Snow Day

Whew.  It has been a day!!!!  Definitely did not go as planned, but it ended up being pretty fun after all.  Today was supposed to be the start of our directory pictures.  I've mentioned that I am leading that team and we had 26 families (ours included) scheduled to get photos today.  I kept watching the forecast.  Knew that they were calling for snow, but held on to the briefest of hopes that it wasn't going to be as bad as they were calling for it to be.  Well.... long story short, after a LOT of phone calls back and forth between me and our rep and a few other church members, we all decided to cancel the entire day of photos.  In fact, I got to the church around 10 am and all this was finally decided by about 11:30.  The snow started coming down about 10 min after I got to the church and the roads quickly turned into a giant, slushy, wet mess.  As I was finishing up the phone calls to let people know today was canceled, I got a phone call from the school that said the kids were being let out at 1:30.  So, I tried to quickly finish up my stuff at the church, greet the photography team, and head back home, so I could pick up the kids.  The kids were THRILLED to get out of school early and play in the snow.  The snowflakes were huge and beautiful and the temps weren't too awful.  They worked together to build this great snowman, before destroying within seconds of the picture! ;-)  It was a lot of fun and a great way for me to just let go of the mess of today.  I am now in the depths of rescheduling and the nightmare that that is, but can't complain about the beauty of the snow that we've been waiting all winter to see!  And, hopefully, by tomorrow, everything will be back on track for pictures and the kids will be able to make even more snowmen with the snow that falls overnight. :-)

Noah's New-ish Room

I mentioned in my last entry about a week and a half ago that we were going to make some changes to Noah's room.  We did that for the girls last year and decided to do a little something different to Noah's too.  

These are the "BEFORE" pictures.  His room doubled as our guest room, so we had the double bed in there.

We also had toy shelves and baby stuff still on his shelves.  Well, we decided that he needed a bit more room as he started entering a new phase of double-digits.  Not to mention that he's going to be getting a desk from his Trolinger grandparents and really had no room for one the way it was.  So....

Here is his updated, or as I titled this blog "NEW-ISH" room.  We bought him a twin bed with a trundle underneath, so that we could still use this when guests come to stay.  There are drawers, so he keeps some of his lego, erector sets, and action figures in them.  It's a pretty big (tall) bed, because of the drawers, but we needed that extra room to put things, since we took out his toy shelves.

We brought in a shelf we had in another part of the house and put some of his toys on it as well as his growing collection of books.  He picked out the sign that went above it.  He liked that it had a rocket on it.

The new sign above his shelf matches the big wall hanging we got with signs all over it.  Where those shelves are is where his desk will go!  The shelves are going to my sister, so when we head back over spring break to get the desk, we'll take those and drop them off for her.  I hope to add a bit more to this space once the desk is in here, but he's already loving all the extra room to play.

Looks like everyone else is too!

Noah's Birthday!

We finally got to celebrate Noah's birthday!  Since I had to work last night and had Bible Study afterwards, I didn't get home in time to give him a proper birthday, so we waited until tonight instead.  Of course, I couldn't let his birthday go by without letting him open at least one present, right?

When I got home that night, I just had to let him open one.  You'll see his new giant sock monkey was there for all the action too!  He got that from his Nana and Papa T (along with an Amazon gift card, lucky boy!) and that was the first thing he got the morning of his birthday.  Last night he opened an Ipod alarm clock.  It's pretty cool and he really, really loved it.  Madie has now put that on her list too!

As you know, Noah's not a cake eater.  So, every year for his birthday he asks for something new and different for his birthday cake.  One year it's been a donut cake, he's had snickerdoodle bread, and a crescent roll cake.  This year he wanted strawberry shortcake.  We've only ever used pound cake with our strawberry shortcake, but I decided to make him an angel food cake.

He wasn't quite sure if he'd like it.  But, as you can see, he loved it so much he didn't even use a fork!  Just ate it with his hands like a caveman. ;-)  And, he ate THREE pieces!  Yes.  THREE!  He told me he might want this every year from now on.  Guess we have a winner!

