Egg Hunts

Zach had two different egg hunts today.  The first was after church.  Eggs were scattered on the lawn and they could each get 10 eggs.

I never realized until today what a nice group of kids we have at church.  There for awhile there were hardly any. 

The second egg hunt was in the afternoon, our neighborhood one.  It had been postponed twice due to rain.  When it was time for the 5-6-year-olds to do the egg hunt Zach was right there with the rest of the boys. 

They could pick up as many eggs as they wanted and Zach filled his bucket with them. 

It's amazing how much faster this age group is than the 0-2 age group!  There were only 3 kids in that group and they took forever!  There were a ton of kids in Zach's age group and the eggs were scooped up within minutes.  Afterwards the kids were to put their eggs into a bin.  All of the eggs were empty except for a few that had a penny in them.  All you had to do was shake them to see if you were a winner and guess what?  Zach won!

The basket was his prize (there were 4 prizes for this age group) and all the stuff in his blue bucket was what he got after he turned his empty eggs in.  He got little toys, candy and even a coloring book with crayons.  Wow!

I went to put Zach's basket in the car and when I came back Paul was wearing bunny ears! Okay?!?... 

They were having an adults only egg hunt so I quickly dissed Zach and jumped in and got my bunny ears too!  Unfortunately neither one of us won.  The prizes were either wine or beer!  I guess there's always next year but at least one person in the family won something.  Go Zach!

Another Soccer Game

After taking almost a week off for her quad injury Lauren was cleared to play today. ( She had to sit the bench for this past Wednesday's game.)  She played the whole game in defense and did an awesome job at it.  Here's a few pics from today's game:

I had to add that last picture only because of the opponent's expression! 

They won 3-1.

First Soccer Game of the Season

Today was Lauren's 1st soccer game of her junior year.  She's moved positions this year and now she's playing defense and mid.  With all the seniors that left last year it left a big hole in their defense and because Lauren is fast her coach wanted her to play there.  She's played defense before for her travel team but it's been years since she's done that.  She's up for anything though.

Luckily I got a couple of pictures of her during the 15-20 minutes she played.  Once she got a sub she came off the field and ran straight over to the athletic trainer.  I had no idea what was wrong with her until afterwards but apparently she pulled her quad.  She was out the rest of the game and was told to rest it all weekend. 

The game ended with them winning 5-2.  After every game the teams always slap hands when it's over.  This team was so nice, they handed each one of our girls a gatorade. 

Here's something else I've never seen before either.  After they went through the line and slapped hands they all headed out to the middle of the field and formed a circle with the other team mixing in with ours.

It finally dawned on me then that the other team was a christian school and that they were praying.  How neat!  After being injured Lauren sure could use prayer!

Happy (Late) St. Patrick's Day!

I never got a chance to pose my kids with these silly wigs yesterday so I was determined to get a picture of them today, even if it was a day late.

It would have been cuter if they had been wearing green too.  

Enjoying the Nice Weather

We spent the morning playing over at the park with Ryan and Alex.  It was a beautiful day to be outside and the kids had a lot of fun.  Here's the one picture I have where they are all together.

From left to right:  Alex, Kristin, Zach, Ryan and Megan.  Lauren was still home sleeping, I don't think she even knew that we left!

Here's a few other pictures from our time spent at the park:

Once it got to be lunch time we went back to our house, ate and then the boys played awhile.  They're playing Mario Kart here.

The boys went back outside to hit a few baseballs before Ryan had to leave.  (Katie took Alex home earlier for a nap.)  What a fun day!

Little League

Zach had his first Little League practice tonight.  I can't believe he's old enough to start doing sports!  There are 10 kids on his team and 9 of them were at practice tonight.  They warmed up and then ran the bases. 

They listened to the coach give instructions (as much as 5 and 6-year-olds could).

There was some throwing practice...

Of course they also practiced hitting off the tee since it is t-ball.  I don't have any pictures of that though. 

Here's a little video of him throwing the ball against the fence.

A couple of times he got distracted and started playing tag with some of the other boys but other than that he did an awesome job.  Paul helped coach so there were 4 people helping with 9 kids.  That was probably a good thing too with the attention spans these kids have.  

Take Your Kids to Work...

No, it wasn't officially take your child to work day, my kids just didn't have school today so Kristin and Zach came with me.  Megan doesn't want anything to do with my M/W/F class (they're quite loud!) and Lauren wanted to catch up on her sleep so they stayed home. 

Kristin and Zach picked a good day to come since we were celebrating St. Patrick's day. Snack today was Irish soda bread which I normally am not fond of but this one was really good. (We also had it yesterday with my T/Th class!) Before snack though we took the kids on a walk to see if they could find a leprechaun but they didn't see any so we headed back to the room.  Would you believe that a leprechaun came in while we were gone and messed up our room?  He threw backpacks on the floor and knocked over chairs and even left footprints on the bathroom door.  Kristin got a big kick out of the kids reactions.  Most were super excited but a couple were more hesitant.  That silly leprechaun even turned our milk green!

Later the kids all turned into leprechauns.  Here's my cute little leprechaun:

We put Kristin to work, here she is gluing pages into the kids letter books.

Now she's vacuuming.  Yay Kristin!  I might bring you every day.

Now to hope that none of the kids picked up any bugs while they were there.  I'm always a little hesitant on taking them with me for that reason but I know Zach loves going.   

