Well, things have not been going smoothly with the fancy new computer. Ever since Chris got the fancy new computer and fancy new camera, the pictures have not been getting converted in order to be able to post! At any rate, I'll update with what was converted.

TODAY - Ethan had a field trip to the Daytona Beach Arts & Science Museum. He went to look at fossils and had a great time. He was very excited to tell me all about it. After school we played some mad rounds of Zigity. Will and Noah had no interest so Ethan and I played. We played 5 rounds. I'm Zigityed out! Tonight the boys have a football game.

YESTERDAY- Chris was home with Ethan. Ethan was up all Wednesday night with a severe earache and was throwing up. Since Chris was up with him most of the night he stayed home with him. Ethan didn't get an appointment until 2:45. He indeed had an ear infection. I can't complain because normally each boy has had several ear infections by this time of the year and this is the first one so far this fall/winter. He was put on a Z pack and was feeling well enough today to go on his field trip.

TUESDAY- The boys had a football game. Pop-Pop would have enjoyed being at this game. The New Smyrna Beach Airport is directly behind the city field and there is a blimp parked there. It flew around the fields during the game. The boys' team remains undefeated!

By the end of the game it was dark and the moon was amazing! You can't really tell from this picture, but it was gigantic and bright orange as it rose over the ocean.
MONDAY- Monday was enjoyable as we had no school! We went to the park for a couple of hours with the girls and Hanzie. The kids all had lunch, played on the playground, played some soccer & football, and went for a hike. After the park we came home and cleaned out all the leaves from the flower bed and vacuumed the van. Thrilling!

SUNDAY- Sunday was not a very exciting day. We went to Home Depot to buy some plants (see below). Chris and Ethan went to soccer. Ethan was able to play since not too many adults showed up and scored two goals! We had enchiladas for dinner with Mike and Melissa and Emma and Paige spent the night. It was everything a Sunday should be!

SATURDAY- Saturday morning we had a delayed inspiration from Jennifer and decided to rip out all the gigantic bushed that were in front of our house. We ripped out everything except the palm. We have never liked those bushes since we moved in and finally did away with them. We are replacing them with dwarf oleanders and a queen palm. It makes our house look a million times better already. We have several dwarf oleanders planted in the backyard around the pool and love them. Hopefully we will like them just as much out front. We aren't entirely sure what color they will flower since they are not flowering right. We have pale pink flowers in the back which I love. I have a feeling these will be dark pink, but it will still be okay. After doing the yard work and dealing with an Ethan incident that I won't even bother getting into, we were off to Will's horseback riding lessons. He rode Maggie this time and once again had a blast! Sorry, no converted pictures! We went straight from horseback riding to grocery shopping. We got home, put the groceries away, and were right out the door to Emma's birthday party/sleepover. All the kids at the party were having a blast! Will can't deal with noise when he is trying to sleep so he chose to come home with me at 8:30. Ethan and Noah stayed the night.

FRIDAY- Kids had no school on Friday because it was a teacher work day. The boys came to school with me and played nicely with Bryce all day. They have been dying to go to Eatza Pizza and try it. We walked over there for lunch and the boys weren't very impressed. I think that mostly had to do with the two school groups that were there at the same time hogging the entire arcade! Friday night we went to Emma's basketball game to cheer her on. They showed great improvement! It was fun shouting, "Get your head in the game!" Any time you can work in a HSM line it's all worth it! They only lost by 2! Hopefully tomorrow night they will win.

Here are the boys cheering Emma's team on during the game...

THURSDAY NIGHT- Last Thursday night the boys obviously won their game since they remained undefeated.

Not much thrilling news to report here. The boys had a flag football game on Tuesday night. Their team remains undefeated after their 4th game. Will is usually the sport fanatic and he does not seem to be into the whole football thing. He is more of a spectator on the field than a player! I'm not complaining that football isn't his thing as it is not my favorite sport either, but it is surprising. Ethan did a great job blocking the last game. He seems to have gotten the idea that you need to try to stop other players from making a pass. Noah had an awesome run at the end of the game. He made it most of the way down the field in the last 10 seconds of the game. Unfortunately that was the final play of the game and he wasn't able to follow it through for a touchdown. Maybe tonight! The weather is not great today so their game may be cancelled tonight. We have had true football weather this week. It has been quite chilly. The only other major event of the week is that Noah has claimed that he will indeed be home schooled for college. He is not leaving us. Will also decided this was a good idea and has also said he will take the home schooled route for college. We'll see if they change their minds when they are 18!

