More Easter

One of our neighbors has a really great camera and when the entire neighborhood is invited together, he brings out his camera and snaps some wonderful photos of everyone. A few days later he will come by the houses with his daughter, give us the pictures of our kids, and visit for a few minutes. It is quite a treat!

MG missed this neighborhood egg hunt (she was very sad, but was able to hunt eggs the next day) and Z woke up near the end of the hunt. Only D-D and E got to join in the fun...and only D-D was still long enough (or at least visible) for a lot of the pictures. :) To fully enjoy/enhance our family's Easter experience, if your computer is able, scroll down and hit the play button on the music to the right. An Easter song will accompany as you view the slides. :) Here is another slide show of all the pictures Mr. Keith took of our children:

First T-Ball Game

We had our first T-ball game this past Thursday night (April 23). It was a joy to watch. E did GREAT...he is a wonderful little slugger!!! Man, can he hit that ball off the T!!!!

I love this group we are playing with. It is a lot like the soccer group in 2008---more intent on teaching the kids the basics and helping them feel confident in the sport than on keeping score and competing. Before the games Mr. Hill led everyone in a prayer and then we all sang the famous Ballgame Song. You can see a picture of that to the right just below here where we are singing, "THREE strikes you're out..." The kids love that part! Then on to the games: each team member goes up to bat and once they hit the ball, the batter can only advance one base. The outfielders right now focus their attention on getting the ball to first base. Each child goes through the batting line up twice before they take the outfield. Every child makes it to home base twice before switching field positions.

D-D was quite a hoot! She would hit the ball and then run to the first base she could see...which usually ended up being second. She would make it to about the pitcher's mound and realize she was not going in the right direction. At some times it seemed she would run circles around the "pitcher" before figuring out where first base was. Another thing that would crack me up is watching her run with the batter's helmet. It is much, MUCH too big for her and she would have to hold onto the ear flaps (a few times with her fingers sticking in the ear holes of the ear flaps) while she ran to keep it on her head, quite often not succeeding in her attempts. I cannot tell you how many times she turned around to chase down and retrieve her bouncing helmet!

I wish I had a video of her attempts. You would be tickled! Instead, I have a few pictures:

Easter Pictures

We have many pictures of our Easter time. So many, that we thought we would try to show them on a slide show.

Some more will come on a later post.

New Book

I just received word that a friend of ours has a book published. We are very excited for "Cool Pete" (the name our kids have always called him). Here is the site on AMAZON to see his new book:

http://www.amazon.com/Reforming-Counter-Culture-Fallacies-Skateboarding/dp/1439224919/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239480596&sr=1-5

Looks like a good one!!! Way to go, Pete!!!!! Now we are waiting to see "Uncle" Dan's book...hurry, hurry, hurry, "Uncle" Dan!!!!! :o)

Golden Knights

We signed E and D-D up for t-ball (I am sure you will be seeing many pictures of them at the ball field). Both D-D and E are on the Golden Knights team. E is doing great and having fun, enjoying wearing his shirt and learning how to throw correctly as well as figuring out where the bases are (he has a hard time seeing third). D-D is learning that sometimes playing is hard work (or as D-D says: "hod wok")...and she is not too sure about that! They both enjoy singing, "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" before each practice and yelling with the other Knights (when moving from one practice area to the next), "CHAAAAAAARGE!!!!!!!!"

After practice last night, Dana gave a ride to a little favorite character of ours. D-D was not too sure having him ride where he was. She cried until we put the goggles on our little friend:

in the picture below, you can see a tear glistening under her

left eye.

As we drove out of the parking lot we could hear people yelling, "You've got something on top of your car!" Dana, E and I were laughing, D-D started crying again, and MG was hiding in her seat saying, "People are LOOKING at us!!!!"
Before we exited the grounds, we took Pooh-bear down and D-D comforted him on the way home.

Looking Pretty

.....for about 5 minutes!




Then, she decided it was time for the pictures to end:





and also time to redo her hair...




...by herself.

Psalm 146

MG was asked to read Psalm 146 to the church Sunday morning(April 6). This was a big thing for her...she REALLY dislikes being in front of a crowd and was cowering in her chair during supper from fear of doing this. Her brother spoke up and said that he would read instead. Since there were 10 verses, we thought that might be a bit too long for our 6 yo man and he and MG divided the verses and read them together. We practiced a lot the night before and then some that morning. They did great with the reading! It was beautiful, though read VERY FAST. Later that night, just before Bingo at the nursing home, the kids read it to the residents. Those folks ate it up. The recordings from this night are a might long, so I hope you can view them.
Ps 146, Part 1:


When E finished his first five verses, they began to applaud. He was concerned MG wouldn't get to read her verses, so you will hear at the beginning of the next video what he said to ensure everyone of MG's turn!

Ps 146, Part 2:

One More Week

Since the end of February, I have "grounded myself" from something that seemed to take WAY too much of my time. It is not the thing's fault, but mine! mine!! mine!!!

At the end of February, I gave up FACEBOOK, intending to refrain from all communication in that area until Easter. I was hoping to replace it with some reading and studying and some more playing with the kids. I have done pretty good, though I know I could have done better. My reading has consisted more of studying the Bible and some books that expound on the people and situations therein, the kitchen has been cleaner than usual, the kids have swung more on the swings and we have played outside more, I have tried to do some imaginative play with them but am a miserable playmate in that area, and I have had the computer off most days. It has been really great for ALL of us.

But...I still have not been too great at forgetting it and replacing it with better things. I seem to think and think and think about FACEBOOK...a lot! For those of you who do not know about this fun and completely wonderful tool for reconnecting with people, you need to know that you can put a status on your page, explaining what you are doing for the day or for the week---or for each and every moment. The funny thing about these status updates is that the person reporting their own activities or thoughts has to share it in third person; which means that after a time of posting, one begins to think in third person.

