Stranniganza 2010 (aka Thanksgiving)

We drove 11 hours to Cheyenne, WY for a weekend with these guys:


There was a LOT of this:

And some of this:


And some serious cousin time for these six:


And a lot of snuggling and sleeping for this one:


And a quick trip to the ER for him (what trip would be complete without that!!):

We are so thankful for our wonderful family! We had a blast and can't wait to do it all (except the ER part) next year!

Shirtless Pumpkin Carving

Well, only the boys were shirtless. But we all did some carving.



I tried to avoid carving pumpkins this year. I wasn't really feeling it. When I told the boys, they looked as if someone had died. I quickly went to the store and bought two rough looking pumpkins from the slim selection at the store. We borrowed a few carving tools from a friend and got to work. Sadly, in my haste, I forgot to buy lights. So we improvised and used our Trick or Treating flashlights.

Good times. And, I posted on my blog. So there Cyd.

Missa clowning around

Easter 2010

Happy Easter!!

Ollie turns 5!!

I absolutely CANNOT believe that my sweet little guy has turned 5. He continues to be the peacemaker in our family and always has us laughing.

Ice Skating!

For a little Saturday family fun, we took the kids ice skating. They were out-skating me in about 3 minutes. Not that that is saying much.

Awesome Answers

Lizzy, our friend and babysitter, called upon the boys' imaginations last night to help her with an assignment for her child development class. She sent her questions and the boys did not disappoint with their answers!

1. Why does the sun come up?
2. Where do dreams come from?
3. Why is the ocean blue?

Ollie (age 4.5):
1. Hmmm, because, so it can be a sunny day. Not like today. Today is a snowy day.
2. From ourselves, right? And sometimes from my Bakugan because they are usually in my dreams. They are awesome and always win the battles in my dream.
3. Because that is how Jesus made it. Maybe blue is His favorite color. My favorite color is purple.

Mason (age 6.5):
1. So we can have light on the earth.
2. From your mind. But sometimes if you watch something too scary then your dream is really a nightmare.
3. So we can see sea creatures and other things. The reason why is because the sky is blue and sometimes the pieces of the sky fall into the ocean and make it blue. And salt plus blue water still equals blue. Salt is just like zero.

Shortly after Lizzy got their answers we got another message: "my roommate said your kids are awesome and wants to ask her questions too if thats okay. " So we started again. I suggest asking your own kids these questions because we sure had a good time listening to their answers!!

1. What is snow made out of?
2. Why is the grass green?
3. Why can we only see stars at night.

Mason (age 6.5)
1. Water. Just water that gets frozen after it jumps out of the clouds.
2. Because if everything in our planet was the same color we wouldn't know which house was ours and we wouldn't be able to find our backyard because everything would be green.
3. Because if we saw stars during the day we would keep on looking at them and we would forget to watch the road and might get in a car crash.

Oliver (age 4.5)
1. Water. Really cold water. And maybe some little bits of clouds that fall down out of the sky.
2. So we can see it very well. If it was gray like the sidewalk we wouldn't know where to walk and where to play.
3. I use my superpower to see stars in the day. They go so far up into space in the daytime so that the astronauts can see them during the day. Then, at night, the sun goes up into space for the astronauts and the stars come back down for us to see.

Going to the Slammer

Mom: "Ollie, how was your day?"
Ollie: "It was GREAT! A policeman came to tell us about the police. I got to be the bad guy. He put me in the handcuffs. It was awesome! But, he did NOT take me to jail. Maybe next time."
Mom: "Yes, maybe next time."

Wish I had taken a picture

Cleaning up the floor a few nights ago I found a note.

Dear Mom,
You are so dumb.
Love,
Mason

I don't know why, but I LOVE this note. When I asked Mason to read it to me he said, "Oh, uh. This was just a mistake. hehe hehe." Then he threw it away. I am still laughing about it days later.

A Trip to Gettysburg

Matt's mom came to town in the fall so we took a little trip to Gettysburg and Lancaster. It is SO fun to take trips with Grandma!!

The view through the window of our hotel. CREEPY!

We took the driving tour through Gettysburg after visiting the new Visitor's Center. The boys were SUPER excited about racing to the top of this observation tower.

