Our Baby is Fourteen

Fourteen years ago at 7:16 pm our first little baby(Alex Anthony) was born in Bethesda, Maryland on a snowy night.It was Superbowl Sunday.What a fun jouney it has been to watch him grow up into a wonderful young man. We love him so much.
We are realizing that he will only be with us for 5 more years before he is off to college and on his mission. That time will go too quickly. We hope to enjoy all of our days left with him.
Here are some pictures of what happened on his bday.I know the text will be messed up. It always looks different and out of place once I POST the entry. Sorry...I can't figure out how to stop it from happening.
Chris left a trail of $ bills for Alex from the basement ,through the kitchen, that lead him to his wishes of sugar bday cereal, some Brazillian soda he likes,and GUM(which he is always asking for).He is so easy to please. May he always stay that way. (: We gave him $ to put toward his Ball Python snake, which he actually got last night. Thanks to Grandpa John and Grandma Dana's bday money. I'll make sure they get to hold the snake as much as they want when they come in the summer . ha ha ha I know that I will NOT be touching it any time soon.


He has been asking for "Guarana" which is brazillian soda.


Our old neighbor ,Lynda Erickson, from 11 yrs ago made him these 2 pies.They were so Yummy!

He wanted Chinese food for dinner. I made his favorite Orange Chicken, Sweet and Sour, egg rolls, and fried rice.

The 2 pink smudges above and below Alex are Johnny's fingers. He took this excellent picture!















Adam looking up to his older brother.

Marriage Retreat

I am so EXCITED!!!!! Some of you may know that we love Aspen Grove Family Camp. Well, one of their best kept secrets are their Marriage Retreats. They are always booked months in advance and very hard to get into. Well today I was on the phone with Aspen Grove paying for the summer family camp and I asked the lady if by any funky chance there were any cancellations for the marriage retreat this weekend. She started laughing and said someone had just called before me to cancel and she had ONE opening. Needless to say,I was all over that and proceeded to call around desperately trying to find someone to stay with our kids for the weekend. Luckily I am watching my friends kids for 10 days in March when she and her hubby go on a cruise....so she is paying me back by watching our kids whenever we need her to. It all worked out and we are leaving tomorrow at 1:30.Yeah!!!!! Two days of peace and rest!!! Part of the retreat is cross country skiing ,which we did last year also. It is so beautiful there.....we are really looking foward to it.
Chris just came into the house after working on the snow blower. It's 11 pm. He had to fix it before we leave so Alex can snow blow the driveways for the babysitter when she needs to come and go. Yesterday morning at 6 am in the dark Chris went out to clear the driveways (we have one very long one and another shorter RV pad). He walked the driveway to check if his Wall Street Journal was out there,but it was not. He started snow blowing and to his suprise the paper had been buried in the snow and TOTALLY jammed the snow blower. He was already running late and needed to leave. He tried to pull out of the RV pad in his car(front wheel drive), but got totally stuck and had to hop in the suburban (4 wheel drive) and get a running start to make it accross the thick snow and onto the road. Luckily we have awesome neighbors who helped me get his car UN STUCK and then proceeded to snow blow both driveways for us. SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!! I am sick of it already and it is ONLY January. Last year it snowed AFTER Memorial Day.
Tonight when Chris was coming up our hill, which is very steep , his car wasn't gonna make it. (which happens alot around here) It was slipping and sliding. Luckily a big SUV was driving by and pulled in front of him and strapped him to his car and towed Chris up the hill and safely home. He was going to have to call me and have me come down and pick him up. And if you leave your car on the side of the road overnight you get ticketed because it gets in the way of the snow plows doing their job.
After reading this post don't all of you Californians just want to move to a snowy location???? I guess I now know why 1/2 of the people on our street are "snow birds" and live in CA or AZ in the winter. It sounds pretty good to me...if we had the money. Maybe if we stop feeding, clothing, getting braces, and music lessons for our kids we could afford that winter home in CA.???? hhhmmmmmm sounds like a good idea to me.

