Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A few random photos

Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sometimes events happen and then we lose track of time...
It seems only yesterday that this workshop started...

 and now look how far it has come!  Jim and Clare have been working so hard!

And the children keep themselves busy while Jim and Clare are working...

With a little help from MD -- I mowed the lawn!
She has become quite the expert tree climber recently...

And swim lessons continue... the next session just started and everyone has been promoted - including this fella who has since stopped crying!
M&M are in there.. somewhere!  Sorry it's not a very good photo but it's hard to keep an eye on all 3!
We are busy... really busy these days!  Family portraits are turning out to be a blast!  The children spend the day outdoors while Daddy takes pictures of their friends and their families.  I am getting better at using MG's scooter now.  (haha!)  We've all learned the rules to Simon Says, Mother May I, Red Light Green Light, and a few other outdoor games.  Honestly, it's hard to play these games with only 4 participants, but we do our best!  Before they would play these games for the sake of playing and rules were disregarded - merely a basis for a sibling gathering/argument (however they saw fit!).  But now we are playing by the "rules" and learning not to cry when we are told to go back to the start!  Slowly...

More events are taking place -- Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

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Monday, May 31, 2010

Today...

Monday, May 31, 2010
Morning:
searching for and collecting bugs!


bubbles!


Breakfast prep:


Yummy!

Afternoon:
lunch!

more collections:


dinner with Bob the Builder:

After dinner entertainment:


Hope your 3 day weekend was as relaxing as ours!

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Saturday, May 8, 2010

Happy Mother's Day (to me)

Saturday, May 8, 2010
MG wrote this in class:

"I love my mom for three reasons.
First I love my mom because she helps me do my homework.  She helps me do my book report.
Next I love my mom because she lets me help do the garden.  She lets me help plant the vegetables.
Last I love my mom because she taught me how to make my bed.  She helps me out the stuffed animals in their places.
These are the three reasons I love my mom."
Her class made pen flower pots for their moms... hers sort of fell apart when she tried to "fix" it for me.

Her Daisy troop made this:

If you look closely, you will see that she is wearing her Daisy uniform!  Ha!  I thought that was very clever of her!  The purple flower is a paper holder type of thing -- it has a huge clothes pin glued on that huge popsicle stick.  It is very cute!

MD's card said this:
"Mother Dear
Can you guess
Who it is that
Loves you best?
I'll give you three guesses
1-2-3
There, I knew
You'd think of..."
And when the bag was opened up... I saw these 2 handsome faces:
Yes, while E was in the class for the 5 minutes when we dropped him off, Mrs. Gardner managed to grab a photo of him and made a flower for him too!  (Told you she was great!!!)

More to come....

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I hope all you  mommies out there had a lovely day!  I certainly did...

Vince and Matthew were VERY busy in Clare's kitchen!
Corinna was an awesome help to Vince!
Matthew did  a lot of work assembling the baked eggs and he enjoyed every minute of it!
Vince cracking more eggs:
to assemble these lovely "baked eggs"
In the other room, Jim is keeping Mom and Clare entertained with a slide show of his hometown in Amburg, Germany.
They are patiently waiting for the popovers to... pop over!
After the table was set it was boom, boom, boom.... no time for photos!  A few minutes later, a group of very satisfied people sat very still at the table -- too full to move!  Great job Vince!!!  Thank you for a delicious Mother's Day brunch!

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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Easter in Review...

Tuesday, April 6, 2010
2004: Her first Easter!




2007:  Doesn't MD look so much like E now?!


2008:  We spent Easter in Alpharetta, Georgia with our new family member, Ryan who was only 2 weeks when we arrived!  Look how tiny E was -- age, not size!  Look at those cheeks!  I want to take a bite out of him again!



2009:  We spent Easter in Anaheim!  The Easter Bunny visited our hotel that morning... that afternoon we drove from Pasadena (after Gina's wedding) to Anaheim and visited Disneyland for the first time with all 3! It was amazing!!!!




I love looking back through the years!  I wish I had more photos... we lost a lot when our computer crashed!

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Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 4, 2010



These are some of the cards the children made for Jim, Clare, and Corinna... They are excited to go over to Jim and Clare's today to celebrate Easter!




This morning (thankfully, MD was up first and I was able to convince him to lay down with me until 7:45... Then he was so loud EVERYONE was up!)  This is why he was so loud...  (quickly glance down and then look back up to allow me to finish  my thought)  Now for your info, I was NOT planning on buying this -- we had recently spent an evening with friends and their children had these.  So, he asked and asked and since he wrote that very nice letter to the Easter Bunny...  (I am a sucker for a child who is willing to write his or her feelings down on paper!)  I gave in because Vince didn't think it was going to harm anything by allowing this item in the house.    Anyway.. new item to sleep with now!  (But he still loves his bear blanket and puppy.)


He woke up last and was trying to truly "wake up" and figure out what was going on!

Then he got into it!  Morgan is reading her note form the Easter Bunny.  She is shocked that he knew her tooth was loose!  Imagine that, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny know each other!


Then they were off!  (I made them wait until Ethan was up and was able to look trhough his loot before they hunted for eggs.  And they waited patiently.)   AS you can see here, she has no problem shoving her little brother out of the way to reach her 22 quota first!  (To ensure fairness, a limit is always given.  In the end they share their reward of chocolates, but it's more enjoyable when they help each other reach their final number.)


He was so proud when he discovered these!

He was just excited to be able to finally hunt those eggs that he's been eying since 7 in the morning!


Happy Easter!  More excitement to come....

So it's now almost 10 PM...  We went to Jim and Clare's and had a fabulous time!

Some eggs she had on display:




They played in the "toy room:"
He remembers this being his favorite when he was younger... he loves revisiting some of these toys whenever he sees E playing with them:
This is Lukas' sister (5 mon), Marieka and Mom (my mom, not hers!):
Then we ate lunch.  I made this (it's the one in the big white bowl at the front).  I think I will use plain sundried tomatoes next time, rather than the sundried tomatoes with herbs.  And I did not have red wine vinegar (but I was pretty certain I had it in my pantry!), so I used balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  It was okay...  What did I tell you about me liking to cook but not really following exact directions!
Finally the egg hunt was on!  It had to be indoors because it was pouring rain today!
E found an egg in Kathy's hood!!!


Morgan's proud because she's fast and her bucket is getting full!
Working together... but not really....
Now checking out the loot!  Yahoo!!!  She is mighty proud of her collection.  Years of experience has sure paid off!
They were finally rewarded when we said, yes, you may have some chocolate eggs and whatever treat you collected!
And so did the adults!  I made this (it was good...if you like tarty treats (is that a word?  It is now to me!).  I used lime rather than lemon because mom has a lime tree.  I wonder now if lime is more tart than lemons.)  
My dish is on the square beige platter -- a wedding gift from Kate's mom, Mrs. James.  Thanks again Mrs. James!
And we all had some time to chat... about people who tweeter, do facebook, and blog.  "Where do they find the time?!"  That was what everyone was asking.  I sat quietly and then explained that I find the time because I cannot scrapbook.  This is my way of remembering for the children.  I will eventually make this into a bound book for the children!

While we chatted, the children went back into the playroom and played some more... Star Wars, anyone?!  Will he ever get tired of this????
He and Jim finally worked on a wood puzzle together...  That kept his interest for about 10 minutes!

Before the end of the evening,Clare gave each child a new toy to play with:

What a great day it was for everyone!  We hope yours was full of laughter and friendship too!


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