We lost but I got great pictures........

Closing Ceremonies

Here is a photo summary of closing ceremonies.......

Showing off their trophies

The all important texting while waiting for kickball game to begin.

Can't participate in coed kickball game because we must look cool.

Could care less about looking cool in front of boys just wants to play. Here she is playing first base.

On third base waiting to run home.

Can someone say Insomnia????

Well it's 12:30 A.M and for some reason I can't sleep. This does not happen to me very often. I have always said I am one of those people that can sleep anywhere, anytime, as long as I am comfortable. But tonight, not so much. So I decided I would update. We are all doing well. Mighty Mouth had what I hope is her last ear surgery on her left ear today. I like to refer to it as the "saga of the left ear" You see when she was about 3 our pediatrician referred us to a pediatric ENT because she had chronic fluid in her ears. Hardly ever an infection but almost always fluid that we kept hoping would go away. I know now that this surely contributed to her speech delay and consequent 5 years of speech therapy. The ENT recommended tubes and since we had been down that road before with Soccer Girl (2 sets of tubes, 2 sinus surgeries)(oh, and do let me add that these Ear, Nose and Throat issues run on the Englishman's side not mine)we knew it was the right thing to do. So for two years she had the tubes and all was well. Then at two years out the Dr was quite suprised that the tubes had not fallen out. We decided to wait 6 mos and then if they didn't come out on their own like they are suppose to he would go in and get them. Of course no easy solution those buggers hadn't budged so surgery number 2 took place to remove the tubes. We then had follow ups over the course of the next year waiting for the holes where the tubes were to close up. Well guess what? Yup, you guessed it they didn't close. So then surgery number three took place to put a synthetic patch over the holes to close them up. Well, right ear being cooperative closed beautifully. Left ear being stubborn did not, the patch didn't "stick" so to speak so surgery number 4 was scheduled for left ear. Surgery number 4 was called a "tympanoplasty" where her surgeon took a small piece of cartilage from her outer ear and grafted it over the hole. The graft was successful BUT eventually she developed what they called a "wet ear" where the eardrum became inflamed as an immune response (didn't quite understand that but when the Dr explained it, it made sense) So today surgery number 5 took place. In this one he debreeded (did I spell that right) the area and scraped away the inflamed tissue so new healthy tissue could grow. It went very well and she did great. He seemed very confident that this should take care of it so that's what I am going with. I am hopeful and also confident that the "left ear saga" has come to a close.

Looking forward to Saturday where the girls have a softball game against their rival team. They played last night and did so well. This rival team is undefeated and our girls would love to take that title away from them. Wish us luck.

Well, it is now 1 am so I guess I will go back to bed and see if sleep will come...

Goodnight!!!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

Well, the weekend is almost here and I am READY....The girls keep asking us "what are we doing this weekend"? (do those quotation marks go before the ? mark or after?) We keep saying "we don't really have any plans" WOW, that feels great to say, that let me say it again, "we don't really have any plans". This is driving them crazy especially Soccer Girl. You see normally we would be on our way to a soccer tournament but hooray no more of that. So her words last night were "so Mom, Dad I thought we would be going away for a long weekend or something since we don't have a tournament." Isn't this what you have been waiting for so we could do SOMETHING else besides soccer?"

I'm thinking to myself :

1st: We don't have a tree in the back that is growing money for us to pick to pay for the long weekend in some exotic locale.

2ND: Are you not the same girl who is going to New York in July with your best friend and didn't I just fork over $179.00 for the plane ticket to get you there? (Not to mention spending money and a couple of new outfits)

3rd: Didn't we just spend a week in Orlando vacationing with family?

4Th: Don't we have a week booked at a beach front condo at the end of July for our summer vacation?

Point being (yes, I have a point LOL)

We are so busy so much of the time that if we don't have something going on all the time my kids are bored. How did this happen? Where did I go wrong? I need them to realize that having no plans for a weekend is a great thing. This allows for this fun thing called SPONTANEITY. It allows for another thing called RELAXING. It also allows for the not so fun things like cleaning the family room, dining room, and kitchen floors. ( I am embarrassed to admit that other than spot cleaning they have not been done since my in laws went back to England) It allows for Daddy to replace a heating element in our clothes dryer so that it doesn't take 3 cycles to dry one load of laundry. ( you know that is killing my electric bill)

Maybe, just maybe if they're real lucky we might fit in a beach day and a movie too. (of course that's really for me I am dying to see the new "Terminator" movie.)

Here's hoping you have a fantastic Memorial Day filled with spontaneity, relaxation and not to many household chores..............

