Too old for baskets?

Our annual Home from church Easter picture. Now I just have to decide where to plant the flowers.... They were all placed in the front of the church so pretty. Our Pastor said that it wasn't very often that he got to preach in the garden of eden!

So what do you think? Are the kids too old for baskets? I guess kids never outgrow candy.

Hope everyone's Easter is blessed. Remember the reason we celebrate Resurrection Day!

Heroes

Today was a very sad day in the city of Pittsburgh. There was a public memorial service for the 3 police officers who were killed in the line of duty on Saturday. Leaving for work that morning they had no idea that they would never be coming home. I think it reminds us about what is important in life. To keep those we love close and to never stop letting them know what they mean to us. To anyone who has ever served their community, and selflessly protected us above all others. To anyone who has served in the military, at home or overseas to protect our freedoms that are so precious, yet we take for granted everyday. I say "Thank you"!

eggs

So it's that time of year again......Egg dyeing time! Jordan always manages to turn himself green, or blue whatever color it is this year.

Hope everyone has a blessed easter!

Palm sunday

So this past week was palm sunday. I always like to take the palm branches that we get at church and make them into crosses, then hang them somewhere in the house. Here is this years..

meces

so our adventure for the morning.......Seems that the 2 male mice the pet store sold me was lie.......In case you don't realize it, these are baby mice! One seems to be a mother! Somebody help me! I immediately called the pet store and arranged for them to take the babies, check out which one was a female and give us a male! Why do these things happen to us?

Soldiers and Sailors

We've been studying the civil war. So today we took a field trip to Oakland to visit the soldiers and sailors museum... It was a rainy day in Oakland, but that didn't stop the kids from standing in the rain to check out the "cool" torpedo that was outside. Anything that blows up is "cool"!

They have a bunch of civil war exhibits that are really nice.

Here is some confederate money rendered worthless by the war...This exhibit showed what camp life was like for the men.

Again......anything that blows up is "cool"......

An exhibit on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

After we visited the museum we walked down to the Big Carnegie Library and explored it for a couple of hours. Cody liked the teen room that has Guitar hero, X box, and Playstation to play. Tom just liked checking out the archtecture.

a bit o' bragging

We just got the results from Cody's standarized testing that he did on monday and......

He scored higher than 59% of all 8th graders in the nation in reading, higher than 81% in Language, and higher than 80% in math! His total score was higher than 75% of the nations students! Is that awesome or what? I had him give me a high 5 on that one!

spring

Today was Tom's first day on his new route. I went to pick him up because we are still down to one car and he was sitting on the back dock with his thermos, and coffee cup, and these........... It was very cute! I asked him a couple of weeks ago that if he saw any Amer. cancer society tables out selling daffodils for daffodil days to pick some up. Well, he was on his route today and he now has florist on it and he actually remembered that I love daffodils and he went back at the end of the day and picked these up for me. He is so sweet. I think I'll keep him!

test day

We drove up to Indiana, Pa today for Cody's standarized tests. They are required for homeschoolers in grades 3,5,8, and 11. WHile he was taking his tests Tom, Jordan and I did a little sight seeing. I found a farm market on the internet that was nearby. On the way we had to cross a covered bridge. They must have known we were coming because it had Tom's name on it..... Don't Mom's always tell their kids not to play in the middle of the street? My Dad always told us to go play in traffic but I don't think this is what he had in mind. "Jordan, out of the way!"

A nice relaxing morning on the porch playing checkers?

This place was pretty neat. Not a bad drive up there. We may come back in August for the corn festival. There is music, games, and of course corn. They have these big jars of melted butter and they just dip the whole ear in. I can hear my arteries hardening as we speak!

AWANA Games

Today we drove up to Zelienople ( say that fast 3 times!) for the big AWANA games. Jordan got to participate in 3 events. They have to earn their way there by finishing 3/4 of their bible memorization book. We are the yellow. I won't tell you what place they took. You'll have to check out Jordan's blog for that. But here is their score.

After a hard morning at play it was time to drive the hour home and a stop for lunch at Eat n Park. Driving through downtown Pittsburgh isn't so bad on a saturday. Got a call from the baseball coach, Coach Jeff, He has "drafted" Jordan onto his team (wonder what kind of deal his agent got him this year? Hope it's sweet!) so saturday's are going to start filling up. One last note GO PITT!!!!!!!!

new mailman

Sort of a sad day in post office land.......Tom has bid another route and will no longer be delivering our mail. He found out today that he got the route he bid on in Penn Hills and will oly be our mailman another week. I try not to let him know but it makes me sad. He would stop here everyday for lunch. We got to see him during the day. But he really wanted out of there due to poor managment, so it's really good for him. Plus part of the route is mounted (you deliver from the truck) so that's good for him too. Change is always hard. Boo hoo.

spring

Yesterday was a nice day. It was our turn to deliver meals on wheels. We do it about twice a month. Then we did our weekly trip to the library. From there we ate lunch at Wendy's and went on to hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. (Okay we didn't actually hit the bucket, well maybe just a couple of times, but we did hit the balls.)
When we pulled in the driveway, look what I found in the yard!
We made it through another winter.....YEA

Stick Figure Family

Make your Stick Figure Family at FreeFlashToys.com

b day

This weekend we had an impromptu dinner with my brother Len. It was his birthday this past week and he hadn't sent Jordan a card or anything for his birthday so off we went to Cici's pizza in Monroeville.
After "stuffing" ourselves with Pizza the "kids" went into the game room for some "let's beat Uncle Lenny" time. Cody played Lori in air hockey Then it was the big match up of Len vs Jordan.......while Cody tried his hand at driving in the backround.
We were all wiped out of quarters but it was a fun night. My first chance to get out of the house since I got sick.

turning the corner

I am starting to feel like myself again. I am still not 100 % but I am able to be, as Tom would say, "upright and bipeddle"! Thanks for the well wishes Deb!
Hope some are able to get out and enjoy the sunshine!

Normal?

All I have done is sleep for the past 3 days. They have me on meds and I have no energy at all. My poor kids. All I can do is sleep. They were supposed to go to a homeschool fair (like a science fair) tomorrow. It's an hour away. I don't think that I can drive that far. When is life going to get back to normal? UGH

drama

Last night around 12:15 am I was taken by ambulance to the ER at Forbes. I got extremely dizzy here at home. The room was continually spinning and wouldn't stop! I was so scared. I also felt nauseated. Finally, after about 45minutes I told Tom to call 911. I thought it might be my blood sugar. Turns out it was not bad, but my blood pressure was extremely high. They took me to the ER (in my night gown, no less). My first ambulance ride. The doctor said that I had an extreme case of vertigo. They gave me Valium and something for nausea by IV. After a few hours I was back home. They say it may have something to do with an inner ear infection or something so I need to follow up with their ear, nose and , throat guy, who, coincidentally, I am scheduled for surgery with in April to have my thyroid removed because of nodules. So today has been pretty much a blur. All I have done is sleep. My head still feels heavy and woozy. I will be headed back to bed soon. My drama for the day.

yum

Last week blueberries were on sale for $1 so I bought some. I found this new recipe and tried it out tonight. Blueberry Crumb bars. They are very yummy. Could have used a few more blueberries but the kids kind of snacked on them over the weekend!

newest birthday present

Jordan decided today what he wanted to spend his birthday money on. Click here to see.........

YES you are seeing right.......it's mice! I was taken over by aliens at the pet store and actually agreed to let him have mice. He used his birthday money. WHAT WAS I THINKING?