Busy, Busy, Busy

I'm sorry I haven't had much in the line of updates lately, but life has been pretty boring around here. I have been totally consumed with my statewide oral French contest (that I organize) and just last week I had to schedule 757 students into 398 time slots in 12 judging rooms between the times of 9:35 am and 1:15 pm. It was quite a chore that took DAYS! The part that is difficult is that every school gives me their own parameters -- i.e. they can't arrive until 10:15 and then must depart at 11:45 and yet have 30 students compete and get their awards packets also processed between that short interval of time! Yikes!!! Then I sent everything off and am already hearing from teachers wanting to make some changes to the schedule. I will be happy when the contest is over (the date of the competition is Thurs. April 10th). This is my 12th year and so I am really counting down the next 2 years until I turn it over to some other poor soul! It's totally volunteer and every year it gets harder with growing boys who don't nap and are bugging me as I try to concentrate on doing my planning. So for the next week or so (especially since Ray is in Mexico Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week), don't expect too many blog entries. Sorry.

Shadow Dancing

Connell discovered the shadows made by the bright sun this morning shining on the entertainment center and he was attempting to make little creatures. I wanted to see the kids' silhouettes and so I got them to pose for this picture. You have no idea how many minutes it took for both boys to be looking sideways at the fireplace instead of at me or the tv set. But I thought the photo turned out cool even though the lamp was also reflected in between the boys.

Easter Fun

The boys got Easter baskets from the Easter bunny. Luckily the Easter bunny knows about all our food allergies and sticks with Peeps and Pez and some other fruit snack candies. They also got a little book and Pez dispenser.

The boys sat for pictures with mom and dad.

In Owatonna at my mom and dad's house, the boys got to find 48 eggs around the house. Inside each had a piece of dairy-free popcorn and a piece of cereal. My parents are very good about dealing with the allergies as well.

The four second cousins tried to pose for a photo -- Sydney (4 1/2), Keira (20 1/2 months), Liam (21 1/2 months) and Connell (3 1/2). For those of you who know my cousin Carrie either from our wedding or her short involvement in playgroup during the summer of '06, these two girls are hers.

The final photo is meant to be funny. Guess what color of Peeps the two boys and I finished off?!?!? Don't worry -- we still have a blue and yellow package for tomorrow (from the Easter bunny!)

Happy Easter!

The boys are all ready to go to grandma and grandpa's in Owatonna for Easter. This year I didn't subject them to neckties!

Fun in the Snow

Even though I had had my fill from shoveling the driveway after lunch today (7-8 inches I think), we all went out after supper to play in the snow. Liam went sledding for his first time ever (I took him down the hill about 8 times) and then Ray and Connell built a snowman and a snow fort. Although it does resemble Ray with Ray's baseball cap and red plaid scarf, that top photo is actually of Connell next to the snowman! Ha, ha.

Only in Minnesota

Only in Minnesota can you have a big snowstorm on Good Friday. Granted Easter falls early this year, but it's already spring and we are getting a storm dropping about 5-7 inches of snow today! This picture is what we see out our back deck door.

Pizza

We decided to make our "famous" homemade pizza tonight. We have to make sure that the crust & pizza sauce are dairy-free of course and then after adding the pepperoni and ground beef, we do sprinkle some cheese on one end of the pizza for Ray, Liam and me. The boys love to help and although they wash their hands beforehand, it still makes me cringe watching them.

Misc. News From Here...

Late last week we were saddened to hear about the stabbing death of a 17 yr. old high school senior boy just a mile from our home. He was a student at Rosemount High School (where I taught for the 10 years before I took my leave of absence). I did not know the victim nor the 16 yr old charged nor his 18 yr old brother who was also involved. It was reported that it is the first homocide in Rosemount's history and it is really a sad story all around.

On a positive note, we were able to cross two major milestones this past week or two. Connell has finally gotten over the hurdle of going poopy in the big toilet (he has been fully trained wearing "big boy" underwear since June 3rd, 2007 -- but doing those big jobs in the big toilet was out of the question until lately!)

Secondly, we were able to get rid of his pacifier. Granted it was only used for the past 2 1/2 years in his bedroom (for naps or bedtime), but he really bucked the idea of us taking it away. Daddy Ray had told him months ago that at age 4 he would have to take it to the hospital to give to a new baby and so Connell was all over that idea. Of course I will be the first to admit that I wasn't too happy about that because if Ray had asked me I would have told him that at 3 1/2 years of age we would make the trip to the hospital instead (those extra 6 months sounded like an eternity that I wasn't really wanting to deal with). So the other night Connell truly lost his pacifier in his room and he and Ray looked all over for it (this part was real and honestly neither of them could locate it). After he fell asleep teary-eyed because he had lost it, I went in quietly and did my own little search and found it and hid it in our room so that it would never resurface! Hooray! The pacifier is gone now for good! My plan all along with Liam has been that after his 2 yr molars all cut through that I will take his away as well. I am a little leary doing anything before that since sometimes with Connell I think that the paci actually gave him a little comfort amidst the teething pain.

