Easter and we Miss Daddy!!!

So it's Easter morning and we miss Daddy.  We wish he was here to help with the finding of the Easter eggs and the eating of the candy.  That darn Reese's still makes the best little eggs around!  I'm thinking of taking the kids to the movie today.  Actually, not thinking about it, we're going at 1:00 to the free theater.  Should only cost like $8 or so for popcorn and drinks and a great time to pass the days until Daddy gets back!!  We're going to have to find stuff to do for spring break.  I have to make this post quick because I need to get ready to go but I'll post more soon.

Ok, so here are some pictures and we are already back from our daily "adventures".  The kids loved the movie again, even as much as the first time and they had a great time at the beach.  They swam for about 2 hours and I didn't even realize how fast the time had went.  It was almost 6:00 when we were leaving.

So, when I talked to my mom a little while back she told me about how she had tried to "catch the Easter Bunny" for making such a mess in her house.  Well I figured we had to try that and see how the kids felt about that.  Alexander was excited and didn't quite know what to think about that.  He wasn't sure what we would do with him if we actually got him.  Christopher made sure to ask if we were going to let him go after seeing him if we were to catch him.  We made a trap, just a little string, tied to the door handle, going under the front rug and a loop at the end with bells tied to it so we could hear it if he got caught.

It took Christopher FOREVER to go to sleep last night but things were finally set up and Madison was able to help.  She has been waiting all year for this because Easter last year was when she found out about stuff.  I turned the ac down so that it would keep coming on and making noise and forgot to turn it back up before I went to bed.  About 5 minutes after going to bed I realized that I was freezing and that I would not make it through the night at this temperature, yes, I felt as though I might as well have been in Antarctica.  I turned it up after making it down the hallway full of plastic eggs and candy that had fallen out of the bunny's basket.  I had taken a small string to bed with me complete with 3 jingle bells.  After I was in bed for a a minute I rang it a few times and made sure that it would be heard.  The next morning Christopher said he had heard him getting caught in the trap but was too tired to get up.  You should have heard Alexanders' rendition of how the mess looked by the front door.  He used his hands and awesome expressions when he told me that the "rug was FLIPPED OVER!"  It was hilarious.  So worth it.

Madison was so excited she could help.  She was doing such a great job hiding stuff and helping with the candy.  She looked at me and whispered, "Do you think I'm going to be a good Easter Bunny?"  I told her that I think she's going to be a great one and her smile melted my heart.  She laughed as we sprinkled the powder over the stencil she had watched me carve out earlier.

I totally missed posting about the baseball games so I will be writing one on that too.  That's it for Easter day though. :)  I hope everyone has a great Easter!!!

Snorkeling At Gab Gab

So my friend asked me if I would go snorkeling with her yesterday.  I thought about it quite a bit and decided that I should go.  They always see cool stuff when they go so I figured why not.  I was able to get quite a few pictures with my underwater camera and Jessie's hubby was able to get some with his camera.  Here are some of the pictures from yesterday.

There's a better one of the octopus.

He was mad, so he went into his hole in the rock.

Check out the size of that big guy!

He didn't want to hang out with me.

These guys are funny.  They will come at you if you get to close to their little homes.

Funky looking fish huh?

Be honest, did you picture a giant shark coming out of that deep dark hole right there???  Because I did, about a million times in the hour we were out there.

More clown fish.

I was trying to make the clown fish come towards my hand, didn't quite make it far enough down.

There were a ton of fish in that school.  

We were trying to get one of me and the octopus but this wasn't happening.

Here's a super awesome one of the octopus and so is the one below.

This is when he was crawling over the plants at the bottom to get away from us...he was really getting mad.

This guy scared the crap out of me...thought he was a barracuda!!

It's Gill from Nemo!!

I was pretty far down there.  Funny story with this picture, Jessie was using my camera to try to get one also but instead, we had the video going...it was hilarious the way I "floated" back up to the top!!!

That was part of me drifting back up!  Like I said, hilarious.

Jessie and I, take 1.

Take 2, Love this picture!

Cute little guy.

More Nemo fishies. :)

Jessie and I getting a closer look at things.

My form is amazing, I should have been a synchronized swimmer! ;)

He was protecting his house.

More of the fish school.

It was crazy to see all of these guys together.

Extreme close up of the octopus.

Jessie's husband got one of me and the octopus. :)

During the time we spent looking at the octopus, I kept picturing the kracken from movies and thinking that if I made this guy too mad he would come up and grab me and fold me in half...not really how I wanted to spend my day.  I decided to keep my distance.  I was surprised he was still there when we got back in.  

