A complete set

Mother's Day for me started last Wednesday with Christopher's class play, "Mother's Day Mice".  Both Joey and Vinny had the same teacher for kindergarten so this was my third time getting to see this play.

Christopher as the bunny

Vinny as the fox in 2010

Joey as the owl in 2008

Zach had a different teacher for kinder, so was not in the play.  Christopher also made me a plate.  A tradition for the kindergartners at Graystone, I now have a complete set!  Well worth the 8 year wait since Zach made the first one in 2005.

The kinder plate set!

 This morning started with coffee in bed from Pete, and breakfast made by Christopher and Vinny- cereal and toast.  It was truly perfect.

But the best gift hands down?  The following from Vinny:

Yes, he is Tebowing.  I busted up laughing when I opened it.  Classic Vinny.  He said,  "Mrs. Fleischer was laughing when she took the picture.  She said she was laughing with me, not at me."  At which point I laughed even more.  I am so grateful for Vinny's teacher this year, who seems to get him and let's him be himself!

A close second was some cool Crossfit shoes!!  I can't wait for class tomorrow!

Happy Mother's day to my  mother-in-law Mary.  She raised not only my wonderful husband but 6 other kids!!  I bow down to her.

And finally a huge Happy Mother's Day to my fabulous mom--wish I was with you today, but you are always close in my heart.  I couldn't have asked for a better mom, or more fantastic grandmother.  Love you!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Zach's trebuchet

 The end of 8th grade at Bret Harte means the Builder's Olympics.  They can choose one of three projects to do.  A boat made solely out of cardboard and duct tape that they have to ride across a pool, a pasta car made only of pasta and glue that has to roll some distance, and finally a trebuchet that has to fling a tennis ball.  A what???  A trebuchet.  Sort of like a catapult, but gets it power from a counter weight only, no springs.  The most difficult project to me sounded like the trebuchet, which of course means that is what Zach chose.  Sigh.

 I tried talking him into the boat, but he held firm at the trebuchet.  So a trebuchet it was.

 I hunted around a little online and found instructions for one here.  The trebuchet could not be more than a meter when in the loaded position and the one on that site looked perfect.  It also had the word "easy" in the title so I was sold!

It was pretty easy and Zach did it himself with help from us.  As we were building I realized he would be graded on how far it went compared to others in his class.  No biggie I thought, we had 20 pounds of counter weight.  That is a lot!  Right?

 Actually it was not.  It would only fling about 15-20 feet, and I was hearing people on Facebook talk about theirs flinging 60 or more feet.  Ugh!! 

 Brian Tuck (a friend whose son did the project last year) to the rescue!!  He brought more weight and we raised it to 60 pounds!!  He also helped tweak a few things, changing the pouch to a 4 string instead of 2 (more consistent results) and moving the release nail.  We were consistently getting to about 60 feet at home.  Sounded good to us!

I loved it-- Zach and Pete strapped it to a wagon so Zach could walk it to school. (he was purposefully being a dork in this picture)

I couldn't be at the school for the launch so a friend took pictures for me.  He did great!!   65 feet!!  Not the best in the class, but very respectable and earned him an A.

That was his last project for the year (woo hoo!!).  Now to get through Joey's damn state report...

Giving back

As most know, our office is only about a mile from our house.  Besides having an amazing commute, we get to see our patients everywhere we go.  They are our neighbors, on my kids' baseball teams, and in their classrooms.  Rarely do I go to Safeway and NOT see a patient.  Most of the time, it is fun!  (except when I am caught with kids misbehaving, or buying them doughnuts to shut them up!)

The other thing we like about it, is that it allows us to be involved in our community on many levels.

 We sponsor the local Little League.

For the last several years we have volunteered our time to do the Pop Warner football sports physicals.

 Pete is involved on the safety committee of the Little League, and we sponsor many different school walk-a-thon's, high school auctions, the high school baseball team,  and even the local Turkey Trot.

I am most proud though of the signs I had made for the Little League fields.  I saw a different version of it on Facebook a few months ago, then saw it again recently on a friend's Facebook page, with a comment about how we needed it for our fields.  I agreed!  She suggested our office sponsor it, and I ran with it.

Isn't it great?    Pete laughed when he saw it, saying that he was one of the worst offenders!  While he can be a bit loud, he truly is not the worst.  I admit, I can get a bit "passionate" on the bleachers myself.  I think the sign will serve as a great reminder for all of us.

Rose, Thorn, Bud

Dinnertime with 4 young boys used to be hectic at best.   And at it's worst?  Total anarchy!  Pete and I would be constantly up and down, getting one thing or another for one of the kids.  It seemed for several years there was always a baby crying (I swear the moment we would sit down, the baby of the time would start wailing.  Pete is an expert at eating with an infant in his arms).   At least one kid would be loudly protesting what we were eating.   And don't even get me started on the bickering!  We were forever moving seats around to separate one boy from another.   Unfortunately Vinny would annoy whoever he was sitting next to, so that only helped marginally.  One night, several years ago, there was even food being thrown around.  Pete and I looked at each other and laughed, knowing they must have finally realized how outnumbered we were.

