Messenging

Ted and Jeff (One of his friends we caught up with recently) spent some time instant messanging each other with our web cams last night. I caught this Screen Capture of them making weird faces. It is so easy to use a video camera or a web cam and talk with each other. Jeff just downloaded MSN last night, we tried to use AOL first but it has always given us problems. We have Yahoo and MSN for those of you who instant message. We have chatted with family to include Lindsay, Kari and Lori. Jeff called us before we chatted last night to get on instant messenger. If anyone else wants to see the kids or just to talk in real time email us and we will set up a time to get on.

Pancake Week

February 28th (Tomorrow) is Pancake Day. Pancake Day is also known as "Shrove Tuesday" among Roman Catholics. Anyways its a good thing Matthew and I went to the library ALONE on Saturday and got a book about Pancakes called "Hey Pancakes!" I also didn't have any fines (Which are only 2 dollars when I do have them) I can't believe it is already Monday, the weekend just went by too fast. I guess it flew by because most of the weekend Ted was busy working on the closet. He still has lots to do and its probably not a good idea to distract him with more projects. (See picture below) I was sad last night when I thought about the week starting and getting back into a routine. Its probably a good thing that Matthew has a break from Class and Piano this week. (When I remembered that I got happy) I think we will concentrate on catching up on little things we haven't done. One thing is making new charts for the kids to help out focusing us. (Ted and I agreed we would work on these charts a month or so ago) I tend to forget what needs to get done. Our monthly roller skating starts back this week too.

Hallway Continued

Birthday People

OOPs I forgot to wish My Groundhog Uncle a happy birthday on the second. Please forgive me Uncle John! Ace and Emily had their 1st birthday too that I didn't mention. I guess remembering everyone's birthday is hard to do.

Today is Stacy's 29th birthday
(Or at least that's what she told me.)
Here she is with her daughter Jessica.

Tomorrow is our little friend Sarah's 2nd birthday.

Happy Birthday EVERYONE!

And all the rest of you I forgot.

Sunshine

Here are a few pictures from today. I was trying to get some good pictures for the side of the blog but I forgot and didn't go out at a good time. The sun wasn't at the right setting and the shadows were more than I wanted. I posted a few to the side of the blog anyways after I played around with effects. I will probably be replacing these pictures soon hopefully.

Thursday

We had our small group at our house tonight, so it was my turn to watch the kids. Jessica didn't come tonight so she isn't in the picture. Here they are watching tv, for a brief moment before they got bored. I hopefully will have more time to post later, for now my tivoed Survivor is calling me.

Who do you look like?

There is this really neat website I came across today, that allows you to upload a picture and it tells you who you look like. It is more funny than serious, but Matthew, Shane and I played around with it for a long time. Here is the link

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/face_recognition.php?s=1&lang=EN

Old Friends cont...

Well it turns out that our friends are a truck driving team. (They are twins too by the way) Ted and I thought it would be cool to do that (Back before we had kids) Now we know I probably am not someone who could take long hours driving. Ted drives everywhere when we go on trips. I have only driven somewhere once by myself. Anyways back to our friends. It just so happens they had the opportunity to swing by our house for a quick trip early this morning. Ted got up at 4 am and picked them up. Before he brought them home he drove around the neighborhood and saw his Dad getting his paper. So they got to see him too. We got to visit with them for a few short hours, before they had to get back on the road. That was okay and it was really nice. Here is Ted and Dan in 1989 or 1990 at the beach in California visiting Ted's California family. That is Kari and Lori with them. The three of them with all the other people is from a play that Dan was in. And here they are in 2006.

To Matthew

I just got home from having a late dinner with my friends. Matthew kept Colby and Shane while Ted and I went to a meeting. Ted came home right after the meeting to put everyone to bed. I asked Matthew to please help with the laundry. (He had already helped with lots of stuff today) When I got home all of the laundry was done. I am so blessed that Matthew did the laundry and I had a good time tonight. So this post is for Matthew to say thank you so much. The laundry isn't a big deal, but to have a kid that is like Matthew is a great blessing that I don't appreciate all the time.

