Science Center

Today we met Chris at Target to buy new lunchboxes and then headed off to the science center. We ended up spending almost three hours there! We walked around the museum and gift shop for a bit and then spend a couple hours in the children's section. After getting all of their play time in, we went to the planetarium to see a kids' laser show on Orion and then looked at tonight's sky to see what constellations we could look for. The boys want to stay up until 1 a.m. so they can see Scorpion chase after Orion. Yeah, probably not gonna happen. Tomorrow is beach day for my birthday!

Noah's eye on day 2.
Working the pizza shop.

They spent quite a bit of time building at the station behind Noah. They have a bunch of pieces and nuts and bolts.

Ethan built some sort of Star Wars ship.

Here they make a run for the ball to fall through.

Noah practices his surgery skills on the glorified Operation.

Now Will takes a stab at it.

Somehow, the boys didn't notice the giant sloth behind them. The fossil of this sloth was found just two miles from the museum.

The boys are off to soccer and I'm off to walk the dogs, again!

Accident Magnet!

Update: Still growing!

We all know that Noah is very accident prone. He is certainly trying to prove that during Spring Break! Yesterday we went to Blockbuster and on the way out he slammed his head right into the little security wall. He instantly got a huge bump on his head. During lunch he spilled his entire gingerale! Then, they were playing outside and he fell into the spa and scratched and bruised down one side of his back. Today he woke up and spilled his cereal. Spilling is a daily occurance with this child. My friend Donna took them bowling this morning and then to her house to play. While playing, Will accidently kneed Noah in the eye and now he has thing. It is just under his bump from yesterday. He may have to stay in a bubble for a few days!

Noah Helps Me Cook Enchiladas!

Noah helped me cook enchiladas for tonight's dinner.

Then things heated up in the kitchen! Surely he didn't learn this from my cooking! I would never break out into dance while cooking...never!

Various Stuff

Well, since Blogger so randomly ordered my pictures, this won't make much sense!

Friday night Will and Noah had a soccer game. They won 8-0. They each scored three goals. Chris even kept them on defense after they scored the first couple, but they were even scoring from back there! The team they played was tiny in comparison and none of the kids on the other team seemed to know much about soccer. Ethan was out and about with his friend, Pamela, so after soccer we took Will and Noah out to dinner to celebrate their win. After dinner was a rocket launch. Chris and Will went to the river to watch it and the rest of us watched it from home.

Saturday Ethan had a soccer game. They tied 2-2. They really should have won, but they didn't look good the first half at all! A kid on the other team got the first yellow card that I have seen in Ethan's league! Needless to say, he was not playing fairly or nicely. He really should have been out of the game. I don't think they like to give kids that age cards, so the ref was finally pushed to his limit. In most cases, the kid would have had two yellow cards by the half and would have been out of the game. Not to mention, if fans could get yellow cards, his dad would have certainly gotten one. After soccer and a nap, we headed to Downtown Disney to meet up with Gina, her sister, Leigha, and Aiden. They were in town to go to Discovery Cove. The boys were very excited to see their cousins.

Okay, now for the out of order chaos. (I DID NOT upload them this way, this is just the mixed up order they showed up in!)

This is the new T-Rex restaurant. It is just like the Rainforest Cafe, but dinosaur themed. We didn't get to eat there because it was just too busy with spring break! We promised the boys that we would take them back there when spring break is over. There is also a Build-A-Dino workshop inside the restaurant so they want to make their own dinosaurs as well.
This is a picture of the rocket launch from Friday night.

Here are Paige and Will during Friday night's big game. (Chris was coaching because their coach was busy with the big surf tournament in town.)

Noah running for his high five after his goal.

This was taken this morning at the beach. The beach looks empty here, but it quickly filled up and was quite busy by the time we left! We ended up staying for almost three hours because it was so nice out!

Ethan, Noah, Leigha, Will, and Aiden outside of the toy store.

These were small sized cones!!!!

The bar area of T-Rex.

The boys and I are looking forward to our week off. It is actually supposed to be fairly cool next week so I don't think we'll be at the beach much. Friday it is supposed to be back in the 80's so I can at least spend my birthday at the beach. We don't have any big plans, but we were thinking of going to the science center, the park, and maybe Merritt Island.