And now?  Things are different.  The boys are all old enough to get whatever it is they need.  There are no crying babies.  And while Vinny still likes to annoy the others, the arguing isn't as bad most of the time.  Dinnertime is the time we can all sit together as a family and talk about our days.  And while baseball season limits the number of nights we are all actually home, we make it a point to all sit down together when we are all home.

A couple of months ago Pete came up with a great dinner time activity.  We call it rose, thorn, bud.  One by one we each talk about the best thing in our day (the rose), something we didn't like (the thorn), and something we are looking forward to (the bud). The rule is you have to have a rose and bud, because there is always something good, even in a bad day, and there is always something to look forward to.  You do not have to have a thorn though, because it may have been a great day all around.

I love hearing what the kids have to say, and what stands out in their day as a great thing, or not a great thing.  Some of their comments can be great starting points for fun family discussions.  For example, Zach may mention an interesting social studies class as his rose (Vinny and Joey almost never claim a class as their rose--it is usually their thorn!), which will lead to a discussion on history, or current political events.  Although not related to a rose, thorn, bud conversation, we had a great dinner conversation with all of the kids a few nights ago.   Pete had taken a phone survey on general political issues right as we were sitting down for dinner.  After we all had our turn sharing our rose, thorn, bud, Pete told us the questions he was asked, and asked all of us what our opinion was, before sharing what his answer was.  It was wonderful hearing what each of them had to say about things going on in our country.  Such a great conversation, I think that was my rose!

Hope your day is filled with roses!

Easter-versary!

 I love Easter!!  I find it to be the most fun holiday.  It doesn't involve all the prep work that Christmas does.  The weather is generally nicer than Thanksgiving.  And we have lots of fun traditions!

The traditions start with egg dying, of course.  We also attend the Easter vigil Mass at church, which is on Saturday night.  It is a long, late Mass, but the boys do great at it.  It is such a beautiful Mass, I really love it. 

The "little kid hunt" which includes all the kids younger than Zach

The Easter bunny leaves a trail of jelly beans leading the boys to their Easter baskets in the morning.  We then head over to my Mother-in-law's  house for brunch and fun.  We start off with the "little kid" egg hunt.

                           


 The younger kids get lots of candy (just what they need!)

 After taking a break for brunch, the "big kid" hunt is next.  Most of the big kids are actually adults at this point, but you are never too old for an Easter egg hunt, right?

 What we didn't know, was that the little kids (led by Vinny and cousin William) took their empty eggs and put grass and rocks in them, then ran and hid them while everyone was eating.

I cracked up when I heard!  Nothing like some decoy eggs to keep the big kids on their toes. 

Analisa got  a rock!

Despite all the booby eggs, Zach made a killing! The big kid eggs are mostly filled with money--Zach's take this year was $31!

Although a gray, rainy day was predicted, it was nice and sunny.  The kids were able to spend the rest of the day swimming.

I love this picture of Pete with his Mom and 5 sisters.

With a family this big, it is always somebody's birthday.  Joey's birthday was a few days before and my nephew Gregory's birthday was a few days after.  I made bunny cupcakes for Joey.

Happy birthday!

This year Easter was also mine and Pete's anniversary.  I feel so lucky to have married my best friend.  No one makes me laugh the way he does.  Love you hunny!!

Happy birthday Joey!

 11 years ago, we were blessed with Joey!!  Interestingly, that year his birth day also fell 4 days before Easter, which happened to also be on March 31st, our wedding anniversary.  Coming home from the hospital with Joey, I remembered that our anniversary was only a few days away and realized I had no gift for him.  "Your gift? " I said to Pete.  "He's back there" and I pointed back at Joey.

And you know what?  Joey has been an amazing gift to us both!

Joey's first Easter

Easter 2004

Easter 2005

Easter 2007

Easter 2009

Easter 2011

Homemade chocolate cupcake with Nutella frosting!

Happy birthday Joey!  Hope your day was as fabulous as you!

It must be his father's genes...

So yesterday I was volunteering in the library for Christopher's class.  His teacher approached me.  She told me how Christopher had been messing around the other day instead of doing his class work so he had to write "I will be responsible" a few times, bring it home to show us, and bring it back signed. 

The next day he handed it back to her.  She told him that he was supposed to have it signed.  I did he said, and pointed to the top of the page (above the first "will") where he had written "mom".

She was cracking up as she told me about it, and said that it made her day.  I laughed pretty hard myself.  What 6 year old thinks to forge a parent's name?  Not sure if I should be scared or proud.