Field Day 2007

Today was field day for ACA. Coach Heard, told them all "this is a big P.E. party". He told them they might not all win blue ribbons but that as long as they did their best, that's what mattered. I agree. That Coach Heard, he's a nice guy. This is him.

The classes all came up with cheers to show some spirit. Here is Sadie's class cheer.

And this is Madeline's class cheer. I shan't judge, but you go ahead

Neither of these cheers won the spirit stick and I so wish I had gotten the one that did on video, it was VERY cute. Sorry.

This is Madeline's very first field day, first event. The Broad Jump.

And this is her with her second place ribbon she won for that broad jump.

Our fearless leader (Mr. Simon). And in these time, you have to be fearless. The city of Dalworthington Gardens just denied our building permit, even though we already have the building pieces in our parking lot-yes-admittedly, poor planning on our part. Thanks, DWG. (I could write something ugly here, but I shall take the high road).
Madeline doing the "Javelin" throw.
And her first place ribbon she got for her efforts.

One of the teachers with her daughter whom she thought would fall down and she ended up winning first. Way to go, Katie! Way to show your mother what you're made of. (Katie didn't know her mother thought she would fall down.)

This is Scott. He is in Madeline's class and while he can be difficult, he hugs me every morning so I have a soft spot for him. This is him finishing the race with the encouragement of the fathers, one behind him and others at the finish line. What great guys these fathers are.

And Scott, so proud of his ribbon.
Blessings (and relief) come in all shapes and sizes.
Another example of heroic parents. This is Priscilla. Another sweet child that hugs me every moring (along with her brother John). She fell early in this race and this mother (not her mother) picked her up and carried her through the rest of the race. Can you feel the love?
How could you not love this face? It's Priscilla showing off her ribbon and her boo-boo.
Some sisterly love.


Mrs. Marshall and Mads.
Uh-oh, everyone act normal, the police are here.
Uh-oh, now we're really in trouble.
Actually, there was a "person of interest" in the area and the police came to protect our children. (not a person of ooogy interest, like predatorish, but other interest)

Here's Sadie and her class about to participate in the "Tug-of-war".


Sadie's class with the "Tug-of-war" trophy.

And this concludes the longest blog in history (well, at least my history). I hope you feel like you were there, minus the sunburn, headache and bug bites. See you next year!

Nonnie's here!

We sat outside and waited for Nonnie to get here yesterday (Thursday). And she finally got here!
Nonnie gives good hugs.
So does Anna.

Day two in a row of ballgames

Tuesday night after we went to the ballgame, Sadie fell asleep in the floor with the kittens. I think she was a little tired.

The next day, Anna let me put her hair up in pigtails. I had to gingerly comb over the paint in her hair. I'm too afraid to comb it out, lest she never let me comb her hair again. There's too much to cut it out, she'd have big bald spots. So, she just goes around looking like she's got pink and green hair spots. You can kinda see one of them in the middle a little to your right side.
And, Wednesday night we all went to the ballgame to see Brady (the boy across the street, who will someday probably marry one of my daughters - don't tell him I said that) play in a play-off game. His team won!
Conrad and Anna, a night out at the ballgame.
Brady, swinging that bat!

Anna paying attention and cheering him on.

Sadie and Madeline, not paying attention and egging each other on.
When the ballgame was over, we put all our chairs back in their respective bags and Anna, of course, has her own chair (and don't you dare sit in it). Well, she decided she needed to carry it. I figured, "sure, carry it, you won't get far before I'll be carrying if for you". Oh, no. She carried/drug that thing all the way to the van. Do you know how excruciatingly long it takes for a 21 month old to carry/drag a chair all the way to her vehicle? Let's just say, someday, when I go to my reward, God in heaven will say, "I knew you had patience, it just took that 5th kid to show you".


This video is of her dragging it.

In memory

Imagine, if you will, there is a picture of a soccer player wearing a "Killer Duck" yellow jersey on this particular blog. He would be tall and Mr. Clean bald. If he were on the field, he'd be playing hard and if he were off the field he'd be enjoying life, his wife and his children and grandchildren. He will be missed.

