A Big Night of...Disappointment!

Ben has been so looking forward to this evening for weeks now! It was to be the evening of his first tee ball practice! He was even home sick from school yesterday and bound and determined to feel better by today so as not to miss this momentous occasion! :) We pulled in 10 minutes before practice time to discover that we were the only ones there and that the field looked like a war zone. A quick call confirmed my hunch; practice had been canceled until next Monday. Somehow, we missed out on the latest e-mail notification. Ben was really bummed, but Jim and I were so proud of how he handled himself. His eyes didn't even "leak"...as he always says! :)

I think Ben was partly content just to be wearing his new cleats. They are so tiny and cute!

LOVE this next pic of The Cleats and the toothless grin. :)

We ended up staying at the park for about half and hour. Ben ran around the battle ground...uh, I mean ball field, pretending to hit, run the bases, pitch, slide, etc. He did a very thorough job of breaking in his cleats, if nothing else...

He was so excited when he "found" home base. You would have thought we were having an egg hunt or something!

Ellie enjoyed playing on the tot lot that is adjacent to the ball field. Later, she also joined her brother's game of imaginary battle field baseball.

Check out the hat. I'm thinkin' Cousin Lily will be getting a hand-me-down cap soon...and we'll be hunting for a new one. :)

All in all, 'twas a fun evening even though it wasn't what we were expecting. Stay tuned. You can be sure that I'll be posting pics from the "second-first practice" next Monday!!!!

Lions and Lambs

Everyone stop griping about the dreary rain of the past few days! It could be worse...remember the SNOW?!?!?

Look what I never posted! I was too lazy to even edit or crop, so here's the good ole' raw version. :) This was supposed to be a cute picture of the kids in front of our almost-completely-buried lamp post. It ended up being a lesson in why one has to be careful about where one places his snowy gloves. Oh, the shrieking that followed. :) Plus, interestingly enough, Benjamin actually looks like he's two years older than Ellie in this pic! I think he was workin' the slope of the driveway and Ellie's adverse reaction to an ear full of snow.

This shot was taken after I finished growling at them..."Just stop for one minute and come over here to pose together. Someday you will want a picture of you in all this snow! I swear I'm not going to take a ton...blah, blah, blah..." At least they have good "fake" genuine smiles... :)

Keep those chins up, folks. Not too many more "lion" days left. Ellie assures me that tomorrow will most definitely be a "lamb" day.

Check out my latest Pennlive post here.

BIG Weekend!

The boys didn't have school on Friday because of...wind?!? :) So my scrapbooking weekend got off to a different start, since the whole family was underfoot, ...uh I mean home for the day. No, actually, Jim and kids played nicely and left me to my packing and organizing most of the time.

The morning had a ripple of BIG excitement when Benjamin's snaggle tooth began to bleed yet again after some rough-housing. Go figure. When Daddy wiped the blood, he easily pulled the tooth right out, as well!! Ben was so excited! I was planning to take some pics of his toothless grin after he got into clothes for the day, but when I peeked in and found him checking himself out in the mirror, I just couldn't not run for the camera!

So here's Mr. Toothless with rumpled hair and jammies...

I left Friday afternoon for what turned out to be an AWESOME weekend. My sister-in-law and I have been going to this retreat for four years now, and we look forward to it each year. It is run by Dani Grim, a Creative Memories consultant out of Carlisle, and she does an absolutely fabulous job with the whole event! Upon arriving, I was still in a fog from my cold. But miraculously a Quizno's dinner seemed to do the trick. By Friday night I was practically CURED!!! I'm serious. I didn't even open the box of cold medicine that I had packed and hardly even put a dent in the tissues! I am happy to report that I worked on a whopping 92 pages from Friday afternoon through Sunday evening and even found a little time to eat and sleep! I'm a tad bit tired now, but that's to be expected. Looking forward to next year...

And yes, MASH PIT Alums, the tradition lives on - While I was gone, Jim's pit kids struck again. They usually grace us with lovely yard decorations around Memorial Day and/or before Band Camp in August, but for some reason they thought it would be fun to do in the dead of winter this year! Jim took the following pics of the devastation, I mean decorations. For those not in "the know," the little white things all over the front lawn are plastic forks. That's actually a verb now...as in, "We got forked." :)

Apparently, they tied the decorating theme in with this year's indoor percussion show. The soap writing all over the windows and the car were "rules" referred to throughout the show. At least they were creative...

I think they're trying to corrupt our children...

Jim said the funniest part of cleaning it all up with both kids Sunday morning was their differing approaches. Ben was just happy to be outside helping. Ellie kept trying to plot revenge! :) I think she may be the one we have to worry about...

Thirteen on Thursday

1. This week...sigh... I'm trying to NOT succumb to a cold and get my act together to go away for a scrapbooking weekend. So since I can't seem to get my brain around any one good subject, I thought I'd share a bunch of little tidbits.

2. Benjamin's case of "Boy Brain" (...or is it "Elementary Brain") is worsening by the day. I find that I frequently have to repeat my very clear instructions THREE times before any recognition of said directions registers. The other morning, as I was leaving his bedroom, I said, "Ben, put your animals on your bed and your pajamas in the drawer." Suspecting that these instructions had not sunken in, I asked, "What did I just ask you to do?" He replied, "Put my animals on my bed and the trains on the track." And he was serious.

3. Ellie sent her first e-mail today. She desperately wanted to send one to Gram. She was very proud. She was even more proud when we checked later in the day and discovered that Gram had replied to her "female." :)

4. Ben has a snaggle tooth that looks as if it could fall out at any moment. It will be his third to fall out, but his first top tooth. I know he'll look so different without it. I'm sure it will fall out this weekend, while I'm not home.

