First Practice of the Season

Last night, the Angels had their first practice of the season. They have a new coach and lots of new players (including 3 girls!) and it went really well. Since this is Carleigh's first season, she was very excited! They fielded first and it was cute to see them catch the ball and throw it back to the coach!

Then, it was time to bat. Carleigh had to bat with the pink bat (of course) and was wondering where a pink helmet was. If she wants to continue with baseball in the future, we might invest in a pink batting helmet for her. She batted off a tee, but I think with a little practice and experience, she will be batting off the coach's pitches very soon! It was hilarious to see her run to third base after her hit so I guided her through the bases. I won't do that again because I was beamed in the back of the head with a baseball!! Luckily for me the ball was thrown lightly!

The practice ended with the passing out of uniforms and the kids were so excited that they put them on before leaving the field! Too cute!

Sunshine for the Zoo Trip!

We were so very thankful that we had wonderful sunshine and weather for Cody's field trip to the zoo today! Since Matt is not working, he had the opportunity to be a chaperone for his trip. They both had a blast and Matt came home with a few cute stories.

Let's just say Cody is a LADIES man! On many occasions, Carleigh was seen holding hands with two girls at a time. LOL!

Our thoughts and prayers are with those in the south who have been in the path of those deadly tornadoes! I cannot even imagine what everyone is going through down there!

Last Day of Break

On my last day of Spring Break, Matt and I actually had ALONE time! Yes, this is quite rare for many reasons and two of those being Cody and Carleigh! Carleigh's school was not flooded so she actually went back to school after having a 5 day weekend!

It was so nice to go out for breakfast ALL alone. No kid messes. No kid arguments. No kid temper tamtrums. No kid anything! I love my kids more than anything in this world, but we definitely need a little time to ourselves!!

After breakfast, we had a doctor's appointment, picked up Carleigh at the bus stop and went shopping. It was a nice day and we enjoyed it.

One of the highlights of the day: our personalized DISNEY maps arrived! June 9th cannot get here any quicker!!

Easter 2010

Easter morning started at 7:30am when Carleigh awoke and saw a trail of Easter eggs from her bedroom to the family room where her Easter basket was waiting for her. We had to wake up our late riser so that he could see what was in HIS basket. The kids LOVED that they received movies: Tangled and Yogi Bear!! I am thrilled that we have something NEW to watch on video!

After getting dressed, we headed to Sunday School and Church. At the beginning of the service, the children stood in a line and marched up on stage displaying their Easter outfits. I am so biased, but I think my kids were the cutest!

Now we are relaxing before having a grill out with my family. We saw the sun today after lunch and am praying it stays out for a little while longer!

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen!"

Happy Easter 2010 everyone!

Egg Dyeing!

Thursday and Friday Highlights

Thursday was our only day of sunshine since Monday so after celebrating Matt's birthday at breakfast, we went shopping and then hiking. It was such a beautiful day!

Friday arrived with all the nasty rain! We dyed hard-boiled eggs (our annual tradition) and worked on some cleaning. I went outlet shopping with my sister for a few hours before going out with Matt's family to celebrate his birthday. Then grocery shopping happened and while we were there a huge thunderstorm blared down on that roof. Ick!

And let's talk about this rain. I am SICK of it! It rained all last weekend. It rained Tuesday and Wednesday. It has rained Friday and today and it supposed to rain THROUGH next Thursday. Honestly, we cannot take much more! Carleigh's school parking lot and driveway cannot take anymore and let's just say she NEEDS to go to school!! And all the tornado watches and severe thunderstorms happen every day! *sigh* I am so ready for April to be over with!!

WHY we HAVE to visit Disney....

Happy Birthday Matt!

Yesterday was Matt's 42nd birthday. We had a great day of going out for breakfast, some Easter shopping with Carleigh (who didn't have school AGAIN due to flooding), mowing the lawn, a wonderful walk at a different bike trail, riding bikes on the street, and of course THIS. He just had to get a huge branch off the roof! This branch fell when we had our severe storms early Wednesday morning.

Eventful Day and Awful Night

Yesterday, I was very productive. I cleaned, purged, and organized the kids' bedrooms. That was quite a tiring job, but their rooms look great! When Carleigh came home from school, we put her princess bed tent together (that I bought 2 Christmases ago) and we played in her tent. Then, Cody had a doctor's appointment so off we went to pick him up from school and to the doctor's office. After the appt., Cody had PT so Carleigh and I relaxed and fixed dinner at home.

