Not Much

not a lot has happened since my last post. i started my one class at jmu in march, but it's mostly online work. i will admit, having to write papers again is not fun. but i have two people to help in the editing process and they have both said 'not bad for one who hasn't done a paper in 8 years'... i'll take it. we had warm days and expected spring to come, erica's old sunflower dropped enough seeds last summer and some were sprouting. but the harshness of march and some late snow took care of them. i registered aidan for kindergarten and he is very excited to ride the school bus. i went to my old university to visit my brother and his wife last weekend. rachel had an art show and i was looking forward to seeing it. but due to a school wide power outage, no such luck. and can i just tell you, they have a lot of great things at svu now. the indoor pool is gone, but in it's place is a great student union... anyways. here are a few pictures to tie ya down until something big and picture worthy comes along (hint: some people are graduating college next week).

my baby is talented. she went to bed with a sheet on the mattress, a pillow with a pillowcase and pants. first go the pants, then the pillowcase, then pillow then sheet. i don't know how she finds this comfortable!

he watched his older sister for years play on the computer, now it's his turn. every day "mom, can i do playhouse disney?"

this is how you keep a 3 and 4 year old occupied during general conference... you give them lots of paper, markers and children sized scissors!

spring has sprung! and we had all the dandelions to prove it, but the nice man came today to mow them all down.

he felt it was his job to move the gravel and dirt to a better spot. the down side of being at the bottom of a hill after a major rain

you can tell when she likes something.... everything else gets ignored.

totally mezzzzzzmorizzzzzed.... i love educational dvds!

Flat Stanley in Broadway Virginia

Who is Flat Stanley you ask? Well I didn't know who he was either until my nephew, Ethan, sent him to us. If you don't know the story, what a perfect opportunity to take your kids to the library and find out. But to sum-up: Flat Stanley is a boy that gets squished by a bulletin board. He's fine, but flat as a pancake. He has many adventures because he can slide under doors, fly like a kite and even fit in an envelope. Well, we hosted Flat Stanley for about three weeks. We were very busy during that time and took some pictures of our adventures together. Unfortunately, I was a bit forgetful and didn't get as many pictures as the kids wanted. So here are some pictures and Flat Stanley telling you about them.

Hello everyone, my name is Stanley... or Flat Stanley. I came all the way from Monterey California to visit my friend Ethan's family in Virginia. Did you know that it's about 2,792 miles from California to Virginia? I didn't either. I found out that Broadway Virginia is a lot smaller, and colder, than Monterey. But being a smaller town didn't stop us from having lots of fun. I came at a perfect time. The local mall was hosting something called Read Across America in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday, so I got here just in time for that. I got to go to preschool, a chili cookoff, a birthday party, a college class and I even met someone else named Stanley, but he wasn't flat like me. Here are a few pictures of my time here in Virgina.














Ethan's Aunt Terri took us out to dinner before we went to the mall for Read Across America. She forgot to take pictures during dinner, but got one right before we left. Look how happy everyone is. We were all very excited to possibly meet the Cat in the Hat.

I got to see the Cat in the Hat! He looks a little different than he does in his books and he's a lot bigger than I though. Erica was the only one who wanted a picture with the Cat, Aidan and Sofia were too scared.

And I got to see Clifford. Aidan and Sofia were scared of him too, so I stayed with them to keep them company.

Here I am joining Aidan and his friend Harrison in preschool. They have so much fun. Right now we are doing an art project, we used plastic beads to make animal shapes, mine was a fish. I wished I could go with Erica to her school, but after seeing some of the paper come out of her backpack I didn't think I would make it there and back in one piece. Maybe another time.

Every year their church has a chili cookoff. I have never been to one and was very excited to see what it was like. There was a lot of chili and breads and even some jello. The man in charge said the jello was to help the judges, I still don't know what that meant. We didn't have any of the chili being judged because Ethan's cousin Aidan has lots of food allergies and couldn't eat what was there. So his mommy made a special pot, it was good.

Ethan's Aunt Terri has decided to go back to school, and she took me along for her first class. I think she forgot I was still in her purse, but she let me stay once she saw me. It's a small class, but she said that soon she'll get to be in bigger classes.

March Madness

ok, maybe not 'madness', but march was busy for us. we started off the month with a visit to the mall to see the cat in the hat, did you know dr. seuss would be 107 this year? then the kids had a trip to grandma webb's house while i stayed home to 'rest'. let's see... a chili cookoff, cleaning the chapel (which my kids were excellently behaved), i had my first class, registered aidan for kindergarten.... and the month isn't over just yet. i didn't get a lot of pictures, but i couldn't let this post go picture-less. so enjoy some pictures from the end of february and early march.


















not sure what she's doing... you'll need to ask her daddy about that since he took the picture.

seriously... how much do you love this picture?! they were so into 'diego' that they had no idea i took the picture. and that is paint all over their face.... again, you'll need to ask the daddy about that one.

learn letters and numbers, check! learn shapes and colors, check! learning how to use scissors withOUT hurting yourself... double check! they did very good for the first time alone with those sharp things

she so badly wanted to use the scissors too... i'm such a mean mommy.

right after i loaded them up on fatty cholesterol deliciousness called burger king. erica was a happy camper despite not liking mustard on her hamburger.

waiting for the cat to show up. i'll spare you the pictures because they will be in the next post. but my babies were so good just sitting and waiting.

cockroach hockey!

ok, so there are no pictures of anyone playing cockroach hockey. but we did play that when i was in college. those suckers were huge and no one wanted to touch them. so we busted out our brooms to sweep them out.... then turned it into a game. we were just that twisted.

