Someone Mentioned Spring?

Thanks for checking in on us ladies!

According to K, it's nearly spring. K and Eliana must be seeing things!

Ellie (age 7) drew this during our PTA meeting the other night. She's clearly thinking of spring! I love all of the varieties, but I find her roses (like the red one in the top left) to be incredible. She's drawing them everywhere and in no time she can whip out this beautiful rose. Where did she learn this?













I however, can't get in the spirit of spring just yet. Oh, I look forward to it. I love spring. I had a glimpse of it when I picked out Carie's traditional gift of tulips for Valentine's Day! It's been so nice to have fresh tulips in our house. I've had another small glimpse of it as we start to plan for our spring plant sale.

But we are still faced with all this snow. So far we've had 56 1/2" this season and there's more on the way. It will be a while before all of our tulips start poking through the ground. But when they do, there will be much excitement.












At least the sun is out today! At a balmy 30 degrees, who needs a coat!?!?!?

This is a picture from this morning. Yes, that's our mailboxes poking out from the snow. At least the snow has melted enough that they are no longer completely covered. :)

Thankfully we DO have the reachable Christmas decorations down and packed away. The lights on the house though, they'll have to wait a bit longer.

The Great Debate

The great debate amongst the small people in our house... "Are dandelions flowers or weeds?"

Without doing any research (I mean really, it is a dandelion) we've tried to convince them that it would be okay to consider them both as a flower and a weed. That classification seems most appropriate.

They aren't having any of it. Spencer is dead set convinced they are definitley flowers and are most definitely not weeds. Ellie is equally convinced they are strictly weeds. No amount of our imput is going to change their minds.

I see this debate continuing as long as the dandelions remain prolific.

Doin Great

We are here and doing great!

I could say that there really isn't anything going on and I don't feel that I'd be lying. In the next breath I could say that we are damn busy and that would also be quite true.

As predicted, March 14th marked the beginning of our new/spring routine with many scheduled kid activities... swimming (currently A&E - S has asked to swim next session), soccer (A, E so far S starts soon), gymnastics (A, E & S). When I put our schedule down on paper I think holy sh*t. But in reality, it doesn't feel bad at all. And I think we are doing great at balancing activity time, free time, family time, and homework time.

Looking ahead, it doesn't slow down until mid-late summer (depending on their decision on baseball)... just in time for a good breather before school starts again. This has become our normal spring and summer cycle which is exactly why we took that break over the winter months.

But the activities are much enjoyed by all and we are having a great time.

Grandma also continues to improve each day. Carie, Spencer & Yia Yia stopped in to see her on Wednesday and it is amazing how great she is doing. While she’s anxious to get out of there, she’s also now realizing how sick she was and how much she needs to be there.

Spring break is next week… just in time for the 6” of snow we are supposed to get!

Hello Spring

We welcomed the first day of spring just this past Friday. The weekend graced us with beautiful weather with the opportunity to picnic in the park and crank out a large amount of yard cleanup. Add swimming lessons and that was our Saturday.

Then Monday rolls around and in rolls Tornado's. I managed to leave work a few minutes early; just in time to hear the sirens sounding as I pulled into our driveway. The wall cloud was clearly visible and definitely heading our way. I was happy to be home!

We gathered flashlights and hunkered down in our family room and sent the kids to the adjacent play room (safest place to be). We were glued to the weather coverage to see it all play out. Okay, so there were a couple of times where we stepped outside to see what was really going on. The clouds, the lightening, the constant low rumbles were incredible. If it didn't create such damage, it would really be beautiful.

Thankfully, we were spared. But the outcome could have easily been different. The high winds and hail caused some damage just blocks to the west of us. Thankfully the tornado didn't touch down in the metro area. Other surrounding areas weren't as lucky and the stories are devastating.

The scary thing is that in our area this storm seemed to track similarly to the tornado's that did touch down last year. What will this tornado season have in store for us?

What A Week!