Liam

Here are a few photos of Liam.

The first is showing off his latest injury -- a scuffed/rug burned nose from wiping out in the living room. He seems to always have a bruise/scrape on his head.

The second is of Liam trying on my glasses. He is obsessed with trying them on and since they are from 1995 and very bent already, I don't mind. One of these years I will get an updated pair although I feel no rush since I only wear them after taking my contacts out at night or in the morning on the weekends. I never wear them out of the house.

The final photo is of Liam's friend Seth (who is a month older than him). We get together with him and his mom Jackie weekly to play. Sometimes Connell chooses to play with the boys and sometimes Connell just hides in his room.

A Little Big?!?!?

I sent Connell to preschool and Liam to the nursery today at church during Bible Study. When I picked up Liam, he was wearing the above outfit! I laughed so hard. Apparently he and little Maddie were playing with water and got soaked and the only spare t-shirt they could find to put him in was a size 6/7. I always send a spare one to preschool with Connell, but never dreamt that Liam will need one in the short time he is there. At any rate, Connell is simply down the hallway from Liam so if they ever paged me about changing clothes I would grab Connell's spare outfit from his backpack to put on Liam. They didn't want to bother me today and so this occurred. I had to take a picture before I washed it up to send it back to their apparently limited stash -- at least limited in sizes!

Word/Phrase of the Day

Today Connell's phrase was "whirlpool water". Again not sure where his imagination is pulling these phrases from, but this time he attempted some lower case letters I see.

Writing Progress...

Connell has really enjoyed trying to write lately. Because he makes his letters SO BIG and it wastes so much paper, I finally decided to buy some white board markers (a little reminiscent of when I was still teaching) and let him write on the little chalk board / white board that my sister Neysa gave him for Christmas. This morning I was in the living room with him in the kitchen and he calls out, "Mom, how do you spell 'hourglass'?" So I spelled it out loud and came in to find the following on his board. He still insists on using upper case letters because he thinks the lower case ones are too hard, but I am sure he will get over that hump one of these days. The funny part of the story is where in the world he got the idea to want to spell hourglass?!?!?!?

A Challenging Puzzle

As I was getting ready for my luncheon party today, Connell took 9 of Liam's puzzles (used to be Connell's) and dumped out all 9 of them into a pile. Then he tried to hide all the pieces so I wouldn't find them. Well, I found them and now I told him that he can't be part of the party until all the pieces are all back in their respective puzzles. Liam is "helping" too. The hardest part is that most of them have animals and so it is hard to sort the pieces.

That was quick...

Connell's obsession with punching shapes with my punchers has worn off. That only lasted 3 days. On to another obsession I guess....

Connell's Latest Obsession

I can take full responsibility for this one. As something fun to do Monday morning, I pulled out my 15 scrapbook/card making punches and thought it would be fun to punch some shapes with the kids. Connell really had fun and so even after the 10-15 minutes of doing it as a threesome, Connell wanted to continue on his own. Well, by the end of the day, he had spent 4 or 5 hours punching. He wasn't even hungry to eat supper that night because he was really intent on continuing to punch. He was using all colors of paper and punching all the different shapes (moon, heart, balloon, music note, swirl, etc.) and collecting the punches in a bucket. Tuesday afternoon he started back again. This morning he is already up there punching. We are torn between being very worried that something is wrong with him or just delighting in the fact that after 3 1/2 years we have found something that he can do for more than a few minutes at a time. We have noticed that he does tend to have my gene for obsessing over things. I do things until I finish them (craft projects) and I don't procrastinate, but then at some point I get sick of the whole craft and quit for a while before I pick it up again and obsess again.

The photo is after Connell dropped his sherbet bucket filled with the punches and was forced to pick them all back up!

Teething

Since Liam has been exhibiting signs of teething (2 yr molars) lately, a lady who works at the church nursery who sees him 2-3 times every week recommended that we get these new mesh bag teethers that you can fill with cold or frozen foods. The kids can then crunch on the items without choking and possibly get some teething pain relief. Ray and Connell bought two of them for Liam this morning and I filled them with little pieces of apple. Liam was double fisting it with one in each hand going back and forth. He seemed to like them so I will have to put some other foods in the freezer to add in the coming days...

Tom's Retirement Party

This afternoon we attended Ray's mom's boyfriend's retirement party in Vadnais Heights. We had lunch at Bentley's. You can see Connell helping Tom to decipher the letters that were put into his burger that spelled out "Happy Retirement" and Liam was full of hugs for grandma (the huge goose egg on Liam's head was from an accident that happened Friday while rocking on a kitchen chair against mom's wishes). Ray's sister and family were also in attendance (as well as tons of Tom's family). The third photo is of Ray's sister, Christine, and her husband, Chris, and their children, Trent and Nichole.