Yay for Friday!

 TGIF!  That is all I can say!  Here are some shots of the day :)  D was up the earliest, ready for cello duty.  And gearing for up the big bday celebration at school.  He loved his bball cake...and the ball really looked like it was a real one buried in his big cookie.  Fun!  I love that he chose bball...he is really into it these days.  Wish Pops was around to shoot hoops with him and teach him a thing or two.

 And this continues to be how at least half our mornings go...he is not easy to sleep with if you couldn't tell :)  But he sure sleeps like a baby in our bed.  Sigh.

 Someone was not happy about hat day at school.  They earned it for donating so many cans for the food drive.  I told her she should wear a hat into school at least for school spirit.  You can tell she loved this idea.  Her response..."I'm just not a hat girl." :)  Good to know. 

 As you can see she abliged her mama...at least til she got in the door at school :)

Lo and I chilled at home. It was nice.  We had a busy errand day yesterday and we needed this morning to sit and chill.  He played with his double airplanes...crashing them into each other with joy! (Thanks, friend T for the new planes...two is better than one especially for boys who liked to run things into things!) :)

 We built a house with a pool and put our boats and planes around it :)  He was a little bossy with mama about where the cars could and could not go.

 We had fun with static electricity! LOL!  The couch is very static-y!

 The balloon stuck to his belly...he told me Deeeyan (Dyl) taught him this trick. Brothers are cool!

 Then it was time to run to school for the big bday celebration...by big, I mean, "whoa cookie cakes!"...three bdays in one room this week and the teacher asked that we do all three celebrations this Friday. I had a feeling this over abundance of sugar would happen (even though I asked a few times if I should bring something else), but did not expect we would all bring cookie cakes (and one mom brought two)....needless to say this could have fed the whole school if they let us. Dylan did have the idea to offer it to the whole 5th grade which is like 70 kids.  So we did that.  Win win.

 They sang to each kiddo separately.  Cute.  Dylan acted like he did care...he plays it cool :) He's a cool kid!

 Still playing it cool :)

 His teacher got him to smile. She's the best (she's also our neighbor :))  He is a corndog...even at school.

 The triple bdays! 

 D's friends are so sweet...they amused Logan the whole time...so much that he didn't even eat his cookie cake :)  He loves these lego type cube things.

 I got him a post-bday treat.  His fav chip...Cheddar Cheese SunChips!  Yumm!  He was happy :)

 Sweet  Shelb...still working on that back dive. She is persistent!

 Rushing out of swimming/diving to make it to a bday sleepover in Indy!

 Also off to a bday sleepover...looking sleepy already. lol :)

 We took it easy for dinner and let Ash pick the meal...LC it was!  Pizza, Pizza!

 And I promised them oreo shakes!

 And Ash picked out a movie (Storks?  Cute!) 

Weird having less than half our kiddos in the house tonight...but I am happy it's bedtime.  Just wish we could sleep in.

A running-errand kinda Groundhog Day!

 It was a running-errand day.  Not my fav. kinda day, but a necessary one.  I didn't really sit down at all in the morn except to eat a few cheesy chips with my Lo per his request.  But mostly it was spent making a bunch of lists...and finding all my returns from party stuff. If you know me, you know I am the queen of returns.  I am one of the few who actually return stuff to the dollar store.  And, yes the cashier rolled her eyes at me when I returned $12 worth of stuff.  But I did not care!  

Oh, sweet sun, where have you been most of my January...I am glad you came out in February and I was very hopeful this would mean that groundhog rodent guy would predict winter was almost over!

 We were at Kroger for way too long looking for things I had no clue where they were...lice shampoo was top on the list.  We did pick up something for Hailey too :)  Don't mind this corndog boy...he in in rare form lately...rarer than normal.  He has become a serious mama's boy...and is stuck to me like glue. I have to hug him most of the time I am pushing the cart.  Not easy to shop like that!

 He was excited to pick up his big bro's sporty cake for tomorrow's school celebration!  Poor thing with his rash. We are wondering if he is allergic to milk?  He only started breaking out like this when the doc told him to have 3 cups of milk a day.  Coincidence?  We are going to stop milk tomorrow and see what happens.

 Someone stopped by with a special bday gift for D!  He was definitely curious about what was in a box so big!

 He was soooo excited. I guess these big guns are really cool and he has nothing this big!  Plus his one request for his bday was a Nerf gun...and he hadn't gotten one yet.  Someone else (brother bystander) was also excited and tried to open it all up with his scissors.  I will need to watch him like a hawk tomorrow!

