Nick is Nine

Nicky got everything he wanted for his birthday this year - except a party. It's technically his year for one, but we're a bit cash strapped with the huge Disney vacation we have coming up, so we bargained with him to move his party year to next year in exchange for "the party of the century"! ;-) Fortunately for us, the most that will probably mean is a party at Rascals or Bounce U. Still, he looks like he had fun on his birthday, party or no. Here he is opening his gifts:




Daddy was so helpful with the present opening:


Later, he had to go to cantata rehearsal:


But then it was time for more presents from the extended family:



And of course, birthday cake! Or, actually, Cookie Dough Ice Cream birthday cake:


Happy Birthday, Nicky!

April Fools!

We got a last minute April Fools Day treat when the girls came over for dinner so that Barry could go in to work. We had hamburgers for dessert - April Fools! They were actually hamburger shaped cookies. The girls loved it and we had fun coloring and playing board games, too.

Spring Fever

The kids are spending lots of time outdoors right now - they're just so happy to not be cooped up by lousy weather. They don't even care that it's barely not lousy weather so far this spring!

100 Days!

It's official. In 100 days, we're leaving on the trip of a lifetime. The four of us, Cyndy, Barry, their girls, Mom and Gordi are all headed to Florida for two weeks.

We'll spend the first week at Coronado Springs Resort in Disney World. We've got a great itinerary planned that will have me in the Magic Kingdom on my birthday, lucky me! We then head to Cyndy and Barry's timeshare for a week of Universal and Orlando fun. We even won the free Universal tickets advertised during the Super Bowl!

With 100 days to go, I've already been driving the rest of the family nuts with planning - what's going to happen when it's a week to go? But I just can't wait!!!

Here's some t-shirts the kids created for the trip:

The Great Football Card Saga

For anyone who doesn't know, Nicky has become an avid collector of football cards. He doesn't have any idea what is actually valuable, but he knows what he likes, and what he likes is Packers cards. He's also fond of Eagles, Giants, Steelers, and Pro Bowl cards. He's been working on his collection for months, trading with friends, and spending his allowance on new packs. So when he came home one day from school and sadly told us that his exact favorite cards had been meticulously removed from his binder and stolen, you can imagine how upset he was. He's not allowed to play with the cards at school, but he is allowed to trade them on the bus, so he put his binder in his bookbag and left it there all day. At some point in the day, without anyone noticing, someone took each individual card that he likes out of their sleeves. I still can not fathom how his teacher didn't notice someone standing at the cubbies that long, but since her only reaction to his dilemma was "you shouldn't have brought them to school", we figured Nicky was out of luck as far as justice went.

That's when Mommy hit eBay and started recreating his collection as best I could without spending too much cash. Fortunately, as I mentioned, his idea of valuable cards doesn't really correspond with their actual value, and for under $20 I was able to make him happy.

And then. He waited. And waited. His Eagles cards arrived. His Brian Westbook Pro Bowl card arrived. And he waited. And waited. I began to worry that he had been ripped off twice and then...

Finally, 12 days after I paid for them, his 100 new Packers cards came in the mail yesterday.

Just call him "Happy Nick" (do doo do do ta do).

Wearin' (And Eatin') O' The Green

Gotta love going all out celebrating your heritage. With Irish on both sides, we just happily proclaim ourselves Irish on St. Patrick's Day (and everyday, average "American" family label notwithstanding)!

We started celebrating on Sunday by bringing these cookie pops to church for coffee hour. They were VERY popular, and not just with the kids. Grown adults apparently love lollipops - go figure.

We also had a great Irish-American dinner (corned beef and cabbage - don't get me started on why it's not Irish at all, but Cyndy loves it so there you are) with lots of green desserts. The kids donned their St. Patrick's best and enjoyed the day to the fullest.

May the luck of the Irish be with you in the coming year!

The Confetti Cafe Diet

Dieting sucks. Eating sundaes (like this Confetti Cafe creation) rocks.

Is it any wonder I keep failing so miserably at dieting?

At least I shared it with Scotty. That has to count as "reduced" calories, right?

March

These photos were taken in the same week. On Monday, we had a snow day due to the several inches of snow that got dumped on the house throughout the course of the day. By Saturday, the grass was starting to green up and it was warm enough to go barefoot in the park. That's early spring in Pennsylvania for you!

Enjoying the afternoon at the park brought to mind one of my favorite Reliant K songs, In Like A Lion:

And everything it changed overnight

This dying world You brought it back to life

And deep inside I felt things

Shifting everything was melting

Away oh away

And You gave us the most beautiful of days

It's not that I don't know how blessed I am in the winter months. But the return of spring brings a lightness back to my heart I didn't know I was missing. If you ask me, I will probably tell you that spring is my least favorite season, and it is. But there's still magic in the warm, damp breeze.

'Course, it's Pennsylvania. So don't discount a return to ice and snow by next week!

Philly Phun

We headed into Philly for a day trip on Saturday. We really wanted to see the Narnia exhibit at the Franklin Institute before our membership ran out. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed in the exhibit, so we had to settle for this shot in the concourse.

