And then there was basketball

James started his Christian basketball league this week. The first practice was cancelled last week so they went into game action with only one practice under their belt. They needed the prayers. They had a special entrance for all the kids to be announced and then the kids came into the gymnasium one at a time, sort of like the pro teams do it, only I like these players much better. Jacob goes to the same place, only he is only one level up from Jimmy so he played earlier in the day. After the game James received the Offensive player award. They have prizes for best offensive, best defensive and most Christlike. He scored two points during the game but was in control of the ball most of the time. I'm gonna have him work on that Christlike thing too. Now that is something he could use practice on....couldnt we all. During the game James also took quite a few shots, one even hit Tyler's gramdmother who was sitting unfortunately close to the basket. I tried to get an action photo of the impact but I dont know her so I snuck a photo after impact.

Snow pictures

The kids and i were on the front lawn throwing snow on each other and making snow angels. Jack was just kind of hanging out. Catherine creamed Jack with a snowball. Poor little Jacko. He wasnt too happy.

Celebrating laryngitis

So I cant yell to the kids for anything or at the kids for anything. I think Lyn is trying to kill me with this whole nursing thing(a quick proof read shows that this dont sound quite right, but what the hell) and Jack is feeding anything edible to Frankie.
Catherine this week had a little cold so I just kind of ignore it because I know I wont catch anything from them will I....of course not. But last night I just finally lost my voice. Its actually funny when I answer the phone and the other people cant hear me and I just look at the phone. Today, it was Patrick calling.
Lyn wants to give me her special medicine to make the voice better. It started with spraying lysol all over the house, including on my toast. Okay, that was probably an accident but yuck....and about the toast...garlic and butter...oo boy. Then to top it off there was a hot glass of milk. This goes back to my childhood where I remember throwing up from some hot milk. So thats not going to happen.
This afternoon, James has a hockey game. His first penance is coming up as well as the first communion in April. Both he and Laura had the first skiing lessons of the season on Friday. Jimmy was WHIPPING all over the place. Absolutely flying down the hills. Laura really hasnt skied (is that a word?) before so this was her first lesson...she was awesome about it. She ended up on the ground most of the lesson so I thought that would discourage her but it didnt at all. After the lesson she still wanted to go back on the bunny hill so we let her...Kara and Lyn stuck around after the lessons later to let Jimmy and Emily fly down the big hill for a while while me and Laura went home to greet the Pizza eaters. Aunt's Estelle, Janie,Margie and my aunt Chrissy were over as well as Jackie and her two little angels. Umple also came over. Speaking of umple, on Friday when Lyn and I were on our way to Boston we saw the ump on the other side of the highway flying home...I'm' thinking he was supposed to be at work...but I digress.
On Saturday, Aunti Jo came over and our beautiful little girls went to the hair salon to get their locks chopped. This was Catherine's first trip there. Lyn told me that Laura was nonstop chatter talking about anything and everything. Catherine was so cute. Its so fun just to watch her doing things like this that she enjoys. The smile and overall look on her face is priceless.
We are going to have to start a daily blog on the Jack broken article of the day website. He's a tv sitcom all to himself
Back to Lyn trying to kill me. She swears that garlic toast and butter is good for you and wont take no for answer so we all know who is going to win that one. The hot milk is bad enough. She's a hoot thats what she is.
I love aunt Jo's new camera. That stitching option is awesome.

Ten years passes quickly

Its amazing how quickly a decade slips through our fingers. There was some silly commencement speech put to music on the radio in 1999. One of the lines tells you not to worry, well worry, but know that the real worries in your life are things that never cross your troubled mind...things that are bound to blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. 4pm on Tuesday January 5th, 1999 to be precise. Its been a great decade just the same as this blog shows.
First of all, shortly after that day there was list made with 101 things to do. Now ten years later its amazing how many of those things that I havent done, but the most important ones, I have done. I wanted to have a family and that is the one that I was really unsure about. Fathers Day always bummed me out before Jimmy, now it just tires me out...in a good way. So now is a good as time as any for an update on the little ones.....
James is now 7 years old and in the second grade. He loves (emphasis) loves playing hockey. One confession is that I've watched the hockey videos of Jimmy's game as goalie about fifty times. I'm biased but he was awesome!!!! I think it made it so much better because of how happy he was doing it. The kid never loses his smile.This time of the year is Bruins time. We are going to the Bruins game in two weeks. He's doing very well in school and loves to play his wii, x-box and computer games. He is also involved in wrestling and starts basketball this week. There hasnt really been any basketball genes on our side of the family, most of us were nicknamed "heads". This was because everytime one of us would shoot the ball everyone would yell out "heads".
Laura is six. She loves kindergarten and I just spoke to her teacher today. The teacher informs me that she is extremely bright and goes above and beyond what is asked of her. She is one who tells more than she should.....There are no secrets around here. She really is a perfect little girl. She loves her American Girl Dolls and is very good to her little sister. Amazingly, she and Jimmy have been getting along fabulously lately. They have been playing together and even joking around. Boy, I hope that lasts.
And speaking of perfect little girls, Catherine is now three years old and is my other little angel. I love it at night when I go in to move them around and check on them before I go to bed. Whenever I cover her up and put her on her pillow she is out cold with a smile on her face. She's so cute and cuddly. She asked me tonight if I'd bring her on a train soon. I think I'll try soon. I immediately think to how will we do that with the train bathrooms. I know we'd be in it a couple of times during the ride. Never fails!
My little Jack...oooo my little Jack. At two years old he loves his trains, Elmo and Blues Clues. He's a mommies boy but tonight he sat in his red sox seat and fell asleep on my chest. He gets these screams in the morning and I cant seem to get him to lower the decibel level. Nacks!!!!! Milkie!!!! is what we hear at about five a.m. every morning. Loud enough for Midge next door to hear. He's a cutie though, I love the words that come out of his mouth. He gets so excited when he sees all his friends like Nana,Doe, aunt jo, eddie and umple david, especially david and we cant forget dominick. Many mornings I hear Lyn yelling out "jack stop". He's beautiful though. When we were watching tv tonight he started dancing when the people on tv were doing the same. He gets down and shakes his booty. He's a hoot thats what he is.

