Cat flip...and Laura too...

A Spring day in February

he had just made a similar shot from the street and asked me to video him doing it again. i really didnt think he'd do it again. It took him two shots to duplicate it.....Lots of fun this kid

wow and what a beautiful day in February....We spent the whole day outside, at the park, on the street, in the front yard...where else would you go on a February Sunday....It was such a good time on a great day to just hang out in good weather.  First, Catherine and Jack came with me to go to Dunkin donuts and just hang out with some coffee and muffins.  Laura and Jimmy stayed home, as Jimmy just came home from CCD.  That's some tiring stuff I know.  We received a phone call while we were pulling into DD's from one of Jack's friends father.  We were headed out to play football after DD's so I told the dad that's what we were doing.  Apparently the kid wanted to stay inside and play video games and he wasn't an outdoorsy person.  I gave Jack the option of what to do and he chose the correct one.........After Coffee, can you believe we went and played some baseball!!  We had gone and got Laura to come with us and she and Catherine played Softball and Jack and I played baseball.  Cat is becoming quite the pitcher and Laura is keeping on her to practice.  I pitched baseballs to Jack for a while and he crushed some right back at me and also he couldn't believe how fat he was hitting the ball.   I think the swimming is giving a lot of power.  Catherine had a softball bounce up and hit her in the face and she was out of commission for a bit so Laura caught and did some rifling throws to second from her crouched position 
     I was content just to go home and hang after that, but they weren't.  Jimmy came out and played some wiffleball and basketball with us and the girls played too, but then Cat went and got her gymnastic mat and did these crazy flips....oh, they scare me....Jimmy and Jack played on for what seemed like hours and eventually we went to the grocery store.  We finished up this fun filled day by cooking burgers and dogs on the grill...by the way, did you see Jack's shot from the street?  I suppose none of this is spellbindingly interesting but the day was awesome and fun for all of us.  Days like this happen all the time and I am so lucky to have these kids!!!

Artful children...and guess where we went

     So the hippie 7th graders decide that on the Friday of their school vacation that they want to go to Plaster Fun time.  One Catch is that they had to bring Jack and Catherine.  Of course they were fine and enjoyed every second of it.  Surprisingly, Laura wanted to bring her friends to see Black Gordon after plaster funtime...We went to lunch downtown too at Subway so everything worked perfectly.

     jack had his version of Marios....as you can see

     They had a lot of fun exploring the grounds of Black Gordon and the Train that doesn't move.  they are so goofy, Laura had all the poses down.....they are really fun kids.  I don't detect any drama...they just have goofy fun.....

     Honestly, that's what these kids do the whole time they are together....Just smile and smile.  Liv, Rachel and Emma are such good friends to Laura.  The biggest worry going through these years is who they chose for friends...so far so good!!!

Ice Castles NH, 2016

      Off we go to the famous Ice Castles in Lincoln NH!!!  Jackie, Laura, Catherine, Erin, Emily and Mommy and Daddy.  Jimmy stayed home because he had a basketball game that Nana and Doe took him to.    Here's what we can say about it....There was nothing flashy about the place and there was a lot of people there.  Although it was pretty packed, it was sort of peaceful to walk around, even with five kids in tow.  There was a luge (yes luge, not huge) slide with a very long line, but it was cool to just hang there talking while we were waiting in line.  After we were done with the slide we walked the whole icicle place and when it got dark you could see all the castles changing colors.  The kids kept themselves busy taking different pictures on their devices because there were a lot of photogenic things abound.  There were also ice tunnels that the kids climbed through.  In a lot of the walls there were sculptured chairs and the kids didn't miss an opportunity to sit and one of them and wanted us to take a picture whenever they did sit.  We, of course, obliged.  there were a couple of little cave like areas that led right back to where you go into them.  The kids seem to really like being there and it was less than two hours in the car (four round trip) so not so bad.
     After we were done we stopped at a pizza place right down the street because the kids were starving.  They had run around for a couple of hours and needed to fill up.  It was a really good time.

A Front lawn of snowmen..or snowthings

It was a snowman paradise this weekend.  Last year, with all the snow that we had, the snowman snow was very minimal so we were weak in the snowman making.  This time, we made three on the front lawn, each one looking worse than the one before it.  I lost all three winter hats that i had too!!!

  Cat was making Gronk the snowman...She put the number 87 on his back.

laura's superbowl party

     Laura cooked and baked for two days straight and was so excited to have her Super Bowl party.  Ant Jo helped her do the baking on Saturday and Laura was sooooo gung ho to do it.  I snuck a couple of cookies but they were guarding them like fort knox.   She had a pretty decent crowd of her friends, all goofballs....they had alot of laughs and fun.  they had a plan to come over and jump into the snow in their swimsuits but only Laura and Rachel did it.  Laura got a polaroid camera from Santa Claus and I lectured her about not taking too many pictures with it because the film was very expensive.  'Make the pictures count Laura', is what i said.  Of course I lined up to take a picture of the goofballs and proceeded to snap a picture of my hand.  Real Smooth Daddy she says.....she is becoming quite the cook though.....i'm gaining plenty of weight off of her cooking......nice job hippie.

The mad photo bomber reared his ugly head once again.  Here i was taking a lovely picture of all the girls in front of the TV while they were watching and cheering on the SuperBowl.  There was ALOTT of chocolates during the game...and i mean ALOT of sugar.

Weekend meets

     These two chicks are awesome.  They practice so hard all week and deserve all the outstanding scores and awards they get.  Emily for the breast stroke and Laura for the butterfly.  its so fun to watch them.

     Brutus and beefcake posing....

A little pizza to celebrate a great swim meet

Another first place finish for Catherine.  This one was the cutest of them all.  She had NO idea that she had won.  She had earned an 8.95 on the vault and she just figured that wasn't good enough to medal.  I guess you just never know how rough they judge on certain days but on this day, it was certainly gold worthy.  It was awesome to watch her on the podium, her lip was quivering and I'm shocked that she didn't start crying.  She was so happy!! 

Jimmy playing a little basketball.  He's getting much better.  His skills are mostly built on his ability to hustle.  He's no Pistol Pete Maravich, but his coach tells him that he gets his playing time because of his hustling so for that I'm very proud. 

     The only game I didn't get to was Jackie's soccer game on Saturday morning.  Ant Jo had that all taken care of for us but by all accounts Jackie had a spectacular game.  He recreates a lot of the action when he's telling us about his game so its almost like we are there.