a long-awaited visit from the cousins

Our cousins came to visit last weekend! The boys were very excited to see them and Aunt Kim and Uncle Chris (who, we learned later from Ewan is "half good and half evil"). Poor Chris did get beat on a fair amount by our boys-I guess he was like fresh meat to them-but he was a good sport about it. We mostly hung out, played a fair amount of Just Dance 2 on the Wii (see previous post for videos of the kids dancing), went to a consignment sale :-) and hauled ourselves to the Little Husky Festival. I say every year that I don't want to go, and every year, we end up going. I don't like it because it's crowded and there's usually long lines to play the different games. Pretty much, you buy tickets to play games, to win tickets, to trade in for Oriental Trading catalog prizes. The plus to this year's event was that the Butler basketball game was on in just about every room and we got to see them win! Final Four here we come! Dinner, more Wii time and off to bed-Saturday was a full day. Cale and Cassie-looking cool in their new shades, courtesy of the festival the traditional cousins couch photo-Ewan, Savannah, Liam, Marcus, Marie, Cale and Cassie (the C's didn't fit on the couch-everyone's getting bigger/older) click here http://redheadedwarriors.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-evening.html for the previous couch photo to see how they've grown :-) You may not be able to tell by his face, but Liam did enjoy seeing his cousins and the girls were quite taken by him as well. still cool the next day

Just Dance fun

I checked out Just Dance 2 from the library for last weekend while the cousins were here. Little did I know how much everyone would like it! I may have to find a copy to buy for us. Here are three little videos I took of some of the kids dancing. The camera is a little fuzzy on one side. I thought it was the lighting in the room, turns out, the lens was smeared and needed cleaned off :-).

a recent visit from Grammy Pammy

The weekend after St. Patrick's Day, Grammy Pammy came for a visit. She hadn't been to see us since right before the new year-winter kept her away. She brought a tote full of girl clothes from Aunt Bitsy that the boys helped sort. They were facinated by the girl colors and some of the fabric choices for the outfits. Liam was more facintated by the empty tote. He did not want to get out or let us put clothes back into it. One of the fun things we usually do with Grammy is get a meal at our (the boys') favorite restaurant-McDonalds. It was extra exciting because I took us to the nearest one with a play area so the kids could run around. The one we went to also has a video game station, so instead of climbing all over the climbing thing, they spent a fair portion of their time trying to play those games. I cut that plan short with an executive decision to take them all to the nearest park. It was cool out, but the sun kept everyone warm. The other fun thing the boys like to do with Grammy is play board games and card games. This can be tough, because some of the boys-mostly Cale-are very competitive and always want to win. This time, Grammy played a Lego game, some Uno, Chutes and Ladders (in which she claimed the boys all cheated) and her "favorite" game-Monopoly. Not the junior version either. The grown up, count out your money, buy your properties, chance, go to jail, etc. monopoly. The boys are big fans-Grammy-not so much. But, she was a very good sport and played a short game with them. You can see how much Grammy loves this game :-)

Thanks for coming to visit Grammy!

Cale's on two wheels!

Look who's on 2 wheels! Cale decided to try out his bike on Sunday and he did great. I remember last year, Cale was not happy that Andy took the training wheels off his bike and that kind of stopped the bike riding for the season. This year, Cale was doing a lot of scooter riding, but then, he asked for his bike. Andy promised Cale a new helmet if he learns to ride 2 wheels. I guess it won't be long before we go shopping.

the walls are green!

Just forgive the clutter and focus on my newly painted green walls! We met our timeline of finishing the painting by last Wednesday. The living room/kitchen walls went from a gray color to guacamole. At first, I was a little overwhelmed with how green the walls looks, but as we kept painting, the color looked better. I love how it makes the cabinet wood pop now and it goes great with the dark brown we painted the front room.

Now, I need to find some artwork to hang on the walls. Andy and I are not quite agreeing on what to hang, which is fine since I have no time to look anyway and it takes me forever to make decisions on pictures.

Happy late St. Pats Day!

I hope everyone had a nice St. Patrick's Day. It's my favorite holiday because there is no expectation for it. You can do lots of stuff, you can do nothing-wonderful.

I was more than averagely motivated to do a few things for the boyos for this day. I started out by making breakfast-green pancakes. The kids were happy. They like pancakes anyway and the green was a cool bonus. I tried to encourage the boys to wear green, especially Marcus and Cale since I didn't want them getting pinched at school (if anyone does that anymore). Ewan swore he did not have a green shirt and I really don't think he cared. (Later in the day, he did put on a green tshirt that was in his dresser-imagine that!)

Liam wore green, too, but I never did get his picture. I was a little busy that day. Andy's treat for St. P's day was to get all 4 of his wisdom teeth cut out. The dentist had been on him for several years to get it done and we finally made the appointment. Andy did fine, the whole thing took about 2 hours and that included going to CVS afterwords to get his perscriptions. We got him home and he slept for a few hours and woke up in time to see his Butler Bulldogs win their first game in the NCAA tourney.

I also made rainbow cupcakes for the boys. They were pretty easy-just a cake mix that you separted into different bowls and dyed different colors. They were pretty to look at and pretty good to eat. No pictures of those-they only lasted a few days.

No corned beef and cabbage for dinner either. Andy probably wasn't up to eat that kind of meal, the boys would have complained about eating "real" food and I had to work anyway. We saved the corned beef for the weekend and had reuben sandwiches. :-)

How lucky are we?

It says, "I am lucky because I am rich." Cale

I guess we really are.