Stuff

Mark blogged again, so it got be in the mood. Over Easter we had a nice visit with Kathi, Michael and kids. We rented the bikes at Lakes Park. Mark is a brave man escorting 11 kids around the park. They all had a great time.

Katie looks like such a big girl sitting up front by herself.

We spent a lot of time swimming at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Katie and Ty are both doing great with arm swimmies. Katie loves to jump in and seems to be working on her diving form.

I bet the neighbors thought it was loud! :) Lots of laughter and fun times.

We seem to have fallen into a routine of Donuts and the newspaper on Sunday morning. Emily and Sarah love to read the comics.

We took Brenna with us to a "Cooks in the Kitchen" program sponsored by the Junior League.

They had all kinds of things for the kids to try. Emily and Sarah loved the Yoga Class. A couple of ladies asked me if I had the kids enrolled in yoga somewhere. Ummm, no. :)

Mark spent a few days in DC for the National Math Conference. Before he left, he took the kids out for a daddy day. They went to lunch and Chuck E. Cheese.

Ty likes to plan his own outfits now. Many days that means PJs, but now he is exploring other things.

Here Sarah is preparing for the King's Kids Jamboree. The girls worked very hard this year.

When Mark packed for DC he took a bunch of tracts to pass out. I thought that was a great idea.

My mom planned a Tea Party for the cousins and their dolls.
Ty and Katie got to come by default. I knew Katie would get messy so she went topless!

The King's Kids Jamboree is always a fun time for our family. Mark and I work with the kids on Wednesday nights to get them ready for the big day. We also have practice the night before.

Here are Mark and another worker, Scott.

Emily and Sarah were 2 of the 5 people on the quiz team. They won 2nd place! We were very proud of all 5 of them. The team that beat them have 3 6th graders that are amazing. Our team only lost by 2 questions.

Grandma, Grandma, Grandpa and Abby all came to watch. Tay, Logan and Chloe were there too. Tay was a huge help because she volunteered to watch Ty and Katie during part of the time where Mark and I both had to be in the sanctuary. Thanks Tay!

This is the lineup for the Memory Verse Contest. Sarah worked so hard this year and got 3rd place! She was beat out by 2 of the 6th graders I mentioned earlier. She had over 50 verses prepared word perfect. This was a very stressful moment, but so rewarding to see the hard work that was put in to memorizing Bible Verses.

Part of our Winning Team.
This is the Great Missionaries Relay Team. I love practicing the relays with the kids. They are so fast! I would have loved this as a child.

Ty isn't part of the team yet, but he ran up to get in the picture. Such a poser!

I love to see Kiara in there. This was the twins first year and they both did a good job.

Sarah came away with many ribbons and 1 book. She and Emily both memorized Psalms 75 and were awarded a book. She also got first prize in Story Telling. Great job, Sarah!

Emily also won several ribbons. She won 1st place in Bible Storytelling. She told the story of the 10 plagues. I was so impressed with her stage presence and how she interacted with the audience. She is going to be an awesome Sunday School Teacher or Teacher one day.

Afterwards we took Alison and Baileigh with us to the beach and to Dairy Queen. The Huxley Family is heading back to Michigan for several months. I think we are all sad to see them go.

Matching Batman(Batman?)

Ty has a thing for PJs.

Mark and I spent 3 days in New York. We love the city and found loads of new places to enjoy. We saw 4 shows and ate way too much pizza. There are so many place in New York to get pizza, so we sampled many.
This is a restroom in the middle of the road. Hmm.

This was for Emily. There is a HUGE billboard advertising Sims 3 in the middle of Times Square.

I love the hustle and bustle of Times Square.

Spring was starting to ...spring in the city. Tulips are my favorite so I had to get a picture of this in Battery Park.

We traded picture duties with another couple.

We also toured the Tenentment House Musuem. It was the best historical tour I have been on. I highly recommend it.

We went on the boat to see the Statue of Libery and Ellis Island. We go there early and were able to get a Pass to tour the pedestal of the Statue of Libery.

Here is the inside with the spiral stairs that lead up to the crown. They are closed right now, but that would be very exhausting!

At the M & M store we found out that Mark was in a pink mood.

We bought the kids a few souvineirs. We went to a comic book store and were able to buy a bunch of cheap Archie comics. The girls love Archie Comics! They spent most of the day reading them. I wish I would have thought to pick up some Richie Rich for them. They don't know him ... yet.

We went to the Mother Daughter Banquet with Grandma June, Mom, Keela, Kiara, Kaylie, Tay, Chloe, Grandma and Abby. The girls sang 2 songs with the girls choir.

I was the lucky receipent of a delicious Mother's Day breakfast.

Ty is in the 'giving up nap' phase. Yuck! The other night it was about 10:30. I thought he was asleep and I look down the hallway and see the picture below. He had changed into different pajamas and was now sporting a Batman mask.

Emily and Sarah enjoyed playing in the rain recently. We are so glad to have at least a little rain. We need it so badly here.

Sarah at the beach

Tonight, Sarah and I met Kathi's family at the beach to take their pictures. I couldn't resist snapping just a few quick pictures of her. We had fun chatting to and from the beach. I had to take a few work calls during the way and Sarah had a play phone and pretended she was working too. She wants to be an online teacher one day!

scrapbook page

I guess I have caught the scrapbooking bug again. It started when I saw the Husted family blogs and the fun scrapbook weekend they went on recently. Then I was at Keela's sorting pictures and couldn't wait to get creative again.

