Easter, Birthdays and Beyond...

April 11 was our April Birthday Bash at my mom's. We always have a big party around Easter for all the April birthdays in the family. There are 6 just on my mom's side of the family - 3 siblings, my daughter, hubby, and nephew). We have included March birthdays for the last several years as we've added several March birthdays to our family. Angel wanted a "hula girl" birthday. Here she is w/ her lei and wearing the top of her pinata on her head. :) We also colored eggs on the 11th. I don't know why- but I have no pics of that. :(
4/12 Easter - now there's a funny story. This beautiful pic of my kids in their Easter outfits was not taken early Easter morning as they excitedly got up and went to hunt Easter eggs. No - this was taken in the late afternoon because that was when I finally had both of my kids together for a photo! Due to an interesting misunderstanding, I gave my son permission to go home w/ his cousins after the birthday party Sat. (they live an hour away) I *thought* I was giving him permission to ride home w/ my in-laws (where we were staying the night). Imagine my surprise when my bro. told me he saw D in my sis' car and was pretty sure he had gone w/ them. And then imagine my feelings of anxiety when I realized that meant he would not be spending Easter morn w/ us...which meant no Easter morn pics in his nice, new suit!... Which made me wonder how my sis felt about him being at her house, in her family's Easter pics w/out a nice, new suit (of course she didn't care at all - even let him dye more eggs to have the Easter Bunny hide at her house!) Sooooooo - by the time my sis arrived at Mom's for Easter dinner, I had D change into his suit for a few pics and to go hunt his Easter eggs the the Easter Bunny had hidden at Grandma's. Angel had been so patient waiting for her bro so they could hunt eggs together. :)

4/13 Happy Birthday, Angel!!!! Angel chose to have several small celebrations for her birthday rather than one big party. So, I took stuff for root beer floats to Angel's class to celebrate her birthday w/ her friends from school. She got to wear a crown and birthday vest all day. :)
after school, we took Birthday Girl decorated sugar cookies to dance class to celebrate w/ her friends there. After dance class, we met another friend (and her family) at Chuck E. Cheese to further celebrate. It was a loooooooooooong, but fun, day!
4/14 - The kindergarten's Spring Performance at school. They sang many songs about spring weather. This one was about a rainbow, and they all held up pieces of construction paper to make a rainbow. :)

4/15 - I don't have a pic from Wed - so, let's skip ahead to Thurs, the 16th, and I'll give you a few bonus pics. ;) Angel sang the National Anthem at the BMX track for the first time this season. This is her 3rd season singing for them. She gets paid in Gatorade and a snack from the snack bar. :)
Here's D and a friend on the track. D's in 2nd place here. So far, he's doing very well this season, and continues to improve his lap times. Go, D!!!!4/17 Frank's birthday - and 2nd grade trip to the zoo. I had a great time w/ the kids, and got a nice heart-shaped sunburn on my chest. :)

4/18 Poor Frank - his b-day got kind of over looked, so he got his presents Sat. morn.
4/19 - Happy Birthday Chelle! I didn't take a pic on this day, either...can I interest you in one from 4/18? Frank and D videotaped their entries for the SATO 48 film contest on Sat, then edited Sun., 4/19.
4/20 - my birthday - and this is the pic. I got. :) D looks so cute in his digi-cammo outfit.Well - that's enough for this post, I think. I'll be back w/ more - promise! :)

I haven't been here since April 6!!!!!!

What's wrong with me? Nothing - that's what. It's just April. Busy, busy, busy. But now I feel bad, because I'm just sure that you're all dying to know what I've done everyday of my life since April 6th. To start with, I got over my mysterious illness. So did D. The short story is... school, laundry, day care, dishes, eating, sleeping, Easter and birthdays. That's what I've been up to. Here are some pics to give you a little more detail (which is what you're dying to see, I'm sure!)
April 7th, I got another early b-day present: iLife 09 - fun, fun, fun. Thank you Frank!

April 8th I was still not well. I remember this - I couldn't move! Somehow the soreness of my throat projected to the outside of my neck, and nothing felt better than a hot pad pressed against it. It was a good excuse to read more of the Twilight series, and play on the computer, though. I just couldn't handle housework - no way!
Apparently I wasn't around on the 9th. Maybe I slept all day, or couldn't move my neck. I don't know. I don't remember - and there are no photos to document that I did nothing that day. But, by April 10, I was up and around and heading out of town for Easter. I love Easter. I also love 2 hour car rides where children under the age of 9 sleep. :)
I'll be back to update you on the exciting adventures of Easter weekend. (but don't hold your breath - Hubby needs the computer now, and I still need to finish reading Breaking Dawn).

I've been scrapping!

Still not feeling well - neither is D, but hopefully we're on the upswing. I'm just stopping in to post some digi-scrapping LOs I've done this past week.
I scrapped my son, D, riding in the St. Pat's parade w/ my friend, Dani's Irelynn kit. It's a beautiful kit, perfect for St. Patricks day pics, and outdoor pics. Do you see that grass and clover border? I love it! I have a second page in the works with this one. :)
My next 3 LOs were made using Julie's Boy at Play kit. It's a great kit with masculine colors. I know I'll be using it over and over.




