Bobcat sighting!

We're on the boat going from Disney's Port Orleans to Downtown Disney and we just spotted a bobcat in the woods.  You might be able to make it out in the very middle of the picture.  It was much more exciting in real life, I'm sure.

Ethan's Solar System Project!!

Ethan turned in his project on the Solar System today. We had to take a picture of it because it will be destroyed before the day is over. You see, the entire project is edible and the kids will be eating it! The planets are made of cake and colored icing, Saturn's rings are made from Twizzlers, and the Asteroid Belt is made from M&M's and Reese's Pieces.

It was kind of a pain to make, but in the end it was worth it. He is happy with it and I think it turned out pretty good.

Sock Hop!

The kids are at the Read Pattillo Sock Hop tonight - and having a blast I might add.  Not too many kids are dancing, but a ton are hula hooping!  Will came close to winning the contest!

Ice Cream Time!

One Year Older

I had a great birthday! I was able to sleep in until 8:00. After breakfast, Chris and I went on a run together. We have been trying to go every day. Usually the boys either bike, rollerblade, or scooter along with us. Some days they are eager to go and other days we literally have to drag them along the way! After running, I cooled off by the pool in my new chaise and read. Melissa and I then ran a few errands. Mike and Melissa hosted an awesome 80's party for my birthday. Sam, Melissa, and I got inspired when we went to see Hot Tub Time Machine and decided to go with a theme. It was both fun and funny! Sam came prepared with lots of Minute To Win It games. We also had 80's movie quotes and general 80's trivia.

Here Melissa prepares to play a Minute to Win It game.
Sam and Stephen race to create their cereal box puzzles. Point goes to the ladies!

Chris and I race through books. Again, point goes to the ladies!

Liz looking fabulously 80's!

Donna and Sam with their Minute to Win It game. Again, ladies get the point!

Chris in his double popped collar! He had his pants cuffed and Vans on to complete the look. I definitely don't think that phone existed in the 80's!

The Return to School

Despite being totally depressed about returning to school today, there were a few perks about the day. First, there was a shuttle launch at 6:21 this morning that totally made it worth it to get out of bed! It was gorgeous in the near dark of the morning. Second, today is the start of the LAST nine weeks before summer break!!!! And, I printed out the boys report cards to see all straight A's. All in all, it made today somewhat easier. After school there was a PTA board meeting. Noah was thrilled to find out that we are planning a sock hop for school. It will be their first school dance.

We had a great Easter Day. Melissa and I did our fair share of exercise so we could enjoy a guilt-free brunch! We went for a bike ride in the morning and then jogged in the afternoon after the beach. I'll have to step up the exercise plan this week. We are having dinner out with Nancy and Carol tomorrow evening. We are meeting at Flip Flops. We always have a great time when we meet up with them. The boys want to take me out for a Birthday Eve dinner on Friday night. I told them they could pick the place because of their grades. (Trying to cover two events in one evening out.) So far I have heard Pizza Hut, Applebee's, Clancy's, Big World Pizza, and Red Robin. I may have to place a vote!!! Saturday is grilled pizza night for my birthday party. I think I just gained a couple pounds thinking about it!

My mom arrives on April 19th. The boys are beyond excited to have Grandma here for two weeks. We are also planning on meeting up with a fair share of the Schrader Crew at Disney the week of April 25th. A day at Animal Kingdom is what is on the agenda.

Let the 9 week countdown begin!

Easter beach fun!

Well, we had brunch and have moved on to the beach.  It's perfect weather, but much more crowded than usual.  Oh well, it will be back to normal after Spring Break is over, so no big deal.  Gotta go play now!

Happy Easter!

We are over at the Eagney's for brunch, and I'm going to make this short because I'm starved.  Happy Easter!

Facebook Almost Killed Our Blog!