The governor visited our neighborhood yesterday to recruit voters for his property tax initiative. Apparently he could only find one person in Central Florida that supports it and that person lives in our neighborhood. While we were at school yesterday our neighborhood was quite abuzz with police and news crews. I'm sure Hanzie enjoyed all of that commotion! Our PI (Mike) went to check out what all the commotion was. I thought perhaps that dead thing in the pond wasn't a fish afterall. Nope, just the gov.

This weekend we went to Hammock Beach Resort in Palm Beach. Chris had a business trip and we tagged along. We checked in Friday night and went to a cocktail party at Chris' boss' suite. The boys stayed up until 10:00! That is hours past their normal bedtime. We were at the pool by 9:00 on Saturday morning. Kyle came to hang out at the pool with us as well. We started out at the indoor pool and when the sun came out we moved outside. The outside pool had a huge water slide, a lazy river, and a beach entry pool. The kids loved it. They played there for hours. We met Chris in the room for lunch at noon. Chris had to go back to meetings at 1:00 and the boys crashed for a nap. Chris woke us up just before 3:00. We went back out to the pool and beach. By that time, the clouds had rolled in and it was breezy and too chilly for the outdoor pool. The boys swam with Chris in the indoor pool and played a little table tennis. We went for a short walk on the beach before it began storming. Poor Chris never got to go to the outdoor pool. It was gorgeous while we were out there. We enjoyed the warm, sunny 80's!

They came down the water slide so fast that this is the best picture I could get!
Ethan took an underwater photo of Chris at the indoor pool.
Noah and Kyle goofing off at the indoor pool.

Our short walk on the beach!


The lazy river was the only pool that was not heated. They wouldn't even put their bottoms in the water. Noah managed to turn himself over so he had to experience the cold water.

Saturday night the boys went to the Kids' Crew Club with all the other kids from Chris' office. They seemed to have a ton of fun. Noah won the hearts of all the babysitters there. This morning he said that he was going to miss his new friends (babysitters) from the hotel! He left his mark by giving them an autographed picture before he left! While the boys went to the Kids' Club, we went to dinner with everyone from Chris' office. It was fun. The boys apparently missed all of their toys while we were gone. The second we got home they started pulling everything out!

Here is the icky thing I was referring to earlier. Someone apparently gutted a huge fish and threw it into the retention pond next to our house. There are fish living in the retention pond, but I don't think any fish of this size are naturally found in there! There were dozens of buzzards hanging out there for two days feasting on it. Yuck! There were more buzzards lining both sides of the pond as well. Those didn't fit in the picture.
Noah needs a larger bike. I told him to try out Will's bike to see if he could ride it. Somehow he convinced Will to switch bikes for the entire ride. Will got frustrated riding Noah's tiny bike and finally just walked it home. Noah, on the other hand, was pleased with the speed he could pick up on Will's bike and tore through the neighborhood. I was waiting for him to crash, but he managed not to.

The boys had their first football game on Tuesday. Their game started really late and we didn't end up getting home until after bedtime, but they won! Okay, technically it wasn't a win since it is a training league, but they did score the most touchdowns.
"I believe this belongs to you!"
By the end of the night the fog had set in and from where I was sitting I could barely see the game anymore!

Hanzie is doing much better so I am grateful for that! We even got out for a nice walk this afternoon after school and he could walk freely without any pain! I'll have to post of picture later tonight of what we saw on the walk. Icky!

Tonight is their second football game. It starts earlier in the evening so hopefully we'll get home before 8:00!

As promised, a few pictures from Will's horseback riding lesson.

Will got to brush his horse JayJay and clean his feet before heading out for the lesson.
JayJay being led out to the ring.
Will mounting JayJay.
And he is off...
And we are off to the boys' first flag football game of the season!

We are back to reality! School started today and the temperatures warmed up to the Florida norm. The boys did remarkably well this morning getting up early, showering, having breakfast, and getting out the door. Noah's day got progressively worse, but I'll share that story in a minute.

Will had his first horseback riding lesson on Saturday morning. Since our new computer arrived Friday afternoon and Chris does not have everything set up yet, I have no pictures to share just yet. Chris has been working hard all weekend getting everything up and running on the new computer so you are only safe from pictures for a short while! At any rate, Will absolutely loved horseback riding. He really likes his instructor. He rarely comments on anything and said that Hope is very nice when we got in the van. Sunday was a relaxing day. I was finally able to ride my bike a bit on Saturday and Sunday. My back is healed enough to not be in complete agony when I get home! After my ride Sunday, I promised the boys that I would take them for a ride to the park. I strapped their tennis rackets on my bike and off we went. I brought my book along to read while they played tennis. Well, Will lasted about 2 minutes on the court with Ethan and then was off to the playground with Noah. Since Ethan didn't have a partner that left me to fill the vacancy. It was a big mistake. I thought I was taking it easy while I was playing, but obviously not. My back has been killing me since. It is still better than it was though, so that is good!

