It’s time to write again, but I’m trying to think of what I have to say.

The weather has been great the last few days – the boys even got to play in the sprinkler a bit. It has been in the upper 70’s – low 80’s for several days, but is supposed to cool down and rain for the next four days. All the farmers have been working like crazy today trying to get as much done as possible before the rain arrives. If we get a lot they aren’t able to go back in the fields for awhile because they will be too soggy.

We had two big trees cut down Saturday morning, to make room for the addition they are planning for the church. The kids loved watching the big tree trucks take care of the job. Then they had even more fun climbing on them once they were down. When Snickers (Mommy kitty) heard the chainsaws start up she decided they were too close to confort to the shop, so she moved all her kittens to under the deck. So they have been coming out to play and are all starting to eat solid food. If we keep handling them like we are, they should be nice and friendly just like our others. Everyone always asks how we have such friendly non-timid country cats. Well…. lots of love – from the very beginning.

After the tree cutting we were off to soccer games Sat. What a difference a week makes – last week we froze and had snow in the afternoon. This week we got sunburns. Go figure.

We got the basement halfway re-organized this week. What a difference that paint made instead of that dark old dirty carpet. It is soooo nice! Once we have everything put back together and a couple throw rugs down it will be perfect. Although, Dane doesn’t want throw rugs as he has been riding his little push car (that he has rode since he was tiny tiny) down there like a mad man. He can go nice and fast on that cement! He generally does that while I am exercising – gets his exercise too!

Speaking of exercising… I didn’t at all last week since our basement was in chaos… and I gained two pounds. So back on the bandwagon this week. I might have to go back to no desserts too – like at lent. They are such a downfall for me!

I am working on another new web-site with my friend Susanne. This is much bigger than anything we have done before, but she’s doing most of the work and I’m kind of along for the ride so I’m okay with that. It’s not up yet, but is called The Daycare Portal. It will be resources for daycare providers.

I’m trying to think what else is going on around here… Not much. School gets out a month from tomorrow! Ryan has achievement tests this week. He seems to think they’re fun, so that is good.

Take care!
C-

Well, the soccer games didn’t get cancelled…. It was 36 degrees, and raining. Matt graciously offered to stay home with Dane, so off we went. I dressed in layers and had a blanket so I did okay for the first hour, but by the end of the second hour I was like a popcycle. Christian did awesome in his first game. Ryan on the other hand, I don’t think has any soccer genes in him… He has played a couple other seasons, but he still isn’t really into it. He wanted to do it this year – we didn’t force him or anything, but unless he gains a little more skill and enthusiasm, I think we’ll discourage him from signing up next year. We had a big long discussion about how God gives all different talents and abilities.

I’m still suffering through my cold. I’m sure sitting outside and freezing helped. LOL Dane has it now too, so I’m guessing everyone will have it in the end. He woke up three times last night crying because his nose was stuffy. I tried putting some Vics Vapor Rub on him, but it must have gotten too hot in our move or something because it didn’t smell at all anymore.

After we warmed up yesterday I took Christian with me to town. It was snowing big huge fluffy flakes by then. We took a look in the antique store (scoping it out for grandma when she comes to visit… – It’s pretty good Grandma!) and then went to Wal-Mart and the Grocery Stores. (yes both of them). I brought home pizza and we had an early dinner and a lazy evening.

I forgot to mention my weigh in from last week. I lost two pounds last week and weighed in again this morning (every Sunday) and lost two more pounds. So that is 10 gone! YEA! Doesn’t really feel like that many, but my skirt did fit a little looser today, so I guess that is proof.

It’s Matt’s birthday, so today at church he announces that our Bible Study group is invited over for dinner to celebrate. We had talked about it a couple weeks ago, but never finalized anything… So I guess I am preparing dinner for 18 people tonight! Actually Matt is grilling a prime rib on the rotisserie, so I just have to do all the side dishes. It will be fun, but I was a bit surprised to hear we were having dinner. LOL Guess we had a communication break down somewhere in there. Anyway, so I better run and clean up the kitchen and figure out what I’m making. I told everyone it wouldn’t be anything fancy – just the basics, meat, mashed potatoes, corn etc. They’re all good friends so they totally understand. Matt has a meeting at church this afternoon and then I am sure he will watch the race and enjoy his day. – Which is a good thing.

Take Care!
C-

I finally updated the picture gallery. http://www.pastorsfamily.com/Feb27-April42007/Feb27-April132007/ is the direct link or you can use the button above.