The kids had fun, but we probably won't renew our membership right away - other than the travelling exhibits, seeing the museum multiple times in a year can get boring. We did see a nice IMAX on the Grand Canyon, although it was a bit environmentally preachy. Still, there were many highlights to the trip. Nicky got a cheesesteak:

Kairi got to surf:

And I got to see the automaton that inspired the GREAT Caldecott book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret":

On our way out of Philly, we had to stop to see our favorite big cats at the zoo:

And take Daddy on the new carousel. We picked the spinning snake basket and all piled in:

Daddy is hamming it up a bit, but spinning a car while spinning on a carousel can get a little nauseating:
The one problem with loving to day trip is that it sometimes leaves us wanting a break from our weekend! Fortunately for us, Monday was a snow day, so we had a day to rest, too!

Fastnacht Day!!

How could you NOT know what Fastnacht Day is? Okay, so I've been living in Pennsylvania too long. I didn't know what Fastnacht Day was not so very long ago either. But now, it wouldn't be 41 days before Easter without it!

Fastnachts are delicious concoctions of butter and sugar and potato and sugar and lard and sugar and....

Okay, they're basically really sugary, really heavy donuts. Without holes (depending on who you ask). With squarish sides.

In our area, this tradition is so prevalent that our school (who just implemented a "wellness" policy forbidding sweets) still hands out a free fastnacht to each kid at lunch time.

So naturally, we had to introduce our new Pennsylvanians to fastnachts!! Juli and Faith loved the tradition, and chowed down with relish. (Enjoyment, not chopped up pickles. Sheesh!)

Or maybe that's just a sugar induced coma?

It's good I enjoyed Fat Tuesday (aka Fastnacht Day), cause if I want to get skinny for our summer vacation, I better give up EATING for Lent!

Cold and Flu Season

It feels like we've spent most of this month sick. Stomach bugs have us drinking ginger ale and eating crackers. Sinus headaches, colds, asthma attacks, flu, coughing, sore throats - yeah, we got 'em.

If anyone still has money to invest in this economy, may I suggest picking up stock in tissues, cold medicine, and chicken soup?

Testing

I'm addicted to iGoogle.It's my homepage and constant companion. Which is why I was thinking the other day, wouldn't it be nice if I could blog from iGoogle the way I can write e-mails, check news, track my calendar, and so on? Naturally, I'm not the first person to ever think of that. So, here I am, trying my new blogger gadget on iGoogle. And typing one-handed 'cause I burnt my finger making dinner. Ouch!

Lil' Rascals

We found a new place to play after church on Sunday. Then again, apparently, Nicky can entertain himself anywhere. What IS that face? Anyway, Rascals' Food and Fun has a restaurant and a big play area. In addition to favorites like skee ball...

And basketball...

Rascals has mini-bowling, laser tag, bumper cars, a rock wall, and all sorts of video games. One of our favorites was a "Deal or No Deal" game to win tickets.

We had tons of fun, and I'm sure we'll be back!

Sweet Hearts

We spent Valentine's Day helping Aunt Cyndy make yummy cookies for her work. Her coworkers must be Nick Cage fans, 'cause I hear these were "Gone in Sixty Seconds".

I know, bad, bad pun.

The Wind Blows (or, Getting to the Root of the Matter)

Chapter 1: In Which Kairi Finds Herself In A Blustery Situation

Kairi came home on Thursday to find bits and pieces of the house all over the yard, a giant tree knocked down, winds swirling and gusting, and no power.

She ran, naturally, to neighbors' houses, but finding no one home, proceeded to where she felt most safe - her band teacher's house.

There, I received her frantic phone call just as I was leaving work, and I flew homeward. (And the car certainly felt like it wanted to fly as the unabated wind storm blew it all over I-78.

Chapter Two: In Which We Thank God For The Direction of the Wind StormSo, the tree that was knocked down was inches from Kairi's room. I had fussed over the creaking and swaying of that tree during every storm since we moved in. Between the soggy, oversaturated ground and the 75 mph wind gusts, the tree fell - thankfully, AWAY from Kairi's room! Chapter 3: In Which We Discover How Very Dependent We Are On Electricity

But our adventure wasn't over with a few pieces of blown off soffit and one big ol' tree. Cause the power had been out since 10AM that morning, according to neighbors. We headed to Barry and Cyndy's house for dinner, and kept calling our own house, since our answering machine would only pick up if we had power. At about 6:50, we got an answer, so we headed home. The power had come back on - but an electrical fire in the transformer behind our neighbor's house had turned the four houses on our cul-de-sac right back off. After debating the merits of returning to Cyndy's, renting a hotel room, etc., we slept by lantern light in our rapidly losing heat house. If we're going to live in the northeast in an electric heated house, methinks we need to invest in a generator!

Long story short, the power didn't come back on until after 9PM on Friday the 13th. As Kairi said, our bad luck came a day early!

Sunday Morning

95% of Sunday mornings, you'll find us at church. Other than the occassional sick day or vacation, we spend a lot of time at Calvary Baptist. Everyone in the family loves being there, and loves the Lord. Lately, I've been campaigning for more time spent in worship and less in service, but that's just a side effect of 8 years of children's ministry. We are taking a year off from teaching Sunday School right now, but we're still in charge of VBS. Kairi and Scott just joined the bell choir, Scott is "member at large" (which still sounds like a weight joke, sorry Scotty!), Kairi and Nicky are in kids' choir, Kairi plays the horn many Sundays and sings in the praise band, in addition to youth group activities, Scott runs the projector, and Scott and I help with junior church. Even Faith and Juli get into the act - you can see how much Juli loves the nursery!