Toy Story 3 on ice

Updates

Well, here we are in February of 2011, stopped at four kids and still enjoying life as it flies right by. Amazing how fast it has happened. I stop and see that Jimmy will be in middle school so very soon. I stopped into his school to leave him some money yesterday for his thursday skiing and I saw him and his classmates coming from recess. The big, wide grinned smile was still the same as the one I used to see when i'd go to see him in kindergarten. Alot of the kids are the same too, only much, much bigger. I got alot of waves and smiles from them. Funny how silent they were. It was like a scene from a movie where time just flies right by and you see someone in varying stages of life. I really did see Jimmy at age four when i looked at him yesterday, so cute. When I was going into the school I ran into one of his teachers who works with him on his reading comprehension and she was so impressed about how well he had been doing. For the life of me, I just couldnt remember who the hell she was. I give her alot of credit for knowing who I was considering all the students/parents she must have. But then again, I forget socks, underwear and shoes on a daily basis.
Laura has been doing just great. That girl has some sort of an imagination. She loves to read and write. Whenever we go somewhere she writes a book about it. She takes multiple pages of paper and just writes and writes, even drawing pictures of some of the things we do. Its so funny to read and see the things that stick out in her mind. It really is the little things we do that matter, its just not a saying. This winter has been one for a heck of alot snow and that just plays into Laura's hands. She is constantly asking to go outside and play in the snow. She just loves to build snowmen and create things, go sledding or just jump and down in it. I still love the homeless snowman she made (see pictures in blog from earlier). The snow wasnt really sticking that well and she just put together this blob of a snowman filled with twigs and covered in buttons and a heart. Just a real big belly laugh when we pulled up to the house and saw it.
Now Catherine has switched over to afternoon kindergarten. She loves her teachers and takes it so, so serious. When she comes home from school and there is a notice in her bookbag the whole world has to stop because its some serious stuff for sure. Many nights I can just stop and watch her sleeping. It amazes me to see her because i wonder what she is dreaming about. She sleeps with a great big smile on her face. she really is smiling in her sleep, like a content face. She knows something and she just gets a laugh out of it in her sleep. Within the last month or so I took the railing off the side of her bed. She has had a problem with that railing being up for quite some time but Daddy is overly cautious and didnt want to take it down. She was so thrilled when she saw that I took it down. I make sure that her pillow pets line the side of her bed so she has a buffer. she's not as bad as Laura who flies all over her bed at night and has been known to fall off the bed on occasion. Catherine and I are going to go to New York city for her birthday in a couple of months. I'm looking forward to it. Now Jack is still being Jack. Just absolutely priceless are the things that he says and does. He so loves his one on one time. He is an old pro at his pre school now. It took a while believe me but now we go into the classroom in the morning and he goes right to the carpet square to listen to Mrs. Gordon. It took forever for that to happen. Today i was driving with him and we were headed to the coffee shoppe. We were talking about seeing his girlfriend Patricia. He told me he had another girlfriend too, a girl in his class. He then told me that he doesnt have time for two girlfriends, thats wayyy too much. We went to the bank,then to the coffee shop, then the snowy black gordon. On our way home we stopped at an old malt shop where they have the spinning seats. An old guy behind the counter was serving us up some ice cream. Jack wanted nothing to do with having an ice cream in a cup, he wanted a cone because thats what big boys eat. When he ate some of it he asks the old guy for a spoon. He then ate the rest of his ice cream with a spoon, taking it from the cone. It was pretty cool just sitting there and talking to him about all the characters from Toy Story 3. We are going to see them on ice this week.
All in all, the winter has gone by pretty good. We loved all the snow. Even though most people have complained about the amount we've received we have love it. If you are going to live around here you really have to embrace it or move....but now the Red Sox have reported to spring training and its time for it to go away until next year. Somehow I think its gonna be around for awhile though.

Fun time with Jackie

We got him this red frisbeen from the bank. We played catch in the parking lot with it and he kept throwing it all over the place once i taught him how to. Daddy doesnt get under cars as well as he used to.

He was doing a conductors dance on the Train that doesnt move. I wish we could get one of these for the back yard.....Inside the malt shoppe, he had a blast.

The temperatures rose but the snow was still here. Jack and I decided that we would go change the water bottles but all roads lead to Black Gordon. After Black Gordon we were driving by an old ice cream shoppe and it looked too fun to drive by. He got a chocolate cone and I got a cup of coffee ice cream.

umple's birthday party

Happy Birthday Umple.....The kids were all excited to celebrate Umple's birthday. They had Birthday cards all drawn up as well as drawings on the wall, all on their own. Amazingly, we didnt go to George's for pizza. We ended up going chinese. Laura said we should have invited her classmate Keith because he was Chinese...Charlie and Lizzie came over to help us sing. Jack was accused of eating up some of the chocolate in the kitchen and he completely denied it, except for face covered in chocolate, there was no proof. I went to photograph the evidence but he was having no part of it..smart kid.

Umple the Snowman

It was Catherine's turn to name the snowman. No great surprise that she wanted to name him "umple the snowman". Its a very tall snowman. They just wanted him to be taller and taller. The snow hasn't been really great for snowmen except for the last couple of days.

The Newest snowman

Laura went and made this snowman all on her own. It is a day old so it lost some weight, but not much.

A long three...and then I went down, down, down

How depressing it is when the day finally comes when your kids start beating you in basketball. Well granted, there are no Pistol Pete Maravich's in our blood lines but this little buggah took me to school. We shoveled out the area near the garage where the basketball hoop is and he and I had this nice little game of one on one. There was no bouncing just air dribbling. I couldn't hit a shot if my life depended on it. finally, the game came down to the next basket would win it for me and he would have to hit a three to beat me...wellllllll, the little bastard swoops to his right and throws up this ridiculous shot into the air. I turned around figuring i'd have to go into the snow bank to get the ball (where alot of my shots were going). My eyes popped out when I saw that ball flying through the air...swoooooosh, nothing but net. You shoulda heard the trash talking going on.

Little House on the Prairie

Laura loves to read books. Lyn's favorite book from when she was a kid was the Little House on the Prairie series. Santa Claus got Laura one for Christmas. Inside the book there are directions on how to make the house by using a cardboard box and room plans. Well, it took a large part of the day but little by little we put together the whole house including the people inside, a rocking chair, a gun on the bookshelf(that she made). It was so fun to do with her, especially when she kept telling me how much fun she was having.

The funniest part of it was the door on the side. Thats really where it all started. She told me the father always tied the dog to the front door frame. The door didnt open sideways, it opens from the bottom to the top with a rope so we had to attach Jack the dog to the front door (as you can see). Another funny part is where Laura told me that along with the dog, the father always kept a gun on the bookshelf. I made the picture of the books, she made the bookshelf and then accomanied it with a picture of a handgun....if you look close you'll see how funny it is.

Making Snow Memories

We have had a couple of good snow weeks around here lately. I hear most people complaining about it but not us, we kind of like it. We are losing places to throw the snow though.

Laura is my snow friend. The other kids usually stay inside all day or go out for a while, but Laura and I are the snow people. today, we tore apart a big snow hill and made a pretty good size tunnel. Jimmy came home from charlies and he wanted a tunnel too so we shoveled him one too.

Catherine is such a smiling, happy kid with Jack. Those two are always hanging around together...and fighting of course, but not that often.

Its hard to take a bad picture of Catherine.

He's starting to beat me in sports....what will i do. Tonight we were playing a game of basketball before we had to come in to eat. He took this long distance three pointer to win, I turned and swish....he beat me.