Strike Fast, Strike Hard, No Mercy

All I can say is that icky germy germiness has invaded our house. Sick kids all over the place! The amount of cold medication that has been handed out is not only expensive, but probably illegal to purchase in one shopping trip!
Here's hoping that the weekend finds them all magically cured!

At least while we have been stuck at home for days with sick kids we are getting free Stars channels! I have now officially watched hours upon hours of old movies, even a few that I had never seen before! Who knew "Mall Cop" would be such good entertainment!

Happy 15th birthday Mallory and Madison!

My sweet twins babies turned 15 years old today! Time, where have you gone? I am sure that Jim and I are not old enough to have daughters this age!

Except that both of my babies are very, very good at math, so if they say that today they are 15, I have no doubts that they are right!
My girls are both so awesome! They are so much help, considerate, smart, involved young ladies! Jim and I are both really, really proud of them!

Mallory loves art, cooking, flute music, sewing, and almost anything that she can create. She is a ton of help around here, is on the Principal's honor roll in school, and I just thank God every single day for the opportunity to be her mom!

Madison also loves to cook, and recently beat out all the other clarinet players to take first chair in band! I am constantly impressed with her accomplishments and I also love Madison's sense for neatness and order - if I need something organized she is my go-to girl! She is also on the Principal's honor roll! I thank God every single day for the opportunity to be her mom too!

I don't spend enough time bragging about my girls - but this week the high school put up a display of the top 10 academic kids in each class - both Mallory and Madison are in the top ten of their freshman class! Not too shabby!

Happy Birthday to my sweet, smart, wonderful daughters! Your dad and I are very proud of you and love you very much!

Now, where they are very helpful and we are proud, I also have to share the selection for their birthday dinner - baked mac and cheese and cherry jell-o! Of all the food on earth-- :)

They also are dragging me shopping for their birthday this weekend. So I guess I will endure a car load of giggly teenage girls and hours upon hours of shopping for who knows what! It is a fairly simple request!

Preston was home sick today, he has a fever and no other symptoms to speak of. I hear that it is some germy kid disease that is going through the school. The kids have been given ANOTHER day off school for tomorrow, so at least he can hopefully recover without missing any more work! There is probably only 3-4 inches of snow, but it is blowing, and still coming down and the wind chill is terrible! I think it was probably a good decision. The kids are starting to worry about losing spring break with having to already make up 3 days (now 4). I guess we can only wait and see!

Super Bowl Sunday

We had a fun Super Bowl Sunday! I had a lot of help from the kids with getting the house cleaned up!

I had to serve at mass this morning, and Mallory filled in for Colin while he was at a wrestling tournament at Silver Lake. Jim took him, and he had a great day wrestling! He got 2nd place! Jim said Colin really wrestled well, and there were tons of kids from our club wrestling so it was a fun day of watching!

Colin then went off to a Super Bowl party at one of his friend's house. The way I see it, if you invite over tons of 7th grade boys you are either a really fun parent, or a really insane one! Colin said he had a great time even though he is a huge Steelers fan, and they did not fare so well!

The rest of the family went over to my cousin Melissa's. Preston and Quincy had a great time playing with the cousins and neighbors. We had a great time visiting, eating, and watching the commercials (and some would say the men watched the game). Truly, though I don't understand why they can't start the Super Bowl at 3:00 or something. It makes for a late evening! You could eat, visit, watch commercials, and whatever else just as easily in the late afternoon!

Thoughts from a 2 day week

The blizzard left the kids with a 2 day school week. Preston was the only one who wanted to go back - smartly, he said that he was worried if they missed any more school, he would not have enough days to perfect backflips off the diving board this summer!
Harper loved getting spoiled by her older sisters and brothers on a 5 day weekend! She was sad when they finally went back to school on Thursday!

Colin's basketball team missed one game, but they did manage to get their game played on Thursday night. His team did not win, and I did not remember the camera, but Colin played really well! He also missed all of his wrestling practices this week due to weather. I hope it doesn't hurt him when he goes to the Silver Lake tournament tomorrow!

Quincy was very happy to finally return to preschool after almost 2 weeks off. She had really missed her friends! She was also very excited to attend kindergarten roundup on Friday. She passed all the tests, (hearing and vision) and seems to be ready to go to school. She has an appointment coming up to get her kindergarten shots - she proclaimed to the folks at roundup she is NOT scared of needles! I am certainly not ready to send her off - I think I will miss her funny little craziness, and I am not entirely sure the school is ready for her either!

I am working on weaning Harper. She doesn't mind drinking from a cup during the day, but at bedtime and in the night - she is not having it!

I enjoyed having the kids home this week. We did some art, drank some hot chocolate, watched crazy old movies, cooked awesome meals, and relaxed! I don't really want to repeat the blizzard, but I am not complaining about getting a few days with nothing to do except stay home!

