And we call this SPRING?????

For the last four days in a row - we have woke up with a light dusting of snow that quickly melts off when the sun comes up... not today! We are supposed to get 1-3 inches today! UGH! It was like winter driving all over again!

Someone needs to drop kick that dumb groundhog - he has it ALLLL wrong!

Some photos!

Miss O received a tea set from Grandma Judy - and she LOVES it! She had her brothers share tea with her! Too cute!
Both front chompers are finally gone on little J! Lucky for him its not corn-on-the-cob season!
This was adorable! She was supposed to be napping - but she apparently read herself to sleep! You can barely see her hair at the top!
Someone got a hold of the mr potato head pieces! She had no help with this one! John had to take the picture - she can be so crazy!!

The end of a long week!

All three kiddos returned to school on Monday... and have so far survived the return to school! Miss O was incredibly happy to be back at pre-school! She has made some progress using the potty (on her terms that is!) which has been a big relief for the rest of us!

Big A has had a tougher time - as right before Spring Break, we had the parent teacher conferences. Since the beginning of the year, he has been receiving extra resources for math, reading and writing. His regular classroom teacher has not been giving him much homework. I finally had to have a chat with him and tell him to just treat him like everyone else - and let's see what he can do! It's almost as if the school has "dumbed" him down a bit. He has had to do what every other 4th grader has been doing all year - which is about an hour + of homework each night... he has been pretty grumpy to say the least!

Tonight the hubby and I get a little break, as all three kiddos will be going to a Kidivity tonight for 2 hours... so WE get to go have dinner by ourselves! Whoo - hoo!

Happy Easter 2008!

Showing off their loot! Apparently, WAY too much - yet again!!!

PJ, the Easter Dog, he just can't be excluded! He escaped from the back yard so that he could help hunt eggs and then demanded to come in and see what Miss O had! Spoiled????? NAH!

Big A finds his basket! It's such a good thing that we have lots of places that the Bunny can hide things!

Little J found an egg in the hay! Amazingly enough, it was not a (real) chicken egg! Sometimes they hang out in there!

Miss O shows off her Cookie Car that she got! She seemed pretty satisfied with her loot!

Happy Easter! We enjoyed a nice and somewhat quiet Easter morning - then that ended when Miss O found a green plastic Easter egg in her bed! Little J always tends to get apprehensive at any holiday - he gets alot of holiday anxiety! First, he was really excited - then really upset when Miss O was showing off her egg! It took him a few minutes to calm down, then the thought hit him that the Easter Bunny (aka EB) might have hid something in HIS bed too! Of course he started screaming for his brother and they attacked their beds and found their egg! The boys had the courtesy (amazing!) to help their little sister read the clues in each egg she found so that she could find her basket. She received a Cookie Monster basket full of toys and fun! She loved it! Of course once she found her basket - her moody brother got upset yet again - thinking that he was only going to be able to hunt for eggs in the house..... UGH - he can be a real pain to reason with at times!

Both boys opened their eggs, and started following the clues... fortunately for Little J - he DID have to go outside and hunt!

EB was kind (to us) this year and only put a few pieces of small candy in each egg! Miss O pretty quickly finished off hers and tried to help each brother eat theirs at each stop! In the end - both boys found their baskets and enjoyed lots of fun stuff! We had a brief flashback to 2002, where Big A ate ALL his Easter candy - and I mean ALL of it within about 20 minutes... he promptly went to the sink and threw up! Again - he does not fail to amaze us that he would try it again - yep - 2008 and finished all his candy before he had everything out of the basket! hehe! Oh well - if he gets sick this time - hopefully he will remember it - because we sure will!

Later in the evening, we found out that both boys have become "non believers" in EB! Can you believe that??? Hopefully, they will keep their wicked thoughts to themselves - or next year, it will be alot cheaper and alot less time for EB's assistant to have to work! HA

Big News! We're adopting AGAIN!!!!!

We decided that since Easter was near - we'd share our BIG news! We had not anticipated that things would move so quickly, but they have and we are all more than ready for to make the big announcement to everyone!

We have been discussing the new addition(s) with both boys, who were thrilled with the announcement!

Both boys were excited, yet a little apprehensive about who and how we would be choosing the newest additon(s). We talked about about the fact that everyone would have to pitch in and make some sacrifices so that these little ones would grow and enjoy being part of the family. We talked about responsibilities that the boys would have - and why it was important that they do their parts..... The hows and whys of adoption were discussed - and all the important things that would be changing in the short time.

No, we are not adopting from Ukraine this time around - we are adopting locally. We figured that it would be much less expensive and we would definetly not be leaving empty-handed!

The kids and I drove to Yakima this morning, took some stuff back to Costco, had lunch at Applebees then we headed to the big destination of the day.....


The kids and I pulled into Big R - walked in and came out with our five new little chosen ones!
Meet our newest little clucks for 2008!!!!!