Rest in Peace, Terry Way.

Mads and the frog

I have to say, I love this time of year. It's warm but not excrutiatingly hot. School's almost out. Everyone has "end of school" fever. No one wants to do homework, no one wants to enforce homework (although I do it anyway). After Sadie finished her homework, we went and watched her best friend's brother play baseball.

Madeline got to play with her "boyfriend" Kolton while we watched the game and they caught this frog.
They were so proud. There were some parents who were less than thrilled with the prospect of seeing a frog. Watching their reaction alone was worth whatever trauma that poor frog went through.

Mother's Day Tea Part 2

Well, it turns out, when Anna knocked my camera to the floor, she merely knocked the memory card out of it's place so all the pictures I had were still on there when I saw that the card was out a little this morning. Awesome!

Here are what the tables looked like. And that plant in the middle? I got to take it home. They drew names and Madeline's was drawn first and so I, her mom, got the plant. How wonderful!

This is the wonderful Mrs. Marshall (Madeline's teacher). Her pink shirt says "You can't scare me, I'm a teacher". I loved it.
This is another mom taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. I guess you probably figured that out, though.
Today must be clean up day. Madeline swept the driveway and the sidewalk.
Sadie trimmed the bushes.
And Anna just rubbed her belly.

To all you mothers out there. Have a wonderful Mother's Day. And to Mumsey, I love you! And to Auntie B. I love you, too!

Mother's Day Tea

A second update today.

Madeline's class invited the mothers to come have tea today. They sang a song and read their "Odes" to their mothers. I'm not sure if that's the right term or not. You can decide, here is Madeline's.




The actual words were - in case you couldn't hear: "Mom I love you for so many reasons...you are nice. You snuggle with me. You are fun. You never lie to me. I appreciate you."



I had asked her before when she told me they were going to sing a song if I was going to cry. She said, "well, pretty much". The song didn't get me but the "Ode" did.



Then we had cake and "tea" (apple juice for me). The Mrs. Marshall handed us our "babies".

They put sand in a bag that weighed what the kids did when they were born. Then they put legs and arms and a face on them. Madeline's face is crying. I'm not sure why. But, I gotta tell you, sand is alot heavier than babies are.

It was a really nice afternoon. Thank you Kindergarten and Mrs. Marshall.

And, Happy Birthday to my former Mother-in-Law, Anne. I'm not sure that she reads this but if she does...yep, I remember!

Morning show mom update

I have no pictures right now, but, I wanted to update you. I did NOT get the "morning show Mom" gig. Some other mom got it. If they had even let me try, I am sure I would have gotten it but....tomorrow's another day.

I will be going to a Mother's Day tea in a bit at the school so I will take pictures there and post them later.

Rainbow connection

Good Evening. I hope you are all having a spendid day. I did my usual, then I mowed the grass, then weed-eated (or should that be weed-eatered or ate weeds?) then I made dinner. Yep, that's me, super-woman. Nah, my neighbor cut his and the other neighbors' yard and mine was just looking really sloppy after that. And, now I'm hungry, so I have to cook. Bleh.

Sunday, we finally got the gardenia planted! Woohoo! Of course, it will probably die, now. I'll keep you posted on it's survival. Here it is in it's new home. Madeline picked it out. (It's the green with the tag on it)

I cut Madeline's bangs last night. I think she likes it.
Anna worries about so many things. Can't you tell?
Dining al fresco. We brought all the kittens outside today. Too cute. Momma worried about them the whole time. The 4 legged momma, not me.

Madeline has learned a song (I think for graduation). Here she is in all her glory.

Ok, so today I sent an e-mail about a new thing the radio station I listen to in the morning is doing. The want a "morning show Mom". If you want to read about it, it's on www.kiddlive.com (or if you'd like to send them an e-mail telling them how good I would be for the job, that'd be great). I think I would be great for it and I'll keep you informed if I hear anything from it. I don't know why I told y'all, I always keep these things to myself for fear of jinxing it. But maybe I'm supposed to put it on here. So, there you go. Now, you know. Keep your fingers crossed!