I have the spring cold that is going around. I feel pretty yucky, but I guess I can’t complain since I was hardly sick at all this winter. It has made me pretty lazy this week.

We are glad Easter is over with. We had a good day – although it was very cold… See the boys in the gallery hunting Easter Eggs with their winter coats on. LOL We had a nice church service, went to the neighbors for dinner and then came home and took naps. Then I stayed up late reading “Drowning Ruth”, That I picked up off of Posh Points. ( http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com/poshpoints) I love that place. It was a pretty good book – keeps you guessing through a lot of it as the story weaves together.

Ryan had a field trip today to the high school in the town over. The FFA brought their animals and put on a petting zoo. They had pigs, turkeys, a pony, dog, cat and “some other things” – in his words. Matt went along to drive as one of the youth in our church was helping with the zoo.

Here’s a funny. Last night I was cooking dinner and I told Christian that I needed to start the rice cooker. He says “Mom, can we have that rice that is sticky like boogers?” Matt and I about died laughing – he said it so matter of factly. So yes… we had sticky “booger” rice. Yum Yum!

It is still cold… we had snow flakes yesterday. Soccer practice was cancelled on Wednesday because it was only 38 at soccer time. They are supposed to have their first game Sat. so we’ll see! I think it’s supposed to rain. Oh, yup, I just looked at tomorrow – high of 39 with a mix or rain and snow. I’m guessing no game… At least I hope not as they are scheduled to be there for three hours between the two of them! BRRRR! I’ll have to sit in the car with the heater on. Next week it is supposed to warm up some… We can hope! I need to start getting that garden plotted out soon! So much for our 80 degree weather we had a couple weeks ago.

We got the boys a new chore chart and they have been working hard to earn tokens that they can exchange for dimes. So far they have been delighted to do their chores. We’ll see how long it lasts!

Dane made the 2 1/2 mark on April 1st. He is starting to copy EVERYTHING you say or do. Ryan is learning he has to think before he acts.

Well, I think that is it for now. My head is cloudy with this cold so I am sure I am forgetting something, but dinner is in the crock-pot so I’m going to go relax. Have a great weekend!

I have a couple minutes, so I thought I would write a bit more tonight. It’s so much easier to remember the “day of” instead of a week later.

Today entailed getting Ryan off to school, a big thunderstorm when I got home that we watched for awhile, laundry, working out, coming back upstairs after working out (totally sweaty, in a little camisole and jammie pants) with a lady from church knocking on the door and inviting us over for lunch with the sewing group. (I was really wishing I could hide at that point but Christian had already invited her in. LOL) So I popped into the shower super quick, blended up a smoothie to take and share (even quicker) and then hauled Christian and Dane over there. (Matt was out visiting) We had lunch and listened to the incredible stories and looked at the incredible pictures of our neighbor who just got back from Florida for the winter. They were less than a mile away from the big tornado that hit there this winter. She had an awesome opportunity to minister. Got home, put Dane down for a nap, worked on my business for an hour. Went and picked up Ryan, took a 1/2 an hour nap, went out to dinner (Ryan’s class got free pizza’s because their teacher was teacher of the month through a local radio station), came home, Ryan did his homework, went to the talent festival at school, got the kids to bed, and here I am. Another busy day. I have a bit more work and then I’ll have to watch Americal Idol (that is recorded) and off to sleep. Whew!

I forgot to mention a couple things yesterday. Dane has decided his favorite color is yellow. Everything he picks lately is yellow. So Ryan is still green, Christian is red, and I guess Dane is officially yellow – for those of you (grandparents) who like to buy things color coded.

Also, Matt and I measured our house the other day, as we were curious of it’s square footage and no one from church seemed to know. We came up with approx. 3600 square feet… So that is more than double our house in Marysville – no wonder it felt so large when we got here! We love the space!

All right, I need to write my newsletter for Dine Without Whine and head to bed.

C-

My goodness, where does time go? I’ll see if I can do a bit of a recap here.

The Marriage Conference was okay. A lot of the stuff we went over we could have just read out of the material they gave us as that is what they were doing. However, when we got to the exercises, that was good. The kids did well with the sitter.

Last Sunday March 25th – We went to the final Dartball Tournament all day. It was a bit long (6 hours) but the kids had a good time. Dartball is a game of darts that are thrown at a dartboard that looks like a baseball diamond. Basically baseball with darts. The men of the church play and each church in the area has a team. I guess it is the thing farmers do in the winter. LOL We had never heard of it until we came here. Anyway, that night Christian woke up at about 3:00 a.m. throwing up. So we did the big carpet shampoo thing and jumped into bed. He was fine in the morning, so I don’t know if he ate something bad or had a bug, but no one else got it whatever it was thankfully.
I didn’t lose (or gain) weight in my weight in.

