Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Tis the Season

We had an opportunity to get away Thanksgiving weekend with Mark's parents to Port Washington, WI.
Mark's parents arranged the rooms for us and can I say - "Wow". The views were fabulous. I don't know why, but I do not have one picture of us four together. I must of been having too good of a time. We also went to Cedarburg where we purchased the most devine candies. This trip put us in the Christmas mood, that is for sure. It was like these charming towns were already celebrating the holiday when we visited.
Lake Michigan view from our room.

Don't let the sunshine fool you - it was very cold!


Franklin Street right outside our hotel - Daytime.
Franklin Street right outside our hotel - Night time.

Thanksgiving weekend

We enjoyed Thanksgiving with my side of the family at Aunt Lynne's and Laura's home in Woodstock this year. This was a longer drive than usual with construction and some of us just could not keep our eyes open on the way.

Too long of a ride!

Thank goodness she's not snoring!

Yeah, we are here!







 



Everyone had a hand in making the meal. We were happy to see Bob and Helen stayed home from Aruba this year. Terry and Lynne did an awesome job with the turkeys. Thanks for carving Mark!




How many people does it take to make Gravy?

Potato Masher!

YUM!

Pie time!




Sleepy on the way home!


Tuesday, October 26, 2010

They make me smile

Scott enjoying the sunshine


Scott making his sister laugh



Annabelle laughing at Scott

Annabelle enjoying herself
What can I say, I really enjoy my kids. They make me laugh and smile a lot. They each have their own personality and interact with each other really well. As they get older, I'm happy to hear their thoughts and points of view.  I took most of these pictures at a restaurant when we went out last Friday night to celebrate their mid-term A's.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

A little busy.

I've been a bit busy these days. I'm taking classes at night at the local college and I volunteered to be the Homecoming Coordinator for Scott's youth football association. When I signed on, it was suppose to be done by Sept. 1. Of course, once I was confirmed as the coordinator, the homecoming weekend of events was moved, by the Board,  to Sept. 24-26th.  At which point I realized I was going to be very busy for the month of September and celebrating my 16th wedding anniversary at a bonfire rally for the Jr. Warriors of New Lenox!

All in all everything turned out really nice. I had a great group of ladies to work with. Here are a few pictures of things we created to make the rally and homecoming day special for all 248 kids and their families.


Flowers for 8th Grade Moms

Tattoos to show team spirit!

Bags given to all kids.

Schedule of Rally events!


 We made banners for game day and had a sponsor for small footballs that we gave fans on game day. We also, made homemade noise makers, which consists of water bottles filled with pea gravel and decorated  in orange!

We ended up with great weather and won our game!!!

Kind of sounds like a "Sale" ad

Annabelle trying to take Mojo to School with her!




Scott coming home after 1st day of 8th Grade!



It's hard to believe my kids are in 6th and 8th grade. The time has truly gone by so fast. Scott has grown and changed his looks so much, just since April of this year, that I can't believe he's the same kid. In a way he is not. He's developed a cool, calm, presence about himself and loves to be physical.

Annabelle and Scott both have a way of making others smile and have the greatest sense of humor! They both are excellent students and are happy to help out around the house, if they remember that you asked them to! Mark and I are very proud of our kids. They are growing up to be wonderful people.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Football

If you never want to hear your kid say "There's nothing to do", sign them up for football. Since August 2nd, our life has been football everyday. Just like work is daily, it should be no big deal but football doesn't always stick to it's schedule - and if it rains it throws it off even more! If you know me, you know I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting to the flexibility of time. Last minute time changes is not my cup of tea and I like dinner time with the whole family.

This being said, Scott is enjoying the sport so far. This is his first year playing organized football. He likes playing street football with his friends so he decided to join and wouldn't you know it, none of his friends are on his team, bummer!
The picture with his helmet is his practice uniform and the other is his Game Day uniform. You would think with all this fancy stuff he was in the NFL. Team pictures were Sunday, I'm guessing they schedule these right away so the kids don't look beat up before the season starts. In the first week of practice Scott dropped 5 lbs. I should have did the practices with him!
To make things more exciting I volunteered to be Homecoming Chairman. I thought this was a great idea since you must volunteer and homecoming was scheduled for the last weekend in August. This way it would be out of the way for when I start my classes for Fall semester. WRONG!!! Homecoming was rescheduled for the end of September. Another plan failed. Oh well, I meet with my committee tonight and hope we can get organized before the chaos of school begins. We all start August 23rd.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Mojo


If you are still curious with the happenings of our dog Mojo, don't forget to check out his blog at

July Birthdays!

July is when Scott and Mark's birthdays are. We celebrated Mark's by going to dinner and coming home to a small cake I picked up from the store. It was the perfect size. Of course, this year was not half as fun as last year!



We celebrated Scott's birthday (again!) when we got home from vacation. We had Mark's siblings, parents, my Mom and brother Steve with his family over for some hamburger and dogs. The Seymours were still on vacation. This year was a little more exciting since Scott turned 13 on the 13th (Golden!). The cake was a yummy fudge frosted cake that Mark picked up for me!

Scott was sweet to let his cousin Seth sit on his lap while we sang happy birthday.
Scott also had his friend, Jacob over for the festivities. Note no decor this year. Scott asked me to keep it simple. I love that boy!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Vacation (Part 4)

The Seymours stopped by on a beautiful day! We had fun tube'n and stopping on a sand bar to swim. (Doesn't Mike look like a tourist in this picture? LOL!)

The rest of the week flew by, but we had fun. The big boys decided it was time for them to ski and we were all so impressed.

People often ask when we come back from vacation if we caught any muskie. This year we can say "Yes". Of course the true answer is "Yes, we caught a musky sleeping on our beach!". This poor guy was injured by a boat prop and washed ashore over night,. Let me tell you that bad boy stunk! Thank goodness the guys had trash duty. They actually took it out on the boat and left it on an island for the other birds/animals to feed on.

All and all we had a fabulous vacation and can't wait to do it again!

Vacation (Part 3)

During week two we were joined by the Brackin family and the Kevin Pries family, minus their sons. We had some more fun while the Erickson's went off to Minnesota to finish out their vacation.


Kayaking was the sport of this summer vacation. Uncle Mike lead the way and everyone who tried it loved it. Catie drove up from Madison for an afternoon. It was a great surprise!



We had a lot of firsts this vacation. Besides Grace's first time minature golfing and go-carting, Scott did horseback riding (Grace too), kayaking and he tried water skiing. He did really well for his first time trying. Thanks to his uncles who were a great help and source of knowledge!




Of course, not all of the wild life happened on the lake. We did see some beautiful eagles, loons and deer. (Yes, I know the middle picure is a butterfly - I couldn't find my loon picture!)

Oh vacation is not over yet! The Seymours were up North too.