It's no mystery that Jen is much better about posting on our blog than I am. With the popularity of Facebook though (who isn't on there, right?!?), the blog has been an afterthought. I don't do much of either, but Jen loves how easy and interactive Facebook is. There are still people out there that actually read this that aren't on Facebook though, so we needed to do something.

Fear not, Facebook haters. There is a new breath of life in our blog in the form of mobile posts. Today, I set up our phones to be able to upload directly through text messages and e-mails. In fact, this and the previous two posts were done through e-mails to Blogger. I know, we are a little late to the game. Better late than never though, right? It is much easier to just send a text message or e-mail and have it post a comment to our blog automatically.

Look for more frequent posts from the both of us from here on out. Now hopefully they will be as interesting as they are frequent, LOL!

Easter egg dying fun!

Sandball fight!?!

Scuba Noah

Noah trying to run in flippers!

February (So Far)

February has truly whizzed right by! Ethan took the FCAT Writes in the beginning of the month. It is the writing portion of Florida's NCLB testing. They write essays in 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. He thinks he did quite well. I certainly have high confidence that he did an awesome job.

On Valentine's Day, we went bowling in the morning. I'm not a big fan of bowling and usually stay home when they go. Since it was Valentine's Day I went. Despite being a terrible bowler, I still had fun. While Chris was at soccer (yes, he left me on Valentine's Day to play soccer) we all made various shaped Valentine's cookies. The kids had a blast making them and decorating them. We also made heart shaped brownies and used the leftover homemade icing on those as well! We met Chris for dinner at Tijuana Flats before coming home to eat all the yummy desserts we worked so hard on!
On President's Day we went ice skating. The kids really seem to enjoy it for the first hour or so! After that, they are freezing and ready to go. They skated for 90 minutes, but the last 30 involved a lot of complaining!

Noah
Will
Ethan
The kids love seeing the blimps that come for all of the NASCAR races. They (park, dock, tether, land???) at the New Smyrna Beach Airport so we get to see them quite a lot flying around.
On Thursday night the kids participated in the Book It! Challenge. They had a pajama party and watched both last year's and this year's webcasts. We did our part to help feed Haiti!
Today Melissa and I went to watch some of the girls from school play in their tournament. Let's just say they won by a landslide! Carmella and Letrell are so fun to watch play. They are so timid at school and turn into entirely different creatures on the court! Carmella is 4 and Letrell is 40. Next year they will move onto middle school. Those two were in kindergarten when I started teaching at Read-Pattillo so they are the first wave that I have seen all the way through.
Carmella passes it to Letrell
Carmella takes it down the court. She may be small, but she is certainly fierce!
Happy girls after the game! Let me tell you, I have been there when they have lost and this is NOT how they look after a loss!!!! They beat Daytona Beach and will play Port Orange later this afternoon. We are taking the boys to ride bikes on the beach so I'll miss that game. They have already beaten Port Orange so I think they are on their way to the Disney tournament!
Speaking of Disney, we are going on Thursday. We haven't been in quite a while so the boys are super excited. They haven't missed a single day of school so we decided to let them miss a day and go on a weekday when it won't be as crowded. It is still supposed to be 10 degrees cooler than usual next week, but that should make walking around Disney comfortable. Well, at least until the sun goes down and we start to freeze.

Images Art Festival

Today we went to Images Art Festival to walk around and look at the artists' work and look at Ethan's art work that was chosen to be displayed at the festival. It was a bit chilly and very windy today. It wasn't an enjoyable stroll as we were all chilled the entire time. Melissa and I were nerds in our toasty, warm matching boots!

They have an art tent set up that is sponsored by the Atlantic Center for the Arts. The kids can go in an do different projects. Here Paige is showing her masterpiece heart.

Ethan working on his canvas.

Will decorating a fabric piece to be sent to the troops.

Ethan's art piece.

And, the artist himself...

Recent Pictures

This weekend Paige and Emma had their birthday party at the ice skating rink. Here I am skating with one of the birthday girls and Pamela.
Paige and Emma prepare to blow out their candles in the party room.