So, I got radioed during my lunch today by the nurse. My first reaction when I heard her calling me was that Ethan was up there complaining about his ear. His ear was hurting all day Sunday. Well, it wasn't Ethan. She said she didn't want to explain it over the radio and that I needed to come up to the clinic. So, I get up there and Noah is sitting there looking quite cross. As it turns out, he spilled his juice all over himself at lunch and his shorts were soaked. The shorts that Nurse Lisa had given him were not at all meshing with his fashion standards. They were too big, ugly, and most of all didn't match his shirt! So, I was called to get him to back to class in the "ugly" shorts. After explaining to him that we had no other shorts to offer, and we indeed were not the klutzes that spilled the juice he was off to class. When we got home he got on the step stool on the pantry to plan out his dinner and fell right on the big Kitchenaid mixer. He got a nasty bruise and huge bump on his shin. We iced it as long as we could before we had to leave to take Hanzie to the vet. While at the vet he hit his shin on the chair and was crying in pain when the vet came in. He kindly offered to give Noah a shot of something to make it feel better. Well, Noah just said, "You're not a real doctor!" Umm... well I had to explain to Noah that he was indeed a real doctor. Noah said, "Yeah for animals!!!" He was so upset from his bad day that he passed out on the couch the second we got home from the vet. The poor guy had to be woken up just minutes later to go to football practice!

Hanzie got a shot of cortisone. Hopefully that will help with his allergy issues. He was also given an antibiotic in case his paws are infected. He has completely chewed off one pad on each front paw. It looks horrible and he can't even walk! He also needs to continue on his Benadryl routine. He takes two each morning and two each evening. They haven't seemed to help much this year. This is the time of the year when he should be out enjoying the dog park, dog beach, and parks. Instead he is stuck inside and miserable!

Happy 7th Birthday to Miss Emma! She celebrated with a little bowling and Pizza Hut lunch buffet. I don't have many pictures to offer as none of them turned out!
The Birthday Girl opening her All Access High School Musical book from the boys. That kept them entertained while they waited for their turn to come up.

Noah taking a turn. At some points during the game I thought he was going to go down the lane with the ball!
Tonight the Eagney's are hosting a fire at their house to celebrate the cold weather! They are even calling for snow flurries here tonight.

Here are a few pictures from New Year's Eve. This was the "singles" table.
They started out with appetizers and grape champagne.
They stayed up until midnight NYEST. That would be New Year's Eve Standard Time which sets all the clocks in the house 3 hours ahead. They toasted and then had some monkey bread and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
We stayed up past midnight EST. We ended up playing the Wii all night. We played Guitar Heroes III, Boogie, and Kabooki (Cranium board game turned into a Wii game). We flipped over to Times Square with 15 seconds to spare!

Here are a couple pictures of Will's lovely rash. His hands, feet, arms, and legs were also covered in it. He got it again yesterday morning. I think it must have been the Apple Jacks he ate. I have no idea how he could have a reaction to Apple Jacks and no other cereal, but apparently he did! He had it both mornings about 20 minutes after eating breakfast. Today he had waffles and no reaction!

Oh, dear...

Direct from www.wftv.com

Wednesday & Wednesday Night: **Freeze Warnings will likely be required for most of Central Florida Wednesday PM through Thursday AM** Our coldest weather in about 5 years moves in! Highs will be in the upper 40s with lows in the 20 and 30s!

Yesterday was not only Aunt Kate's birthday, but also Paigey Pie's birthday. We are sad that Kate wasn't here. We would have loved to take her to Mi Mexico for a vegetarian fajita quesadilla. Paige had her party at McDonald's. Outside of Chris setting off the security alarm in the middle of the party, it went great! Chris and Mike couldn't get enough pictures of me and Katie.
Sophi at the top of the playground!
Kung Fu birthday- I don't know!
Paige looked a little confused by our present. We had given her a pink bat and ball for Christmas and got her the tee for her birthday. I think she was thinking, "What the h#**!"
Today we went to Target to return Ethan's electric guitar. We have already returned it once and even the exchange was damaged. So, now Chris is back in the market to find Ethan a new one that will actually work. After Target we went to the boys' favorite park for a while until it started to rain. The coldest weather to hit Florida in FIVE years is on the way. I'm not sure we'll survive it. We may need to turn on the heat! The AC is on right now!

