Shower Number 1

My sister Melinda had her first wedding shower on Friday night. It was hosted by Brian's aunts on his mom's side and was a great time. We played some fun games and got to watch Melinda's cooking skills at work as she made us a delicious dish using Pampered Chef items. It isn't often that you get pictures like these so I thought that I had better post them for the whole world to see! The next shower is on Saturday afternoon and hopefully I can get some pictures posted from that shower as well!

Melinda preparing our main dish!

The beautiful bride and her fiance!

Melinda and the moms. Brian's mom on the left and our mom on the right. They are both named Sandy!

Ready for Summer

There are few indications that the kiddos are ready for summer weather around here.

You can't tell but Becca is sound asleep here. She seems to think that she needs her sunglasses on everytime we are in the van, day or night, rain or shine.




I wanted the kids to try on their swimming suits before we go to stay a hotel with Nick's parents. I have had Micah for quite awhile as I bought it on sale at the end of last summer. He has probably asked if he could wear them at least once a week since then. Needless to say neither one of them wanted to take them off!



We know that swimming weather is a little ways off, but hopefully warmer weather is not to far away!

Ditching a perfectly good Valentines

This is Nick stepping in for a post.

I feel as though I have an important story with a lesson to be learned.

One would think that a veteran of seven married years and 10 previous shared Valentine's Days that I'd be in a rhythm by now and know how to make the day go smoothly. One would think... but instead I crashed and managed to put this year's Day of Romance in the ditch.

To really wreck the day a guy has to start early. For me that was Wednesday night, the 11th. I worked late, forgot about the 29-inch deep pothole south of town and hit it squarely with our rusty, 176,000-mile Cavalier. The shock absorber punched a hole into the right rear wheelwell.

For the weekend, Michelle and I had an agreement that we would not "get anything" for Valentine's Day. Fellas, agreements like this should always be ignored.

I still hoped for a dinner-for-two Friday night thanks to our church's Parent's Night Out program where we could drop off the kids. But Friday it snowed all afternoon and that was cancelled. Since it was now the 13th, I hastily drove to Wal-Mart and picked up a couple of Valentine's cards and some chocolate. As the snowfall reached its climax, I headed north to New Sharon, the hole in my wheelwell and broken shock absorber still not fixed. By now I had effectively crashed and burned Valentine's Day already and when I spun the Cavalier into the ditch, that was also where I put any hint of romance for the evening.

So I hope all others fared better than I did on Valentine's Day this year. At the very least the guys have an example of how not to handle this Day of Romance.

What a day!

I will be the first to admit that most days have a good share of redirecting and discipline (in other words screaming, crying, timeouts and correction of bad behaviors.) There are several days where I wonder what the flies on our walls think about our family. Is it a family of full of love? My hope is that the happy moments out weigh the crying and screaming and discipline.

However today was not one of those days.

Wednesdays can be long days as the kids, my mom, my grandma and I all head to town in the morning to do our Wal-Mart and grocery store runs and then we share lunch together. I was really worried as my mom is gone and so it was going to be just grandma and I. When we are in town the kids tend to think that they can only be with me only complicating the quick run to town. (Micah has to be at preschool at 12:15.)

The day started out with the kids eating their breakfast with little fuss and Micah getting dressed the first time I asked him to. Becca made a good effort at getting herself dressed and they both were polite in asking for help. We got out the door with no problems and met grandma right on time. Becca willingly went with grandma and I only had to ask Micah to behave like 4 times in Wal-Mart. The grocery store was more of the same. Micah actually walked nicely instead of insisting on one of the huge car carts. Lunch was wonderful as all the food was eaten and not spilled and everyone got back in the van with no fussing. We got Micah to preschool at exactly the right time and Becca got herself all ready for her nap and then took a good nap. We picked up Micah from preschool (At which point he has the worst bloody nose of his life, but he handled it very well and Becca quietly wandered his classroom. They did complain about what we watched during snack time or what was for snack. They shut the TV off willingly and colored and played nicely until supper. Trimmed fingernails and toenails with no complaints. Becca & I showered and Micah took his first solo shower. (He was so proud!) There was a little bit of fussing during bedtime, but hey, the whole day couldn't be perfect! HaHa!

To top the whole day off Becca went potty 5 times!!!!! (More so because I remembered to take her! :))

I know that tomorrow will be back to the norm, but I am going to enjoy today for at least a few more hours.

What's been going on

This weekend was mostly spent at home. We don't have a lot of those any more so it was nice to just stay put and let the kids enjoy the outdoors and some down time. Here is what we did to stay busy - you will see that we don't have much trouble entertaining ourselves. The Micah and Becca show is always quick to make you smile!


My mom is in Nicaragua for 10 days and so we had my dad come over for the usual Saturday night pizza. Micah talked him into playing the ladybug game. It is a fun game and Micah really likes it because for some reason he tends to win - and it is not because we let him! A typical game lasts about 15-20 mins, but this time is went about 45 mins! Let's just say the men were ready to be done. :)

Here is our darling little girl in the bathtub. While the boys were playing I gave Becca an early bath so that we could put curlers in her hair for Sunday morning. She was dumping water over her head and seeing how much hair she could get in her face. (How's come she always screams and throws a fit when I try to dump water over her head?)






With Nick being under the weather we had not been able to go see his grandparents for awhile. Sunday was the first time since Christmas that we had seen them. Grandpa had a couple of rough incidents so I think that it was good to bring the kids and brighten the mood for a few hours. Grandma loves any time that the kids bring her a book. It is hard to tell who was enjoying this more! :)


And this is Becca at supper tonight. She refused to eat with the rest of us and so she ended up sitting at the table for a long time after the rest of us. She did end up eating a good amount of her supper, but she also decided that the raspberry jello was more fun to play with than eat. She went straight to the bath tub.

This video was taken right before bedtime tonight. Nick and Becca were having fun and it was Becca's night to pick the story. The voice in the background is Micah.

Mischieveous Little Girl

Becca has been under the weather this past weekend, but aparently today she was feeling 110%. Needless to say she was being a little mischievous.

We have a step stool in the bathroom that Micah uses to get up to the sink. he used to try to carry it to other parts of the house, but he was banging into the walls to much that we had to put a stop to that.

Well Becca has figured the same thing out. However she can carry it without making a single sound. As of late it hasn't been uncommon for us to find it in another room under the light switch. Today the step stool got a work out. Found her using it several times and was able to catch one on camera.

See that look in her eyes? She also had it under our front door light switch which meant that she had to lean over the pile of toys and the bookshelf to reach the switch. (Which she was switching on and off - I saw the lights flicker.)

She also decided that attempting to update Mommy's facebook status would be a good idea. Fortunately I caught her before she actually did anything.

Glad she is feeling better, but I can't have eyes in every room!