I guess I will take a break from facebook, twopeas, welltrained mind and all the other non-work computer stuff I have been doing. Scrapbooking has always been a nice retreat. My goal is to finish all of December and get it sent off to make a book by the end of April.

Here is just one page of Katie playing on the steps at Mammaw's house in December.

Wicked

Tonight, Emily, Sarah and I went to see Wicked at Barbara B. Mann. It was wonderful! If you get a chance to go see it, definetly go.

We loved Galinda and Elphaba. The story line tells the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz and what happens before Dorothy arrives in town.

I love that Emily and Sarah enjoy doing things like this with me.

Katie 18 months

Katie is officially 1 1/2 years old. She is now closer to 2 , then 1. :( Our 'baby' is growing up.

She is still a delight and a very good child. We have had to discipline her over her diaper antics. Mark vows to make the girl wear pants until she is potty trained. If I see her smeared in poop again I might agree!

She is getting more and more verbal each day and we love to hear her little voice. Lately she is into her babies and likes to wrap them in blankets and look at books with them. I love it! She loves animals, especially neighborhood dogs.

Jeff Kinney

This weekend we attended the Southwest Florida Reading Festival with Chandler and Holly. We had a chance to see Lois Lowry and meet Jeff Kinney.

Jeff Kinney is the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We got lucky and were able to find him hanging out under a shade tree signing autographs. He was a neat guy, seemed humble in the face of his rising popularity. When it came time to go into the auditorium to hear him speak it was chaos. The scene was similar to Black Friday at Walmart. Craziness. He talked for about 20 minutes and then they started the autograph process. Imagine 1,000 people crowded in a room that should hold less than that, all wanting autographs.....except for the six of us. We happily stood and strolled out the door with autographed books in hand. Nice moment. :)

Emily-Double Digit!

Hard to believe, but Emily has hit double digits! On March 10th, she turned 10 years old. We celebrated and had a great time!

On Friday before her birthday, she invited some of her friends over for a party.

They started off in the backyard with silly string, squirt guns and a water slide. They had loads of fun and there was lots of high pitched, girly screaming! I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed it. :)

All the girls made flip flops to take home. Emily picked out the fabric and I think they looked great.

On her actual birthday we decided to head to Fort Myers Beach to go Parasailing. I just love this picture.

This is the reason I am chicken to go. Makes my stomach turn, but Mark, Emily and Sarah loved it!

Smiley Sarah! Emily is hoping we do this for Sarah's birthday too! She wants to reap the benefits.

While we waited for them to finish, Katie, Ty and I just hung out on the sand. Katie thought that would be a great time for a sand facial. She patted the cold, wet sand all over her face. She loved it. Several people passed me and told me she had sand in her face/eyes. The girl was all smiles and didn't seem to mind. I just let her play.

She was a teeny bit excited.

My mom had planned to go with them, but my Grandma June was feeling sick so she bowed out to go check on her. Grandma is in the hospital with pneumonia. Please keep her in your prayers.

That evening we headed to Lakes Park to fly kites and have cake.
I had to put this picture in. I couldn't believe I didn't have another one of Mammaw. She was at the beach with us and Lakes Park and the only picture I have is of her untangling kites. Sorry Mammaw. We did keep busy with those kites!

Some more kite fliers! Tay, Randy, Logan and Chloe were there too! I think I chased too many kites and didn't get enough pictures.

Our four sweeties! 10, 8, 3 and 1.

Here are some more pictures of our 10 year old.

recently...

We went to the Annual Edison Festival of Light 1 1/2 weeks ago. The Roberts Family joined us and we had a great time. I have been going to this parade since I was a kid and I love to take my own. (They are watching fireworks in the pics below.) I always appreciate my mom going early to save our spots. Thanks mom!

Brooke, Sarah and Emily

Parades are Katie's thing. It means sitting and watching fun stuff and.....eating! Yum. I think she sampled EVERYONES snacks. She also enjoyed waving to everyone. She waved with such devotion. I think she thought they were all waving at her, not the crowd, just her.

Katie and Chloe are so cute together. Chloe is getting used to the very affectionate hugs that Katie gives her.

Katie is also our thumb sucker and hair twirler. Emily and Sarah just being goofy.

My latest garage sale find is this wondeful Library cart. I love it! The man I bought it from got it from Edison College Library. He works there and they were getting rid of the awhile back. I love it because it is compact, rolls very easily and fits all of our homeschooling books.
I seriously love this cart.
Here it is in action. This is a typical morning at our house. Mark working. Emily and Sarah schooling. Ty and Katie coloring. Me taking pictures.
Here is another day. This is pre-cart days, so notice the messy pile of books on the table. (I just love my cart.)

Sarah got her hair cut and looks so cute! She went for a layered look and takes pride in fixing it herself. I think she looks much older!

We enjoyed having Mammaw over for lunch and to play games. She loves to play bananagrams, 300 wishes and Blokus and so do we!

Just wanted to share my youngest students!

Nice cheese smily from Katie!