Boy - I hope nobody go the impression that I was talking about anything other than CHICKS!

Have a great day! :)

Lions and Tigers and Bears - oh my!

We rented the stroller for Miss O - but apparently it is more fun to push your older brother in it!
Three cuties and an ape!
Little J poses with an extremely accomodating peacock!

Today we headed over to Seattle and took the kiddos to the zoo! The boys have both been before on field trips in the first grade - but this was a first for Miss O! She enjoyed everything and loved seeing all the animals! She said "ewwww" and stuck out her tongue when we saw the snakes! Awesome for me - as I am not a fan of snakes either!

We got each of them one of those smashed penny things that puts a picture on a penny after you run it through the machine - Miss O got a giraffe, Little J a tiger, and Big A did not show his! HA! When we finally saw the Giraffes, Miss O freaked out and dug into her pocket for HER "raf"! It was super cute! She was pretty impressed (if not totally overwhelmed!) by all the animals! Unfortunately - I ran out of batteries in the camera during a majority of the cute moments!

But here are a few pics I did manage to get!

Happy St. Hubby's Day!

Happy "big #" birthday to my wonderful hubby! He turned a BIG number today! In honor of his special day - we went out to breakfast with Grandma Judy and all the kids. The kids and I got him some presents and made cards. Then, he decides to mow the lawn - in the rain! Hehe! I'm not sure what he was thinking - but it was cute to watch! Not many people mow their yards in their heavy winter coats! Since we have not mowed the lawn since last fall - I guess he thought it would be a good time! Phebe, our not so little puppy has pretty much made it her job to ruin our yard! She is completely destructive! Anything she can pick up - she chews... she even carried some of my planters over to this part of the yard, dumped the dirt out and then proceeded to chew the planter buckets up and leave the piles of dirt - as you can see in the picture! Since we have yet to spay her, and she likes to roam, we have to leave her locked up in the back yard when we are not outside... sort of sucks since we live in the toolies - but one neighbor complained that she was on their property and being too friendly with their kids..... though I've tried to contain my comments about allllll the things they've done to piss me off - I've decided to try and be the bigger person (for now!)! I'll just be as passive as I can about the 300 Republican party posters I put up along my driveway come this summer! HAHAHA!

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And in this corner.....

Weighing in at an impressive 52 pounds 2 ounces... the silver medalist from his weight/age bracket at the Ellensburg Tournament on March 15th - give it up for Big A!
We had our final meet of the season (very excited about that!) in Ellensburg on Saturday. Again, it was alot of sitting and waiting! Fortunately, since we live so darn close, we were able to have alot more flexibility! Miss O has a tough time sitting and hanging out that long, and Little J tends to gravitate to the concession stand and spend all his money - not to mention get all sugared up!
Grandma Judy came from Sequim and spent the weekend with us, which the kids truly enjoyed! She brought them a ton of books and Miss O got a brand new tea set! The boys loved their new books - and the tea set was a HUGE hit! The wind blew alot the last couple of days - so nothing could be done (without freezing) outside! Spring break starts Monday (big groan!) and all three kiddos are out of school for the week! The nice thing is that Easter is on Sunday - so I will be busy getting the bunny plans done! Fortunately, Little J and Miss O are believers - and it is only Big A that I really have to watch out for! I don't mind getting up at 6am to assist the extremely busy bunny - but it does make for a long day! I think that the bunny remembered to cut back on all the sugary stuff this year!! HA!

Big A wins his first wrestling medal!

We traveled to Othello, for their Little Guys Wrestling Invitational yesterday. Big A won 3rd place in his weight class!

He was really proud and excited about his medal! He had to get up about 5:30am and leave around 6, and we did not get home until 8pm! It was an extremely long long long day!

There is one more competition next weekend - then wrestling is pretty much over for the season.. This time we don't have to travel far, as it is in town! Yipppeeeee!

Wheels on the bus!

Too cute! She won't sing - but she can do the "Wheels on the Bus" dance!

"I'm ok!"

This was too cute! She actually enjoyed the folding chair and did it until we finally had to stop her!

At least someone had fun on the fishing trip!

Opening Day fishing

Well, it wasn't a fish - but it was the biggest slime Little J reeled in! ICK!
Ahhhh - he's actually sharing! I think little O had more patience holding the rod than the boys did! She actually wanted to sit there and hold it!
Big A sits down (for a few minutes!) and WAAAAAIIIIITTTSSSS! Fishing is really hard for him - as he has to hold still!

We took the kids to Quincy for opening day of fishing. We were (un) fortunate to not have caught anything that would have required killing and bringing home! We got a late start, but the boys had a fun time casting and learning to finally bait their own hooks!

We only stayed a few hours, but it was MORE than enough for me!

The weather was in the 50's and was fairly nice... at least most the snow was melted! It looks like spring is finally here! As it was incredibly windy at our house all weekend!