Old friends

Ted had a suprise call from an old friend today. We exchanged email addresses and phone numbers and I hope we can keep in touch better. I think it was 98 or 99 the last time they talked. These pictures were taken while Ted was on the phone and I was working on my disney picture album.

Movies

I snapped these pictures while we were taking a dinner break between movies. We just finished watching Jumanji and are about to watch Zathura. We rent movies from Netflix. If any of you all rent from them you can add us as one of your friends.

Long Weekend

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Ted has been busy working on the closet. Ted and Colby stayed home while Shane, Matthew and I went to Jessica's party this afternoon. I forgot to take my camera so there aren't any pictures. It was a the Local Y. They have an indoor playground with a zip line (Shane never tried).

When we got home we had some friends forget to tivo the latest Survivor episode so they came here and watched it. After they left to put their kids to bed, we got to enjoy the big tv and watched a documentary on Belize that was very interesting. They had a huge Mayan population and Mennanites have been living in Belize for 50 years and are the most successfull farmers.

I didn't get any pictures today except this one of Colby and Matches. (Everyone had just come home from getting haircuts{All but ME}) and then Colby and Matches started playing with the new pinwheel. I only got this one shot because Colby refused to go near Matches once he figured out that's what I wanted him to do. I guess that is what being 2 is all about.

Hallway

Ted has decided to redo the hall closet with all of the stuff in it. It looks like a big job to me. Matthew and I went out to get a birthday present for our friend Jessica. When we got back Ted had done alot of stuff. Here is a picture of some of what he is doing and the kids playing with their 10 cent pinwheels I found while we were out shopping. Matthew also finally called one of his friends and got their video game passwords and so on. With the ds they can play a game together over the internet using WiFi. They play a game (Animal Crossing) where they build their own towns and his friend visited his town. It is really neat.

Reading

I went out today like I do every Thursday while Matthew is at his History class. I found Shane a red and gray striped shirt to match the one I bought Colby last week at the Children's Place (They had a big clearance sale). I had to post this picture because I knew Kari would be so happy I got them some new red shirts since Colby grew out of his old one. (She actually likes to pick on me because I seem to buy red alot for everyone)

Our church is reading the Bible in 90 days. Whew! I am very behind and have been spending most of my free moments catching up. I am close to the end of Deuteronomy and need to be in II Kings. I am going to try and have a better blog update tomorrow.

Matthew

I think tomorrow I will post one more day of Disney pictures and then save the rest of the pictures. I am going to put them on a seperate page for those of you who may want to see the rest. I don't want anyone to get sick of looking at our trip.





Matthew at Animal Kingdom with Expedition Everest behind him



Matthew at Epcot getting his BIRTHDAY present "Leave a Legacy Picture"



Matthew at MGM Studios

Shane

Here are a few pictures of Shane. Tomorrow I will have some of Matthew. Later on in a few weeks or so I hope to edit more of the pictures I took. I haven't had much time to edit but when I do I will put together some and have the links on the blog so you can see the rest of our trip.

At Animal Kingdom (Dinoland)

Popcorn at MGM before hopping to Epcot

He finally on the last day got to ride Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin at Magic Kingdom after asking to ride it every day.

Colby

I took tons and tons of pictures from this past weekend, so by the end of the week you should be sick of me sharing about our trip. Colby for the most part isn't a real touchy feelie person. The only person I see him get excited to see is Lucas. He really would rather be left alone. Thats why at church when he is sent back to the nursery classes one of my friends Sarah has to tell the other teachers not to try and comfort him when he screams his head off, just to let him get over it himself. He even just months ago really didn't want anyone other than his few friends (Shane's age kids) or his family talking to him. If someone at a store says hello to him he pulls his stroller visor down as if to say GET AWAY people! I think he really means for people just to not be in his personal space. (This explains so much about him crying so much as an infant, too bad he couldn't have said QUIT touching me) One day at a store someone was trying to tell me hey your kid can't see pull his stroller visor up. If people would just quit suggesting HELPFUL things to strangers in the store. I should have told people HEY I didn't do that my kid pulls his own visor down. Besides MIND your OWN BUSINESS. If you have already looked at our photo pass pictures you might have noticed he was hugging the characters. Here are some more pictures of Colby (Click on them to see a larger image) I plan to do pictures of just Shane and just Matthew later on.