My Little goalie and wrestler

What a great little goalie!!! James won his first game of the year in goal. 7-2.

Many breakaways like this one were turned back. All week long he was sooo excited about being the goalie including the night before when he woke up three times through the night to make sure he didnt oversleep.

HIT PLAY ON THE VIDEO TO SEE A GREAT SAVE

Then there was tonight when Lyn and I went to see Jim in his first ever wrestling tourney. There were a bunch of wrestlers in front of him to go and he waited patiently. when it was his time to go he went right at it. He was very agressive, maybe too agressive as he slammed his head into his opponents elbow. It hurt and the poor little buggah was embarassed and started welling up a bit with tears. They called off the match. Up until that point he had done pretty well. He states he wants to go at it again so we'll see.

I'm watching a show on childbirth, kids etc....hmmmmm. Its cute but all they speak to is the earthy crunchy people....

The artist colony

Laura has been telling us for over a year now how her profession is that of an artist. when she does certain things she says that she does them because she's an artist. She got another easel for Christmas and did some drawing today with her new brushes and ink. She's actually not too bad. Catherine cant be left out so she did her drawings with a chalk base.
Laura wanted her hair up a certain way...like an artist would have it. She also told me that when she says hello, she is going to say 'bonjour' because some artists speak french.

Merry Christmas 2008

Umple Eddie was telling us that his childhood with Santa Claus and Christmas ended upbruptly when he woke up for christmas to discover that the gifts under the tree included clothes and some dreaded flash cards. The first picture is of Jimmy with flash cards.....poor Jimmy.....it got better for him.

Jack showing his Italian side

Unfortunately for me I had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas day. The eve was moved over to Kara's this year instead of our house because of the damage in the backyard room. On Christmas day we went over uncle Patrick's house and were going to head over to Karas. Well, we got a call when we were on the way to Patricks house from Kara saying she had no power at her house so Lyn ended up hosting Christmas for her side of the family.

On Christmas morning Jimmy woke up up first and then the rest of them followed and were soooo excited about finding all the gifts. Catherine kept holding things up and saying that the gift she opened was just what she wanted. She got a new American Girl Doll. Laura got a bunch of girlie gifts, Jimmy at first opened the "crap" but then did all right with a bunch of wii games and a new DS. Jack was awesome. He reminded me so much of when Catherine was his age and would just stare at the gifts for a long time. He got tons of Thomas the train stuff and he would yell "tommy" every time he would open one. He was very cute to watch opening his gifts.

The next day was spent putting together a bunch of them and having them play with every gift one after another.

It was a great Christmas with plenty of drama, as usual.