Video Clip of Puppet Show

Just wanted to share a quick video clip of Mighty Mouth and her Marionette. I filmed this from underneath the stage so from the audience of course you couldn't see the puppeteers. It was a great performance.... Enjoy!!!!

End of Year Puppet Show

Mighty Mouth had her end of year puppet show today. They have a morning one (for the students) and an evening one (for the parents). I am going to both because it is fun to take my little one's , plus it is always fun for them to see Mommy and in the case of my 4 year old Daddy too (both his parents teach at the school) at work. It was adorable and I love to watch the faces of the kids. They are so serious as they do their parts and sing in the chorus. The frustrating part at this age is taking Mighty Mouth's picture. She is at the "avoiding age". I have what I like to call "picture taking stages".

Infant to 2yrs. Won't hold still, won't smile when you want them too. Screams bloody murder when you take them to professional photographer if the photpgrapher even looks at them.

2 to 7. Best time ever to take photos and I bet if you look back you have tons of pictures of your kids at these ages. At this age they are complete hams and loved to be photographed.

8 to 11yrs. Mom is dumb and embarrassing and I don't want my picture taken. I will not look at camera, I will hide behind friends, I will act like I don't see her. I will deliberately close my eyes so picture does not turn out.

12 to 18yrs. I will try to make sure my hair is always done and I am smiling. I will pretend to act like I don't want my picture taken but I really do because it might be a really good one and I can put it on my MY SPACE page. I will try to position myself so my best side is showing without being obvious. I will take the craziest most ridiculous pictures doing the stupidest things with my friends. These pictures will take up entire memory cards and huge amounts of space on family computer hard drive. When Mom asks "can I please delete these ridiculous pictures " I will pout and say "No Mom please I love those pictures".

There you have it folks the picture taking stages of childhood........

New camera same wonderful family...

I got a new toy today. A new camera and I just love it. My old camera died about 2 months ago and I have been using Miss Priss's and have been very excited to get a new one. It takes beautiful pictures and I can't wait to learn all the bell's and whistles. These were all taken today at my Mom's house. We had a pool day picnic with my Aunt and Uncle and their grandson. I got some of the cutest pictures of my niece and little second cousin. Toddlers are so much fun to photograph...........

Slip and Slides, Mother's Day, & Forever Stamps.

Love my title? It's basically because I am retarded and every time I try to add text to a post with pictures it always wants to mess up my words. I try over and over unsuccessfully to fix this then I give up and just hope you can muddle through. I am sure it is a really easy fix on Blogger that I just can't figure out. So I will just write everything here and you can go back and look at the pictures on the previous post. The girls softball team had a pool party recently and the coaches made this old fashioned slip and slide out of garbage bags and dish soap and a hose. The girls loved it. I remembered doing this when I was kid and loving it too. There was this gorgeous pool in the backyard (don't get me wrong they enjoyed that too) but they were so thrilled with that slip and slide. Made me feel bad that I had never made one for them but then again I am so frugal and cannot even imagine how much water was being used that day not to mention the mud. (I know party poo per) I love the pictures though. Especially, because again I think it reflects their personalities. Mighty Mouth going head first with no care in the world while Miss Priss not wanting to make a fool out of herself goes down daintily if that's even possible? What a great day with lots of team bonding. Mother's Day was wonderful hope yours was too. We followed our tradition and spent the day at the beach with some of my close friends and their families. We have been doing this for four years now. We missed you Tricia it wasn't the same without you but I know you had a great time at Disney. The water was crystal clear which is always a plus because as much as I LOVE the beach I am also a little chicken when I can't see the bottom and have been known to squeal like a little kid if something touches me. I even swam out to the sand bar with the kids something I NEVER do because there is just to much opportunity for a big shark to come eat me while I am in between where I can touch and the sand bar. There was a gorgeous breeze so it wasn't to hot and it was just a perfect day spent with family and friends. One last thing I wanted to mention just because I feel silly that I never knew this. As I am sure you know the post office just raised their rates for postage stamps and at first I was so mad at myself for not paying attention to this because of course I just bought a book of stamps on Saturday. I was all mad because I thought I would have to make a trip to the post office (I always buy my stamps at the grocery store) for 2 cent stamps. I am so glad I realized before I did this that I had bought "forever stamps" not on purpose of course but these are the one's the grocery store sells. So I was good Yay!!!! But now I ask you, if they are the same price as regular stamps why would you buy anything else? Why does the post office even sell anything else? It just seems crazy to me, did I miss something again? Please let me know.........

Good Old Fashioned Fun