What the heck ..........I'm swinging!!

Adam and John are getting major cabin fever this winter. Adam finally took the leap to venture out in the backyard and take a swing on the tree swing.We had a sunny day that melted some of our snow and made it easier for him to unbury the swing off of the ground. I thought it was so cute....I just had to take a picture.

Breakfast Time With the Boys

Ryan has been begging me to make chocolate chip pancakes for months and I finally let he and Steven do it. They did a pretty good job huh?

Stevo & Ry Pie: Perfect Attendance and P.J.'s

For anyone who knew me 20 years ago I know this comes as a shocker to see that my offspring has Perfect Attendance. My school attendance depended on the weather at the beach and my ability to improve my "tan lines". I was a 60-70% attendance student, BUT I'll have you know that I did graduate EARLY from high school with GOOD grades.I just liked to do my work at home instead of school and while my classmates were in Economics I was on the beach in Hawaii and in Arizona soaking up the sun. I made it back just in time to "walk " with my class with a graduation cap that said "NO BIGGIE" on the top in gold letters.
Thank you Gramma Betsy for the footsie pajamas!! We love them. -Ryan and Steven
Steven was a little leery about me posting this picture on the Internet, even though I thought he looked ADORABLE. Kind of like the Mom on the movie The Christmas Story when she tells him how cute he looks in the pink bunny costume. He loves the p.j.'s in the privacy of our home. (:

Steven's Shot

Steven had an exciting moment at his basketball game on Saturday. His glasses got knocked off and a lens popped out so he handed them to the coach and got back in the game. Almost immediately he got the ball and scored without his glasses on. We told him he was using the "force". He is tempted to play without them next time and see if he has the same luck.(: We were really excited for him.

Black Eye

I forgot to post this the other day. While putting away the Twister game on Saturday Adam was acting goofy and threw the spinner up in the air. Well it hit me below my eye and gave me a black eye. The picture looks better than real life.My first and only black eye and it was given to me by a four year old. I think I need self defense classes..

Icicles

Check out this huge cluster of icicles by our hot tub. They touch the ground, but there is too much snow in between me and the icicles for me to venture over there to get a full length shot. Sorry.(:

Look Mommy!

I was attempting to read my book while the kids played outside in the snow . I was on minute #3 of reading when John comes around the corner into the living room and says,"Look Mommy! I got a snowball for you." I love that little guy.

Twister

Is this twister or a football game? I want to be this flexible. Check out Steven's hands.

Berry Shakes

John loves yogurt and berry shakes. These are pictures of him about 1 minute before his cup FLIPPED on the ground and splattered all over the cabinets,bar stools,wooden shutters...etc etc I was not in the mood to take pictures with my camera.

Licorice Play dough

We made play dough this morning and the boys wanted to put a "scent" in it. We decided to make it "licorice".Here are some pics of the boys playing with it.

Here it is...our licorice play dough

Baking Bread

Friday was a fun day with our little boys. We ground about 5 lbs of wheat and then attempted to make bread together.It was a little messy, but a lot of fun.

Adam licking the dough hook

Ta da!! Johnny is proud of his hard work.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Need I say more? I always remind the kids to NOT stand on the hearth of the fireplaces. Here is my skirt after trying to WARM up before church when the kids weren't looking. OOOOPPPSSSSSS! Luckily I had 2 black skirts and was able to change quickly and still make it on time!!

Big Helpers

Here are some of my big helpers.I appreciate all they do to help around our house.
Alex mopping. The dishes crew
Ryan loading
little bakers making cookies. ...what would I do without someone on the counter top?

These are the things

These are the type of things I see every day around the house......thanks to John and Adam.They are so helpful with keeping things in order!! This is a coloring book stuck in the x mas tree.
"Look Mom! I've got popcorn between my toes!"

need I say more???? London bridge is falling down
ready to cook
John's way of Mommy proofing
xmas tree light bulb in the plant. New age fertilizer stick