So, although I have been off of FACEBOOK for nearly two months, I find myself still thinking in third person. For example:

MANDY is blogging.
MANDY is burning the supper.
MANDY is ordering takeout!
MANDY loves the spring flowers.
MANDY does not like pine pollen.
MANDY says, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaa-CHOOOOOOOO!!!"
MANDY is thankful rain is washing away all the pollen (sniffle).
MANDY smells the jasmine blooming along her fence.
MANDY likes where the trampoline has been moved.
MANDY is listening to her children laugh.
MANDY is listening to the children sing.
MANDY loves hearing the children playing NICELY together.
MANDY is listening to her children argue.
MANDY is listening to the children whine.
MANDY is listening to her children fighting.
MANDY wonders if CALGON can really take her away!??!

...and the list can go on.

At least now I only think of a status once every day or so...instead of every ten minutes.
I just hope that after Easter I can stay focused on doing those other more important things instead of allowing myself to get sucked in all over again.

Only one more week!!! And then---

---- MANDY will see how "strong" she really is! :)

In his footsteps

Z is already trying to be like dad:

one of these things is not like
the other!

Faces

not any pictures of MG yet this month. She is usually reading and hiding in a little quiet corner to finish her book. Her school works for AR points (AR stands for Accelerated Reader) and she is in a heated competition with a boy in her class to get more points. She reads constantly! These are the faces not stuck in a book right at the moment! :)

Too Fluffy

Today was interesting. The kids usually get off of the bus between 2:45 and 2:55. At 3 I began wondering if they had a substitute driver today...they were not home yet. By 3:05, our next door neighbor called and asked if I had seen her son. I told her that the bus had not come through yet. She guessed that maybe they were keeping the kids for a bit until the thunderstorm that was threatening was over. About 3:10 or a tad before, another neighbor drives us and drops off the boy next door.

He walks over to the house and talks to me in the yard. The bus was in an accident and I needed to go get the kids.

gulp

Did I hear that right or did I immediately connect two words that shouldn't have been connected? Surely the bus was just stuck behind some accident and not actually IN the accident. I called our neighbor to let her know her boy was home and then went to wake up Z and pack the kids in the van for a drive to find MG and E and the bus. After a little bit of driving around and asking a police officer where the kids were, I finally pulled up in front of Subway (the sandwich place, not a real subway) only to see the principal and one of her assistants holding MG back from running out to the car! :) As soon as I got out, MG and E came running, both with scared little faces, but E bucked right up after he saw his older sister was doing all the crying for him! MG was a bit scared and very thankful and extremely concerned for her bus driver and the other man who hit the bus---or who the bus hit. Not sure whose fault it was! :)

This was E: Woe, mom!!! Man!!!! Did you know the bus wrecked!!!???!!! How did YOU know about this? There was this really cool crunchy, crashy sound and the bus tipped up on its side and everyone squealed and wow, mom! No one got hurt and here we are and you should have seen it!

Here was MG: sniff, sniff. It was a really horrible sound (small sob) and the bus almost got on its side (squeak in her voice) and it was really scary!!! (sniff, hiccup, snuffle, sniff) I hope Mr. L doesn't have to buy that guy a new car!!!! (gaspy breath, gaspy breath) The other guy, (sniff)I think he is OK(hiccup, snuffle), but I think he hit us because he is a really big guy (sniffle, sniffle) and his cheeks!!! They covered his eyes---his cheeks were just too fluffy!

Everyone is OK, and I hope I can check on the bus driver tomorrow. We are praying for Mr. Fluffy as well as Mr. L. If it were me, I would have a hard time sleeping tonight, reliving things over and over. I am praying they get some rest and find some peace.

Provisions

I remember when MG was born, standing and looking in her closet and thinking, "She will have clothes for her first year of life...Thank you God!!! ---but what will she wear after that? Where is it going to come from? Will all our extra money go to buy clothes that she will outgrow every three months?!!?" I remember panic beginning to set in...and worry. It was the worry that caught my attention before the panic (weird, I know). I hadn't been a worrier since about 4th grade. That was when our Bible teacher (Bruce was his name, I think) made us memorize the scripture about "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Look at the birds of the air..." God gave me a good little shake and I came out of my panic/worry, remembered those verses, began trusting again and now, looking back, I see we have really lacked for nothing since then. Every once in a while, I still get a bit panickey, mostly about MG and how to clothe that fast growing, slender and tall little girl! And always God sends us a bag of wonderful clothes that some other girl has outgrown.

This past week, it was our other daughter's turn: D-D was blessed with a bag of clothes. She has been having fun putting on the clothes and twirling around in her shirts and skirts and shorts. She is also figuring out how to layer. Here is her wearing four of the new things she received:

And two videos of her twirling and Z joining her:

Another improvement

Over the past few weekends we have been working on improving the brick on our fireplace. We just didn't like the look of the brick or the sloppy way that the mortar was applied. To me, the brick looked like a calico cat rubbed it's calico-ness all over it. It was very multi-colored and the mortar was gray. We decided to paint it and figured if we did not like the color we could very easily change that or we could pick out a tile and tile the hearth. The before shot you can see from a previous post (just click on these colored words) and here is the after photos:

D-D's Name

D-D has gotten into the yucky habit of chewing on her hair. Bleck!!!!! In order to stop this nasty habit we can either
1) cut her hair short
2) shave her head, or
3) pull her hair away from her face


We are trying option 3 right now. Since she does not like sleeping on her gathered hair, before bedtime we have to put her hair up in a different way than it is up during the day.... She has named this hair style "The Broccoli Tail" :

Lovely, isn't it?