Oh, and we have a new Will story to add to the books. My back has been hurting for the last couple of weeks and the last couple of days have been exceptionally bad. I resorted to using Bengay last night. This morning while Chris was eating breakfast he noticed that Will had a rash all over his body. I instantly thought of the Bengay bottle that Will had just brought to me and asked him if he had opened it. He said, "No, I just brought it to you." He didn't smell like Bengay so Chris was sure it wasn't that. We gave him some Benadryl and watched him. The rash started to fade so we knew it had to be some sort of allergic reaction. Later when Will was sitting on me on the couch he told me that he and Noah had been sniffing the Bengay. I guess he inhaled a bit too much!

We hope everyone has a fun, safe New Year's.

The Rocking Rockets Rock Band! The boys set up their jam session area yesterday after I took down the Christmas tree. We had Will on the keyboard, Ethan on the electric guitar, and Noah on the drums and microphone. We got some rope lighting yesterday and they all got new matching rocket pajamas, hence their band name and uniform. They are begging us to get out the fog machine and strobe light out for their performances. We may need to start charging for their performances with their elaborate set-up. I can't promise the music will equal the show itself. But, hey all those other pop stars lip sync.

So, Lori, this is what beats your winter wonderland. Chris and Mike went up to the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse last night to take some pictures. Chris and I went for a long bike ride last night and the moon was amazing over the river and ocean. Of course we didn't have a camera with us then!
Today we signed Will up for horseback riding lessons. We had previously checked out a barn that was sketchy and we were not at all comfortable sending him there. So, today, we checked out a new one that Melissa found and it was really nice. The barn is brand new and beautiful. The horses were all well cared for and seemed happy. They had very nice fields to play in as well. He starts next Friday and is very excited! Emma is taking lessons with him so they should have a lot of fun.

Today is Pop-Pop Wayne's birthday. He just told Alina and Aidan that he was turning 36. Ha! Will and I made him a cake while Ethan and Noah were at the beach with my mom. It is sunny and 80 here today. Tonight we are going out to dinner.

As if we haven't had enough sad news currently, Ethan's old kindergarten aide teacher passed away on Sunday. It was a very unexpected death. She leaves behind teenage boys that were everything to her. It is so saddening. She was such a young, vibrant, wonderful woman. She is the one that turned Ethan onto reading. She always got him excited about reading and Ethan really bonded with her. His desk was next to her desk in the classroom and he would always come home with Ms. Spinney stories. I was lucky enough to get to know her by eating lunch with her each day while she was at our school. I'm still in complete disbelief. I will miss seeing her and Tom walking along Riverside Drive each Tuesday and Thursday while I'm out for my bike ride.

Last night we had Christmas Eve dinner at our house. We had our traditional lasagna dinner. The Eagney's along with Greg, Karen, and Bobbie joined us as well. Melissa and I pose in front of the Christmas tree.
Paige seemed happy with her pink baseball bat and ball. The girls all looked so pretty in their Christmas dressed and beautiful hair!

The champagne (aka sparkling grape juice) came out at dessert time. The boys got awfully silly after that!
Guitar Heroes III was the hit of the party! We only managed to squeeze in a few minutes of Sing It!
The boys woke up at 3:15 this morning ready to open their presents. They opened their stockings and then came in and started digging through the stuff under the tree. I sent them back to bed and they lasted until 6:15. Chris hasn't converted the Christmas pictures yet so those will be up later. We went to the park this afternoon and then came home and had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and broccoli casserole. Everything was delicious! The kitchen is once again all cleaned up and begging me to make Steph's apple pie recipe!

On Ethan's birthday the boys started the day at Bob Evan's with Pop-Pop and Daddy. My mom and I did the grocery shopping for Christmas Eve and Christmas dinners. We all met back at the house and headed back to the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. First we stopped to see the manatees. They were mildly entertaining. Chris and I brought out bikes this time and biked the nature loop. It was a lot of fun biking though there and we saw lots of birds and gators. The boys drove through with Grandma and Pop-Pop. Pop-Pop left the doors of the van opened as they drove through so the boys thought that was really cool.

These are the Roseate Spoonbills that always hang out at the refuge. They are by far the prettiest birds there, mostly that is because they are pink and what is cuter than a pink bird??
This is the large alligator that we saw sunning himself.
This guy was a lot smaller. I noticed him while we were biking so we slammed on our brakes. Since we were biking on rocks we slid when we tried to stop. Rather than scaring this gator away it made him quickly approach us. He came full speed at us and I hopped on my bike!
He came right up to the bank where we were standing to check us out. Once he turned and got a safe distance away I posed with him.
After we biked the loop we went to the visitors center and walked around there.

Immediately following Ethan's party, the boys had their first flag football practice. Of course as we were packing up the car after the party it got sunny and warm!

Ethan practicing his catch.
Noah making a pass.
Will making a pass to Bryce.

Ethan, Will, and Bryce going after Spencer.
Ethan trying to outrun Noah.