My besties sent him a present in the mail today and he opened that after he devoured his cake.  He got three really cool Star Wars pens!  You can see he was pretty pumped about that. Thanks, Guerreros and Whites!

The last present we got him was a nerf gun set.

The cool thing about this nerf gun set is that there aren't any discs or foam darts all over my house.  It's a lazer game that uses his Ipod to defeat robot things.  He can also play against Madie (it came with two guns) and they can fight each other.

Here he is trying to shoot the drones.  It's pretty fun stuff!  Usually, when it's an off-party year, we get them more than just a couple things, BUT he's getting an updated bedroom this birthday, so I'll share more about those updates by next week, I hope.  We'll see how quickly we it all together.  No new paint job or anything.  Just additions to make it a better room for a 10 yr old. 

These photos were on another driver, so I uploaded these last.  It makes it a bit out of order, but you get the drift.  A couple weeks ago Noah insisted he didn't want to celebrate his birthday.  He decided all birthdays are lame and didn't want anything - no presents, no decorations, nothing.  Of course, I knew he's change his mind, but because he didn't change his mind about that until the last minute, I just threw a couple decorations up without putting too much thought into it.  At least he woke up with a little something on the walls!

First thing he saw when he woke up with his new GIANT sock monkey.  You can tell he liked it a little bit.  It's been hanging out with him ever since.  Definitely a great surprise for a big boy of 10!  So, Happy Birthday a day late to my amazing, brave, goofy, smart boy!  We love you!

Valentine's Parties

I am a day late, but here are pictures from Noah and Livie's class parties yesterday.  Again, Madie doesn't have them any more, because she's a grown-up middle schooler now.  Though, I thought I should mention that the boy she danced with at the last dance sent her a *like* lollipop at school yesterday.  They've been selling lollipops for the kids to send to other people in the school.  For example, Noah bought red ones for "love" for Madie and Livie.  Livie bought yellow ones for "friendship" for her friend Mimi.  And, Madie got a pink one from Bobby for "like".  She came running out of the school absolutely giddy.  It was adorable!  Anyway, on to the parties...

I spent the first part of the hour hosting Noah's party.  The head room parent in that classroom recently started homeschooling her son, so they didn't have any one to host, so I brought a big tray of fruit and yogurt pretzels and led them in a little game of BINGO.  Here's Noah showing off the Valentine's bag he made.  There's a monkey on it, of course. ;-)

He also got to pass out the lollipops to everyone in the class that got one.  He got one from Madie and one from Livie.  He was pretty happy about that.

After I was done upstairs, I headed down to spend a little time with Livie.  I missed her Christmas party totally, because I was working and Pete was in Noah's class.  So, she insisted I make it to her V-Day party. She was so crushed after missing her Christmas one, that I wouldn't have missed this one for the world!

I started to take a photo of her and her little friend AJ asked to get his picture taken with her.  Too cute!

She's showing off her bag too and her ring pop, of course.  She got lots of great V-Day treats and cards.  This girl loves her parties!!  Between Noah's birthday, their V-Day parties, and my students class last night it was a full day of fun!

A Decade of Birthdays

Since we're not actually celebrating Noah's birthday today (because I work tonight), I thought I'd give a retrospective of all his past birthdays.  Boy, does it makes me miss that sweet little guy that would cuddle with me.  They grow up too fast!!

This is Noah on his very first birthday back in 2004.  He has a farm birthday with a pig cake.  You'll see Papa Paul in the background.  This was his last trip to see us, because he got sick shortly after this and passed away just a few months later.  He was so proud of having his great-grandson named after him. :-)

This is Noah's 2nd birthday.  He had a Blues Clues birthday.  He absolutely LOVED Blue!

Noah's third birthday, just about 6 weeks after he got a new baby sister. :-)  He had a Buzz Lightyear birthday.  His shirt even matched the theme!

Up until his 4th birthday, he had always had his family come out and celebrate with him.  This was his first "friend" birthday and he had the best time!  Nothing like having a bunch of pirates to hang out with, right?