Really, it has been a long couple of weeks! I feel so behind. I feel like I need to rewind time a good 4 weeks, but in doing so I'd not want to undo any accomplishments that have been made. I just need extra time to make forward progress. Oddly, taking time off work hasn't helped at all. Carie has actually told me that I shouldn't take any more random days off work because our life seems to go to heck when I do.

First Ellie was sick. Ellie recovered and went back to school.

On the heels of Ellie's recover, Spencer became sick with Ellie's mystery illness. As a bonus, pink eye was added. Spencer seemed off Wednesday evening and by Thursday it was clear that he was our next patient. On Thursday we setup an appt with the Ped for first thing Friday morning. I had the day off and both Carie and I took Spencer in for his appointment.

Not long after we leave the doctor's office from Spencer's appointment we get a call from the school nurse to come pick up Abby. By the time we picked her up we had already made an appointment for her at our Peds office. We pick her up and went straight there. At that point we all felt that Spencer and Abby had whatever Ellie had just gotten over. We had already done the 72 hour waiting period and thought antibiotics were needed. In hindsight, it may have just been coincidental with Ellie. It's hard to say. She did seem to respond, but it doesn't seem that Abby has responded.

I don't think we've ever been in for two different sick visits within the same morning before! Friday evening, by the request of the on call nurse, Carie ended up taking Abby to the ER. It was a scary situation with some uncertainties. She's fine. She was just really sick and very mildly dehydrated which made her dizzy. Odd thing is, she was drinking fluids and she wasn't throwing up. She had been napping and then suddenly I found her on the floor in the dining room and unable to move or recall really how she got there. She was coherent enough to call for us but we had no idea if she had lost consciousness or not. All we did know for certain was that she wasn't there for long.

It just feels like it is never ending. In reality, I do believe the end is very near. This is one we just have to wait out.

We are also...
- Wrapping up our first year of school. It seems to be the time of year for field trips, field days, mother's day programs, culture programs, all school picnics, and everything else that needs to be crammed in during the last month of school.
- Wrapping up spring soccer season... an odd one at that.
- Kicking off softball season... oh this ought to be interesting.
- Getting signed up for summer activities... and not feeling very on top of it!
- Celebrating birthdays galore.
- Trying to plant a garden again.
- Trying to repair the yard after it didn't do so well last year.
- Preparing for back-to-back birthday parties... at our house... in 12 days.
- Trying to find summer clothes that fit the kids.
- And whatever else comes our way.

Almost Spring!

I really like these pics.

I'd really like them if they were in focus!















On one of our nice days we went down to the neighborhood park. The kids all rode their bikes while we walked and helped them with the tricky hills.

Spring?? Weather

This weather is sure throwing us for a loop! We had a taste of incredible spring weather. Oh did we all love that spring weather! Now it feels like there's not a glimpse of spring around us anymore. The poor flowers were beginning to bloom beautifully. The trees, oh the beautiful blooming and budding trees and bushes that are no more. It will certainly be interesting to see how nature comes out of this cold spell.

And then there's soccer. I don't know who's more disappointed, the girls' or I. I think they are taking it better than I am. I've just been so excited for them and it is disappointing that their games keep getting cancelled. While I don't look forward to the days of being huddled on the sidelines in the freezing cold and damp air, I want to watch my kids play soccer! I want their excitement to come to fruition.

We were driving to school this morning and as we passed the soccer fields I broached the subject of tonight's game. I mentioned that it didn't look like anyone was going to be able to play tonight. They hadn't yet been cancelled, but that was definitely the fate. The girls took it pretty well. They witnessed all the rain, they knew it was freezing (literally) and it made sense to them. They were also excited about the rain, using their umbrellas, and getting to preschool.

So we set sights onto the next game scheduled for Saturday morning. I'm not even going to get anyone's hopes (my hopes!) up for that one since it is so unlikely to happen. We are predicted to get snow Friday to Saturday. Maybe next Wednesday? I don't know, if the weather forecast is at all accurate, it is supposed to be another soggy day.