to stand with.  I think he's right.  Josh is pretty cool.  So is Joey.  They make quite a pair.

Andrew was so surpised and excited when he found out that he got third place in speed!  He got a ribbon and a nifty red trophy.  Just look how proud he is:)  Nice job Andrew!  I hope you can teach your little brothers when it's their turn!

Scariest Thing I've Heard all Week

This morning as I was reading Nie Nie, I heard the scariest thing I've heard in awhile:

Andrew went looking for the other kids and said,

"Hey, does anybody want to play skydiving?"

Yikes.

Popping, Snowy, Wrestling Fun

We decided to watch the Olympics with some snacks last night, so I pulled out the air popper.  Usually I just stick a bag in the micro, but since Ben got the kids some pizza for dinner, and I didn't have to make anything, I decided to go all out.  This was the first time Matt had seen the popper.  I keep typing pooper.

So he sat with anticipation, and was a little frightened also.  It's pretty loud.  Then when the popcorn started coming out, he thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

The snow is finally starting to melt, but as you can see, we've still got plenty.  So the boys and daddy made a tunnel through it to the neighbor's yard.  They had great fun crawling through and getting wet.  Hurry up, Spring!

Wrestling camp is over, and we enjoyed a great 2 1/2 hour tournament last Thursday.  Andrew really loves wrestling, and he's very good at it.  He did three matches, and won all three.  He has a great medal to show everyone.  He can't wait until next time!