Dear Ry-Ry, Wow, 5 already???  I can't believe that you are so big, and yet, at times (ok, most times), I can't believe you're only this old.  I very often forget that you have only been four, and that you're now only five...you act so much older and when you actually act like your age, I have to catch myself from correcting you. You are such a sweet little boy...I am told that by everyone that watches you :)  Your blonde hair and big blue eyes just capture anyone that you talk to. This past year I have watched you grow up so much...you want to do everything that Josh does. &n ..read more

A couple of Fridays ago, I got up with the kids, had a leisurely breakfast with all of them, and then promptly went outside for the rest of the day armed with a little potty and a whole bunch of extra underwear.  Oh yeah, and a 2 year-old :)  I decided it was time to potty train Colton.  Most of the reason was because he had gotten in the habit of randomly looking at me and telling me he was peeing (in his diaper).  I was hoping he was ready, but after our 9 month long debacle with Ryan, I was not holding my breath. I start out just like I have with every other kid, diaper ..read more

Dear Joshie, Seriously???  8 years-old already?  Where on earth did this past year go?  I cannot believe that you are 8...you are still 5 in my mind... This past year has been awesome for you, no surprise there.  You had a wonderful year in 2nd grade - great teacher, good friends and I think you may have even learned something too :)  And you still don't care if the teacher and the kids call you "Joshie" (which most of them do).  Anytime I had the chance, you still wanted me to walk you to school, walk you into your classroom, have lunch with you and pick you up ..read more

Dear Ky-bear, Wow, a decade old today.  Where have the past 10 years gone?  When I think about how long 10 years is, and yet how fast it has flown by…it just doesn’t work.  Regardless, I couldn’t be more proud of what you have become over the last 10 years… You are finishing up the fourth grade.  I got a call the other day from the gifted teacher that you will definitely be in SOAR next year for reading and math.  Thank goodness!  We can go back to hours and hours of tears each night over math homework.  To any normal person that would sound horrible, but w ..read more

Late yesterday afternoon, we loaded up the kids (minus Ryan because he was already down there) and headed down to Athens.  My parents didn’t know it yet, but at the banquet that they were attending, the accounting department at OU was going to honor them as my mom retired last year and my dad is kind of planning to retire this summer.  Although in academia-land, that doesn’t mean they’ll actually stop working…my mom still teaches one semester a year, and my dad is planning on doing that as well…when he actually goes through with retirement. We dropped the kids off with John’s dad a ..read more

Another weekend came and went (and another week is coming and going as we speak…why does it have to go so quickly??).  Friday night was the school’s skate night at the nearby ice rink.  So after racing home from a late night at work, I sent Colton over to my parents, and John and I took Ryan and Josh over to the ice rink (Ky was at gymnastics).  We only ended up getting to skate for about ½ hour, but it really was the perfect amount of time :)  Josh kept falling (but he insisted on skating by himself), and Ryan was killing our arms and backs after a while :)  After th ..read more

Holy cow…where has the time gone?  Every day I tell myself that I’m going to write a post about the cool things we did the night before, and then before I know it, the week has flown by! Two weeks ago Ryan and Josh had their first football game, and then they had another one this past Sunday.  Both times the weather was decent (a little chilly for me, but sunny and no coats!).  They both did fantastic!  This past Sunday Ryan caught a pass, pulled a flag and threw a touchdown pass!  He was on fire! Last week, I was able to take Josh and Ryan to a CBJ season ..read more

The weather has finally decided to get nice here in Ohio (I mean we only had to wait until April 9th, geesh!). It will be short lived this week - we have a cold front coming in and the weekend will be chilly again (go figure). But it was so nice to be outside last night...I definitely saw a glimpse of summer :) When I got home from work, I got dinner into the oven (cheesy chicken lasagna) and then I told Kylie and Colton that we were headed outside! John had Josh and Ryan at football practice, so it was just the other two kids and I. Kylie jumped on the trampoline (I can't believe how good sh ..read more

This post is password protected (I don't want to embarrass my daughter). Please e-mail me for the password ..read more

Dear Me, Your life has been crazy the last few months.  You have barely had time to catch your breath let alone put up blog posts (even though you are so behind you haven’t even put up Christmas pictures yet!!).  Give yourself a break!  Stop feeling bad…you will return, with pictures, sometime.  And of course the driver of your guilt is the fact that about 4+ months have passed by that you have not documented.  Big deal!  You didn’t even start blogging until Josh was about 1, so what’s a couple of months? The last few months have brought a super crazy work sched ..read more