Kids just say...

I just had this conversation with Emma:

Emma: Mom, I know how to spell sports.

Mom: Really, how do you spell it?

Emma: E S P N

Mom: Wow Emma, you really do know how to spell sports.

I love kids!

T-Ball is here!

Yesterday we attended the Opening Ceremony for the Peccole Little League. Yep, I'm a T-Ball mom. It was a fun day. We were at the park from 9:30 until 2:00, and we had a great time. After the opening ceremony we had about 2 hours to kill before pictures at 12:30, so the kids played and played on the playground at the park. They dug in the sand and played tag and made new friends, and it was great. Stuart spent the morning helping my brother move, but showed up at about noon with sandwiches, Cheetos and drinks for our picnic! We had just enough time to eat and tell Daddy about our morning before we headed over for pictures, and then on to his game. He had so much fun. Here are some of the pictures from our day.
There are 4 coaches I think, all of them Dad's to boys on the team. Coach Mike is the Head Coach, and does a great job with the kids (they would make me crazy!!!!) One of the other coaches ran a warm up, and stretching session. I thought it was so funny! There is our little number 10 with no butt and too big pants! When they told us it was time to order, we were given the option of Small, Medium or Large. Being a mom I asked, Well is that children's sizes, or Youth sizes? Because if it's children's I need a medium, if its youth I need a small. No one could answer that question for me. I still think it's a little crazy that no one knew the answer, so I went Medium, and guess what, it's Youth sizes! Just my luck right?

How funny is it to see little boys stretching out? It is even more funny to hear the coach trying to explain why we stretch out. That's my little man, laying down!
Throwing the ball! All the Dad had to say was "Nice Form."

If you look really close you can see the ball at the very edge of his glove. He is getting better at everything all ready. Hopefully he will continue to love it and get better as he goes.

Up at bat! He did a really good job. His second hit was a home-run!(if you can call it that). So I think it is funny, so I'll explain it to you. A T-Ball game consists of two teams, and two innings. Each team takes two turns being at bat and in the field. There is no winner, no one keeps score, the game is nothing to brag about, but everything that goes on within the game is HILARIOUS! Of course you have your typical kids chucking the bat after they hit. Then there was the kid (from the other team) who needed help at bat. After about three minutes his coach finally figured out that the problem was that he is a Lefty. Once they got him on the correct side of the base, he hit the ball and did just fine! Too funny. You have the standard, kids throwing a ball at another kid who is looking anywhere but at the ball, a ball getting hit, and every kid on the field thinking it is his job to get the ball, and there was even one little boy who was a runner on first base, and when the next girl hit, instead of running for second, he ran and got the ball, and threw it to his coach. As always, you have the kids that miss a base, some on accident, most because they didn't see it and didn't know where to go. Our Preston hit a good ball on his second hit, and it landed about baseline, then continued to roll into the outfield. When he hit, there was another little boy on first base, and Preston knew that ball wasn't coming in anytime soon, and wanted to get all the way around those bases, even if it meant going around his own teammate to get there. Anyway, Needless to say, I expect it to be a very entertaining year, and WE LOVE T-BALL!

Catch up

I know that I am totally slacking lately, and I need to play catch up, but for now, I'll just update on what we have all been up to.
Stuart-just finished his big project for this semester. He worked really hard, and we are all happy that he is done, because maybe now he can come home once in a while! We've missed him
Heather-just got my hair cut. I think I like it, but it always seems to take about a week to get used to a new cut. As usual being the taxi driver, chef, maid, etc is keeping me busy, and I'm really trying hard to get organized!
Preston-started his first season of T-ball. He is so cute, and he loves it a lot. His first game is on Saturday, so hopefully I can post some pictures then. Oh, and I can't believe how well he is reading. He only gets 100% on his spelling tests! I'm so proud!
Emma-is turning into quite the artist. My mom gave us a bunch of art stuff (paper, pencils, crayons, markers) and she spends most of her time creating things. She writes stories, which consist of some letters, but mostly just squiggly lines that she draws while she tells the story out loud. I think it takes her too long to figure out the right letters, and the story just won't wait.
Stockton-is just busy! He spends his time trying to get into stuff before Mommy finds him to stop his master plan. He recently stuck something into our phone jack and messed up the little wires, leaving me without a phone for 4 days! The day it happened, Stuart came home after late class in a panic because he hadn't been able to get ahold of us all day! All is well, the repair man came yesterday, and we have a phone line once again. Oh, and I actually didn't know what had happened until the repair man got here and found the messed up jack. Oh the joys of parenting a toddler!
Hopefully I'll post again soon!