Chris and Melissa ran a 5k for the humane society in the morning before the party.

Three of my little ones relaxing.

Will using Abby as a desk!

Cold, Then Not So Cold

It is hard to believe that last week we were bundled up in the snow and today we spent the morning at the beach in our bathing suits! What a difference a week makes. We have kept busy since our return from Christmas vacation. I have a Type A personality and always need to be on the go. Thankfully I have a friend, Melissa, that is the same so we are constantly finding something to occupy our time! I'm not sure Chris is always so thrilled with my constant need to go, but he is generally accommodating and jumps into whatever I have planned. He'll thank me one day!

Since it was so cold in Florida, we went to see the manatees at Blue Spring State Park. The colder it is, the more manatees that enter the spring to warm up in the constant 73 degree water. Cold it was, and manatees we got! There were 311 manatees in the spring while we were there. This is the same spring that we tube in the summer. Great fun year round! It was so cold while we were there that I was tempted to jump in and warm up in the water with the manatees. No swimming when manatees are present though!

Here the kids are at the head of the spring. Right after this picture was taken Ethan had a nice spill on the ice. It was priceless since he had just made a remark about me falling and I just slid! He hit the ground.
Manatees warming up!

Here we are at the historic house that the kids are sure is haunted. That is Alina's Flat Stanley in the picture.

Steam coming off the warm spring.

This long weekend has been nice! The weather has warmed up enough to make it enjoyable to be outside for playing and bike rides. Last night we took the kids to an abandoned house on Riverside Drive in the dark. They have been begging to go "investigate" the house so we took them. They all got scared and refused to even step in the grass when we got there. It was fairly amusing. We spent the morning at the beach. The boys then settled in for a nap since they have exceeded their bedtime two nights in a row and it was certainly showing!

Tis' the Season

We have been insanely busy for the last few weeks so we haven't been posting much! All of these pictures were taken by Dad during their visit. I haven't even taken the card out of my camera yet!

Ethan had a performance on the night of Grandma and Pop-Pop's arrival. The venue was Canal Street! The 4th graders performing.
After their performance half of the 4th grade, including us, headed to El Palenque for dinner. The kids had a blast sitting at their own tables.
The next night, Will and Noah had a 2nd grade performance. Will had some "parts" in the performance that turned out to be pretty funny with some antlers falling off, a microphone or two getting knocked down, etc! After the performance I rushed off to the Toy Party and the rest of the crew came home and played Push.
The next morning we headed over to the parade. We were all excited to see Elise on her float!
After the parade, the crew headed over to Flip Flops for lunch and I ran some last minute errands for the boys' birthday party. After everyone settled in from lunch, we headed over to the park to set up for the party.

Needless to say, Star Wars was the theme!
The park the boys had their party at is one of my favorites. There are always dolphins, pelicans, and manatees. There were no manatees there on the party day, but the pelicans and dolphins were as entertaining as usual.
The kids enjoyed some volleyball fun.
The birthday present opening event. There were lots and lots of kids at the party. I never figured out how many, but definitely enough!
Ethan with his buds Anthony and Spencer.
Sunday morning we woke up and headed to St. Augustine. Here we walk down St. George Street.

Here we take a short break in front of Castillo de San Marcos before going in. The boys were very excited to see them fire the cannon. At some point, I would really like to spend a long weekend in St. Augustine. There is plenty to see and certainly plenty of shopping. The boys get bored quickly and won't let me explore as much as I would like!
We all had a great visit while Mom and Dad were here. It was so filled with activities that it went by way too fast!

The last week of school whizzed by. Between evening parties and events it was over before we knew it. This weekend was also filled with holiday events. I FINALLY got to go to Pamela's dance recital. She did an awesome job! On Sunday I went to see Blind Side. It was really good! Last night was GNO at Flip Flops and tonight is "Christmas" dinner with the Eagney's before we head north to my parents'.