more march moments

Things were kinda busy last week. On the 19th, we went to a Spring Fling dance at Nick's school. Ben especially had fun ~ he is quite the little break dancer, LOL! I took some video, but mostly he kept running away every time I turned the camera on. Here's a little bit that I did get:

(He fell at the end of this video, and needed a kiss, but then was okay!)


The 20th was Emmalie's birthday, of course. She is currently taking a home ec class at school, and was given the assignment to bake something at home. She decided she wanted to make her own birthday cake, a black forest cake:



It turned out very yummy! :)
Later that evening, the 5 of us went to Em's favorite restaurant, Stir Crazy, for supper:
Then we came home and her friend Julia joined us for the evening (and for a sleepover). Em opened gifts:

She loved this poster of her heartthrob, Edward:
Here she is with all her gifts:
And then we had cake and ice cream:
Em (the birthday princess) and Julia:
We had gorgeous weather over the weekend! We spent Saturday doing some much-needed yardwork. Then, on Sunday, we went for a walk at a nearby forest preserve. We found this snail shell by the lake:

Ben walked on his own for a good mile or so, but then he said, "I give up!" and wanted Daddy to carry him the rest of the way:
After our walk, we went over to a field near our house to fly kites. We thought a lot about George's dad while we were there ~ he had bought us this cool kite (and another one not pictured) a few years ago, and we only recently came across them in our garage. I know that he always loved flying kites with his grandkids!

This was Ben's first time kite-flying ~ he really enjoyed it!
This week has been more low-key. It is spring break, but we are staying home (and mostly indoors, since it's been raining!) Can't believe that March is almost gone!

happy birthday, emmalie!

We now have a teenager in the house, and I'm not really sure how that happened. It seems like only yesterday when she was a tiny baby, dependent on me for everything... and now she's an independent young lady, baking her own birthday cake! Here are some pictures of our first-day-of-spring birthday girl, through the years....

Here I am holding her at the hospital, only 2 days old (and definitely a brunette), March 1996:
Emmalie (now 1 and a redhead) with Daddy on a hike, May 1997:

Emmalie the blonde at 2, with her constant companion at the time, March 1998:
Em (almost 3) with her new baby brother Nick, Jan. 1999:
Em at 4 with some Barbie friends, May 2000:
Five years old and her first lost tooth, June 2001:
Em (6) at the beach on Father's Day, June 2002:
Hunting for Easter eggs at age 7, April 2003: Em at her 8th birthday party (a luau theme), March 2004:
Em (9), Nick, and their new baby brother Benjamin, Sept. 2005:
Emmalie's 5th grade photo, when she was 10, Sept. 2006: Em at 11, on her first day of 6th grade, Aug. 2007: Emmalie on her 12th birthday, March 2008:
And the birthday girl this morning, before school:

Happy, happy birthday to my smart, beautiful, talented, TEENAGE daughter! I love you, sweetie!!

march madness

I can't believe that March is more than half way over already! Time flies when you're keeping busy, I guess! Here are a few photos from our month so far....

Benjamin had his last T-ball class/game on the 7th. He was SO excited about receiving his trophy! (Everyone in the class was given one.): On the 9th, Ben had his last gymnastics class of the winter session (he'll be starting again in 2 weeks, though). He really does love swinging from the bars:

and climbing on the equipment:
and doing "barrel rolls":
His favorite thing at gymnastics is doing somersaults, but I wasn't quick enough with the digital camera (and its long delay) to get any good photos of that, however.

This week, the first flowers started blooming in our garden, yay!:
The weather was wonderful on the 16th, and so Ben and I spent the morning at the park near our house. Here is the king of the playground:


St. Patrick's Day is a major holiday at our house ~ the kids rank it right up there with Christmas. :) All 3 got up early yesterday, to have time for their treasure hunt before school. Ben and Nick (and HopHop) share a tender moment before the hunt:
Here they are reading their letter from Lucky the leprechaun, wishing them a happy day and giving them their first clue to their treasure:
The hunt led them all over the house, and they had a blast racing from room to room! This is the first year that Ben really was able to understand what the treasure hunt was all about, and he loved getting to help find the clues. He found this one in the drawer with his toy cars:
Here they search Em's Littlest Pet Shop town for another clue:
Finally they found their pot o' gold out on the front porch. This year, Lucky left them a box of Lucky Charms, M&M's for all 3, sidewalk chalk, and a new card game, Blink:
They all enjoyed their sugary breakfast treat! (Mean Mom doesn't buy them cereal with chocolate and/or marshmallows....):
During the day, Ben and I went outside and tried out the new chalk:

In the evening, we had our family's traditional green St. Patrick's Day meal (peas and asparagus, honeydew melon, lime Jello parfaits, and Green River floats) along with the more typical holiday dishes of corned beef and cabbage. Yum! Cheers!: