Family Frenzy

We had quite a family filled weekend! Friday we headed up to see Josh, Jacki and Joel. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera- but you can check out some pics here. We had fun hanging out and of course, staying up late. The cousins had a good time and the near two year olds are starting to assert their independence by way of the word "MINE!". After we got home on Saturday evening we had just enough time to spend a little time with Uncle Eric and the soon-to-be "Aunt" Sarah and rest up for a quick, spur of the moment trip to Indiana on Sunday. The kids and I headed to Lincoln to go to church and then headed over to Indiana with Grammy to have a quick visit with more family. Once again, I didn't take pictures- what was I thinking?!

Park Night

Drake is about to start playing baseball and I'm sure our world will never be the same.... We signed him up on Saturday for his first official league. We should hear in a couple of weeks about his team, practices and games. We also got a bat, ball and glove so he could start practicing at home as well. Tonight, since the lovely weather held out, we headed over to the park to work on a few hits. Here are a few shots from this evening...

Rockin Out

We had a good visit with friends from Mattoon this weekend. They came over to hang out and catch up with us. They also stayed over and went to church with us on Sunday morning. We had a good time eating, shopping and laughing. Dave brought his stringed instrument (don't make fun of me, I can't remember what it's called!) while Drake got out his guitar to play along.

My little book worm...

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, How about you, you you?

We headed out to the zoo again to meet up with the Sunderlands. The kids had a good time watching the monkeys- they were hilarious today and LOUD! They also had the feed machines out this time, so the kids had a blast feeding the ducks and fish. Afterwards, we all went back to our house for some lunch and a nap for the youngest of the bunch while the big kids spent some more time playing outside on this lovely spring day. A good time was had by all!

Parenting

Gabe and I have been taking a parenting class at church for the last 10 weeks on Sunday nights. We have one more class next week before it finishes up. It has been great. While, we have already practiced a lot of the basic principles, it has been nice to get a little "rejuvinated" on the ideas, concepts and practices of parenting. I think the hardest part of parenting is consistency. While some days, I will fight to the end over something, some days I don't want to, I just want to take the easy way out and give in. This class has been a great reminder to me though, that nothing will be easy, you can "credit card parent" but that means if you don't pay now, you'll pay later- with interest. So, I choose to pay now, as hard as it can be some days. Hopefully, one day, a long time from now, my kids will be grateful that I didn't give them choices and freedoms before they were ready for them. And they WILL be grateful that they got in trouble for things their friends might not get in trouble for... right?






**I brought back some old school photos, these were both from 2007**

Happy St. Patty's Day

Drake and Abbie Hadley and Lydia

Any excuse for a parade, right? We headed to downtown Springfield for the St. Patty's Day Parade at noon. It was slightly chilly when it started off, but warmed up beautifully as the parade went on. We met our friends, the Fitz family, there and the kids had a great time listening to the marching bands, looking at the fun floats, the motorcycle stunt guys, and of course catching candy! The parade was a little longer than I expected so, when we finally arrived home at 2:15 or so Hadley was zonked out in her carseat and proceeded to snooze for the next several hours. (And as a side potty training accomplishment, she stayed dry all during the parade and then her nap, since she was already asleep when we got home- woo-hoo!!)

My Boys

It is Gabe's "day off" (even though that is a video for work he's working on!). Hadley was down for a nap and I took advantage of the time and headed out to do some errands all by myself, that's a rarity around here, so it was nice. I hit up a consignment store to get Drake some much needed summer clothes and scored several shirts that were 60% off! These days, the cheaper I can find clothes, the more I love them! As I came in the house, this is what I found:

I think this could be a shot for a commercial!

Hello Zoo, Here We Come!

Today we got to try out the membership we got for Christmas from Nana and Papa to the Henson Robinson Zoo. The weather today was AMAZING!! Usually Gabe would have been off today, but he had to get caught up at the office so he wasn't able to go but, Grammy had stayed over at our house last night spur of the moment, so she got to go to the zoo with us too before she headed out to do some shopping. Not all of the animals were out yet from their winter hibernation, but we did get to see lots of geese, ducks, monkeys and several other animals. The kids had a great time looking at the animals, playing on the playground and enjoying the sunshine. I think this will be one of our favorite places to visit this spring and summer! After naps all around, we spent the rest of the day outside as well! We finally got some leaves cleaned up and got to grill out for dinner!

Yummy colors

Today, I decided I would give Hadley her own "project" to work on while Drake was working on his. She did amazingly well, if I do say so myself. I gave her the task of sorting her fruit loops into the matching color of circles that I had drawn on her paper. I showed her a couple of pieces and then she did the rest, I was impressed. She also LOVED eating them!

**Potty training update: We tried several weeks ago but after several times of peeing on the floor, went back to diapers. So, we started again yesterday, and so far she is doing very well. She went #1 on the potty 5 times yesterday and #2 once! That was of course, after sitting on the potty about 15 times. Today, she's done very well too. She's gone #1 a few times. We had to go out for awhile so I put a diaper on her, but it was dry when we got home and then she went in the potty! Woo-hoo, we're making progress! I will not be sad to stop throwing money into the diaper landfill anymore, but I can't believe my baby is old enough to potty train!