While we were out near the drop off, and I know everyone that's watched Nemo over and over again with their kids just heard Marlin in their heads saying, "THE DROP OFF?!?!", so back to the deep black hole of nothingness...I started thinking of the shiny part of my camera attracting a barracuda, or a shark face coming out while the jaws theme played in my head...bad thoughts ran through my head as the choppy water splashed salt water into my mouthpiece and my tiny hair strands that were in my mask caused the salt water to seep into my mask.  Towards the end of the adventure I had swallowed quite a bit of water both from it getting into my mouth and through my nose, I had gotten salt water in my eyes about 5 times now, my ears were about to burst when I went underwater too far, but it was great.  Not only did I lose 2 pounds from this trip but it only cost me $0.75.  No, you don't have to pay to go snorkeling, I just tried to get a water (soda after realizing that there wasn't a water button AFTER putting in my money) from the machine at the beach only to realize that it would not take coins nor give them back to me.  I now know not to use coins at that machine ever again.  

ON TO TODAY:

So this morning I decided that I was going to install Madison's new bike seat, the nice foamy, cushioned springy one.  I did it and decided that I too would ride a bike to school and then go on my ride from there.  I actually had that bike seat installed within 2 minutes and grabbed Glenn's bike and we were on our way...until I realized that his tires were low...I reopened the garage door, quickly located the electric pump, prayed that the outlet worked now that Glenn had fixed the other one (it did!) and pumped up those tires faster than I have before.  The kids were worried we'd be late for school but were obviously unaware that it only takes about 3 minutes to get there by bike.  They were on time.  I told Madison that I should have brought a plastic bag to put over her seat just in case it rained...she said that would be embarrassing and frowned.  I told her I'd put it on after she went inside and take it off before she came back out...she wasn't too fond of that idea.  I just know that we paid $16 for her new "comfy" seat and didn't want the weather to ruin it.  

So I left and went on my way, I rode the same route that I do when I run.  I think running it was much much easier, it just takes a little longer, okay, a lot longer.  The hills killed me, my butt still hurts and I didn't get as much of a workout as I thought it would be.  I sweat so much more when I run.  I'm thinking running is the way to go.  

Other than that, I'm going to clean house today, make cupcakes, go to the store to get some tootsie rolls or some white, pink and orange candies for the cupcakes (pictures of them were in the previous blog) and get a move on.  I'm ready for Glenn to be back home and I'm sure he is too.  I hope the octopus decides to stay there so he can see it and we can show it to the kids too.  

Glenn has duty today so any email to him would be appreciated. :)  Graygt@as39.navy.mil

He gets to go white water rafting tomorrow so I hope he has a good time.  

I hope everyone has a great day and night.

I did it!!!

I finally hung some actual pictures on the wall, and this is before they are over a year old!!!!!  I know, hold your applause and maintain your composure everyone, this might happen again in the near future.  I still have quite a few pictures to hang up but I wanted to share a picture of my handy work...I even measured it out and made sure they were level!!!

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  

So after the pictures were hung we played a game of scattergories and then a game of Life...I didn't win.  The kids all decided to go to college first (woohoo) and I decided to take the shorter route and start my career right away.  I ended up with this occupation and salary:

As for the kids, they got salaries of $80,000, $90,000 and $100,000.  Yeah, it's nicer when you get to choose from 3 instead of taking the one you got.  Like I said, I lost.  I hope the kids got a lesson out of this game today.  

So the kids have 4 more days of school until spring break.  They don't have school on Friday and only Madison knows that we're going to Jessie's house for her daughter's surprise party and a "sleepover" so the kids can have a fun time.  Maybe I can play Scattergories and not have to let my competitors use any letter they want and give them an automatic extra point after each round. :)

Other than that, I think I'm going to make cupcakes for the kids' classrooms.  Madison is not sure if she wants to take any but Christopher would like blue cupcakes and Alexander chose green.  Here's a picture of the ones I'm going to attempt.

Not the grass ones because I don't have that attachment and that's a lot of work.  I'm going to do the chicks just with yellow frosting for Christopher and the bunny backsides for Alexander.  I'm thinking tootsie rolls are in order. :)  I like making stuff for their classes, it makes them very happy.  

That's it for now, I hope everyone has a great day and night. :)

Was planning on taking more pictures

We went to the park yesterday morning and followed that up by a trip to the beach.  We decided to get an inflatable boat and lounger first.  Total cost was only $18 but the misery at the end of the beach trip, holy smokes.  We brought two girls from down the street with us and that took up quite a bit of room.  I ended up having to try to deflate both of them to fit them in the car, which is not as easy as it seems.  Blowing them up and getting lightheaded was actually the easy part.

