Happy Spring?

Today is the first day of Spring, so we went to Rita's to get the free water ice.

It was cold.

Happy first day of Spring from Northeast Pennsylvania.

Scenes From A Birthday

Guess who turned 10.

 

March 16th

Ann!! 
Also known as: Annie, Ann Theresa.  Annie Reese.  Ann Pan.  Shark.

During breakfast and morning doughnuts (the big kids had left for school already):

Weird brothers:

Vader's birthday was the day before Ann's. He's 8.

Our two 10 year olds (until April 6th)

Later that day.....

Cake and ice cream. (post showers, hence the wet hair and pj's)

I can't believe our baby girl is in double digits.

Happy birthday, Annie.  You are one adorable, fun, good-hearted, smart, and loveable girl; and you have the best giggles.

We love you!

Everyday Happenings

This past month was a cold one here in PA, but here are some happenings that kept us warm inside.

**Our friends John and Mary hosted their annual Valentine Wine and Food Pairing party.  There was a horrendous snow storm that night and many of the couples couldn't make it there.  Total bummer.  However, there was no way Bill and I were going to miss out on Mary and John's wonderful cooking  company, so we trudged through and had a fabulous time.

These two are great hosts and go all out to make it special.

Our hosts Mary and John

Mike and Beth

Not sure how I missed snapping a pic of the other couple that made it there (Jeff and Vicky), but I did get a pic of a couple of funny napkins.  I must have had too much wine.

**Yearbook picture day at the elementary school

Band students

PTA Reflections participants (Tommy, Ann, and Matt)

 

 **Pajama Day at the elementary school

**All City Orchestra Concert

In a nutshell, I dropped off Mary for early morning rehearsals two days in a row.  It is here that she learned about 12 songs with orchestra students from her school and 3 other middle schools in the district.  Never having practiced before it is amazing that by the end of those two days (about a total of 6 hours) those kids put on a heck of a concert together.

**My nephew Jimmy served his first mass as a new altar server.  It was great to be able to witness that and also see his Dad (my brother) on the altar with him serving as a Eucharistic Minister.

Eileen, Kathy, Jimmy, and Jim

** From there I headed to bowling and lunch with the Six.  (minus one....we missed you Rose)

With family birthdays, Easter, baseball, and track season on the horizon, we are now ready for warm weather days.  Bring on Spring!

Snow Days

The last two days have been snow days here.  At this rate, we'll be making up school days in June! 

Here are the pictures I captured over the last couple of days.

Playing in the snow (or in my case, shoveling) hot chocolate, chocolate chip cookies, games, silly hats, friends and a warm fireplace....all add up to good times I tell you. 

Time Out With Teens

Thanks to parent-teacher conferences at the high school and middle school, my two teenagers had a half day of school.  They each fell on different days, so it was the perfect time for some one-on-one time with their mom.

We all know the way to a teenagers heart is through their bellies, so we went to lunch.

First, Mary Kate and I went to Panera.

 This was the view from our table:

 

 Afterwards, since we both like to window shop, we went to Home Goods....

  .....where we saw a chair dressed like the one she made back here.

A few days later it was Billy's turn for a half day.  He loves one-on-one time with me. (add sarcasm)  But he does love burgers, so it didn't take much convincing.

We checked out Jake's Wayback Burger.  We had never been there before.  Not sure we'll be making our wayback there, though.  It tasted like Wendy's but 5x the price!

There was no window shopping with him. (believe me, I tried)  He preferred a little weekday Xbox time.

It's funny how once your child turns into a teenager you start counting backwards from 18.  I keep thinking of the amount of time left before they start college. It's flying by so quickly and I'm treasuring this time before our family dynamic will change.  However, I never miss an opportunity to remind them about the many good colleges within commuting distance from our house.

2007