March Madness

March has been a busy month for us so I haven't been the best about posting things as they happen. I started feeling guilty until I began thinking about how much I've had going on this month. So, to remember the madness I thought I'd record a little snapshot of what's been keeping me so busy :

-Both of the older boys started baseball practice this month so now on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are their practice nights with piano lessons still on Wednesdays.

- I was asked to teach an Enrichment class earlier this month on making easy little girl dresses for Easter (a post about this will be coming soon as I want EVERYONE who DOESN'T sew to know that they can STILL make cute dresses for their daughters).

-I got to play interior decorator for a friend of mine who wanted me to design their daughters bedroom. It was my first assignment in decorating and designing a room for someone else.

-The kids were on Spring Break for a week this month which meant lots of carting kids and their friends around and traveling to visit family.

-A while back I decided to do a 10 year sideshow project as a secret gift for Aaron and I's 10th wedding anniversary (which is in the beginning of April). And of course I procrastinated until a month before our anniversary......It took FOREVER but turned out great.

- I sanded, stripped, puttied, sanded, puttied sanded, caulked, painted and polyurethaned our wood staircase-FINALLY!!! (I'll attach before & after pictures once Aaron finishes sheet rocking and doing the molding and trim around them).

-On top of everything else I'm now in full training mode for the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon coming up in June.

Ahhhhhhh!, okay,so now I'm making myself tired and feeling like I need to take April off!!! Well at least going over all that stuff has alleviated my guilt about being such a slacker on my blog. But since this IS a family journal, I can't just skip this month so here's some pictures of our month and some funny moments and memories to go along with it.

St. Patrick's Day Fun

Okay, so it isn't very appetizing to look at, but its become a tradition to turn one of our favorite dishes (Chicken Curry) into a green entree for our St. Patrick's Day dinner. Between dinner and dessert I usually go through a whole bottle of food coloring. But the kids have fun eating the green foods and it gives me a chance to observe how quickly each child's metabolism works as I hear the cries anywhere from 12 -48 hours later calling from the bathroom, "Mom,...... I have green poop!" (I know that's so disgusting, but I just had to add if for memory's sake).

Museum of Flight

This month for our family activity we took the kids to the Boeing Museum of Flight. If you haven't been you have to go! We had so much fun and learned so many interesting things. There are full size planes and jets hanging from the celiling and jets with cockpits that the kids got to sit in. There is also a 3-D flight simulator shuttle ride (like Star Tours in Disneyland), an out of commission space shuttle you can walk through, and many other activities and interactive displays.

We got to go inside the Concorde supersonic jet and even saw the moon buggy on display which was special for me because my Grandpa Kepler who retired from Boeing was actually on the team that designed and produced the original moon buggy. Pretty fun stuff and very educational. Jacob got to go on a commercial airplane and see a real cockpit up close which was special for him since he still wants to be an airplane pilot when he grows up. (I think he was a little intimidated by all of the dials and buttons though). Overall, it was a really fun day.

Lauren discovers Make-up

More than once this month I have gone into the bathroom to find Lauren has gotten into my makeup. Initially I was so annoyed that she kept getting into it even after repeatedly telling her to stay out. But I secretly have to admit that it's kind of cute how she watches me put on my makeup and then later (when I'm not around) will try to put on make up too. I about died when I came in the bathroom the other day and found her with mascara smeared all over her eyes. She had no idea how ridiculous she looked until I put her up on the counter to look in the mirror. She hasn't gotten into the mascara since.

March Madness Brackets Champion

As if Jacob needed any more reason to be cocky. His bracket picks for the College basketball finals landed him first in the Laws/Powers family brackets championships. There was quite a bit of smack talk going on between the top competitors but in the end they were all smoked by the youngest challenger of all-a 7 year old boy. Here is a copy of the e-mail that Aaron sent out to his family on Jacob's behalf after he clinched the win......

Actual remarks from Jacob Laws...aka “Jacob_the_Winner”:

“Well, dear family. My sincerest condolences to you all for your dreams that got crushed under the weight of my mighty basketball bracket selection prowess. I may have started out slow, but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. The truth is, I didn’t really start out slow, I actually had so much confidence in my picks that I threw a couple of games in the early rounds that I knew wouldn’t matter. Why would I do such a thing? Well, for the good of the family, I wanted everyone to be involved and feel like they had a chance. Take Critter for example: He looked strong in the beginning and had it not been for his early commanding lead that gave him such a morale boost, he may have gotten discouraged and not played next year. After all, he’s been through a lot. So yes, I threw a couple games so you all could enjoy a few days of being on top. Unfortunately, for Tammy, I couldn’t throw enough games to pick you up off of the bottom of the pile, some things you just can’t help. As for my tactics, you could say I “took one for the team”, or you could also call me a hustler, either way, I won and you didn’t.”


OK, you got me, that wasn’t really Jacob, that was me... Here’s Jacobs real comments:

“School is out, hope you learned something, better luck next year...”


OK, that was me again...for real this time:

“Woohoo! I won!”- Jacob Laws- 2009 March Madness Champion


Anyway, it was fun, thanks for playing. I’m looking forward to next year.

Aaron

Ben & the "Indian Song"

All of the boys really love playing the piano but this month Ben has blossomed in his abilities to play things by ear. Jacob is the only one of the boys taking lessons but Ben will listen to the songs that Jacob is practicing and later on play them by ear. This month he has been perfecting the "Indian Song" and I have heard this song played by all three boys dozens and dozens of times this month. It's pretty much been the soundtrack in our home for the month of March. All of the boys have been obsessed with playing this song. It's pretty funny though, because once Ben learned the notes he was actually better at playing it than Jacob was. Above is a clip of him playing part of the song.

Spring Break

I LOVED being on Spring break and not having to get kids to the bus, pick them up, or worry about homework. We had a lot of fun having friends over to play, visiting family (Uncle Keith & Aunt Marla) and swimming at the pool in Gig Harbor. One of the highlights for me was having the original "Durand Place" over to our house for the day. We used to live on Durand Place in a development on a cul-de-sac. Leaving that home was hard for me not just because we'd been there for so long and had so many great memories but because it was such a great neighborhood for our kids to grow up in. We were there for almost 5 years and so we watched a lot of the kids on the street grow from being toddlers to bike riders. We had many great memories with all the neighborhood kids playing baseball in the cul-de-sac, getting ice cream from the ice-cream truck, sledding down steep driveways, running through the sprinklers and jumping on the trampoline. I feel bad that we don't see each other much now that we've moved (even though we're still in the same town). So I invited them all over to our house for the day and it was so much fun! I was happy that even the older boys still wanted to come....although I think they probably just came because they knew they'd be getting homemade chocolate chip cookies (I always make them when they come over). I just love these kids and feel such an attachment to them. It was a great day. In the afternoon we went down to the beach by our house and enjoyed the sunshine. I was sad when I had to take them back home. ):

SO THAT'S IT........
A LITTLE OF OUR MARCH MADNESS THAT MADE FOR A VERY BUSY MONTH WITH LOTS OF GOOD TIMES & GREAT MEMORIES.