March 2016

With my birthday in early March, we had some fun celebrating a couple of different times.  I had the honor of celebrating my birthday with Pete's sisters again this year and we had a wonderful family dinner followed by pictionary.  The kids had so much fun drawing pictures for everyone and were ecstatic when people guess what they were drawing.  The next evening, we went to a Japanese Steakhouse with some of our wonderful friends in the area.

We traveled to Indianapolis the second weekend in March and were fortunate enough to make it a little bit of a longer trip and got there Thursday evening.  We went to a charity event on Friday night and it was a lot of fun to get dressed up and have a night on the town with my siblings and their friends.  We went to see a movie with my mom and I had lunch with 5 of my old high school friends.  It was a great visit that unfortunately started with Grace puking and ended with Claire puking.  Thankfully, nobody else got sick!

My mom came to visit for a little over a week while our kids were off on Spring Break.  Pete and I took full advantage and went up to Cleveland for a one night getaway.  We had dinner at a nice steakhouse and played some poker at the casino.  During the week we had a great time going bowling, playing games, and celebrating Claire's birthday.

We celebrated Claire's birthday on a Thursday night with 20 friends at a local bounce house.  All the kids wore their pajamas and jumped around.  The next night we had a quiet dinner with family and friends.  We took Claire to breakfast on her actual birthday, decorated eggs, and put together a portable basketball hoop for the kids to play with.

Our Easter was wonderful.  We had a great time celebrating with my mom at lunch and then went over to Pete's family's house for the rest of the day and had a great time relaxing and enjoying the wonderful weather.

Claire started out March getting her expander placed in her mouth.  I have had to take a "key" and crank the expander wider and wider 28 times.  Tonight was our very last crank and I am so proud about how well she did with the whole process.  Claire continues to prepare for her 1st Communion in late April and March had 3 activities in addition to her Sunday school.  She is getting really excited.  She started her girls basketball league at the YMCA and they are undefeated.  She has a really great time with basketball and has improved tremendously.  We absolutely love to watch her play.

Grace has been taking piano lessons every week.  Getting her to practice can be a challenge, but she has no problem putting on a before-bed-concert for us and we all just sit on her bed while she plays.  She is reluctantly in swim lessons and we continue to tell her that if she wants to swim without her floats this summer, she has to stay in swimming lessons.  That usually does the trick.  She loves school and reading and has completed the 1st grade sight words.

Jake started out the month with a speech evaluation and the group of professionals all feel like his pronunciations of "K" and "G" will come with encouragement and they all felt that he was ready for kindergarten.  After talking about it, Pete and I decided to start Jake in kindergarten this upcoming fall.  He is so very excited and we are so proud of him.

Here are pictures from our month of March:

Jake at his speech evaluation

Kim, Kristen and I's family birthday celebration

Grace got invited to a fancy birthday party for one of her friends - they got their hair, makeup, and nails done and walked a fake runway.  It was adorable!

Birthday celebration at the Japanese Steakhouse

Movie time with Grandma!

Fancy night out with these wonderful siblings

Date night in Cleveland

Pete and the kids took down the swingset and made big plans to build a bigger one in the fall

We celebrated the anniversary of my dad's passing on March 21st.  Sometimes its hard to believe its been 5 years and this was the first year I was able to be with my mom on this day.  It will always be a hard day for me, but we had a good time celebrating his life with some of his favorite foods - corn dogs, onion rings, and dilly bars!

Claire at her pajama bounce house party

Claire's family dinner birthday celebration

Claire's birthday breakfast

Decorating Easter eggs

Basketball from Keith and Debbie!

Basketball hoop for the kids

The first of many kids vs. parents baseball games - the kids won 10-8

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

Easter morning

 Fresh haircuts for all!

We went to a Cleveland Cavaliers game on March 31st with Pete's coworkers in his company's suite - it was my first Cavaliers game and we had a great time!

February 2016

I remember when my 3 kids where 3 and under and parents would say - "Just wait until they are in activities" and I would think to myself "Nothing will be as busy as bottles, 3 kids in diapers, and an unknown nights sleep.  I was definitely wrong.  Parenting just continues to bring new and different challenges and schedules and you just go through doing the best you can and hope that your kids turn out polite and humble.  February was a wonderful month, but the activities for the kids and Pete and I seemed at an all-time high so it definitely flew by!

Pete is busy with soccer and trying to get spring registration and teams situated and organized.  On top of that, he is a full-time engineer with new projects arising and more successful ideas from recent travels and his inquisitive mind.  