 Thanks, Sue Sue!  You're awesome!  Hope you feel better!

 Someone can now officially leave the USA!

 Someone had ballet tonight. We were late. Not sure how this is going to work doing dance all the way across town at rush hour time. :(

 Getting better and better at the cello.  This was the first day I left him home alone too...I think 11 is the age we did that for the girls.  He did really well getting all his chores done and staying off his ipad.  Sorry, Hays, about the bags in your room. You have the lice-sanitation area for now.  Good thing you are not home for over 2 months. :)

 Rough night of diving. I guess she is working on her back dive and hit her face on the water 7 times. She was hurting pretty bad when I picked her up.  I give her tons of credit for doing this.  I know she can get this dive down!

 Well, I was not happy with Phil today.  He predicted 6 more weeks of winter. That rodent needs to do some better predicting!  But the reality is we do have 6 more weeks of winter anyway bc it does not end til March 19.  Duh.  In celebration of the rodent who predicts season, I made some cupcakes. Yum!  Yes, those are bears (which Shelby promptly told me), not groundhogs, but you can't really find graham groundhogs.  Though maybe that would be a great invention!

 Ash and Lo had some fun tonight :)

 Shelb did not.  Lice round two.  Good news is she has no live ones.  Bad news is we are all tired of this.  We are ready to shave her head.  She is almost ready too.

 Daddy learned to help tonight bc my back was killing me after doing it for 30 mins.  He did pretty good!  New talent?

And prepping for double bday sleepovers tomorrow...thankfully not at our house! I love this idea D had to give his friend wafers...all his friends love wafers...so we stuck them to a board and put the card and gift card on the back. Easy and yummy!

So, that was our day...part of it.  D also had basketball, which stinks bc he doesn't get home til 930pm...that's too late.  And I hated shopping all day, but I did get all my returns done and all my groceries and major supplies from Sam's.  Now tomorrow I can catch up on other things at home. 

Wacky Wednesday

 Another successfully unproductive day for me...but maybe I should look at is as "I got the kids all to the proper places on time"...and that should be enough for my productivity, especially on a Wednesday...a Wacky Wed.  It was that day at school...Wacky dress/hair.  D went all out...he always does...he wears both reg. clothes and a swim suit...and he was off to cello before the rest left the house.

 Wacky Ash...she was not enthused about this day...she told me she likes to "look good" and not be wacky.  I get that.  Nice hair though!  Lo had "Souper"Bowl day...so he wore a jersey and brought soup to school to donate to charity.  They also had fun doing Super Bown stuff.

 LOL!  I went to Chapel with him again and boy do they have fun in there...the singing and jumping around was so funny!  I know this is blurry, but he got really into it!

 He was doing all the motions.  It was great.  Fav. part of my day!

 At new preschool he was having tummy trouble. I think he got the bug Ash and I have (had).  He had to visit the nurse's station bathroom twice in a row.  Poor kid.

 I picked up this violinist/swimmer/diver from school...and we got her her regular strawberries and cream! Gotta use up her SB cards!  She's got a ton of money there and is not a big SB girl apparently, even though she asked for the gift cards.

 He was super excited to get to open more bday gifts in the van today.  Thanks, Jorge, Melissa and kids! He LOVED the goodies!

 Dinner...and a very non-photogenic gang!  LOL!  I am proud of Lo...he can now eat almost a full thing of chicken nuggets...all for the prize of a Frosty!  Daddy was on AWANA duty...so I got a break from teaching at church tonight.

 I missed most of violin, but I did show up for theory...Shelb was stumped by her major and minor scale.

 YAY!  A surprise for her for doing so well at ISSMA and getting gold!  Joshua Bell tickets!

 We get to see him at the MAC on Feb. 28!  Whohoo!  We are so blessed that he loves IU bc he trained here.  These tickets in NYC (where he lives) would cost a fortune!

 I caught a few glimpses of diving tonight...can you spot Shelb?

 It's neat watching from up above...can you see her?

 Would be pretty good if she pointed her feet! 

 Again, not bad...just those feet!

 I like their team suits.  Fun!

 And our fav. New Yorker...she made her mama happy and send me a few pics today from her performance today. She did a show for school age kids. Love, love, love this!

 So grateful when she sends me pics...makes me feel not so far away and not like I'm missing everything.
That stage just looks so alive and big with the lights.  What an experience it has been to perform there.  What a wonderful opportunity.

That's our day...so glad Feb. is here...it means spring is closer...hopefully the groundhog agrees tomorrow!