Well, What Do You Know?

After nearly two years of being blocked out of this blog (and being too depressed, mad, and lazy to start a new one), I'm finally able to post again! I guess better late than never, but I'm so out of the habit of blogging (and SOOOO lazy about uploading photos from my phone to the computer!). This could take awhile to get back into again. All I know is that I have LOVED going back through old posts and being reminded of funny things the kids have said, little outings I'd forgotten about, etc. I know I'll regret not having made a better effort at documenting the last two years!

In a nutshell, we've moved an hour and a half from our home town (not easy, but getting better), the kids are involved in school and extra-curricular activities (swim team for Jared, piano and voice lessons for Emily, and inline speed skating for Connor), our family has gotten into hiking this year (starting out slow and sticking to some short, easier trails, though we did do one heck of a 6 mile hike a month or so ago, not realizing how difficult the trail was!), I've been nanny-ing for some new friends, Dan's around more often since we now live so close to work, and we are gearing up to FINALLY do some remodeling on the new house! It's a 30 year old house that was a rental for a large chunk of that time, so is pretty beat up.

Now that I know my blog is finally unlocked, I'll have to sit down and put a bit more thought and time into future posts. For now, it's good to be back. :)

Why the long face?

I found Jared making faces in the water faucet in the hallway where Em takes piano lessons, and couldn't resist joining in...


It was harder to photograph than you'd think...

Parade

My mother-in-law invited the kids to join her in the parade, walking with an organization she's very involved in. The overall theme of the parade has been pirates, so the kids dressed the part!


Dan and I stood at the "finish line" of the parade, and the kids zipped by so fast I barely even got a chance to take a photo!


My friend Stephanie stood more in the middle of the parade route, so got a good one when the "float" paused

Piano/Voice Recital

Emily had her piano and voice recital on May 19th. She did such a great job!




She was VERY nervous about having to sing in front of such a large group of people, but she pulled through and did great. VERY proud of her! I would have been terrified to the point of tears in that position, but she put a lovely smile on her face and got down to business. :)

If you want to see her piano performance, click here

If you want to see her vocal performance, click here

Two Goofballs

Connor and I were bored while waiting for Jared to be done at swim team practice a week or so ago, so we were making funny faces and taking our picture. LOL




I super love this kid!


PS He'd gotten done with his own swim team practice (shorter than Jared's) and was dressed in his pajama bottoms with no shirt on, and kept being really paranoid as we were taking pictures that I was going to get pictures showing off his nipples. ???? ha! If you're that worried about it, kid, put a shirt on!!

3K Fun Run

The kids' elementary school recently hosted a 3k fun run.

I was standing at the finish line watching and watching for Jared to finish, and at some point, I turned around to see if I could see him coming down the hill behind me, so I'd have an idea when he'd be looping through the big field and coming up to the finish line. Suddenly, he was saying to me, having already finished the race and was working on his Otter Pop. He finished much faster than I'd been anticipating, so had my back turned and missed it!!!


Connor came cruising through much faster than I anticipated as well, but I had a better eye out for him, after having missed seeing Jared




Emily pretty much walked the entire thing with her friend Alex


All three kids placed in the top 12 for their grade level (they awarded top six boys and top six girls for each grade)


I've already had to promise the kids that we will register and come do the Fun Run next year (it's open to the public) if our new school doesn't have something like this. They really enjoy doing it. I was especially proud of the boys, who really pushed themselves, and each got their best time ever, by a couple of minutes!

Rat Sitting

Jared's class got two rats (which they named Spirit and Whiskers) as classroom pets for the last month of school, and they needed someone to take the rats home for the weekends. We volunteered for the first weekend.

Jared didn't like how they'd squirm as he was trying to pick them up, and kept insisting that they hated him, so was pretty hands-off with them all weekend. Jared and Emily absolutely LOVED having the rats. Jared finally got more comfortable with handling them the morning we had to take them back to school, and was wishing we could keep them longer.