Pictures of Noah's soccer game

So here's the story to go with these pictures!! In the second picture you see Noah right up against someone on the other team. You can't tell exactly what's going on, but let me tell you that the other team is holding Noah. And he kept doing it. So, Andy heard Noah say at one point, "The kid keeps pushing me."
Unfortunately, the other kid decided to say, "Too bad." Now at this point, I must digress to say that nothing infuriates me more or gives me more insight that his parents are doing something wrong. I'm sorry, that may be harsh, but what kid thinks like that? I would have expected something like, "no, I'm not," or "I can't help it." But nothing as malevolent as "too bad," which shows no remorse. He was also kicking Noah in the back of his leg. Anyway, back on track.
So, as I said unfortunately the other kid said this which made Noah take matters into his own hands. The next time Noah saw this kid coming at him, knowing that the kid would grab him to hold him back again, Noah decided to lunge at the kid, kind of do a little juke at him. When the kid realized that Noah was willing to come at him, he changed his tune and left Noah alone for the rest of the game!! I also have to say that after Noah did that he looked at Andy, saw that Andy wasn't wholly upset and smiled as if to say I took care of it.

Now, I have to say that I really hate it that Noah resorted to implied violence, but on the other hand, talking didn't work. The other team player had no interest in what was right or following rules and Noah wasn't willing to have it continue the rest of the time. I'm not sure what Noah should have done. I actually fault the coach and parents of this other kid for not being aware of what was happening and stopping it.

keeping up through pictures

Happy Easter.

What to do while we're waiting for dinner...

I can only tell you that my children think that every tree was meant to be climbed. And everytime I think about the Von Trapp children's legs hanging from the trees I have to agree with them. Love these pictures.

Eggs to Dye For

I can hardly believe we have lived near my brother, had children at the same time since their daughter was born 8 years ago and we have never dyed Easter eggs together before. I'm glad we decided to start a "tradition" today! Michelle and I were amazed at how quickly all of the eggs were bright and multi-colored. We reminisced: Michell about making the perfect rainbow colored egg with her brother (I don't think I ever attempted to make a rainbow egg) and I remembered using rubber bands to make multi-colored eggs by wrapping the thick and thin rubber bands around the eggs and then layering the dip on the eggs adding a rubber band with each new layer of dye. It was a lot of fun. I think all of our children just dove in and went for it. I was certainly amazed by the lack of planning on Noah and Brenna's part to make any "art" out of their eggs. They just had complete abandonment and true excitement about dipping the white egg in and having a bright egg coming out of the cup.

I don't need to mention that my daughter must have abandoned rule following the most as she dyed 9 eggs while the others only dyed 5 or 6. Oh well.

Thanks Todd for making us lunch. You make a great tuna sandwich.






Happy Easter and happy Easter activities everyone!

Celebrating Delaney's birthday

We had a great start to our spring break celebrating (our goddaughter) Delaney's birthday. Delaney loves chix parmesan so Katie made that with salad and bread. It was wonderful and Delaney couldn't help but feel like a princess to have the dinner of her choice. Cake and ice cream were the cherry on top of the dinner. We sang happy birthday and then off the kids went.
Lately, with Tobin out of the picture, Delaney, Noah, Jay and Brenna have been choreographing dances to songs that they then want to perform for us!! What courage. This night was no exception. Up the stairs they came to tell us they had something to show us. Down the stairs we went to be a rapt audience. We had a lot of fun watching them. This was their third time and this time it worked like a charm; they did a great job and actually had some really good choreography. I love watching them. Each time I do, I am amazed at their courage because I remember one time as a young girl, spending the night at a friend's house, I got up to "dance" in front of her parents and I hardly moved at all. Inside, I felt like I was, but looking back I saw that, frozen with fear, my movements were a small gesture of what I had practiced for them in the safety of a bedroom. So, I was all applause when they finished. I am so excited for them that they are sure enough to put on a show and make big movements in front of the adults. Now, when we mentioned talent show....they screamed. It was a great night. We missed Tobin though who is at the beach with friends.

Free Play at Gymnastics

We decided to spend an hour at the local gymnastics center. So did everybody else. But I was amazed at how nice everybody was. The most coveted toy was the trampoline; no surprise there. What did surprise me was this: everyone wanted to bounce, jump and twirl on the trampoline and yet the children, all ages, self-monitored their time on the trampoline. I don't think one child spent over three minutes on the trampoline!! Every child decided when their turn was over. I think the shortest turn was 30 seconds. I was completely amazed at how great the children were. Brenna and Noah had a great time. At the end of the hour, Noah said, "Can we do that again tomorrow?" Wow!

Spring Break: the first weekend

We had a great time visiting Washington DC to see the Cherry Blossoms along the tidal basin. There were as many people there as blossoms in the tree, which made parking hard, but we were lucky and found a spot about three blocks from the Washington Monument. We were hoping to go up to the top, but when Andy called early in the morning, they had no tickets available until June 6th! Yep, not on this vacation. (As an aside note, I tried all day on March 25th (?) to get tickets to the Easter Egg roll at the White House and everytime I had them in my cart [which was several times], the site crashed due to high volume! So, I never got my tickets, but they are now available on Craig's list for $500.00. Crazy!!) So, I figured this was our shot to go downtown during this vacation. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. Well, the kids weren't totally excited to see them, but in the end they were glad they went. We also ate pizza at Armands and it was the best pizza ever as we were all famished from walking around downtown for 2 1/2 hours. It was nice to be together as a family (sans Tobin who is at the beach for the week with friends). We definitely missed Tobin, but it was really fun for Andy and me to each have a hand of a child and know that we were each holding onto everything dear to us in the city. Here are some pictures of our day, but they don't do justice to the cherry blossoms.

You know, it was one of those days where we had fun, talking, holding hands, laughing and being together, but I'm not sure if it was one of those days I'll remember when I'm 90 years old. Nothing extraordinary happened. It got me thinking: what makes a memory one that you'll remember your whole life? Any thoughts?

Also, some of these are taken through the car windshield. Can you tell which ones they are?