I had a feeling that the weather was changing because the kids' behavior was not great with lots of temper tamtrums!!

After I am asleep for less than an hour, my mom calls me (at 1am) and says the sirens are going off. We turn on the tv and we are under a tornado warning. I call my sister and we discuss going up to the corner basement. Eventually we decide to go up and we woke up the kids and carried them there. Can we say dazed and confused?!! They had to idea why we were in a dank, dark basement in the middle of the night. We stayed there until the major part of the storm died down (about 30 minutes).

We drove back home and attempted to put the kids back to sleep. Cody fell asleep quickly, but Carleigh tossed and turned for quite awhile. Then, I tossed and turned. What was an awful night became worse because at 3am we get a recording about a flash flood. At 5am, Matt's alarm clock goes off. At 6am, our school district calls to tell me that Carleigh doesn't have Kindergarten due to flooding. At 6:45 my alarm clock goes off so I can get Cody up for school. I get up and fall back asleep on the couch until 7:15 when I drag Cody out of bed. At 7:45 I have to drag Carleigh out of the bed to take Cody to the bus stop.

Not a fun night to say the least! I am tired and want to go back to bed. I am thankful that we did not get a tornado, but I really need my sleep. I am so hoping my 6 year old will let me take a nap soon!

A Thief on our Street

Since Matt's birthday is drawing near, he had to get the new license sticker for the van. So, he got off work early, went to the BMV, bought the sticker and placed it on our van.

We then went to the bike trail in our truck. There were people loitering around the trucking company office across the street from our home. We highly suspect that one of those individuals saw Matt put the sticker on and saw us leave since we piled our 3 bikes into the truck and left for a few hours and helped themselves to a new sticker.

I would have never dreamed that someone would steal a sticker off a license plate. If they were very bright, they would know that the sticker has the license plate number and serial number on it and if it doesn't match the current license plate, it doesn't work for them. However, who REALLY checks a sticker that closely?!!

We will be investigating and hoping we catch the crooks. And we are hoping that the BMV will take pity on us and give us another sticker.

Day 2 and Day 3 Highlights

Since Day 1 of my Spring Break was a rain out, I was determined that Day 2 would be better. After church, the kids went outside and played in the backyard for several hours. Their little friend Emily came over and they had a blast on the swing set. Their conversations were priceless and hilarious to say the least! And of course, Cody just had to impress Emily with his bodily functions of burping and you know what else! This caused the girls to collapse in giggles every time!!

Day 3 started a little rocky with grumpy kids who wanted to sleep instead of going to school. After two trips to the bus stop....I had 3 hours of pure BLISS! I cleaned, watched taped shows and chatted with my friend.

All too soon the hours ended and I was waiting at the bus stop for my little Kindergartner. We then played in the backyard for awhile when Matt came home early due to his company being very slow. I decided that a trip to the bike trail was a must since it was only the three of us.

I am so very proud of Carleigh who biked quite a big distance. We rewarded her with rock throwing at the pebble beach. While at the beach, we found some unusual items. The first thing I noticed was a pair of girl/lady's panties floating on the river's edge. Then Matt found a pair of boxer shorts hanging in a tree. We really do not want to know what happened there!!

And yet, while we were throwing rocks, a shirtless guy who I think I know was standing a bit of a distance away from us and was singing and raising his hands in the air. Interesting indeed. Needless to say, we kept Carleigh at a close proximity while there. To reward her for biking all the way bike, we stopped at the playground and let her play for a bit. It was great seeing her playing with a little girl she met on the playground.

HOP

Since the weather was gloomy yesterday and their egg hunt didn't happen due to rain, we decided to get out of the house and take the kids to see "HOP." It's a really cute movie! It has some slow "human" scenes when the animation is in the background which caused my kiddos to be a bit antsy, but overall, it was a cute movie!

The movie is about the Easter Bunny and how his son was being groomed to take over since he was retiring. The candy factory was awesome and really made everyone crave candy!

The Easter Bunny is such a hot topic for Christian parents. I have heard from both sides of the issue. Personally, we do Santa and the Easter Bunny. However, we don't emphasize either one as being the true reason for the holidays. We teach Easter as being about how Jesus was crucified, died and rose again and is alive. We teach Christmas as being a celebration of Jesus' birthday. We "do" the characters lightly without major attention to either one.