This is Noah's Superman birthday.  He turned 5 and just had us to celebrate with him.  Still looks like he had fun!

For Noah's 6th birthday, he got his very first bike.  He just got a bigger one last year.  He loved this bike and learned to ride without training wheels with this one.  He had a Mario Bros birthday.  This was his first year without a cake and we've been creating new "cake" idea ever since.  That year he decided on a crescent roll cake.

This was his 7th birthday back in 2010 and he had another friend party.  I try to have a friend party every other year, so it doesn't get too overwhelming for me.  He had it at the roller-skating rink and LOVED it!  You'll notice he has sock monkeys.  He had just fallen in love with them a couple months earlier and has loved them ever since.

This was his 8th birthday, just a few weeks after being diagnosed.  As you can see, he was doing great and super-excited about his sock monkey shoes. :-)  This was another sock monkey birthday.

Last year, in 2011, he still wanted another sock monkey birthday, but I steered him into a science party for his 9th.  Yet, another friend party and it was one of our favorites!  They all did science experiments and then played with swords and light sabers and had the best time.  Can you tell? ;-)

This year he was pretty insistent that he didn't want to celebrate his birthday - yeah, like that was going to happen.  He can around as the date got closer, but that meant he didn't pick out any special b-day theme this year.  So, we just did a primary colored birthday and will be celebrating with him tomorrow night.  But, not before he got this HUGE sock monkey from Nana and Papa T.  I think he likes it!  Happy 10th Birthday, you goofy, silly boy!

Valentine's Day Cards

You're going to notice Madie is absent from these photos and that's because she is considered a Jr. Higher now, so she doesn't get to have Valentine's Day parties anymore. :-(  But, Livie and Noah still do, so they were hard at work putting together their valentines in anticipation of the party on Thursday.

I picked them out for them this year, since I was out shopping while they were in school.  Thankfully, they liked what I picked!  Trust me, they would be quick to point out if they thought something sucked.  I got Livie these folded valentines.  I can't remember what they are called, but they've been around since I was a kid.

Noah got these spy valentines.  You can use the decoder to figure out what it says.  They're pretty fun!

Noah got hot making his valentines, so that's why he's shirtless in this one.  But they had fun putting them together and got them all ready and in baggies to take to school on Thursday.  Now, if I can only get my stuff ready for his birthday and all the school parties (both theirs and mine) in the next couple of days!

Church Life

Since I've been so busy with creating our new church directory, I thought I would share a bit of what our Sunday morning's look like.  They are a little busier these days, because of the added jobs of taking photos and getting people signed up for their photo sessions, but most Sundays are like this.

We start off with Sunday School (aka ZONE) at 9am.  I lead the kids in looking up their memory verses and  singing our "Books of the Bible" song.  We usually then have a storyteller come in and share with the kids their story.  The past 4 weeks we've been talking about John the Baptist.  Our memory verse was Mark 16:15-16a - "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.  Everyone that believes and is baptized will be saved."  We just finished up that lesson, so instead of having a storyteller and a craft/game to follow, we had a special project day.

We had the kids make cookies to share with everyone as they entered the sanctuary.  I bought and bagged up all the cookies for them.  They then added a verse card and a sticker to that verse card that said "The ZONE kids are sharing the GOOD NEWS about Christ's love."  We wanted them to live the truth of that verse and share the good news with everyone in our church.  They each signed their name to the cards.  They had to make 70 of them, so I was thankful for all the great adult helpers.  We seriously have the most dedicated and loyal helpers.  Sometimes I don't even have to ask and they will just come up and volunteer to help.  It's so awesome!

We had two full baskets of cookies, so they could be stationed at both entrances to the sanctuary.

Pete manned the back entrance and Brian manned the front, with lots of kids to help.  Those kids are on it too!  They will search out anyone that doesn't have a cookie and will make sure they have one!  It's so awesome to see!