5. There has been a pine cone tied to a blue piece or yarn hanging from our upstairs linen closet door knob for about a week now. I don't know why. I'm pretty sure that Ellie knows why, though.

6. Ellie's class had Red, White, and Blue Day yesterday. The children all wore patriotic colors, learned about the Olympics, played Olympic games, and even had star-shaped Rice Krispy treats for snack. She had a terrific time. Incidentally, do you have any idea how hard it is to find patriotic clothing that still fits fast-growing young children at this time of year?!?!?

7. Speaking of Rice Krispy treats, the aide in Ben's classroom made Cocoa Krispy Treats a few weeks ago as a snack for the teacher's birthday. Ben came home raving about them! "I know what ingredients we need; there are three - marshmallows, Rice Krispies, and chocolate. Can we make them...now?" Having recently earned my black belt in Rice Krispy Treat Making, I was happy to oblige. :) (It did end up taking me about a week to remember to get the ingredients at the store, though.) Ben loved them, but I gotta say I'd rather stick to the "plain" ones, myself.

8. Ellie jabbers in her sleep all the time. We get her up on our way to bed to go to the bathroom, and she frequently has something funny to say. The other evening, I went up to check on her because she was coughing. I sat her up and was talking to her, although her eyes were still closed. She coughed identically three more times and then burst out into hysterical laughter! I was laughing with her (I thought) so hard that I was crying. She flopped over my arms as I attempted to lay her back down and continued to laugh like someone was relentlessly tickling her! Jim came running upstairs to see what was going on, as he heard the two of us laughing our heads off. He, of course, assumed that she was awake. He said in a loud voice as to be heard over all of the commotion, "Ellie! What are you doing?" She abruptly stopped laughing, stuck her thumb in her mouth, rolled over and went back to sleep. And Jim and I were left to simply stare at each other. ...at least the coughing stopped...

9. I've succumbed to the cold. (#1 was written Wed night:) My nose is a faucet, and I coughed all night last night. Bleh... I'm sure my sister-in-law (a.k.a. - my roomie for the weekend) will be thrilled to read this. :)

10. Lately I've been feeling the pressure to devote more time to playing with and engaging Ellie during the day when "the boys" are at school. It seems like "just yesterday" that I embarked on this stay-at-home-mommy thing, and now a little over SIX years later, I'm staring "Returning to the Work Force" right in the eye! I only have a little over a year until my baby goes to Kindergarten!!!! That being said, this little "guilt jag" I have put myself on can only sustain me for so long. The other day, we actually played with PopBeads (plastic beads that you can make jewelry with) for 45 minutes until I simply had to walk away to avoid clawing my eyes out!

11. We got a slight coating of snow last night. I love it! It's just enough to make the big gray piles of old snow look fresh again. :) ...not looking forward to the harsh winds that are supposed to show up later tonight, though...

12. While reading his homework book to me this afternoon, Ben suddenly switched into "robot mode," reading each word detached from the others. When I pointed this out, he explained that he was supposed to do it that way, since there were "those curved marks." He pointed to the quotation marks. He said they meant you were to pause before going on to the next word. I'm thinking that this would be a case of severe over-application of the use of commas????? Too funny. 'Makes for a rather bumpy read!

13. It is now 7:07 p.m., and I am going to bed! I pray to be somehow saved from this terrible cold by tomorrow morning. I had such grand plans to get so much accomplished this weekend! Blowing my nose and drinking a ton of water were not necessarily part of them... I'm also bummed by the thought the this admission of sickness is going to win me the table way back in the corner all by myself! :)

All for now! Hopefully I'll have LOTS of scrapbooking progress to report next post.

Apples and Bananas

Oops! I forgot to post a link to my latest Pennlive post from a few days ago!

Here it is: Apples and Bananas

"Terrible" Children

Those who REALLY know my kids quite well will find the humor in this tale without any explanation. (For those who don't, the required background info is that Ellie lives to eat, and Benjamin lives to sleep.)

Yesterday, Ben brought a book home from school that he had been given by his teacher as a birthday gift. As I read it to the children for the first time, I stopped to explain the use of the word "terribly." It had been used to mean "very," a context that was new for them.

Ellie piped up right away with, "Oh, you mean like...Everyday, I am terribly hungry."

Then Ben added, "And everyday, I am terribly tired."

Yup. I think they've got this one down. :)

Double Doozy!

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of taking pictures at Trinity Lutheran Church in Camp Hill, PA for a doubly special occasion. Pastor Stewart Hardy was retiring, and at his last service, he also baptized his grandson!

Here are a few of my favorites from the morning.

Trinity is such a beautiful church, and I love the way some of the wider shots turned out. This is an interesting perspective that I'm sure a pastor does not get to see often, if ever. What a wonderful reminder of just how many lives he has touched week after week and year after year.

While the pastor was greeting his parishioners on their way out, I started snapping some pictures of his adorable family.

What a peaceful baby! He hardly made a peep. And get a load of those little hands...

Yeah, and then when Pastor Hardy came back, and we were ready for some full family shots? THEN poor Baby Boy lost it! I love how everyone except for Big Sister is looking at the poor little guy.

And THIS is my favorite of the entire morning! Baby screaming, and Daddy looking on as Grandpa tries to comfort. So sweet...

Congrats to the Hardy Family on the good pastor's retirement. I'm sure they will all enjoy his slower pace of life...once everyone gets adjusted. :)