soooo, i lied. i thought i was going to take so many pictures this particular weekend and didn't. at least i brought my camera! i said in an earlier post that a college friend moved back to virginia with her family and came up to visit, which inspired her to decide to have a reunion of the '3rd floor babes' that lived close by (within a 5-6 hour driving distance). she sent out the emails and we then set the date. she suggested my mom's house (she has to room and considers my friends her non-dna children) and i 2nd it.... then told my mom about it. mom was very excited! one of the girls lived with us for a summer, one we were always giving rides up to NoVa so she could visit her family and the third was in just about every story i told when i was home for vacations. well, they were all in the stories. there were 11 of us that did everything together, but only 6 of us live on the east coast and within easy driving distance. as it turns out, one friend was supposed to come up as a surprise, but that plan fell through. i was supposed to be without my kids for the weekend, but at the 11th hour the daddy called and said he wasn't coming down. oh well, my kids had a 'mommy free' weekend.... so it wound up being ok! there will be another reunion!














we made a special trip (twice because i forgot my keys the first time) to my place to get all my old college pictures. so fun to look back at all the crazy things we did.... and then remember all the other crazy things we did but don't have the pictures to prove the stories.

since i was ignoring her for stories of the old days, sofi decided to snuggle up with the one person that would not ignore her... she let grandpa be her friend for two whole days!

yes, my child is just so lovely! we got them ready for bed at least three hours before they actually went to bed.

once they got off their sugar high (about 10:45pm) they crashed. because we stuck them up in the loft we could hear the snoring. and as far as i know, no one fell off the bed from lack of space.

she crashed first! and since we have grown up a bit... we just take pictures of the sleepers instead of sticking their bra in the freezer.

she woke me up soooo early. not a big fan of it. by now she was hoping my friends would wake up so i would leave her alone.

so engrossed he had no idea i got the camera out.

sunday morning cartoons are just as good as saturday... yes, we skipped church and no, we don't feel guilty.

thanks to my parents i was able to enjoy my friends visiting. they play the role of babysitter so well. (fyi - the 'beans' that go to the game my dad is holding WILL come back out of a child with little effort or pain....)

anyone that comes to my parent's home gets the 4-1-1 on momma's stove. she should get a job as 'aga endorser'... she loves her stove and people always have a ton of questions for her which she is more than happy to answer.

the real reason for the reunion.... to eat nothing but junk like we used to (ha ha ha). good thing i don't have a scale to yell at me anymore, cause i'm sure it would be makin some major protesting noises.

i'm not that tall, just wearin boots. aaaaaand, i look like i'm tryin to hard to make me look good in the picture (which i was). i think we finally got dressed for the day at 3:30 and the girls left soon after the picture session.

this is our favorite.... we call it the 'strangling picture'. i will always have a special place in my heart for these girls!

emma is just like erica... only two inches taller. funny thing is she is two years younger as well. they hit it off, too bad they couldn't remember each others name.

yes, she is wet down the front. no, it's not from diaper malfunction. it's from tryin to steal my friends water.

she wasn't feeling too good the whole day, must have been all that junk food the day before. jeeze, where was her mother?!

a beautiful ending.... sort of. the sky was all pretty like, just wish my kids were to each other once we got home.

Random Stuff

it's filler time! this is the post i put up between 'major' picture taking times. christmas was the last time and the next will be this weekend. but these pictures were just too cute to not pass along.















yes, that is my 2 year old child 'reading' readers digest. doesn't she look comfy? thanks to my brother i now have a nice and comfortable glider to sit in... now if i could get my kids to stay off!

blast from the past anyone?! my son has discovered and loves the game of 'cooties'. he made the red one and i made the other. we can actually get one game done in a half hour... without cheating!

this game is called 'topple'. but when we play it doesn't 'topple' once! we even played on the not-so-even carpet. i think we'll stick to cooties

the evil... i mean pretty stuff that caused all the school kids to cheer and the parents to groan. now, what should the kiddies do....

i'll tell you what they do.... they watch movies in their pj's. i think they were in them most of the day

takin a nap? noooooooo, waiting for erica to come home and pester her!

waiting for erica to finish homework so she has someone other than aidan to play with

doin the homework. not her favorite thing, just ask her and she'll tell you what she thinks of it

The January Blah!

ok, so january has been a boring month. it started out with a nice trip to grandma and grandpa webb's house for a late christmas. i took the kids up saturday morning and as soon as we got there they went nuts. they love their cousins, and since they moved to north carolina we don't get to see them as often. we had a great time visiting and, of course, eating. my mother-in-law is one fantastic cook. i swear, just looking in her fridge i gain a pound or two.

so i left around 8pm by myself! a christmas present to me. i like a quiet drive home after a few hours of happy insanity. and after having church at 2pm for a year, i was not looking forward to getting four people and a lesson ready for 9am church. funny though, services hadn't even started yet and i leaned over to my mom and said "i'm bored". she laughed.

a good friend from college has moved with her family back to virginia and came up for a visit one day. too bad i didn't get any pictures. it was great to visit with her and to meet her husband and cute little boy. aidan loved having a new friend as well. the visit soon sparked the idea of a reunion of the "3rd floor babes", i'll get pictures of that when it happens next month.

so other than two visits and some snow, not much has happened this month. which is the reason for a serious lack of pictures. oh wait! did i forget to mention that i have been accepted and will be attending JMU this spring? right now i'm waiting on financial help, but i am way excited. so take a look at what few pictures i have and then just wait until next month.

little maggie! her hair was everywhere, but that just enhanced her cutie-pie-ness.

my nephew andrew got to open the first present. we tried for order... that lasted maybe two minutes.

aidan gets into his jammies as soon as it gets dark. doesn't matter if it's only 3 in the afternoon. he was the only one ready for bed before dinner was even started.