Quatro de Mayo

Yesterday, the kids were out of school for "Cinqo de Mayo". Don't get me wrong, I love Mexico. I love mexican food. I love margaritas which you find in mexican restaurants. I love that Mexico won it's independence from something. But do we, Americans, really need to make it a national holiday? If you are hispanic and want to celebrate it by taking your children out of school, fine by me. I generally take my children out for the opening day of baseball season. I don't expect the school to make it a holiday, however. I would have rathered my children go to school yesterday and been out a day earlier at the end of the year, especially since we're having to tack on an extra day for snow this year. Just my personal opinion. Don't even get me started on Ceasar Chavez day.

OK, on to more fun things. And I will admit that not getting up and going to school was nice yesterday. I'm looking forward to a whole summer of that.

The girls decided they would have make up day yesterday since I decided to clean house and all I asked them to do to help me was not mess up as fast as I cleaned up. Didn't really work but I did get the office clean and my room partially clean.

Then, some of the kittens got their first taste of outside.

3 weeks old now. WooHoo!

Just craziness

OK, so I have an apology to make. I am sorry that I have been so lax in blogging lately. When I was thinking of apologizing, I thought "Well, surely they understand how busy I am".

But, in reality, isn't that one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place? To take a step back and see how zany life is and still soldier on, even in the face of unrelenting life? The answer is "yes". I thought that sharing my (our) wacky life would ease the sometimes burden of day-to-day living. I say sometimes burden because it is hard to go on sometimes, when it seems wheels are spinning, or it seems we're taking two steps forward and one step back. Luckily it's not ALL the time, but sharing those times really does make it easier to see the beauty and the fun and the pure joy that is to be had out of life.

So, I apologize to y'all for not sharing with you and I apologize to me for essentially making it harder for myself. I will make sure I take my camera everywhere with me again and not miss all those moments that make up this thing we call life.

Now, let me catch you up on things...

Saturday, after Sadie's first communion, we went strawberry picking. The girls had fun and strawberries are a favorite in our house.

The perfect looking strawberry, don't you think?


Yummy...

We've been looking for a new nursing home for Uncle Ernie. The one he is in has really gone downhill and, frankly, hearing how they don't come when he needs them, how they take his stuff, etc. is very hard to hear. It's all true, but it's stuff I have complained about over and over to the powers that be and obviously they can't change things so we have to do what we have to do.

So, Tuesday, a new place we had looked at and Uncle Ernie had fallen in love with, called and they were ready to take on new patients. "Could he move in today?" they asked. "We're on our way" I said. So I went over to his old place and I asked him "would you like to move today?" to which he replied "let's go!". So, off we went. Kicking the dust from the old place (to quote the scripture from Sunday) and appreciating the newness and attentiveness at the new place. He is one of only 3 people at the new place. That will, of course, change,but for now he's probably getting tired of all the attention (not).

Moving was not what I had planned for Tuesday. But that is my life. I never know what I'll be doing. I know most of the times it is NOT what I had planned. Alot of times, it's good that I don't do what I planned. Of course, my house might be cleaner...ah, heck, who needs a spotless house?



So, if you want to go see Ernie, call me and I'll be glad to tell you how to get to where he is now.

Now, that brings us to today. I had tone chimes and choir practice. At the time I needed to leave, down came a deluge. I drove the truck to the church. I drove down Lamar, not able to see well out of the windshield because - bless it's heart - the truck, she ain't what she used to be and her defrost doesn't work as well as it should - and I thought we would both drown in the water. I went over the bridge and again, drowning images came to mind. Once I got throught THAT water, I had no brakes. Thank goodness I wasn't going very fast. I'm sure that SUV in front of me is saying the same thing.

Then I got to the church and hmmmm, can you imagine? They were in the process of cancelling everything. Wow. Now I get to go back through all that mess. So, I decided to go back a different way and didn't even hardly get turned before I realized that way was worse that the way I had come. I finally went into the Walgreens parking lot and stayed there until the water subsided. (smart, huh?)



You'll have to enlarge the picture to see how far up on that car the water goes.

And then, he sent a rainbow.