Let the Madness Begin!

Well, its that time of year again! The tournament is upon us, and the brackets need to be filled out. This was always a tradition in Stuart's family. They always watched the tournament selection show and everyone in the family filled out brackets. My family wasn't as crazy about sports, so this was a whole new world for me when we got married. For the past 8 NCAA tournaments I have filled out a bracket with Stuart, and this year was no exception, but we decided to make it a family affair! We told the kids the teams, and had them pick their winners, so these are their brackets! (We did however tell them they couldn't pick any 16's or 15's.) As you can see by Stockton's bracket, there is no clear-cut favorite! For Emma it was all about PITTSBURGH (yelled real loud with a giggle behind it) and BYU! Oh, all too soon she'll figure out that our teams really aren't THAT good! Preston, in the spirit of winning, just wanted to pick the lower seed, but ultimately followed his heart. However, in the spirit of all that is right about college basketball, he refused to pick Duke, until his Dad told him he HAD to pick them for the first round, finally he gave in to the pressure that is Duke Basketball. I am a sucker for the underdog, and as always pick way too many upsets. I hate it when you end up with 4 number 1 seeds in the final 4, that is no fun! Stuart labored over each pick as if they were going to determine his future success in life. I don't know why he analyzes it all to death, really we are about 60/40 with who's bracket wins, and I hardly know anything. I hope you enjoy this tournament season with us!

Birthday Party at Chuck-E-Cheese

On February 21 our family had it's first outing to Chuck E Cheese! I know, how could our son be 6 and this is our first time? Because we are wimps, that's why. We have driven to Chuck E Cheese before, saw the chaos inside and left, but this time it was for a friend. Dominic and April are friends of ours from Logandale, and it was their daughter Ashlyn's birthday. The kids had a great time! We ate okay pizza and chased after them as they took over 4 hours spending the crazy amount of tokens they got with the birthday package! All in all it was a great day. Stuart got to catch up with friends from the Academy, the kids got to play "where a kid can be a kid" and I just had fun watching and playing a little myself! That place is a zoo (as if you didn't already know that) and I was exhausted when the day was done! Here's some pictures of our fun!

For the Birthday parties, they bring out Chuck E to meet the kids! Preston loved it, but this was the response from Emma and Stockton. Shall we say Not Impressed?

Preston had a blast! He loved every second of this adventure and spent the whole time running from game to game. Doesn't that smile say it all?

Emma is going to hate me for all these photos later, but I think it is funny! She is such a little scaredy cat! This jeep lifted up at weird angles and tilted depending on how you did the controls. Stockton thought it was hilarious, and Emma hated every second!

This is Stockton with the Birthday Girl, Ashlyn. He loved all the little rides, and that was pretty much the look he wore the whole day.

These are just cute photos from the little booth they have there! I thought they turned out really cute!

Ah, a picture of Preston and Emma getting along. I need to archive it so I can go back and remember that sometimes it does happen!

Emma loved the photo booth, and was thrilled at the thought of a picture with Stockton.

We had a great time! I love this picture! Thanks for having a birthday Ashlyn!