Missa was happy at the top as long as she was free to run on her own. My 18 month old running around up there nearly gave me a heart attack so I had to hold her. You can see for yourself how well that turned out!

Mason and Oliver LOVED the tower and the cannons.
We just ignored the little sign that said "Please do not climb on the cannons"

Our little family at the Gettysburg Cemetery.

Missa really enjoyed my dramatic reading of The Gettysburg Address.
And getting a little work done in the hotel.

Did you notice the underlying theme of goofiness in these pictures? Scroll through and check out Ollie's face. Love that kid!

A really great day!

I love these pictures taken of the kiddos last spring after a super fun day in Amish country.






My work here is done.

Just remembering...

...a long long time ago when I used to pay attention to this little blog o mine. Looking back over the last several posts, I am sad that I have ignored the old blog for so long. SOOOO, I am going to re-commit myself (not to the looney bin) to the loving arms of the Party of Five. To start, here is our New Years Card for 2010. If you didn't get one its because I didn't have your right address and it came back to me about two days ago. Really sending them back out now seems silly as we are nearly to the end of January. I have also included Matt's annual holiday letter. It may not tell you anything of what our family has been doing for the past year, but it is always good for a laugh!

I’ve had mainly one recurrent dream since I was teenager⎯and no, it doesn’t involve supermodels. The dream is about tornadoes. The venue changes, but the plot is always the same. I’m doing something outside, e.g. mowing the lawn, plowing the field, walking to my car, and boom! I look over my shoulder and I see tornadoes touching down in the distance. I then run to a shelter. That’s it. Then I go on to dream about being toothless (nightmare) or having six pack abs (fantasy). Not surprisingly, I love the TV series Storm Chasers on Discovery. Well, it turns out that my dream is going to be a reality. Next spring, our family is moving to the heart of tornado alley –Ponca City, Oklahoma. I’ll be working for a national lab doing biodefense. So, our time in NJ is coming to a close (cue teardrop rolling down my face). More news: I broke my finger playing Thanksgiving football. I don’t want to make a big deal about it. But, send donations and your well wishes to “Matt’s Left Ring Finger Recovery and Rehabilitation.” You’ll find more information at www.35yearoldsshouldnotplayfootballonceayear.com.

Kristin is as beautiful as ever. And her mad cooking skills continue to grow, as do I. She was asked by Oliver’s school to cater their teacher appreciation luncheon. She did great. I foresee her doing some type of catering in the future. She knows her way around the grocery store, and she isn’t afraid to fight other NJ moms for groceries. I hate to bring this up in the Christmas letter, but she had an “incident” with someone in the store where shopping carts did collide, and choice words were exchanged. Seriously. Shopping in NJ isn’t that different from driving on the NJ turnpike. You can get the bird by cutting someone off going for the Velveeta. She is excited about our move to OK, and is ready for me to have a “real job,” even though I’ve had one for 5 years now. Just because you work at a school doesn’t mean you are in school, right? But yes, I’m ready for a real job too.

Mason and Oliver (6 and 4) are deep into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bakugan Battle Brawlers. It’s a boy thing. It goes hand-in-hand with farting and talking about underwear. Here are the boy’s responses when asked to tell us a story about Santa Clause.

Mason: “Once upon a time Santa Clause was trying to go on the sleigh. A monster named Snowmonster pulled back the sleigh. He had super strength. He broke the sleigh and Santa Clause died. The elves punched and kicked Snowmonster until he died.”

Oliver: “Once upon a time a little old man named Santa Clause told the sleigh to go. It didn’t go because there was a monster pulling it back. Then Santa Clause was dead because the monster killed him. Then the monster took him to his house and the elves thought Santa Clause was gone forever. Then he came back to life. Then Santa Clause ran away and told his reindeer to go and they went so fast the monster couldn’t catch them. Then he went to the moon.”

Believe me, we’ve talked to the kids about the real meaning of Christmas. It’s not nearly as interesting to them. I’m sure Easter will be same. It will involve the Easter Bunny fighting with someone over chocolate, both people die, both come back to life, and then the chocolate swallows the world.

And lets not forget Melissa (18-months), whose favorite words are “Momma, Cracker?” She is cute as ever and we love having her in our family! She’ll be another adventure, maybe requiring 2 paragraphs in coming letters.

Happy New Year friends and family! We hope you have a wonderful 2010!