Pictures from Soccer, Part 2

And here are some pictures from Ethan's game. As Jen mentioned earlier, it was a hard fought battle. They lost by one goal, but they did awesome. One of the other team's goals likely shouldn't have counted either (offsides foul), but that is just the way it goes. The missed calls usually even out in the end anyway.

This is Coach Jame's son Blake. He is smiling in 99.9% of my pictures of him. I thought this was funny, because he is definitely not smiling.

This is Coach Jame's other son TJ taking a free kick. James just had his third little girl (that's right, five kids) on Wednesday, but he managed to show up for practice on Thursday and the game on Saturday. They even brought the baby to the game!

Here Ethan and the tiny wunderkind from the other team go up for a header. This kid was all over the place and had crazy ball control for a person his age.

Ally marking her man.

It's our custom to give the kids from both teams "five" after the game. I included this photo because it has Ethan in it (with his goal keeper penny halfway on).

But this is my favorite pick from this group of shots.

Pictures from Soccer, Part 1

Here's Will and Noah's coach pumping up the team before the game. Okay, he really doesn't know a thing about soccer, but at least he volunteered. I am helping him and may even offer to take over since he really doesn't want to do it.

Will showing off his offensive moves.

And some defensive moves as well.

Noah started in goal and was bored out of his mind because of the non-action at his end of the field. He even almost let in a goal because he was staring off into space due to all of the inactivity.

Since we were going to be at the fields for hours, we also brought some fun activities to do between games. Jen's Aunt Mary bought these for the boys while she was in China on vacation. They worked awesome, except for tangling up every now and then. There was a pretty constant wind which helped and hurt at the same time.





This is Arthur, AKA Bubba. He is a friend from Ethan's school. His dad plays soccer with me on Sundays as well. Just thought this was a funny picture of him.

Emma started in goal as well. Mike called her to get her attention and I think she thought that she was in trouble or something. Oops. I just wanted her to look toward the camera.


Here's Paige with her new earrings. Don't think she was thrilled that I was taking her picture, but she was a good sport and put up with it.

Soccer, Soccer, and More Soccer

Today we spent a solid 5 hours at the fields. It was 91 out, but felt great. It was partly cloudy and super windy so it didn't even feel hot out. The kids didn't even get exhausted from the heat at all. Will and Noah were the first to play and they won 3-1. Will scored 2 goals. Then we watched Emma's team play. They won 1-0, with Emma scoring the only goal of the game! Then we moved over a couple fields to watch Ethan's game. They played the toughest team on the league today and they did awesome! Although they did not win, they held their own at 3-2. With the stats of the other team, that was an impressive loss! They have a mercy rule half time or 8-0 at any point in the game. They have beaten another team 16-0 at the half!!! So to have only a 1 point spread was quite an accomplishment for Ethan's team. They are officially the 1st place losers to that team!

Noah seems to be feeling better. He tested negative for strep at his last visit. He goes back next month to be tested when he is healthy to see if he is a carrier of strep. After researching, I found that the Z-Pack tends to be resistant to strep, so it could have been that he never got rid of it in the first place.

We have only one more week of school until spring break. It is long overdue! After spring break, we only have 8 more weeks of school so it is really winding down. Or, I suppose, winding up when you consider all of the special events and behavior problems the end of the year brings.

The boys are very excited about the Kids' Choice Awards tonight. We have an orange and green theme going on for our party. (Yes, we find ANY excuse to celebrate!) We are having orange and green cake, orange and green rice crispy treats, orange and green punch, cookies, tacos, etc. Bring on the fun!

Long Winter is Over!

This has been a very long winter for Noah. He has been sick since before Christmas with perhaps one or two healthy weeks here or there. He was diagnosed with strep on March 2nd after being sick for nearly a week. He was put on a Z-pack and completed the five days of medicine. He seemed to be a bit better for a week and then started complaining that his throat hurt and once again looked completely drained. The pollen here is awful so most of us have itchy, sore throats and he did not have a fever anymore so it was hard to tell what could be causing it. I took him back to the doctor on Friday, and sure enough the strep was either back or never went away. He is now on Omnicef. It is doing a number on his stomach and I think he may be feeling worse from the medicine than he did from the strep! Not to mention, it smells so awful I can't imagine swallowing it myself. He has done a good job and drinks it down without putting up a fight. Luckily, he only has to take it once a day! He goes back to the doctor on Friday to be sure that this medicine is working. The doctor was fairly confident that it would, but if not, he will have to have his tonsils taken out. This morning he told me that he may rather have his tonsils taken out than take that yucky medicine for 7 more days.