Concert Time

Kristin had her second concert of the year tonight.  Luckily for me it was just band performing and nothing else, no orchestra and no chorus.  Yay!  It's not that I don't like listening to the others, it's just so time consuming every time they switch from one group to the next and that makes the concerts last really long.  Tonight the only switch was after the 6th grade band finished and the 7th/8th grade band took their place. 

Kristin sat in her usual seat, second row right on the end.  I got a really good seat too so had she bothered to look out into the audience she would have easily seen me (or PopPop, he came too.)  Here's a few video clips from 2 of the 4 songs they performed.  This song is called The Water is Wide.

The third song they performed was called Around the World in 80 Measures.  This featured 19 different songs that we were supposed to identify.  Here's 2 different clips, the beginning of the song and the end of the song.  See how many countries you can identify.



The United States ones are easy, Stars and Stripes Forever and Yankee Doodle.  Other easily identifiable ones were:  The Mexican Hat Dance (Mexico), Can-Can (France), Waltzing Matilda (Australia) and O Canada (obviously Canada).  There were other songs from Japan, Israel, Germany and Korea just to name a few.  That was a cute piece and neat how the band director got the audience involved. 

Not once during the performance did Kristin look out into the audience.  Not even when she took her seat when they switched.  She didn't see us until the very end when the whole band stood up. 

Yet again another successful band concert.  She has one more to go during her middle school years and then she moves up to the high school band.  That should be interesting!

T-ball Time

A couple weeks ago Paul signed Zach up to play in Little League this spring.  To get him ready I bought him a tee and some balls and Paul got a bat from someone at work who's son has outgrown it.  Of course ever since then each weekend has been cold (or we've been busy) and he hasn't had a chance to use it.  Today was finally the day though.  He was excited and he got everything set up and Paul showed him how to do it...

His second solo attempt.  His first time he knocked the tee apart!

This video you're going to love!  It looks like I was standing close but I actually had the camera zoomed in on him.  I still should have stood a little further back though because I didn't realize how hard he would hit it.

He hit me right above my left knee!  I'll never get another video/picture from that vantage point ever again!  So on that note I was done filming.  I  hope you got a little laugh from that video, I sure did.

Happy Valentine's Day

With Valentine's Day on a Tuesday we didn't do much.  We went to work/school and that was about it!  My little two-year-olds at school had their class party which went well and of course I brought home tons of chocolate that they had gotten me.  Then after work I went over to Zach's school to help with his class party.  Nothing too exciting there.   I did get the kids these cool looking glasses that they just loved modelling...

They were thrilled.  Lauren was getting ready to leave for work so I had very little time to plan it other than to throw the glasses at them and say put these on and look happy.  At least they know how to follow directions!  And that was about the extent of our Valentine's Day.  Hope yours was a little better.  Happy Valentine's Day everyone!



Happy Birthday Megan!

Yesterday Megan turned 12 and she wanted to start off her day by going to breakfast.  So when the roads thawed out from the ice the night before we went to where she wanted to go, Perkins.  She chose not to have them sing to her but she did get to bring home a chocolate chip muffin to eat later. 

She had the option of opening her presents when she got home but she wanted to wait until after dinner.

She got lots of cool stuff like money, a fashion handbook, a new comforter for her bed just to name a few.  Then it was time for cake.  She wanted a cheesecake and not just any cheesecake.  Specifically the kind you can buy that has a variety of different kinds in it.  So here she is with her yummy looking cheesecake that she picked out.

Happy Birthday Megan!

Snow

Finally we got a little bit of snow to play in.  Unfortunately for me it came on a weekend so no day off from work . :( 

It snowed overnight Friday so we woke up to a coating Saturday morning.  It was a dreary day with the snow changing over to drizzle as the temperature warmed up but we did manage to get out and enjoy playing in it for a little bit. 

First we had to shovel the driveway and front walk:

We needed their help too because the snow was very heavy due to a coating of ice on top of it.  Zach and Megan didn't shovel for long before the sleds were calling their names.  Time for some fun!

I will be perfectly fine if we don't see anymore snow this winter and if it does snow it better do it during the week and snow enough that I get a day off of work!

Cousins

We were invited to Kelly's house for brunch on Christmas Eve and I just now downloaded the pictures off of my camera.  As I was looking at them I noticed that all of them were of the kids (cousins) so that's how the title of this post came about. 

First here's Alex, Lauren and Ilene posing for the camera.

Ryan is hanging out with his best buddy Megan:

Zachary, Ryan and Lehlan take a break from harassing the cats and stop to color.

Kristin and Megan just enjoying the morning.

Lehlan was pretending to play the guitar:

And lastly Ryan and Zachary doing some more coloring.

It was a nice morning and a wonderful start to the holiday festivities.  

First Job

Lauren has a job!!!!  Paul and I are thrilled!  She had applied everywhere she could think of the past couple of months and finally over Christmas break Domino's called her for an interview.  She went to the interview and was hired and began working this past week.

She's worked 3 nights so far and it seemed like she liked it at first but after working this past Friday night she came home and said she hated it. (It was a very busy night!)  Maybe once she's comfortable there and has a little more experience she'll change her mind.  Her first paycheck will help with that too!  Anyway, we're very proud of her for getting a job.

A New Year

I only have one picture from New Year's Eve/New Year's Day and that's this one...

I had to laugh when I opened her door and saw her like that!  She didn't even wake up when Lauren took her picture, she was out, slept right through the ball dropping.  Who knows how long she had been sleeping like that.  All I know is that she was tired because she had sleepovers the previous 2 nights and the last one she didn't go to sleep until 7:00 am!  Maybe next year she'll be able to ring in the new year.