What to do? What to do?

Ok, so I got my card reader working! Woo Hoo! But now I have 3 weeks worth of pictures to post. I hate to do it all at once, and bog down page loads. Plus they're not as much fun when there are so many all at once. I will try to give you a few a day. So today, you get pictures from April 2, when we took the boys to the park to go bike riding.

Here are some of the pretty flowers in front of our house. They got prettier when the tulips bloomed, but the last thunderstorm blew all the petals off.







And here are some pictures from the park. Any sane parent probably wouldn't be letting their 19 mo go up and down the slide alone, but *sigh* Chris taught him.







And in case you are wondering what his favorite way to come down is:





Ok, I have more, but we'll leave it at that for today.

Catching Up (Again)

Ok, so Easter went fine. We took the boys over to the grandparents' for dinner and an egg hunt. The weather was beautiful, and they had a great time. MIL sent them home with bags of books and toys and candy. I forgot to bring my camera, so no pics, sorry.

Last weekend, MILs church hosted a model railroad club in the fellowship hall, so we took the boys over. They had set up an N scale layout and were running the trains and playing train sounds through some speakers. Most of the boys loved it, though Noah tried to be cool and act bored. Unfortunately it was raining very hard, so we couldn't go to the park afterward like we had originally planned.

Chris has been playing softball after work with his office team. He plays every Tuesday and Thursday evening. I am happy that he is getting the chance to get out and hang out with the guys. He's been missing that since he used to play raquetball back in college. He's grumpy, though, because he's out of shape and out of practice, and his team isn't doing very well.

Last night he came home from a late game (it was raining again, I was surprised they hadn't called the game) to tell me that I needed to drive him back out to the field. He had dropped his keys out of his jacket pocket while warming up before the game and hadn't been able to find them before everyone else left. He got a ride home from another member on his team. So at 11 pm we drove back out in the rain. It was really cold, and dark. We took flashlights and were prepared to have to drive the car home with the spare key, and come back again in daylight to see if we could find the keys. He parked the van close to where he was warming up, and got out to search the grass. I thought maybe the best plan would be to start at his car and follow his footsteps through the warm-up and then the game. He said he knew they were missing before they started the game, so it shouldn't be so hard. Well, I have to tell you, that guy is lucky he brought me out there. Where do you think the keys were? Oh yes, they were in the car. In the ignition. In the UNLOCKED car. Hello, he was not locked out, and they were not hidden under the seat. If he had thought at all to look, he'd have been home and warm so much sooner, and I wouldn't have been wet at all. Sheesh. If not for me, he'd have been out there in the field for hours in the cold rain, all for nothing. He owes me big!

We'll be pretty busy the next few days. Today I am taking Micah to have his picture done at WalMart and pick up his birthday cake. Saturday he will be 4. We'll have pizza tonight and open presents. Tomorrow Troyer and Noah are going with Chris to work, because it's take-your-kids-to-work-day. His office has a day all planned out for the kids, so they won't have to sit around bored and distracting the parents. In the evening we are going to eat a picnic dinner at the softball field while Chris plays. Friday I will be driving Chris up to State College for a meeting at Penn State for work, and then driving over to our friends' house. Scott and Debbie have moved back from New Zealand, so we are going to spend the weekend with them. We'll be back Sunday night.

I'd be posting pictures, but my portable card reader seems to be broken, and now the boys have messed up the desktop downstairs and it won't finish starting up, so I can't use the reader on that one. Ugh. I'm due for a new camera soon, and the new cameras don't use the same memory cards (smart media) as my current one, so I'll be needing to buy a new reader anyway. I guess I just wasn't planning to buy them so soon. I sure hope Chris figures out a way to fix the computer soon, so I can get the boys' school papers organized and printed off in time for the end of school next month.

It's That Time of Year Again

I often wonder, why in the world did God make me the mother of all boys? I have lots of reasons to doubt my suitability to this task, but this time of year brings up a big one: I hate sports. I don't even watch the olympics (well, ok, I watch the ice skaters, but really mostly just to see the outfits). I am so not competitive in *anything.* I do like to do my best, and I love to improve, but I hate measuring myself against anyone else. I don't even like to watch other people compete, because I don't like the whole atmosphere surrounding competition.

So here I am, with a house full of children who should probably be immersed in sports year-round, and I am a bad mother because I haven't enrolled them in anything. They are lucky to get to a gym class once a week, and swim lessons once a year. We have a lot of yard-toy psuedo-sports-equipment out in the shed out back. Bats and balls and a basketball net, and another shed full of bikes. But nothing team-oriented, and nothing competitive. I am sure there are some out there who would consider my loathing of sports to border on abusive to my sons. I am depriving them of a staple of boyhood. But yuck. It's not only the sport itself, it's the way whichever sport is current seems to take over the household of a participating team member. I cringe at the thought of required practices, and then games, and then heaven forbid, play-offs/all stars. To have to hang around at these events in a crowd of fanatical parents who soak this stuff up. Ugh ugh ugh. And the COST! Ack, don't get me started.

So with the advent of spring, said topic not only takes over households across the country, it takes over blogs. You will read post after post about baseball season, and sports camps, and fund raisers. But not here. I have nothing to post, because we will not be doing it. I feel a guilty pleasure from knowing that I, at least, will not be suffering from the myriad complaints that go along with dragging younger siblings to ball fields day after day, and having to work magic with scheduling and driving.

If you have children about to enter college and wondering what a good field of study would be, what career choice they should make, may I recommend psychology? My poor deprived abused sons will need some top-notch therapists when they finally escape my prison, er house.

Boiled Lobster Anyone?

Yesterday was gorgeous; sunny warm, slightly breezy. It was also MIL's 60th birthday. Chris called her up and asked her if she'd like to meet us at a park near her house for a little picnic with the kids. She ended up declining (he made a sad joke about forcing her to go on a hike with them) but we took the boys out anyway. Their aunt and uncle met us there for lunch, and they played on the slide and merry-go-round (yes, they are still so behind the times that they still have one of those classics-now-banned-from-playgrounds-because-of-lawsuit-potential equipment). After SIL and BIL took off, we went for the walk around the park. It's a 2 mile trail that passes through 4 different playground areas. The boys had their bikes and I pushed Levi in the stroller. Micah ended up walking because trying to keep up on the tricycle was too much for him. We stopped at each playground and let the kids play. Samuel learned to ride his bike without training wheels. He started out with Chris holding the back of the bike, but by the end of the walk he was riding alone! Woo hoo! So we were out for over 3 hours, and the sun was beautiful. None of us had any thought to sunburn. Oops. We got a little too much for our first full day out in short sleeves. My neck and forearms were literally glowing last night. They look a little better today. Luckily the boys and Chris just got pink cheeks. Time to pack the sunscreen in the van!

I'll have pics posted later, after I upload them!