You can find the Irelynn kit by Dani's Delusions at Sunshine Studio Scraps. Keep an eye out - she's got a new store opening up at Plain Digital Wrapper, too!
Boy at Play by Julie.ItIs. can be found at Plain Digital Wrapper...here.

What a sorry sight I am

I'm sick! Sick, sick, sick. I feel absolutely horrible. I've been in PJs all day, drank 2 glasses of juice (the second served to me on a Dora the Explorer tray by my wonderful daughter), ate a few crackers and a pancake - made for me and brought over by my brother, Sean. D is also sick, and spent most of the day sleeping - either in my bed w/ me, or on the couch. Poor kid. "A" played at Sean's most of the day, so hopefully she was able to avoid all the nasty germs at home. Thanks, Sean, for buying my juice, taking care of A, and making dinner for us. :)
Yesterday, we spent some time at the park. It was really windy. The kids had fun with another family that had brought a kite. I took a few self-portraits of my windblown self. This is one of the better ones.
Friday, we went to see the Skinny Improv - a local comedy group. Their main stage show is like "Who's Line is it Anyway?", then the Mystery Hour is a late-night improv talk show. One of the guests this week was Jennifer Rothschild - a very inspiring lady. We always love going to their shows. It feels good to laugh out loud. We took the kids to the main stage show - they had a great time. The shows are always family friendly - which is very nice. Frank tapes the Mystery Hour for them. Here he is, hard at work.
I don't have a pic from Thurs., so I'll give you 2 from Wed. Hubby rented Twilight for me, which I've been re-reading, too. He even watched it with me! :)This is how he felt about it. Not his fave movie. :p

Tues. is cub scout day/YW day. The scouts get out earlier than the young women, so the boys have to wait for the parents who have to stay later. Here they are after scouts, wheeling and dealing Pokemon cards.
Hopefully the next time I post we'll all be feeling better.

Spring break

was last week. So was Dad's birthday. Monday evening, we went to Dad's to have dinner and celebrate his birthday. I love you, Dad! Here's a pic of my kids and Dad looking at the bragbook pages I made for him. Tuesday was a big day for D. He made Bobcat in Cub Scouts. Here he is w/ another boy getting their Bobcat pins. I'd been told that they turn the kids upside-down to put their pin on them - but apparently they don't do that anymore. :( Too bad - I thought that'd be fun. :)
Wed., we picked up the kids from spending the night at Grandad and Grandma Angie's, and headed to Branson. We love the Titanic Museum. I just took a pic as we drove by. We didn't go through it this time, but have before and really enjoyed it. We went to lunch on the "strip", then on to the vacation home rental we we staying at near Big Cedar. (south of Branson)
We had dinner w/ friends Wed. night, and they gave us tickets to Silver Dollar City. So, of course, we got up Thursday morn, and headed out to SDC for the day. We had a lot of fun. Of course I got pics of the kids, but I really liked this one. There were early spring flowers blooming all over the place, and daffodils everywhere. I wanted to get a pic all day - but we were always on the move and among other people - so I got this shot at the end of the day waiting for the trolley to take us back to our car.
Friday we went to the outlet mall mainly to check out the deals at the Oneida close-out sale. We picked up 2 boxes of new silverware to replace all the silverware that has been mysteriously disappearing since I've been watching my niece and nephew. Hubby has caught my niece several times throwing silverware away! There have obviously been many times no one has caught her, though, as our silverware is dwindling down to nothing, and I've taken to washing and re-using plastic spoons and forks! We also went to the Fudgery, Disney store, Polo and Claire's. Angel had fun in Claire's with the cool sunglasses and accessories. I don't know how much $$ I spent in that store as a teen, and looks like my girl may be on the same track. She spent $2 of her allowance on a pink, glittery brush/mirror that collapses and folds in half.
Saturday, we headed home just in time to drop the kids off at a birthday party. 1/2 an hour later, I had to pick up Angel to take her to a diff. party. This one was a pool party. Here she is standing under the tipping buckets. She's wiping water from her eyes as a bucket just tipped over right above her head.
Sunday night, some friends came over for dinner and games. Here they are being cute and in love. They're about to celebrate their 1st year of marriage in a couple weeks. Aren't they cute?

This morning, I caught Hubby and nephew having a quality moment. I thought it was cute enough to capture. :)So, we're done with spring break, and the kids are back to school today. I'm back to childcare, and Hubby's back to "work". It's Monday. Have a great week!

Broke my camera!