Monday we went to Champaign to get the boys soccer cleats , shin guards and socks after school. Then out to dinner at the China Buffet. YUM!

Tuesday night Matt went to the Youth For Christ Dinner to do the invocation, I stayed home with the boys.

Wednesday – Church Lenten dinner and service. Ryan got his report card. He seems to be slacking off a bit – getting a bit messy, but he is stil getting all A’s and B’s. He did get his Game Boy taken away until he can do neater work.

Thursday – First Soccer Practice – 5:30 – 7:00. We were freezing, so Dane and I headed across the street to Dairy Queen to order some dinner. I am thankful we did because Matt had a meeting at 7:30 and it took 35 minutes for them to prepare our meal. YIKES! Thankfully there was a friend from church there so we sat and chatted the whole time. Her daughters were at soccer as well. The boys had a great time.

Friday – No school – Spring Conferences. We had good chats with boys Ryan and Christian’s teachers. Nothing major – Ryan just needs to take his time a bit more and Christian needs to keep working on his letters, but he’s ready for Kindergarten she says. He’s all pre-registered and ready to go for next year. Youth group in the evening at our house.

Saturday – a nice lazy day at home. Matt went to a birthday party for one of our members.

Sunday – Palm Sunday and Confirmation. We have one of those alarm clocks that automatically sets itself… Well it didn’t fix itself like it was supposed to for Daylight Savings Time, but instead did it this week. So we accidentally got up an hour early thanks to our clock. That was pretty funny. April Fool’s on us I guess! How appropriate! After church we went to the Confirmation party of the girl that was confirmed. Then we came home for naps and had Bible Study in the evening at our house.
I lost another pound in my weigh in – that is 6 pounds gone.

Today – The kids talent festival projects were due, so we hauled those off to school this morning. Ryan made a space island with lego’s and Christian made a Tinker Toy Rocket Man. I did all the errands – dry cleaners, Wal-Mart, and Grocery Store while Christian was at school and Matt stayed home with Dane while he napped. This afternoon and evening I had to do all the month end stuff for the biz. Church Council for Matt Tonight. It was a lovely evening so we had our first picnic / BBQ on the deck. Very nice! Of course it is supposed to be really cold again starting Wed.

Tomorrow night we go to the live part of the talent festival. Ryan and Christian aren’t doing anything for that, but I thought I would take them to watch.

Phew, I am impressed I can even remember everything we did. LOL I feel like we have been going non-stop. The kids have this Thursday – Monday off for Easter Break. We will most likely head out of town Monday – probably to Bloomington for Chuck E. Cheese (the kids have been asking for that since we moved here, and I finally found it when I was on my trip to Hearts At Home a couple weeks ago.) and a trip to Sams Club. (like Costco)

Our taxes are done! YIPPPEEE! We actually hired an accountant this year. I personally think it was well worth the money (considering I was the one who has done them all these years) There is state tax return here as well, and I just didn’t want to deal with it.

I can’t remember if I told you or not that we finished Dane’s room. It is so cute! Matt took pictures, but they aren’t uploaded to the computer yet. I’ll have to get on him about that so I can share. We ripped all the carpet out of the basement – it was just terrible after the flood. It smelled and when we rolled it all up the underside was covered with black mold/mildew. YUCK! So for Church clean-up on Sat. (oh yeah forgot about that in my recap) the mean hauled it out to the field and burnt it. Blech. It’s gone now, there is absolutely nothing in that room – we cleared it all out, and in a couple weeks they are going to paint the floor with that garage floor sealant paint stuff. It will be hard and cold, but better then smelly moldy carpet. I’ll find a couple throw rugs that can easily be washed and we’ll be good to go. That carpet was the carpet they removed from the church years ago because it was old and put it in our basement… So it was REALLY old and gross. I’m so glad to have it gone. The floor was already pretty hard anyway as there wasn’t padding or anything under it.

Our kittens are starting to open their eyes. Their mommy decided she should move them 12 feet in the air to the top shelf in the shop. I am guessing one will fall off and maybe she’ll come to her senses. Who knows. The older kittens from last year are excellent hunters. They seem to catch birds or mice every day. I remember watching their mommy teach them to hunt last year. She did a good job.

All right, it is almost midnight, so I guess I better hit the hay. Take Care!
C-