I do my best to juggle work, school, household duties, mom and wife but I'm sure there are days when I fail way more often than I succeed.  I am in the middle of taking Advanced Pharmacology and it brings me back to my days at Purdue, but still extremely fuzzy!  

Claire ended her co-ed basketball league and is starting her girl's basketball league in early March.  She really enjoys basketball and continues her love for soccer.  Claire's big thing this month was preparing to get her expander placed in her mouth.  Her expander was actually placed today and she did wonderfully.  She was so brave and although she is continually slurping and slurring - she is starting to get the hang of it!  Girl Scouts was in full swing this month as well and she attended a "Manners and Etiquette" class and preceded to correct me when my elbows were on the table at dinner and correctly showed me how to lift your pinkie when you have tea.  I told her I don't drink tea.... :)  Claire is also beginning prep for her First Communion in late April.  We have had a couple of activities this month and she is really excited to get started on her banner that will hang on the end of our pew on her big day.

Grace continues to do well in school and loves to read and practice spelling.  When we tuck her into bed, she is constantly asking for us to quiz her with words to spell.  She has piano lessons on Wednesdays and is enjoying showing us what she has learned.  I've always wanted to re-learn the piano so I am also enjoying learning with her.  She started back into swim lessons at the end of February and enjoys that they are so late in the evening that she is up past her bedtime!

Jake is going to kindergarten in the fall!  After evaluating him ourselves with questions and workbooks, we really think that he is ready.  I'm not even sure why we questioned it before.  He is growing so much and his listening has gotten better - still room for improvement - but better!  He is so excited about being in kindergarten and Grace is doing a great job of getting him ready.  We plan to request Claire and Grace's previous kindergarten teacher (the one I met with to discuss Jake).  Jake also started swim lessons at the end of the month at the same time as Grace - so its a late Monday night!


Here are pictures from our month of February...

Jake is almost passing up Grace!

Pete took the kids up north to see their cousins Lilly and Bently to play at the park while I worked on school work - they had a blast!

Claire with orthodontist prep work

Keith, Beth, and I went to Florida for a few days to escape the cold of the midwest.  We had a wonderful time and the weather was fantastic!

Jake had a "Mom's Day" Valentine's Day party at his school - it was fun to spend a couple of hours just Jake and me.

One random Friday night, we played poker with chocolate chips - we are teaching the kids young since we love poker and that's how I was raised! :)

On Valentine's Day weekend - we surprised the kids with a trip to an indoor water park.  It wasn't until Friday that we realized we hadn't even told the kids our plan so we decided to surprise them.  We went into Claire's basketball game and when they came out they found these gift bags.  Each had a new swimsuit and that's how we told them we were going.  Everything was packed in the back and we headed straight there.  It was really fun and the kids loved it!

Here are pictures from our overnight...

Playing in the snow in Ohio - Jake insisted on wearing a Santa hat :)

Claire got really into the local high school girls and their basketball tournament!  Here we are at the first tournament game.

We took the kids for hibachi and Jake and Grace were loving eating the salad with chopsticks...

Claire, not so much....

In the middle of February, on a unseasonably warm day, Grace's Girl Scout troop went to feed birds.  One girl had a bird eat from her hand but Grace was dedicated and stood super still in hopes a bird would eat from her hand.

Her face in this picture lets you know it did not happen...

Claire at First Communion prep when she learned about the meaning of the mass

School Spirit Day!

The Hoover tournament game - they lost but played hard!

We have recently started 1000 piece puzzles and the kids (and parents) really enjoy them.  This one took us forever!

Claire and Grace decided that Grandma was made of money and ordered apps on their kindles that Grandma got them for Christmas.  At first, it was innocent.  Mid-January we told them to not get anything that required a password.  They continued to and then finally fessed up.  We made them do chores to earn some money back and write a letter of apology to Grandma.  The day we talked about the punishment, Claire mopped the kitchen floor twice, tried to fold and sort laundry, and dusted the 1st floor!

We had an impromptu lunch with Frank, Jan and Chris as they were traveling through town the last Saturday in February.  We had a great time at Panera and it was so great to see them!

The kids go to go to Menchie's for good behavior

Here is the mouth we are trying to fix!  Ha ha...

We went to a local vineyard to celebrate our good friend, Matt's, birthday the last Saturday in February.  It was a wonderful time with great friends.

Grace working hard to learn piano