I'm so sad :( But also hopeful that I'll get a cool new one! So, for now, my Project 365 posts will be phone camera pics. It'll have to do. Actually, for this first one, I'm going to cheat. I friend emailed this pic to me that she got of D and a friend "break dancing" at the school dance. Aren't they so cool? (I took pics, too w/ my phone, but not this good).
Ok, I wasn't actually there for this one (but I would've taken it if I'd been there). Hubby took it w/ HIS phone. Sat., the boys took off to St. Louis to the Supercross. The lucky ducks got special access passes and spent the day w/ some of the big names in SX. At least I got to watch the races later on tv. While the boys were gone, the girls had some fun. Here's Angel and her aunt on the bumper cars at Incredible Pizza.

This is what Hubby did today. Don't worry it was on purpose. It's "cool", don't ya know? Once again, I did not take this pic. - wasn't even there. Like a good girl I was at church. A friend of mine (w/ a camera I'm seriously jealous of) took this pic.
The kids are on spring break this week - so hopefully we'll do some fun stuff, and I'll get great fuzzy camera phone pics to post up! :)

Did you miss me?

Yeah, I've been gone a while. Not out of town - just kind of out of it. Not feeling myself, you know? My schedule was disrupted, and I just lost motivation to do any of my normal stuff. I did, however help out at the kids' school a couple days this week, and that's always nice. :) So - I'll tell you what I have been up to w/ my daily photos. Here goes: Thursday, the 12, after swim lessons, D got his new iPhone! No - of course we did NOT get him a several hundred dollar glass screened phone! Well, we did...but not for several hundred dollars, hee hee. He actually bought it at a price he could afford from someone we know who had gotten it wet - so you can imagine it has problems. But, since all he wants it for is to play games and listen to music - he can get those parts of it to work, to some extent. For the price, it was worth it - and he loves it! :)

Friday, Frank and I got to go out to dinner and a movie. We went to our fave Mexican restaurant again. I just love the way the outside of the building is painted. Here's Frank "sitting" on a bench outside of the restaurant. Isn't he cute? (I'm sure that's his favorite word for me to use to describe him.) :)
Saturday was our St. Patrick's Day Parade. D rode w/ several people from Spokes BMX, and Frank walked along passing out flyers. D's the one in the green sweatshirt and red helmet on his race bike. Luckily, we had the luck o' the Irish w/ us, and his group was done before it started raining.
Sunday, Angel gave a talk in primary (the kid's meeting) at church. She did very well, even though the microphone wasn't working. She said she was nervous, but you couldn't tell. Damian has been asked to give a talk this next Sunday on the same subject in senior primary (for the older kids). That evening, Angel found her baby book, and wanted to go through it with me. That was fun - brought back a lot of memories.
Monday, my mom brought the munchkins back. My youngest bro and sis came, too, since they're on spring break. We had a nice visit - and now I'm back on my normal child care schedule again. Here's D showing off his monkey-like ability to climb walls. I was actually pretty impressed, because Mom and I both had him stay up there until we could get our cameras ready and take several shots each, while my little sis kept going back and forth under him. He held it for about 2 minutes, I think.
Tues, 17th - Happy St. Pat's Day!!!! Yes, we all wore green! (except T, as shown here). My bro had the day off and spent it taking his kids to the park for a picnic. They loved spending the day w/ their dad, and I think it really helped their transition back to us after 10 days of being spoiled by grandparents. I worked at the school in the morning, helping w/ kindergarten registration, then drove to the park to pick up Bro and munchkins (they had walked there). I snapped a few shots of them swinging first, though.
Wed. is our library story time day. Our normal story time lady is quitting to have a baby, and this was her last story time. We'll be sad to see her go, but she says she'll be back to visit. I'm always a little concerned everytime we've had to switch story time ladies (I've been taking kids there for 7 years) - how could the next one be as good as the current one???? But, amazingly, they are always wonderful! So, I'm really not THAT concerned. Anyway, they had the hula hoops out this time, and they both gave it their best shot.
And here we are today! We have almost an hour between the end of school and swim lessons. Sometimes we just go early and play air hockey at the Y, but today I needed to pick up a few things that were on sale this week at Walgreens. I had all 4 kids w/ me, and at one point, they could see themselves in the security mirror. They were making faces and cheering themselves, so I just had to snap a pic. Aren't they cute?
And tomorrow's Friday - YAY!!

Happy Birthday Munchkin!

Saturday was my niece's birthday. As you can see, she turned 3!!! We went bowling w/ some more family members, and a couple of friends stopped by, too. Later, her Grandpa came to get her and her brother for the week. It sure is quiet here!Angel got this clock/radio for Christmas - and she loves it! I'm really happy for her, EXCEPT that she likes to listen to the radio ALL the time at the highest volume - even if the station is rather fuzzy.

Isn't this the sweetest little face. I didn't quite get the shot I was hoping for - but it's still cute. This is a friend's daughter, and I just started snapping pics Monday. :)Hubby got me an early birthday present! THANK YOU!!!! Mwaaaaah!

My poor bro. had to take his bike in today to get new tires. Too bad the tires didn't come in a couple days ago when it was in the 70's. He had to ride today in the 20's and 30's! I've been enjoying my week off from watching the munchkins, working at the school, and starting a project that I'll have ready to post up soon - I hope. :)