After the service, the session (which is the name of our group of elders - yes, I am one!) met in our library and had Pete take a photo for the directory.  Tried talking Gayle into doing the splits on the floor in front of us to make it a really memorable photo, but she couldn't be convinced. ;-)

Had to take this excited photo of Livie pretending to get signed up for the directory.  I thought it was hilarious.  I manage our church's Facebook page, so I wanted a great shot to post on their to encourage those last remaining people to sign up.

We had a meeting right after church, so we were there from 8:45-12:30!  We were all tired, but we still had Bible Study to go to at 4:30.  So Pete and Noah decided to stay home.  And, honestly, if I wasn't in charge of taking a photo for the directory of our Bible Study, I probably would've stayed home too, but I'm glad I went.  It was a great lesson and really was wonderful to be there.  The photo above is missing three adults (Pete being one of them) and Noah, but it gives you a good idea of the great people we have in our group.  We've been a part of it now for 3-4 yrs and it's evolved and changed as people have moved and stuff, but it's still a blessing to be a part of after all this time.

I mean, we know how to have fun! :-)

A Quick Visit

Ricardo had another meet up in Palatine, so I got to go up and meet them and spend a little shopping time with one of my besties!  I'm so glad he gets to have meets up there.  It's so fun to have a quick afternoon with my friends.  We met at our go-to spot in Schaumburg - Wildberry - and had lunch together, because heading out to do a little Ikea shopping.  I got to meet Michelle's friend Kelly (she took this picture).  I've heard about her for so long, it was great to finally meet her.  We had a really fun few hours together.  Of course, every visit I spend with Michelle and/or Teresa, it just makes us long for the time we live closer together, but just makes those times together that much more fun. :-)

An Update

It's been more than a week since I blogged and I've been feeling it every day!  I would turn to Pete and say, "I haven't blogged in 4 days!", then 5 days, then 9!   We haven't had a whole lot going on, but that wasn't the reason I haven't posted.  It's because I've been deep into projects that seem to be taking up a lot of my time.  I find myself excited about starting a project, then find it's a lot more work than I envisioned.  Take now, for instance.  I decided back in October that it would be great to have another church directory made.  After all, it had been almost 5 years since our last one.  Everyone thought it was a great idea, so I pushed forward and decided to head up the thing as the director.  I've got a great team helping, but I didn't quite realize all of the busy work that would come with this.  I'm quickly finding out!  I'll blog about that another day though.  For now, I thought I'd just share a few pictures to show you what we've been up to around here.

Cheerleading ended in December and Madie, like me, loves to have things to do, so she decided to join the Scholastic Bowl team.  It's a group of 6th-8th graders that compete against other schools in a quiz show kind of way.  They have practices twice a week and now have begun to compete.  Last Thursday was her first at-home competition, so I was excited to go watch her be the smart girl she is!

It's started at 3:30, so I was able to stay for an hour, before I had to head home and get ready to leave for work (I teach one of my 2s class on Thursday nights).  Of course, wouldn't you know it, she didn't get to compete until I had to leave!!!  I was so upset.  But, it was still fun to see how the meet went.  They have buzzers and sometimes have to answer multiple questions as a team.  Very nerdy, but very fun. :-)  I'm looking forward to seeing her actually get up there and answer questions when I'm there, but that won't be for a couple weeks.

Gotta say, I was very worried about how I was going to watch her with 4 antsy kids in tow.  Everything has to be very quiet, so they can hear the questions and answer them.  If our cell phone goes off, they can lose a point, so it's very important to stay silent.  How was I going to do that with all those kids?!  Well, I loaded up a bag with every gaming system, electronic device I had and they did a FABULOUS job!  So fabulous, I couldn't tell them enough how proud I was of them.  Gave me hope that we can do this for her future meets. Yay!

Thought I would throw in a couple extra pictures of Noah and Tater.  Noah decided Tater's dog bed was a really comfortable space to play on his Ipod.  Tater didn't seem to mind sharing his space.

Noah was in there for a little while, before Madie found him and now she too is laying on Tater's bed while they play.  Goofballs.  So, that's just a little bit of what we've done for the past week.  Hopefully I'll be able to get caught up on directory stuff soon, so I can stay on track with my postings.  We'll see!