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!!)