March 30, or 10 days to Thomas' Birthday

Thomas has been counting the days to his birthday. He's really excited to turn 5--who wouldn't be? He's having a Scooby-Doo birthday party and inviting his 5 closest friends. I haven't started planning anything except getting the invitations out. I'm hoping to work on it this week. The plan is to keep it simple . We leave for Burlington the day after the party, so it will be hectic enough with a party and getting ready to go on a trip. The trip to Burlington was Thomas' idea too. We go for 3 days and hope to see the Echo Aquarium, Ben & Jerry's and the Vt Teddy Bear Company. We are probably the only family going north for spring break instead of south! Chris has been doing extra work lately, videotaping school plays. So that's paying for the trip.
Anyway, I have a quiet house right now with Nolan at a baseball clinic and Chris and Thomas as spectators. It's been a church-filled weekend. Yesterday, we had our nephew Louis' confirmation and party. Today, church was done by the children and we helped a little at that too. I think we are churched out. Thomas was not on his best behavior today--I think he was tired. Yesterday, at the confirmation party, he kept scooping ice from one glass to another glass. Then he tried to give it to Chris and said "Here's it's my blood! Like Jesus!". So, I think we've been hanging out at church a little too much lately!
This week, a lot of our activities end which is a blessing. Religion classes ended today. Nolan has his last pack meeting for Cub Scouts and the Blue and Gold Dinner for it on Sunday. Basketball ends with a pizza party on Tuesday. And some other activities end the following week, so we will have a short lull before baseball starts at the end of April. Yippee!

March 26th

Today turned out to be a beautiful, early spring kind of day. They predicted rain and possible snow, but the sun came out around lunch time. It was a nice day to play outside--finally! I enjoyed a great run this morning and then went to church to work while Thomas was in school. Today I got to count money, put candles away and create a brochure for the Children's Mass this weekend. I love being there. Everyone is so nice and I always feel like I'm really helping. Then I picked up Thomas and his best friend Leo from school. They had mac n' cheese for lunch and then we went to the playground down the street to play. The ground was squishy but dry enough to play. It smelled so good outside! Basically like dirt but in a nice kind of way. Chester liked it too. He jumped up on top of the picnic table to get a good look around and sniff. The rest of the day was uneventful. Actually, the whole day was pretty uneventful, but this is just an example of a typical day for us.
Yesterday, Nolan finished his basketball clinic. I missed it because I had my last class for this course I'm taking, Principles of Morality. I guess it went well. There is a pizza party for all the kids next week to celebrate. Tomorrow Thomas and I go to the YMCA and Nolan has a swim lesson. Every day is different but with it's own busy-ness.

March 24th

The kids have today off of school because of Superintendent's Day, so they have been busy playing with all their Easter stuff. And eating all their Easter booty! I ate a ton of it yesterday too, so I went to the gym this morning so it doesn't end up on my booty. The grandparents were generous with Easter this year--thank you!! We had the best time at Gaba's last night. For the first time, all the cousins went outside and played for over an hour. Chris and I actually got to sit at the table and really talk to other grownups. It was great. Now that we have this station wagon, it makes me feel more like a grown-up too. No more mini-van that screams mom-mobile!

Easter Bedlam

The first picture here shows just a fraction of the plethora of people who showed up at the YMCA for the Easter Egg Hunt. It was a complete mad house!

A large section of the gym floor was covered with hay, with eggs hidden in the hay for little kids Thomas' age. Nolan went outside with the older kids to look for eggs hidden in woods.

There were also bouncy bounces inside and outside. Plus there was a mini-golf course and a petting zoo also in the gym and photos with the Easter Bunny in a separate room.

But there were so many people that we just found our eggs, collected Thomas' Easter basket prize and then got out of there!

Eggstatic

As promised, here's a picture of the boys coloring their Easter Eggs...

March 22nd

We're off the ground and running this morning. At 9am, Chris is taking the boys to swim lessons and I have to go to a church breakfast. We were supposed to have a bike rodeo for our Cub Scout Den this afternoon, but I think everyone is canceling. So this works well for Thomas because that means we all get to go to the YMCA today. They had a contest to name this big stuffed rabbit and Easter basket. Whoever has the best name wins, and that's Thomas! He named it 'Eggster'. So we all get to the Y for an egghunt and they will announce Thomas as the winner. Can't wait.

Yesterday we colored eggs. Chris will put a picture of that on later.

Lucky leprechauns

Every year, the boys place decorated boxes near their bedroom windows on the night before St. Patrick's Day. When they wake up in the morning, they discover that while they were sleeping the leprechauns took the boxes and hid them. When the kids eventually find their boxes, they see that leprechauns filled them with treasure!

This year's treasure consisted of chocolate coins, baseball cards and these super cool new sunglasses.

Happy Spring!

Well, the waffles were a hit and now Chris is putting the kids to bed. Thomas has a little cold and a fever this afternoon. After a 3 hour nap (Yeah for me!) he seems a lot better. We'll see what tomorrow brings. The boys were supposed to have their picture taken tomorrow and then Nolan was going to have a friend over, but I canceled everything when I discovered the fever. We might just stay home, color eggs and think about Good Friday.

We are pretty busy lately. Every night we have something happening, which is why we're being bad Catholics and not going to Holy Thursday mass tonight. We needed a night of nothing. Nolan and Thomas both have swim lessons on Saturdays. That is going pretty well, although Thomas could be cooperating a little more. They both just finished religion. Nolan is also doing basketball and Cub Scouts. Both of those will be ending soon and baseball will start. He just participated in a foul shooting contest on Tuesday, and he got a trophy for the most shots in his grade level--we're all proud! This makes up for not getting a big trophy at the Pinewood Derby last weekend. As far as Thomas goes, he is going to a story hour on Tuesdays at our elementary school. He'll have his kindergarten screening soon, if you can beleive it! All of this on top of the classes I take on Tuesday nights and buying a new car (well, new to us. It's a 2001 Subaru Forester--and it's red!) has made us running around like crazy people. But it's all good.

Climb on board!

This blog has been created so we can talk about our family life more exclusively. Chris has his own blog at http://crooney.blogspot.com/. But it is a more personal place for him to share all of his random thoughts (he has a lot! :) ). I know it's hard for my parents to see a lot of the stuff on there because they have dial-up and video is hard to download. So this blog will just be a place for Chris and I to share our news about us and the boys. We plan to keep it simple with words, pics and short videos. And hopefully we'll be better at updating. I have to make supper now but I hope to update more tonight. It's waffles tonight!