Birthday at Disneyland

Last Sunday was my 28th birthday!!! For the year 2009 Disney is letting you into their parks for free on your birthday. You just have to register your birthday ahead of time and print out a coupon to bring along with your identification to the ticket box. I am lucky enough to have a friend (Amy Sutton Mathewson) who has the same birthday that I do, and she cooked up a fabulous idea that we should take a trip and go! Well, two other girls decided to join us, and off we went. We left Saturday at around noon and headed to California. We didn't make it out of the state before Emily had us stop at Primm for some shopping. Shopping with no kids is so much better!!! Amy's Aunt Becky was gracious enough to let us stay at her house, which was only about an hour from the park, so that was perfect! Thank you Aunt Becky! Saturday night we went to dinner at TGI Friday's, shopped, and had some Cold Stone - ALL WITH NO KIDS!!! Needless to say, it was fabulous! Sunday morning (we are sinners I know) we headed to Disneyland. We hit all of the rides that we wanted to during the morning. Then we split up and two of us stayed at Disneyland and the other two went to the adjoining California Adventure Park. Then we swapped between the two parks for awhile. We had to swap because we only had two park-hopper passes. We had all the fun we could then headed back to Vegas. We ended up getting home at like 1:00 in the morning. I wasn't sure how much fun Disneyland would be without kids but it was surprisingly fun! I felt a little dumb walking in with me and girlfriends but it was really a fabulous day at the happiest place on earth. What better place to spend your birthday is there? We had an awesome time! Pretty cheap birthday trip too!!!
Happy Birthday to us!!!

This guy was really awesome! For about an hour of the drive on the way there this guy just kept speeding up, and slowing down. It really drove Chelsea crazy (she was driving) but after a while all we could do was laugh, and take a picture. As you can see, he is clearly oblivious! Probably one of those things where you had to be there, but it really was funny!

This was the Gang! Amy, Emily, Me, and Chelsea! Thanks for a GREAT weekend Girls!

Just a picture of the Birthday Girls! You only turn 28 once!

Amy and Chelsea drew the short straws and sat in the very front on Splash Mountain! Too fun! Emily and I were in seats 3 and 4 and hardly got wet!

This is how much we love getting into Disneyland Free!

P.S. Thanks Amy, I totally hijacked your pictures and text. As you can see, I just changed a bit of it around and used it as my own!

Tales of the Expired License

So, Sunday was my birthday! Happy birthday to me! My friend Amy and I share a birthday, so she cooked up this awesome idea that since we would both get into Disneyland free for our birthdays we should go. Fun girls weekend, I'm in! Not what this story is about, I'll post on our fun trip later. To get into the park free you have to register your birthday on Disneyland.com, then they will email you a voucher to print off and take to the ticket office with a form of ID proving your birth date. So, before we left, I decided to inspect my drivers license to make sure I wouldn't have any problems once I got there. During my inspection I discovered that I have been driving on an expired drivers license since March 1, 2008!!!!! It was too late to do anything about it then, so on Tuesday, March 3 I drove across town, had a friend watch my kids and went to the DMV. I got through the first line in about 8 minutes. The guy that I talked to told me that because it had been more than a year since it expired, (one year and two days to be exact) I would have to take the written test, but depending on who I got I might get pushed right through without having to retake my driving test. So after I had passed the written, I was given a number. When I had been sitting there about an hour, I started thinking that they must just be pushing me through, otherwise the guy at the counter would have had me make an appointment to get my driving test. 30 minutes later when my number was finally called, I was told that I would have to schedule an appointment to take the drivers test. What??? Why did I just wait for an hour and a half to have a two minute conversation???? The lady told me it was because I could choose to go home with a learners permit. Well, Whats the difference? She told me the difference was that if I got pulled over driving with a learners permit, without another adult, I would be fined, and it would be another 6 months before I could get another permit (and another 6 months after that before they would issue me a new license). If I got pulled over driving on an expired license I would just be fined. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I waited an hour and a half to have you give me the most ridiculous options on the planet. Well, lets see, what do you think I should do? DUH!!! She made me an appointment to take the drivers test today and I took my expired license and left. (I actually got lucky there, because someone must have cancelled an appointment at the Henderson office, because the next available appointment anywhere in the city was for April 9.) I took my test this afternoon, and it went great. The lady had me drive around the block to basically prove that I'm not an incompetent idiot! After waiting for another 40 minutes or so, I walked out with my paper saying that my license will be mailed within 10 days.

After wasting too many hours of my time, the moral of the story is... check the expiration date on your license. Oh, and if you move, be sure to update your address with the DMV on the internet so that you'll get your renewal notice.

Be sure to stay tuned for more adventures of a scatterbrained crazy lady!