Time for a good, but long post!!!! The first half of April

CARDINAL OPENING DAY

Of course, you know my priorities, I took a day off of work to go enjoy the home opener. Since, I have to pay for daycare anyway, I sent all the boys there and MY wonderful mother picked them up about 5pm. It worked out great because she only had to watch them for 2.5 hours. She is so helpful, she does everything and anything for all of her children. We had a great time and the weather was beautiful. I got a little sun burnt. Since the kids weren’t going, I still wanted them to show their Cardinal Spirit so I dressed them all up in their cardinal outfits. Dan and Chris were wearing Matt and Mike’s old Jersey because they never got one of their own. Poor kids always wearing hand-me downs. They better get used to it now because that is how it is going to be for a long time, well maybe, Chris is so big he might catch up with Matt and Mike. I took him to the dr. on Saturday because he was pulling at his ears and had a low-grade fever. He weighed 20lb 15oz. Wow what a big baby. Another week or two, he will have to be moved into the big boy car seat.

Matt-Man & Mister Christer
Danny Joe & Mister Christer
Danny Joe & Mister Christer
Danny Joe & Mister Christer
Matt-Man and Danny Joe
Michael being shy for the camera. He didn't want to hold Chris.
He is always happy to get a picture taken, what is Michael doing?
Matt-Man and Michael Mann
EASTER
Holy Saturday Kelly D. helped me take Matthew and Michael to the Easter egg hunt at White Birch Park in Hazelwood. They are still in the smallest group, so they were able to get a lot of eggs. They really didn’t feel like picking many up, they wanted to open each one and get the candy out right away. Janie watch Dan and Chris while Matt and Mike hunted for eggs. On Easter Sunday we went to Church as a family again, like we have been doing every Sunday for the past 3 months. Lisa, Jerry and their kids are like extended family now, the boys like them so much, they are attached to them by the end of church. We went over to moms right after church. We sat around, ate and had the Easter egg hunt. The boys like it so much, thank you Billy K. for helping the walk around and making sure that they got a lot of eggs with a lot of money. They were picked up around 2 to see their dad and then dropped off around 7pm that night. I bet they had a lot of fun.
Jackie, Dad, Chrissy, Jane Billy, Mom, Brian and Me

How nice it is to have such a large and wonderful family

Angela, Billy, Bill, Jackie, Amy & Courtney

Mom and her 28 grandkids & 2 great grandkids (Cali not pictured)

Michael

Danny and Amy
Henry, Sully & Kelly

Jim, Jimmy, Cassie & Jenna
Cory & Libby

(Mom bought her a bunny outfit. It was so cute. She is just a body made out of rolls.)

Aidan (Colleen and Nate's baby boy) Good Friday I had a BBQ and a few friends over. It was a lot of fun. The boys played and with Aidan, Matthew loved him. I have a picture of him holding Aidan, but I forgot to post it. Next update, because it is really cute.

RING AROUND THE ROSIE

Michael’s favorite sound is ring-around-the-rosie, he sings it all the time and Matt does the dance. Michael sings over and over and then falls down. I think sometimes he is going to get to dizzy and fall into something and get hurt. Matt loves to be around his little brothers so much. He loves to play with them, talk to them and even feed them when I let him help me. Chris likes to squirm out of his car seat a lot and Matt goes up to him and screams ‘uh oh, mommy, uh oh’ He thinks that he can pick him up, but the kid weighs almost as much as he does.

Matt-man helping Danny play

Matt was watching Michael demonstrate 'falling down'

PLAY DATE AT THE ZOO

Katie D. and I took all the kids to the zoo on Friday 4/2/2010. We had a really good time, but it was hard pushing all the kids up the hills. Little Jackie and her friend Lauren came to help. Michael really didn’t like it all that much, he was kind of scared of the animals. Matthew really liked it and wanted to walk around. He kept telling the bears ‘hi’ and ‘bye’. It was so cute, but I was a little surprised that Michael was the scared one. I think they are still a little young to enjoy it, the thing they enjoyed most was eating their fruit snacks and drinking their Capri-suns, after I reinserted the straw 50 times each.

Completing items on my list

****Get clutter out of the house****
(moved the majority of it into a corner in the basement--can't wait until it is gone)

Buy picture frames, get pictures developed and hang them
(they are all framed I just need to hang them)
Paint the ceilings (need some touching up)
Paint 2 bathrooms; front room and my bedroom
*I forgot to add earlier that I need to do the crown moulding in the bathrom*
New white doors to all closets, bathroom and bedrooms
New front door; screen door too
New back door; screen door too
Remove the ugly tree on the side of the driveway
Remove 3 ugly bushes from the front of the house
New landscaping
Cut down trees: 2 in the backyard; 1 in the front
Take out the front closet to extend the bathroom and put in a shower

Extend driveway to the fence---make a two car drive way

Some of the items are getting done. Some things are going to cost more money, but they will get done soon enough.......Thank you to Jackie, Amy, Angela, Courtney and Billy for helping me paint the house. It looks great, it only took 2 1/2 years to get the things I wanted finished. Owning a home = lots of Home Projects. WOW!

Pictures outside

I have posted most of these pictures on face book, but some people are not able to see them. Last week before Easter, we had great weather, so I took all the boys outside and let them play. I put the gate up on the carport so they can run free without me having to worry about them going into the front yard or the street. I have a lot more pictures to post, but I thought this would be a good start since they were uploaded about a week ago.

I have been doing pretty good under the circumstances. I am just so thankful that I have great family and friends. I know that I have said that in the past, but it is true. Oh, it also makes it easy that I have 4 great handsome boys. They make everything a lot better. I have 33 more days left of school this year. I can't wait until it is over. I do have very good students this year too.

Breakfast with the Easter Bunny

Visit with Cousin's

So last weekend our cousin Julie was in town. Chrissy and I went out to Aunt Kathy's to visit. We had a good time, we sat around, talked and ate lots of crap. No wonder I only lost .2lbs this week. Doesn't matter though, I hit my forty pound mark. At the end of the night we wanted to take some pictures of us girls. Of course, everyone thought they looked better in different pictures. The first person to say something was Chrissy, 'oh no, redo this' then again 'I don't look good do it again, aunt Kathy you need to stand up, that is why we all look like we have double chins'....Chrissy you have to look at everyone in the pictures not just yourself.


Hey are boob's are touching---said Jennifer

New Toys

So Chrissy and Jim gave me some of their kids old toys. Two Radio Flyer horses, 1 jump-a-roo, and a slide. Jim dropped everything off about 6pm. I called him about 7:30 to tell him that Matt and Mike only stopped playing on the slide to eat dinner, that took them 20 minutes. They were having so much fun. If you listen, you can hear them counting with me.

I was trying to get the big boys to sing along. You can tell what Michael is trying to sing. I probably could have stopped singing because he was done. I have more on the video camera.