Oh, so here's a nice story...  As we were walking home from school on Thursday afternoon, Madison and I discovered a bird egg that had fallen out of the coconut tree, or so we thought.  Madison picked it up and we decided she should try to hatch it at home.  I know, it was a long shot but we thought we'd give it a try. She came home, made a little nest in her new bowl she'd painted at school and set it on the coffee table.  Ok, pause in this story because I have to tell another one that goes along with this one...

Alexander is somewhat of a gas machine...yeah, I know, kind of a gross story to tell but just wait.  So he was sitting on the couch saying, "scuse me, scuse me, scuse me............" This went on for about a minute before I "noticed" and said to knock it off.  Needless to say, the aroma in the living room wasn't very pleasant.  About 10 minutes go by and it stinks again!  I blamed it on poor little Alexander...it wasn't him.  He had left the living room about 5 minutes ago.

After acting like a dog, sniffing under the table, looking behind chairs, couches and under the furniture, I finally decided to check the egg.  It was rotten.  It was immediately thrown away.  We will no longer bring home eggs that have obviously been kicked out of the nest.

Next up, Alexander came out of school the other day covering his chest with his hand.  I knew it was a sticker but didn't know what kind.  He had lost another tooth.  If he doesn't start growing these things back in quick we're going to have to listen to what Papa said and get him some baby food. :)

Here's a picture from the park on Saturday morning.  That's their new friend Alice from down the street.  They were watching the birds eat the crackers they had tossed them.  When we left the park had been sprinkled with crumbs for the birds.  I'm sure that all of the birds will be obese with all of the food they had left them.

So I got Madison a new bike seat and I just need to put it on her bike and she'll be ready to go.  The only bad part is that if it rains their bikes will quite possibly get rusty.

We have been invited to someone's house for hamburgers and hot dogs and a visit to the pool.  It will not be a long visit, the kids will need to be rested up for the 4 days of school they have until spring break starts.  The kids are ready, for spring break and Easter.

So that's it for right now, I'll try to keep posting and keep everyone updated.  Have a great day and night.

It's Friday

That's about it.  Friday comes with finishing up the housework and getting ready for the weekend that will end much too soon.  I did not do my run this morning because my tummy isn't feeling all that great.  Stupid pizza night.  You'd think I'd realize that it causes an upset stomach every time I eat it but nope, it tastes too good.  Today I will be picking up Easter eggs for the Easter bunny to fill up this year, yeah, we like to help him/her out and save him money. ;)  I am also on the lookout for lollipops for Easter morning because we'll be planting magic jelly beans this year to see what grows.  I hope the kids don't get any brilliant ideas to start planting coins with high hopes that dollar bills will be there in the morning.

So Glenn's internet was down for a while the other day but we still managed to get a few emails to and from each other.  He's doing ok, still on the water but hopefully he'll be able to have an off ship meal soon. I'm hoping it's a good one too.  Less than 20 days until we get to see him home again.

We have a park/coffee "date" in the morning with a lady from down the street.  Unfortunately she doesn't have boys to play with but she does have 2 girls and we are going to the park so I'm sure the boys won't mind.  She's pregnant with a little boy, due May 1st so maybe I'll be taking some maternity pictures soon. :)

I think I might take the kids to the beach again this weekend.  They had so much fun last time and I will make sure to double up on the sunscreen on the boys this time.  They just need those shirts that prevent burns.  Alexander seems to be great because of the life vest but his shoulders still get pink.  Christopher just goes and goes like the energizer bunny and comes home pink.  I know, I should pay more attention.  I have to go to the NEX today to pick up stuff anyway so I might look for some there.  Oh, here's a picture of Madison and I taking the boys' bikes to school in the afternoon.  We decided it would be faster to ride them to the school. :)

If you want a good work out you should try riding a children's bike that's too small for you.  It's so much harder to pedal.  Christopher's helmet was a little too taut for my chin but I didn't want to mess with it so I took it like a big girl.  Just look at how high Madison's knees are on Alexander's bike.  She also discovered that something is wrong with Alexander's front tire.  I thought it had went away since we blew up the tires but nope, still a big lump in it, I think we're going to have to get a replacement tube.  Maybe I'll add that to my list for today.  To make this situation even more funny than it already was, Madison was ringing the bike bell that we just put on Alexander's bike.  That was hilarious!  

I'm sad that I couldn't post those singing videos here the other day.  I still haven't looked into whether or not I can post videos on here but I still might do that.  For now, I have to get to cleaning so I can get to the store before the kids are getting out of school.  I hope everyone is doing well and that they have a great day or night, depending on when you're reading this. :)