Memorial Day Weekend

We had an event filled Memorial Day weekend and were all pooped out afterward even though it was fun and somewhat relaxing. Colten finally got to have a friend over to spend the night Friday night and he was soooo excited. I made him call his friend to invite him over and had to follow him around the house while he was on the phone to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything. He walked back and forth from the living room to the kitchen just yakking away. Just like his daddy... can't sit still on the phone! I let them stay up until 10 playing the Wii hoping they would sleep late in the morning (ha!). It took awhile for them to get situated, but the two boys ended up sleeping in the same twin bed, Colten with his head at the top of the bed and Jason in the middle, sharing a blanket.... too cute! Of course my ploy to get them to sleep late didn't work and they were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30 am ready for some more video games. Thankfully I could sleep through that :)

Saturday morning was the usual laundry/clean-up time and I kicked the kids outside to play for awhile. Colten's friend left after lunch and then we went to a bbq/skeet shoot that one of the other coaches on Colten's baseball team invited us to. It was us and three other couples and tons of kids and was lots of fun. I shot a few times and was surprised with my aim (I hit 4/5). I got a lovely bruise on my shoulder for my effort :)

Sunday we had lunch and spent the afternoon at Oma Reeh's for Mother's/Father's Day and had a great time catching up with the family.

Monday was a pretty lazy day. Colten wanted to try some target shooting with the BB gun and later in the afternoon we went to a neighbor's to do some fishing and grilling. All in all, a good long weekend!

Tomorrow is the last day of the school year (then we'll have a 2nd grader and a 7th grader... YIKES!!!!). They had a great year and both got recognized for all A's all year long (I'm just a little bit proud of them!). Mom will be picking the kids up after school to take them camping for a week. They're really looking forward to it and so are we.... finally John & I get to play the Wii!!!!!

John "The Tool Man Taylor"

We've been watching a lot of reruns of Home Improvement lately, sort of a nostalgia thing and the kids think it's funny, too. So, I had to share this story that reminded us of a number of the episodes. Our dryer has had a couple of quirks ever since the house was struck by lightning almost 3 years ago and pretty much all of our electronic devices got fried. I couldn't run it on automatic dry because the buzzer would go off during the entire cycle. Running it on timed dry was quiet, but when it was done, the buzzer would go off until you opened the door or turned the dial. So I've put up with the timed dry ever since then. It didn't bother me enough to warrant buying an entire new dryer. However, John got annoyed with it a lot. So the other day when he was washing a bunch of stuff due to a flea infestation (from our new kittens), he got pushed over the edge by the buzzer and decided to try disconnecting the buzzer so we'd just have to check it instead of listening for it. While he had the dryer apart, he noticed a wire that had apparently fried apart during the lightning strike and got the bright idea to try to connect it back up with the hopes that it would fix the buzzer. MmmHmmm.... He plugs it back in and shuts the door and the dryer starts shooting sparks and flames with him on top of it. He managed to turn it off rather quickly and now, whether we wanted/needed one or not, we have a new dryer.

Baseball Closing

Saturday was the closing day of the baseball season for Colten. They played one last game against the blue team and only lost by 2 this time! I think they could've beat them if they played again. Maybe :) This time Colten got a hit and a run and I managed to get a photo of him praying on 3rd base again for the next boy to not strike out so he could run home (which worked again!). They also got trophies for second place which Colten proudly displayed next to his two T-Ball trophies.

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a fun Mother's Day weekend that started with me taking Friday afternoon off to hang out outside in the warm sun (and get some stuff done around the house). Saturday, the kids and I went with our neighbors to the skating rink in Junction. I think we plum wore ourselves out there, skating from ~1:30 until 4pm. I know I was tired after helping Colten skate. I managed to get him skating on his own finally after lots of complaining that he didn't like skating - too much falling down. I was able to convince him that once he figured it out he would like it and imagine that, Mommy was right! He didn't want to leave when it was finally time to go and of course neither did Ashlyn. I was ready to go, though, being that my arms were like jelly and were super sore for a few days after that! Here is a of pic of Colten first getting the hang of it - tongue sticking out and all and one of Ashlyn competing in the limbo contest - she did pretty good!

Sunday morning John fixed me french toast for breakfast... yummy and then his mom came over for a grilled shrimp lunch.... double yummy! The kids gave me their homemade mothers day gifts from school (a painted flower pot from Colten and a 3-D Mickey Mouse picture from Ashlyn). We just had a lazy day which was nice.

In other news, I did something I never thought I'd do. I somehow convinced myself to use the lovely stimulus check from Mr. Bush to buy a Nintendo Wii. I've always resisted getting a video game system for the family since we have a computer that plays games just fine, and John & I both survived childhood without having one and they're soooo expensive, but these just looked like so much fun! And you have to move so at least you're not just sitting there staring at the screen the whole time. And I'm helping the economy, right?!? So I did it and we got it this week and this morning my arms are sore again from several boxing/tennis/baseball/bowling/golfing matches with John... so I'd have to say so far it was worth it!!! But, still, I must be crazy ;)

BUGZ!

Colten's play was great! The basic story was that the bugs wanted to have a picnic and each group sang a song about how they would be able to help with the picnic. Colten's firefly firefighter group were there to light the way. They did a little song and dance and Colten really got into it. Here are some photos from it:

The whole group at the beginning

Bugz dancing together at the end when they finally got to have a picnic

Colten after the show

Where to start...

So much has been going on...

Colten had a game Friday and they got the closest to beating the blue team (the other Mason team) than they ever had before, so we were very excited! Colten got two hits and one run. The first hit he made it to 3rd base. The boy after him struck out and then I saw him with his hands clasped together, eyes closed, praying that the next boy would hit the ball so he could run home! Too cute... guess it worked! He made it home and of course had to slide in. The next hit he made it to 2nd base, but there is a 5 run per inning rule and they passed it before he could run again. They had two games the previous week, one win against Menard Thursday and one loss to Harper Friday. Colten's finger got hit by the ball(the skin got scraped off and it was very swollen) when he was batting in the Thursday game, so we didn't make it to the Friday game.

Ashlyn had a band trip Saturday and she had to be at school at 4:30am... yes A.M.!!! I managed to convince John to take her in ;) They had a concert at Sandy Lake Park (I think that's the name anyway) near Dallas and then they got to play some at the carnival there. They didn't come home until midnight that same day, so John & I went dancing at the Peanut Mill until we had to go pick her up... worked out great!

Sunday we made a spur of the moment decision to go have lunch with Mom & Dad at Brady Lake since they had been camping there all weekend. We did some fishing on the lake, but all we caught were big sticks... not too tasty! Colten's lucky Scooby-Doo fishing pole proved it's luckiness after it was inadvertently dropped in the lake out of reach of the anchored boat. Fortunately, it had already been cast with a bobber, so we paddled over to the bobber and pulled it out. Even if it didn't catch any fish, at least we still have it!

Last night was the Science fair for the 6th and 7th graders, so we went and checked out everyone's science projects. Ashlyn did a project testing how usable different types of paper are after home-recycling (soaking in water, blending, and flattening out). She determined that construction paper was the best over newspaper, printer paper and notebook paper. It was fun to see what everyone came up with.

Tomorrow is Colten's class's play, BUGZ, where he will play a firefly firefighter. He's been so excited about it and keeps asking how many more days until the play. I can't wait to see it... I'll be sure to take lots of pics ;)

I think that's all for now....