We have been trying to take it easy this weekend for Noah's sake. It wasn't hard for me to do since I'm not feeling well either. Friday was Melissa's birthday so we celebrated with her. After taking a nap, a true sign of our age (although I am younger), we woke up at midnight so Melissa could go buy her copy of Twilight. Yesterday we spent the day relaxing at home and did the same today. Hopefully all of the rest will help Noah. He is worried about going to school tomorrow because of his upset stomach and his throat is still hurting a bit. He has been eating and drinking all along. He has a high tolerance for pain, much like his dad, so it is hard to figure out just how bad he is feeling. The big giveaway is his lack of energy. He is usually the energetic, loud, and wild one. Lately, he has been a complete couch potato. Hopefully he will be better this week. Although still funny, his spunk is missing.

Ethan's team won their soccer game again this week. I stayed home with Noah, but it sure sounded like an exciting game. They won in the last 40 seconds of the game after the other team tied it up in the last minute. Will and Noah have their first soccer game this coming Saturday. Thankfully, Ethan's game is at home so we won't have to travel all over Central Florida that day going to soccer games. We can just pitch a tent at our own fields!

Another Beach Day!

It was another day for the beach! It was even more crowded than last week though. Why do college kids have to crowd the beach when the weather is perfect??? Ugh... Although it looks like all fun and no work around here, I'm getting ready to buckle down and do some serious school work in a bit!

Ethan made a sea turtle in the sand.
Here the kids try to cool off without actually getting into the frigid water. You can tell we are not tourists. We were the only ones not swimming.

It is time to tell everyone. Will is addicted to jump roping. We try to hide them, but he finds one no matter where we go. He has self taught himself some cool tricks during his hours and hours of jump rope time.

St. Patrick's Day Party

Since St. Patrick's Day is on a weeknight, we had to celebrate early this year. We headed to Orlando this morning for Ethan's soccer game. They had another win! After spending a couple hours in Orlando after the game we headed home to pArTy!

Here the boys reenact St. Patrick throwing all the snakes in the ocean.

The kids made some St. Patrick's Day crafts. They are showing them off to me as I write this and they are so stinkin' cute!

And dinner, which included green apples, grapes, cucumbers, green waffles, green eggs, broccoli, ham (mixed St. Patrick's Day with Dr. Seuss Day), green party punch, and peas. The green dessert is still to come!

Yummy!

Warmer Days

This weekend's weather was perfect! We stayed outside nearly the entire time. Ethan had a soccer game on Saturday morning. His team won 8-0. It was a much needed win as they lost their first game of the season. After his soccer game, we had lunch at Mi Mexico and then hung out on the beach for a bit. We came home, picked up the dogs, and headed over to the Eagney's. Chris and Ethan helped Mike and Melissa do some yard work and I brought my laptop over and got some work done for school.

Today we went to the beach for a couple hours. It was actually fairly crowded. There are a lot of tourists here right now. The beach was huge though so we had gobs of space. It is nothing like Ocean City crowded! After the beach I went for a nice, long bike ride. Chris got the boys ready for his soccer game and they headed out when I got home. They brought their Ripstick, skateboard, and Power Wing with them. With all the outdoor time they had this weekend, they fell asleep right at 8:00 even though it should have felt more like 7:00.

Will, Noah, and Paige brave the cold water to test out the waves.
Will decided to feed the seagulls which he knows makes me crazy! I do NOT like birds flying around my head. He got a big kick out of it.

Emma and Noah chat and share a snack.

Ethan stuck with Chris most of time and kicked the ball around.

Noah

Well, I was home again with Noah today. He has had an on again, off again fever since last Monday. This weekend he just kept complaining about how tired he was. Yesterday he said his throat hurt a little so I called this morning for an appointment. His strep test came back positive so at least we know why he hasn't been feeling well! Poor guy.