April Showers . . .

April was a busy month for us. We took a trip back to Oxford and Miami University during our spring break. Danny participated in a Conference with old professors on campus while the kids and I painted pottery at "You're Fired." It is an awesome studio owned by my good friend Lisa Leishman. Emily painted a butterfly and Sam turned a flower pot into a Super Mario Pot.

It was also Kidsfest Weekend at Miami. They had bouncers, games, every meal, movies, crafts, prizes and all kinds of entertainment for the AWESOME price of free!!!



Our favorite were the pirates. Jack Sparrow was there and made it a point to compliment Johnny Depp in doing such a good job of portraying him in all of his movies. He was seriously SO good.


And that was just the beginning of April.

Getting Down With Derby

Sam looked forward to his chance at participating in the Pinewood Derby for years. We have a movie called "Down with Derby" that gave him a kind of skewed perspective of what it would really be like but never the less it was memorable.


Danny and Sam worked super hard together to come up with his dream car and Emily played with all of the scraps. Sam learned how to use a power saw, power drill and logged a lot of time with the sanding block. They went shopping together for the perfect paint color and fillers and then made sure to add the paint in lots of layers, sanding in between to get the highest sheen. Then Sam added cool stickers to put on the number one and to name it windjet.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I was a nervous mama the morning of the race because just like every other boy in the room Sam was SUPER positive that all of his work and his newly acquired knowledge on the power of graphite would pay off. OF COURSE his little wooden hot rod was going to beat out the competition. I could see the look on other mom's faces too. It was emotional for me because with every race there was a loser and some little guys even burst into tears.

A little hand is pointing out Sam's hot red car.

But race after race Sam's car won until the very end. His car won the wolf division that consisted of all the 8 year olds and took second in the overall pack. Not too bad for the first try. He was a really gracious winner but didn't quite know what to do when he accepted his trophy and everyone was cheering. So he just waved his hand, did a little gunpoint and flick of the wrist as he winked and said, "yeah, thanks." It was hilarious and had the parents rolling.

Our cute neighbor Sid came to watch the fun with his mom Janine and sister Layla.
Our troop leader made super cute badges for each of our boys.

He is already talking about next years car :)

Lots to Read

So I just did a little blog-a-thon. You might want to keep scrolling down and maybe even look at older posts if you want to see it all.

Trauma

WARNING: If you don't deal well with wounds you might want to skip this.
The last Wednesday of April Emily was playing in our neighbor's yard with her little friends and I called her home to come with me to drop a meal off to a friend who just had a new baby. Emily left a blanket in the neighbor's yard when she came with me and ran across the street to get it when we returned home.
What we didn't know is that when she left the neighbor took his kids inside and put their aggressive, VERY protective dog outside.
Em bent down to get her blanket and then looked up to see a large shepherd mix coming at her face. She quickly stood up and tried to run away but just wasn't quite fast enough. Little Bear got a pretty big bite of her leg.
She came home completely frantic and we quickly took her to an urgent care. Normally they would have liked to have stitched it but since it was a bite they had to leave it open in case of infection.
We had to visit our pediatrician twice more that week so they could keep an eye on it and the health department made a visit to keep an eye on the dog that was not current with its rabies shots. The girl seems healthy and so does the dog.
The pediatrician originally wanted us to see a plastic surgeon but by Saturday it had closed by itself beautifully.
She was pretty traumatized at first but has since loved on several other friendly neighborhood dogs. Here's hoping she continues to not be too scared.

A Wish on a Candle

So now that I have access to all of my pictures on my computer it has been interesting to go back and look at the year I didn't blog. Emily's birthday from last year was one of those events that didn't get shared. It is crazy to look back and see how much has changed in one year. The huge difference between the Kindergartener and the 1st grader. The year seems to have wisped by like the breath that was used to blow out her candles





We celebrated at Build-a-Bear with a handful of her school friends. It was super easy and amazingly inexpensive compared to parties of previous years where we entertained whole families.


She decided she wanted store bought cookies and Capri Suns for her class treat.

