Cats in Hats?

Ellie and Sam decided to have an impromptu Dr. Seuss party in our front yard. Sammy has made the various hats in school over the years, so they hung them on the tree and Sammy did a reading of Hop on Pop.

When they were finished they planted to following sign by the tree. It's little hard to read in the picture, so for posterity, it says, "Discovered by the Guicker Quackers Quacks P.S. Sorry all ready discovered"

Sammy is just starting to get the hang of reading, and Dr. Seuss is his very favorite. Dave has been a long time hater of Dr. Seuss books, but he's willing to listen to Green Eggs and Ham for the 38th time if it furthers the cause of Sammy learning to read.

Take it to the Hoop

Ben is finishing up his season on the Panthers. Last night his team won their second tournament game - Saturday is the final game. At this point they're guaranteed to get a trophy, we'll just have to see if it's first place or second. Go Panthers!

Rrrrrrrr!

You can't see it in the picture, but he has a ballon tiger on a leash too.

Bathing Beauties

Sam getting cleaned up in my bathtub.

President James Madison

Ellie's class did a "Living Presidents" presentation. Ellie was James Madison - we dressed her up as best we could and she made a memorized speech about his life and presidency.

Aye Aye Captain

Sammy still adores his Jack Sparrow costume. On this morning, he was planning on attending school like, this. Unfortunately, Mom intervened.

Slave Labor

Ben, doing his daily chore of unloading the dishwasher. Work Ben, work!

Maddie

I just liked this photo of Maddie and wanted to put it up here. She's such a great daughter and person, I feel lucky to be her mom.

I love you - NOT

I came home on Valentine's day to find Ellie and Sam busily making these posters and tacking them to their bedroom doors. Sammy felt bad later, and crumpled his up and brought it to me to throw away, but I had to make Ellie take hers down a few days later.

Biker Boy

Sammy got a new bike for Christmas. That day, we tried to convince him to give a spin, but he was reluctant. After about three minutes outside, Dave was yelling "Ride that bike!" and Sammy was screaming "I can't! It's cold! I want to go inside!" It was quite a scene - I'm hoping that our neighbors were all still inside unwrapping presents, so they didn't see any of it. About a week later he decided it was time to ride the bike and happily rode around the cul-de-sac for 45 minutes.

Ding Dong, the berber's gone!

We got new carpet! Our house came with some really awful off-white berber. It looked fairly nice when we moved in, but 4 kids, 3 cats, 2 adults and 1 dog quickly took a toll on it. Any sort of spot was really hard to clean - most of my cleaning efforts just left a bigger ring, that was impossible to get rid of. Our new carpet is soft and fluffy, and made of DuPont Smart Strand. It is supposedly very stain resistant, and can be cleaned with diluted bleach if necessary. So far we've had one pet accident, and one kid vomiting Valentine's day candy on it, and everything's come out.

Getting the carpet was a fun exercise. We had to remove all the junk from the upstairs and family room. My kids have a lot of junk. We stacked most of it in the dining room, and some in our bedroom , where we left the old carpet for now. The following weekend I forced myself to put it all away, otherwise we'd probably still have fiftyleven boxes stacked up in our dining room. So as a bonus with the new carpet, the kids got cleaner rooms.

Jamaica

Dave and I celebrated our 15th anniversary with a trip to the Grand Lido Negril in Jamaica. It was a wonderful vacation, which I also planned to coincide with my birthday. Pictures are linked below:

Jamaica

Babies love Ellie

This is Ellie with her friend Micah. Micah lives down the streen from us and loves to play with Ellie out in the cul-de-sac. She got a tricycle for Christmas, and her mom said that as soon as she opened it, she started saying "Ellie - bike - Ellie - bike - Ellie"

And here's Ellie with her 2 year old cousin, Christopher. Even though she was in bed, she waited up until he arrived at 10 pm on Tuesday night. She introduced him to Bunny (the stuffed animal in her lap) and sat him down for some story time.

Christmas Highlights

Sammy placed the baby Jesus in our Playmobil nativity this year.


Our Christmas tree, with lots of handmade ornaments. The little kids call it "the Maddie tree", because she had made stuff for me every year, in preschool and elementary school. In our new school district, the kids never make ornaments, so Ben, Ellie and Sam are sadly missing from the tree. I attempted to remedy this, by making these:

The little colored bits in the bottom of the box are letters and numbers. I wrote each kids name and 2006 on the backs of the ornaments using glitter glue. Once it was dry, the glitter glue writing fell off at the slightest touch. I need to try a paint pen, I guess.

And lastly:

Ellie, Ben and Sam, patiently waiting to open their gifts on Christmas morning. We have a tradition of eating breakfast around 8:30 am, then we do the presents at 9 am. Sammy starts by getting a present from the tree, not one that's for him. After that gift is opened by the recipient, that person choses a gift. My kids wish we could just have a frenzy of torn wrapping paper and excited squealing, but I like to take it slow.

Jack Sparrow

Sammy got this Pirates of the Carribean set for Christmas. He's been Jack Sparrow all day now. The little dread locks crack me up.