More Christmas parties

Today was Lyn's family Christmas party. With Nana being one of 16 kids, there are tons of grandchildren running around to keep the kiddos occupied. The kids are so fortunate to have all these kids around all the time. They are all good kids too. Cousin Jenny informed me that she reads the blog every day. She has beautiful little ones that look familiar from my childhood..I wonder why....... Cousin Marion is in charge of the nativity play. Jimmy was one of the three kings along with Jacob, Laura was an angel, of course, and Catherine was a lovely sheep. Emily was Mary again and Erin was a bearded shepherd. Jack was that kid near the manger carrying a wiffle ball bat...a little known history lesson there. Santa Claus made his annual visit with Jack making his customary screeches. Jimmy played football inside the hall with some of the little cousins and didnt take part in bashing the Santa Claus pinata. My favorite part of the day was when the kids were sitting patiently on the floor waiting for Santa to arrive and I got to lead them in the favorite Christmas favorites like Frosty the snowman, Jingle Bells, Rudolph and of course, Spongebob Squarepants.......
While sitting on the stage Auntie chrissy came up to me to show me once again why she is my lady. In her hands was a huge whoopie pie that she had managed to steal for me before the whoopie rush came. She is very good to us, always calling to check on us.
It was snowing pretty good outside but that didnt seem to stop many people from showing up. We thought about not going for a second but loaded up the hillbilly minivan and took it slow.
When we got home we did the finishing touches on the Christmas tree. It tilts a little bit and its location has changed due to the old oak's visit to the back yard room. We really miss that room being operational. Now Jack just plops in the living room demanding to watch tommy the train or hannah. He loves Rico from Puerto Rico yello aaaa-ooooo its Rico. He just sees him and laughs real hard. He didnt go right to sleep tonight, how rare!!! The girls looked so cute today. I can still just stand there and watch Catherine during these parties because she has such a good time with life. Her smile is so cute.
Then heading out to the driveway to crank up the 200 year old snowblower to feel that, of course, it was not quite working. How do we do it!! Again, I'm too good to Doe to let him come over tomorrow to fix it. That reminds me that this week we had three chainsaws to chop up all the trees that were fallen all over the place. He has one that is about the same age as the snowblower. I dont know but I think you have to kick it six times, talk nice to it and say a prayer to Saint Joanne and spray some hair spray on it to make it start. I tried and tried to start it...to no avail. I looked out and after about six seconds he had the sucker started and was chopping up arms of the old oak tree. It just isnt fair.

Smiling jack

I think Penny was pinching Jacks butt

Normalcy (uh huh)

Life is returning to normal, whatever that is. Uncle David came over and fixed the hole in the roof so we dont have to have a real skylight. The back yard room is still unlivable but the rest of the house is ok. We really miss that back room though because all the kids have to settle and watch one tv and thats impossible to agree to. Jack wants to watch his Thomas all the time and the other kids have their own shows. A couple of nights before the boom boom Jack was in the living room watching Hannah Montana. In one scene she trips and falls over and down. He yelled O Hannah fall down O Hannah. He was very upset about the whole thing. Poor Hannah. Last night Jimmy woke up at around 3am and was in our room walking around and talking. For some reason he wanted to talk and then asked if he could go watch TV. Then Jack somehow ended up in bed shortly after. Not to be outdone Laura was heard gunning it for the bathroom because she was sick and had to toss em. Poor Laura was sick today. Lyn thinks it could be the chicken she ate yesterday and not a flu. Just in case it was something else, she didnt go to school. Catherine was the only one who stayed asleep but she was on the couch sleeping when I left this morning at 8am. For recording purposes I must mention that today was the first time I have appeared before a judge as a lawyer. Nothing too heavy but all the same it was fun. Kara sent me some pictures from the Teddy Bear tea. This was Catherine's first year and she just loved it. All the girls looked so beautiful.

Snap, Crackle and pop

Its amazing how long is takes for ones bones to thaw....

It all started Thursday night

Lyn called me at work and told me that she thinks that we lost a big tree in the back yard, she cannot see it because the power went out. When I got home at around 1am or so I took a flashlight around the house to see if any trees were down....The sounds of trees bending, breaking and then falling seemed to be all around. I heard three trees fall from the time I got out of the car. When I looked closer I saw that it was the tops of trees snappping or limbs snapping. When I got into bed Jimmy was there, wide awake. He had heard a loud bang, probably a transformer blow and that was it for him.

That night I lay awake listening to the cracking and crashing sound. At that time of night it makes everything seem worse. I talked myself into going to sleep around 3:30am thinking that if it were going to happen it was going to happen. Realistically, the kids rooms were safe from trees so I went to sleep. Bang boom and here we go. The old oak tree by the back of the house sent a missile flying onto and through the roof of the back yard room. Poor Frankie was sleeping on his couch and some of the debris landed on him while he slept.

Friday was spent trying to talk to a human being at the insurance company and then trying to find something I can do with a tree sticking into a house. Luckily, the person who answered at the tree company was a lady with a family and as I let her know that we were a family with four kids and a hole in the roof I got a return call very quickly.

A couple hours later two huge huge huge trucks pulled onto the front lawn, one of them a crane. I was so disappointed that the kids werent there to see it. It seemed that we got a large crowd watching the festivities. The tree limb went quite a ways into the house. It was like a missile shooting in. At first I went into the crawl space of the roof and thought I would just cut the tree....yeah right. It was solid and heavy. I felt that I had owned a home for twenty years and not once have I ever made an insurance claim so I just let it go and leave it to someone else.

The kids ended up staying over aunt Jo's house for the last two nights.

Sunday, Laura and Catherine went to the Teddy Bear Tea in Boston. Lyn says that the girls had an awesome time. Kara tells me that she took pictures so I'm waiting on that.

Unfortunately, I had the bachelor pad all to myself the last couple of days. Probably would have been better if it wasnt FREEZING. oh what a wimp. One of the nights I got home from work and went to the new case of beer we inherited and I almost even drank one....too damn cold.
Tonight the kids are home and everything is back to normal and we are all happy for that.

My little Laura proves to me once again that she could keep a smile playing in a mud puddle. She has named the tree that ended up in the backyard as "Stickland" as she and Catherine play in it.