Memorial Day Weekend

The boys had fun chillin' the beginning of the weekend. We have been enjoying being outside and seeing the planting that Ray and the boys did a few weeks back -- under the windows in flower boxes and around the tree base. Aren't they pretty?

Sunday we went to our friends' house in Maple Grove to visit their 4 month old twins - Jillian and Lucas. The boys played with their 4 1/2 yr old son Gavin which was a blast because he is into Pokemon cards just like Connell and vehicles/super heroes just like Liam!!!!

And although we haven't met them yet, new neighbors moved in the house immediately to our south this past weekend. And for those of you keeping track, it is the 6th family that has lived there in the 9 years that we have been there. Wonder what we are doing wrong?

In all fairness...

I felt the need to post a photo from Liam's childhood to see if he still looked the same. Here is the one we used for the announcements taken the day he got home from the hospital - maybe 4 days old. Does he still have that smug look - you be the judge by comparing the photo from his recent illness to the one here! Ha, ha!

Stomach bug hits the house

Last week I didn't feel so well and ended up throwing up once and then just felt yucky for a few days. Well, Saturday late afternoon Connell started throwing up and continued for about 12 hours and then was pretty fatigued and recovering for another 12 hours. As soon as he was back to normal, Liam started. Liam also threw up for about 12 hours (although he is not as neat and tidy about it as Connell is) and I hope that right now he is in the recovering stage. He missed his preschool program because of it which was a little sad. Here are photos of both in their times of illness. Liam was trying to stay cool on the couch (with towel underneath since he never makes it to the bathroom) and bowl as well. Connell was so wiped that he fell asleep on the couch and somehow it reminded me of a photo from his first 2 weeks of life. What do you think?

It's back to work I go...

I was at RHS this past week working with Cristina whose French classes I will be taking over in the fall. She attempted to do a "crash course" in using all the new technology in addition to walking me through the new curriculum. I will have three different preps next year -- French I, French III & Spanish I and combined with having brand new textbooks since I left -- it is all very overwhelming. I left with all three texts in hand so I have been paging through and thinking about how they compare to the old ones. Next step will be to have Ray get the myriad of Banker's boxes down from the top shelves of the garage so that I can leaf through each and either recycle, toss or save for next year. It's a big project since I had collected lots of stuff in the 10 years I taught prior to having the boys. So I am in "gearing up for teaching" mode right now although there is only so much I can do at this stage in the game. I'm super excited to go back especially after seeing my classroom and paging through the books and remembering all the little tricks I used to teach (mnemonic devices, etc.) in addition to thinking about the fun activities I used to do with the kids. In about 3 months, the boys will start going to daycare and I will be back at it fulltime!

Church programs come to an end...

Today was my last CAPstone session (Catholic Parents group). I was a little sad since I have been involved in this ministry for 5 years now with the final two in the role of prayer facilitator. We painted flower pots and planted flowers as our final craft project. I felt compelled to use my favorite color of purple although I wasn't very precise in my painting. It turned out cute enough and Liam keeps telling Connell that it is HIS! I am passing on the role of prayer facilitator to Marlene Hoffman who is a friend outside of church and who I got involved in CAPstone in the first place a few years ago! So it's fun to hand it all on to someone I know. I also am scheduled to be a presenter for the group next February 1st and so I will be back once to see everyone.

Last Thursday was my final Bible Study which I was involved in for 3 years. There will still be a 7 week summer session that takes a different focus and will be a different group of participants, so it won't be the same. But I did present at Bible Study about 4 times per year (either a Bible Background presentation or Gospel reflection) and so I used it to practice getting back into teaching!

Purses, handbags galore

For some reason the last week has put me into a sewing mood. So I have been taking scraps and making some handbags just for fun.

The chocolate brown material is leftover from the curtains I made for the upstairs hallway bathroom (my chocolate-covered cherry bathroom!) and then I found the pink with daisies stuff in my stash (apparently I never made anything with it). I found some pink clothing lining and there you go!

The brocade looking stuff I had purchased thinking that I was going to make myself a dress - but clothing is not my strong point and so I took the remnants and made it into this handbag. The lime green lining was actually from a dress that I made while practicing to make my wedding dress 9-10 years ago! I found the actual practice dress and cut it apart to line this one!

The final one was the product of a pillow case I saw at the thrift store that I thought was gorgeous. One pillow case wasn't enough to make a bag, so I had to supplement with the green material which gives it a strange look. The hot pink border was the border on the pillow case and so my only wish was that I would have had enough to avoid using the green altogether. Oops. It looks nice for the beach though!

All of them have some side pockets which are nice.

May is here

Over the weekend Ray was able to do some fixing of my bike (yes, the one I purchased back in 1997 and haven't been on in years because the tire doesn't hold air despite changing the innertube). I rode it a 2-3 miles yesterday with the boys (it's great now that both boys are without training wheels and both on big bikes -- they can go as fast as I can although it take a little more pedaling for them) As long as we stay on the paths and on the lesser-traveled roads and they follow closely behind, it works out well and opens up lots of possibilities for the summer.

This week is a little less busy than normal because Liam only has one day of preschool, I don't have my Tues morn church group and our normal playdate Friday friends have other plans. I am trying to take advantage of the time to do a little organizing around the house and catch up on a few projects. We'll see if that happens though.

I did take on a big task last week. The coordinator for the written French contest in our state (she took over this year) asked if I could help her to print the certificates for the students. I told her I could and although it was very confusing (different percentages get different certificates), I managed to get about 700-800 certificates printed (and hopefully on the correct certificates!) and organized by school.

There is also a big saga going on with the oral French contest that I had been hoping to give up this year. There are two proposals so far....one is a pair of women who work for a student/teacher travel organization with trips to France -- they would co-coordinate. The other is a colleague of mine who would take over provided that I would co-coordinate the first year with her. We'll see if more people step forward with proposals before late August when the AATF-MN Board will vote.