The kids are looking forward to finding treasures in their Easter baskets. This year, I am lowering the amount of candy and putting more fun things like bubbles and movies. I have been pro-active this year and the baskets are all put together and hiding out in their secret location until another week!

Gotta get shopping

The kids' first baseball practice is tomorrow so I have really procrastinated on getting Carleigh a mitt. So, tonight we will be hitting a few places in search of a cute girl's glove. I also need to find baseball shorts for her. This could be a bit of challenge for a girl. She is overly excited about playing this year and it will be cute to see her batting for the first time!

I also need to buy a few things for our vacation as well. It will be FUN shopping for those (okay, except for the bathing suit for me)!

And did I mention that in 2 days I will be on SPRING BREAK?!! I didn't think this was EVER going to happen!! Wooohoooo!!!

Wordless Wednesday - The Pout

Rainy Day

(Picture Note: When Cody was a baby, he was up quite a lot at night. In order for all of us to get sleep, he used to sleep on Matt's stomach a lot. Some things never change....although he has gotten quite longer and bigger!)

We wanted to hit the bike trail for the first time this season. HOWEVER, the rain, thunder, and lightning prevented us from doing so. Other than going out to lunch with the grandparents, we have napped and had a lazy day.

So, for the remainder of the day, we are chilling out at home, watching movies, and of course important Disney research (where to get the best 5 day passes!).

Hopefully, we will hit the bike trail after church tomorrow since it is supposed to be a beautiful day.

2 months from now....

In 2 months....we will be heading out for a long van ride that will be well worth it! In 2 months....we will be heading to see the big mouse! I don't know who is more excited....the kids or I! We have our breakfast with the characters set and reservations for Bippidy Boppity Boutique for our two princesses in our group (we are going with our friends). No doubt the kids will be sooooo incredibly happy! The reality of our trip finalizing and coming very soon is so very exciting!

Cody's Spring Portrait

Last year, we opted not to get Cody's pic because of the glare on his glasses and some other issues. This year, we bought the package because they turned out great! He is such a handsome boy!

Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Evening

Yesterday was a great school day. When I arrived home, THAT was when the day spiraled downward.

Checking Cody's school folder, he had a note from the nurse that said he was sent to the office for a suspicious looking red eye and that he cannot come back to school unless he has a doctor's note saying that he is not contagious. Well, we knew he must have gotten the pink eye from Carleigh.

So, Matt runs him down to Urgent Care since the doctor's office is closed. He was diagnosed with pink eye and has to have drops FOUR times a day.

Cody and I hang out while Matt and Carleigh go to church. (see a pattern here?) Cody was in such a crabby mood that I did not get my workout or walking in and it was such a BEAUTIFUL day!

Then, when it was time to administer the eye drops, Cody was given supernatural strength and it took all of Matt's strength to hold him down and I put the drops in. I literally had to pry his eyelids open and drop them in. To be a little guy of like 42 lbs., he is STRONG! It was like wrestling an alligator.

Right before bedtime, I realize that I washed my iPod. Yes, you saw that correctly! I was irate to say the least! So I submerged it in rice and am praying that when it completely dries out, I will have a working iPod again. It is one of my covet, prized possessions. Ugh!

The bright spot in the day was that our lodging has been confirmed and we are staying at an AWESOME resort just 6 miles away from Disney! I guess I will have to focus on that instead of all the other horrible things going on!!!

Not a good Spring Break

Unfortunately for my kids, they did not have a great Spring Break. First of all, the weather was just plain AWFUL with snow and cold temps! This is terrible for my two because they would rather play outside and get dirty instead of staying inside. Second, I had to work since my Spring Break is still two more weeks away. And thirdly, Carleigh caught pink eye from either church or the doctor's office (med check appointment on Friday).

Yesterday morning, her eye was a little swollen. As the day progressed, every symptom known to Conjunctivitis appeared....red eyes, watery eyes, and the tell-tale yellow discharge. So, we took her to Childrens' since her doctor's office was closed. They confirmed our suspicions plus found an early double ear infection. Poor girl! Of course she took the antibiotics like a champ, but it was like wrestling an alligator to get her eye drops in. Not fun!

So Carleigh and I are hanging out this morning while Cody and Matt are at church. I am so glad she got this before Easter!! And now, we are just waiting and praying that the rest of the family does not get it.....I highly suspect Cody will be the next victim!!