Cameron had a basketball game this morning. It was a great game. They came back from a pretty good deficit, and ended up winning by one point! Exciting! After the game, Jim took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters in Kansas City. It was their Christmas gift from Bev. They had a good time, and Preston was most impressed with their stunts, and has not stopped talking about it all evening!

I enjoyed a day with the girls. We returned Mallory and Madison's friend to her own house, went out to lunch, watched some chick flicks, and made homemade chicken and dumplings. It was nice to have a day with just the girls!

Tomorrow I am afraid we are going to have to get back to reality. After church I have to wash laundry, clean house, and get ready for a 5 day week! Since the groundhog did not see his shadow, that means spring is here, so there should not be any more short weeks!

Blizzard 2011

When I got up this morning my immediate thought was "they called off school for this?" I should never think! I went to work and by 10:00 I had cleared off my sidewalk 2 times and you could not tell I had even been out there! This afternoon, the snow was coming down so hard and blowing I could not believe it! We were having a hard time even seeing across the street! I am very glad that both Jim and I only work a few blocks from home.

Harper seems to have a little touch of something, she has been very fussy and has a runny nose/cough. The kids have already been given tomorrow off school, so I am seriously leaning toward taking the day off work. Not to mention that we can't open our front door because of the huge snow drift that has blown there! I think it is going to be a major process to get dug out! I have been enjoying the time with the kids and the lack of activities to run off to, we even watched the old Karate Kid today - the one that is good - you know - with Ralph Macchio! The kids laughed hysterically about the fake karate and bad acting! I was seriously offended that they didn't think it was one of the most awesome movies ever made!

One more day will be fine, and then it can be warm weather and winter can go away!

Days off (again)

There were no sad children at our house this morning when they called to say school was called off due to possible icing on the roads. It really was slick, I know because when I went to work I slipped on the sidewalk. Luckily I didn't fall down!

There were no sad children at our house this evening when they once again called to say no school tomorrow due to us being under a blizzard warning. So far, there is no snow, but they are predicting a foot or so.

There were no sad mommas when the email came to say that my walk through at a dam we are rehabbing was called off for tomorrow! Outside in a blizzard doesn't sound fun to me!

No wrestling practice, no basketball game, rescheduled dentist appointment, no school, no work meetings, whatever shall we do? Aaaah, wait a minute, somewhere around here is that chore list!

Medaling Brothers

Colin and Preston both wrestled in a large tournament at Shawnee Heights (in Topeka) today. It was large because it was both novice and open kids. It was nice that we could go to one tournament and see both of them on the same day at the same place. Colin and Preston both got medals today. Preston got 4th place, and I think he had some fun! Colin had an absolute awesome day of wrestling - pinned every one of his opponents and took 1st place!

Preston (in red) really did some good moves today and got several escape points. He is really improving!
Colin likes to help him warm up....I don't know if the one arm push ups helped him or not!?!

Colin (in red here) really showed a lot of technique today. I was impressed watching him! He is learning a lot and is really doing great! And he is having fun, although in this photo he doesn't look like it!

Halfway through the day, Colin had to wrestle his team-mate, so he reversed his singlet and finished the day wearing blue. I cracked up during this match - Colin goes out and tries to do some move and then ended up picking the kid up. He then proceeded to walk around the mat with this kid on his shoulder....it was really funny - like he was giving him some sort of a piggy back ride or something!

Colin later explained to me that he scooped the kid up and was going to do some throw on him, but he had gotten in trouble for that at a different tournament, so he was deciding what to do to him. He ended up laying him down gently and then pinning him! It was still funny and awesome!

This is another one of Preston - I like the action. These little guys are so fast, and at this size (42 pounds) they are so evenly matched that pins don't seem to happen much. Preston made points today, and I don't think this kid was used to someone going tough on him - he started to cry halfway through the match!

We spent all day at this tournament. When I say all day I mean ALL DAY

but I had fun! Our club had several kids wrestling today, so we had a lot of people to watch! It is still funny to me how you can sit in a gym all day and when you get done you are so exhausted! :)

We went from the tournament back to AT&T because they somehow messed up the rebate paperwork. Our little helper friend was working again today, so we got that straightened out and then went on to walmart. Between the wrestling tournament and walmart I can feel official in stating that I have seen every scary, odd, or indecently dressed person in Topeka!

The kids have enjoyed their new phones - Madison reported to me that she sent more texts today than she has in the 3 years she has had a phone. (Thank goodness we went with the unlimited texting!). I was happy that they had new toys to keep them entertained while we were sitting today!

I thought last week would never end - and now I don't know where the weekend went! Time flies when you are having fun! The kids are convinced that we are going to have a huge snow storm and get more snow days this week. I don't have the heart to remind them that they have to make these days up! Better to go now than to have to make up days when the weather is warm! For Quincy's sake I hope the forecast is wrong. Quincy was supposed to have a couple days off school last week while her teacher was on vacation, but Ms. Becky got snowed in with cancelled flights out of Washington DC, so Q ended up with the whole week off. She was not amused with this - she missed going to preschool!