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.

On the podium again

     Catherine was telling me this week that the teams that she was competing against were going to be very good for this meet and she was a little nervous.  The competition was very good, especially that team in the dark gray outfits....But look who is on the 1st place podium......the sweetest girl I know!!!

Football at the school (skool) bus stop

     Normally, we have, for years, grabbed and spent our mornings at the bus stop playing tennis ball.  We would take a tennis ball and toss it sky high or do some grounders.  when it gets too wet outside there would be no grouders, we would learn to stamp the ball on the ground and dry it off....well, the last one has changed that.  For quite some time he has brought out he football and he wants to play football on the street while we wait.  Alot of times he wants to make great one handed "Odel" catches.  I tell him is he misses he is making an "Adele" catch.....Either way, its very fun.  He listens to Tom Brady on the TV yell out his cadence, you know, when he says hut, hut, hut.  Well, Tom is yelling out "ONE EIGHTY-HUT HUT HUT' ,,,Jack would be playing and imitating Brady and yell out 'MY LADY-HUT HUT HUT'......so that is what we yell out as we have make believe plays.  He'll play center and give me a long snap and i'll yell out MY LADY, or vice versa.......its a lot of fun either way.  one of the fun things he does is to try and do an onside kick against me.  He will throw his arm up and kick the ball on the ground and i have to field it cleanly within ten yards before he grabs it.  I have had to change my pants more than one time from getting them dirty during this whole drill.

     Then the bus comes.  I see the little faces on the bus of those on their way to school, bored as usual.  This year, i go about ten to twenty feet from the bus and pretend to throw them the football.  Now they wait for me and have their hands up waiting for me to 'throw' it to them.....Oh whatever will I do when they grow up

Ump for prez

That Laura cracks me up.  She had really wanted to go to see Trump when he came to town but I couldn't go but I did get her a bumper sticker.  Now, she didnt want to go for any idealistic reason, she just wanted to be part of the circus that is Trump...Just made sure to add that.  Anyway, I was sitting on the couch and she said 'hey daddy, look who I'm voting for "......A very wise choice I must say....

Is the Easter Bunny moonlighting??

  Catherine woke me up this morning, in all her cuteness, telling me that the Easter Bunny, known around here as EB, had left her a note about her tooth.  The tooth fairy must have been busy....or hallucinating

     She made it all right the very next night with this gem.....She's so cute