It is ALL Good but the NUMBER. . .

So another birthday came and went. The kids were cute. Danny was cute.

Love all the cards and birthday wishes.

Love my Rug and crystal light.
Love my clock.

And you've got to love all the bedhead pictures.
The number that is now mine? Not so much :)

It is hard to admit I have entered a new category on surveys. Why is it that they have to make you go from being grouped with the 20 year olds to being grouped with the 50s? Not that there is anything wrong with the 50s. I'm just not ready to go there myself:)

The Mother of All Cookies

I was the cookie mom again this year for our girl scout troop. Most of March was about cookies, cookies, cookies. Our troop was awesome and sold 3600 boxes. That is 300 cases or 3 Honda Odysseys and a Ford Excursion full of cookies. We earned lots of incentives, troop money and the bonus T-SHIRTS.
The pictures are just the first load. Glad that is behind me.

February Twenty-Ten

February in Cleveland seems harder for me each year. There is NO sun, I have NO energy, NO motivation and I tend to eat WAY too much and we all get sick. My poor house. My poor family. My poor body. But then March comes and the sunshine returns and I am again happy, motivated and start getting things done that I just think about doing in February:)

We did have SOME fun and I DID get a few things done that are evidenced in the next few pictures.
I was in charge of helping our Girl Scout troop make THESE centerpieces for a Valentine's Day spaghetti dinner put on by the church that sponsors our troop.



Sam has become a big fan of "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" book series and loves the part where Greg Heffley confiscates his mom's bathrobe to stand over the heat vents on cold mornings. Cleveland has lots of cold February mornings and so Sam continually requested a bathrobe. I looked at Macy's, 2 Targets, 2 Walmarts, JCPenny, Sears, Dillards, Children's Place, TJMaxx, Nordstrom's, Kohl's and a few more stores that I am sure I am forgetting to no avail. There were only one size fits all men's bathrobes and lots of bathrobes in pastel prints. I finally stopped by Walgreens and found these kid Snuggies to warm up their Valentine's Day.
They were ecstatic and look a little like Boobahs when they wear them.



We prepped our house for THESE. . .

and I made a couple of THESE. I feel a huge Goody Gumdrops post coming on.

Sorry about my Playlist

I have had a playlist on my blog for way over a year. I put it up and have basically ignored it ever since. Just today I opened my blog and there was a VERY OFFENSIVE announcement on it. I think someone hacked it. I have tried to log in and change or remove my list and even with a new password they emailed to me I CAN NOT log in.
I am sooo sorry if you have had to hear that. If you hear a womans voice saying, "Attention Customer" close your screen.

Sorry about that. I have written support services.

March Mayhem Then

So March of 2009 marked a milestone in my life. I had the first birthday where I really didn't care to let people know how old I was. This "how old I was" put me in a new catagory for surveys, a new catagory with the O.B. if I decided to have another child and then just one day after this said birthday I was closer to 40 then 30. I didn't like it. I DID like the card and headphones I got from my hubby and kids, the gorgeous tulips from my sisters, the cards and checks from family and all the wishes I got on Facebook for the first time. So I guess it wasn't all that bad :)


In the middle of March we had a day off from school and decided to take a road trip with the Smiths and Larsens to the Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To keep kids together during group down time we decided to shelve them but didn't worry about alphabetization.

Camille and Sam shelf life 5 and 7 years.


Jenny, Spencer and Austin, shelf life 7,7 and just short of 1.


They all took a spin in the Earthquake Cafe. They got to choose a button that would serve up an earthquake the same strength of one that had occured earlier in history (i.e. Chile 7.1)
My kids loved building a capsule to encase an egg that was then strapped to the top of a car of their choosing and sent hurdling down a ramp.

Emily was so excited unknowingly celebrating the demise of her little oval friend.

Sam was a little more generous with his layering of bubble wrap, tape, foam, tape, bubble wrap, aluminum foil, tape, tape, and tape and his little eggbert lived to thank him.


We ended a long, fun day at Steak and Shake.





And just a silly random, Sam the Storm Trooper.