Tired Legs

The picture above is from day two of our impromptu weekend away to Disney. You could email this picture to friends. I always forget peoples email addresses, and you can only pick two and then you have people waiting in line behind you to make their picture. We all have sore feet, and tired legs but plenty of new memories. I will be posting more pictures throughout the week. Here are some more pictures from our last minute trip. These were taken by the Disney Photographers.

For the Disney Pictures CLICK HERE

Not posting

I'm not going to be able to update the blog until late this weekend.

10 years

Tonight we had Scouts. It was a Court of Honor. Matthew has completed all of his work to get his First Class badge but hasn't had a Scoutmaster conference or a Board of Review. He will be given his badge sometime soon, but won't be honored in a Court of Honor until summer. We have these only once a quarter. Anyways our Troop has been in exsistance for 10 years now. I am so thankful for this scout group. I am hoping it will be as great for Shane and Colby as it has been for Matthew. (Shane has a little under 2 years or so to wait) By then it could be a whole different troop.

All three

I hope everyone's week is starting out well. Ours is so far. We have a busy week ahead. I'm trying to get some more videos on the web for everyone, but I haven't had an easy time of it yet. I will keep you posted on when I get some more up.

Shh don't tell

While Ted slipped off to Home Depot (He is working on the equipment closet) I got a piece of gum and I thought I would see if Colby was ready to chew gum like Shane. I only gave him a tiny tiny piece about a tenth of a carefree stick. I caught some cute pictures of him chewing. Two seconds after I took the pictures I noticed he wasn't chewing anymore. It took Shane about 8 pieces before he stopped swallowing it, but I think he was alot older than Colby. Oh well I guess we have to wait till he is alot older for the gum. Ps I told Ted (I always do)

TGIF

Ah the weekend is finally here. Colby was extra screamy today. I think Colby is teething. I know he is teething since I see teeth poking out of his poor swollen gums. At least I hope thats what part of it is and that he isn't coming down with the cold/cough Ted has had all week.

Old Ones

I didn't get a chance to take any pictures today so I thought

I would post some old ones from about a year ago.

Nothing Much

So here we are HUMP Day. We haven't been doing much around here latley. I feel like we might be back into the swing of things with school. Alot of time January is the time of year when you wrap up Christmas breaks and you dive back into what you've been putting off. I've heard alot last month that this time of year its easy to get overwhelmed with only half of the school year left. Especially for people who may have gotten behind. As far as we are concerned there is no way you can't NOT fall behind in something. We've had plenty of impromtu things happen to get us off track. No matter how hard you try and stick to a schedule you live life at the same time. I've never been too big on schedules anyway. I should be I probably need one. I feel like 2005 came to a close well. We are trying to get more consistant with Math. Colby sleeps in his own bed with no problems. This only took two days. I keep joking that maybe because he was the oldest leaving the family bed it worked out the best. I really don't believe that is the case though. I think its because he had his big brother Shane in the room with him. He still keeps his pacy at night to comfort him. We will work on that later. This week we moved our bedroom around. Well I moved it regretfully. Number 1) I thought I was going to stop breathing because my allergies were so bad from vacumning the 3 year old dust on the wall and underneath the bed. Number 2) I strained my back, shoulder or something and my pinched nerve started acting up again Thankfully today it is so much better. Here are pictures of the kids on the bed. They have their new light up balls their Aunt Dean got them for Valentines day, Matthew got a Yo Yo. You can barely see we changed the room out but we switched the bed around to be on an opposite wall. I took lots of stuff and put it in Give away bags. (That can be so freeing)