Maddy's 1st Competition of the Year

Madison had her first competition of the year and just about the ONLY one NOT in attendance??? Me!! Well, that's a little extreme, but that's how it felt. Colombo was on hockey duty. I couldn't miss rehearsal a week before the show. So, I called in my reinforcements. Dad and Christina stepped in and got her there. Another dance mom got her ready. Mom and Russ joined in to watch and cheer her on. And Lisa even made it and thanks to her, at least I have some pictures!!!

1st up, "Music, Music" tap duet with her friend, Maddie.

Next, was the group jazz, "Snow Day."

And finally, group tap, "Big Time Boppin'."

She did great! Her duet scored a gold (one point from away from high gold). Her group tap scored high gold (one point away from platinum). Her group jazz did the best, scoring platinum and taking 1st place for their category! Way to go!

That's funny!

Trevor had a 24 hour stomach 'thing'. Several times I had prayed that Jesus would make him better. The next day he crawled into my lap...

Me: Trevor are you feeling better?
TJ: Yup.
Me: Thank you, Jesus.
TJ: [giggling] I'm not Jesus.

And off he ran to play.

C2's Birthday

After our little 'scare' last week, it was an extra special feeling to be able to celebrate another one of Papa's birthdays. We met Colombo and Karen and Jim and Sandy at Hometown Buffet for lunch. The kids had a field day refilling their plates and, of course, the endless ice cream and Icee's are worth every penny!

I brought a candle so we could all sing and we definitely created a little stir with all the senior citizen patrons. Quite a flurry of activity at our table and great entertainment for all of them!

Trevor was too busy snapping pictures with his toy Mickey Mouse camera to make it into a picture.

C4's Birthday

Joell, Kevin O., Kevin S., Justin, Isaac, Luke, C4, Noah

C4 had a fun-filled, busy birthday. First up was his party, which we did a week before the actual day. This year we celebrated with his buddy Justin, who's 10 days older. They share the same pack of buds, so we finally got smart and just did one party. Ironically, when I first presented the idea to Justin's mom, the boys actually had the SAME thoughts for a party. C4 wanted to do it at the church and have a Nerf gun war. Justin wanted to play ga-ga and put the Wii on the 20' screen. Voila! The perfect 11-year-old boy birthday party!

The boys had the ga-ga pit set up, Foosball, music, microphones, a Nerf battlefield, and giant Wii!

In the end, I'm not sure if the boys had more fun, or Mr. Snyder and the little boys.

At this age, cards with either money or gift cards are popular.

On his actual birthday, he was a busy boy. He had worked ahead to not have schoolwork. Both Gramma and Juliet wanted to steal him for part of the day. And our evening consisted of small group and rehearsal, so we squeezed in a family lunch...by request, tacos and Reece's peanut butter blizzard ice cream cake. Unfortunately the only thing he got to open was our card. His birthday book was delivered later in the day. At 11:45pm when we got home from rehearsal, he got to open that.

Gramma and Bobbi took him bowling and he got to play Rock Band at Juliet's- definitely a fun day!

I just can't wrap my head around having an 11-year-old! I love being his mom!

He was definitely a beautiful, welcomed surprise. The first grandchild on both sides, first nephew, first child, he for sure was showered with love. Oh, how sweet and special that time was!

Ever since, he's been just the sweetest. He has a grown-up, witty sense of humor. He's wise, trustworthy, loving, protective, sensitive, and aims to please. He's just a joy to spend time with and I'm so grateful that God would trust me to be his mom.

C3's Birthday

Colombo had a bummer of a birthday this year. For starters, it landed on a Monday. At about 10:00 am, he received a call that his Dad, who was driving home from Ohio, had been taken to a hospital for unknown reasons. Twenty minutes later, he was out the door with a duffle bag to accompany his mother on a flight to Ohio, figure out what was going on with his Dad, and drive the 3 of them back.

Thank God, this very scary situation was not life-threatening and was diagnosed as a severe case of Vertigo.

We called and sang to him later in the evening. He celebrated in the hotel room with a pint of Ben n Jerry's. We'll have to still do something to make up for it.

Back to "Normal"

whatever that means!

Perfect for January! Bobbi got a huge kick out of it.

1, 2, 3

A rare treat to watch Jonah on hulu.com.

This is fun!
Here's Trevor singing Kim Walker.

For the 'real deal' blessing, click here.

Skating with the Wolfpack

Nathanael's little In-House team got to skate in between periods at the local AHL game. He was soooooo, sooooo excited about it.

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As it turned out, I was not able to go. Maddy and I had rehearsal so Colombo ended up with a truck load of boys. They had such a good time and I'm glad it worked out the way it did. Mom stayed here to have Rocco and Trevor sleep so the big boys were able just to have a good time!

Kevin, C4, Isaac, Sean, and Nathanael

Apparently Nathanael danced ALL through the game, hoping to be put up on the Jumbo tron.

When Sean found out he was invited, his first question was, "Can we get chuck-a-pucks?"

So, since Daddy was in charge, the answer was yes and all the boys chucked their pucks in between periods.

C3 did video tape it for me so I could watch. They were on the ice for a whoppin' 3 minutes! Click here to see the action. He's wearing a white jersey with gray pants and is in the middle of the screen for most of the video.

Go, Nathanael!

New Year's

We had a very nice and sort of mellow New Year's. On New Year's Eve, we started out by going to Colombo and Karen's. Andrea and Gabriella had just arrived for a visit. Yay!!! We miss them and hadn't seen them since they left for Texas except on Skype.

Colombo, C4, and I left for a couple hours to go over to a friend's house from church. Every New Year's Eve they host a party with 10-12 other families from church. It's always a good time and we didn't want to break tradition.

We were back to my in-laws by 10 to hang with Annie and Gabby. Apparently we missed the dance party.

We let the kids stay up, but Rocco only made it til 10:30 and Trevor til 11:30.After the ball dropped, Gabby used her doll's bottle to cheers like the rest of us.
The two oldest spent the night and the rest of us went home to bed. We were back by 8:30 the next morning for breakfast and Christmas with Annie and Gabby.
Oh! There's "Tongue Boy."

Trevor wanted me to take his pits-ker.
Here's Gabby wearing the t-shirt I made for her with Daddy's team logo on the front.
At about 1:00 we said our goodbyes and headed over to the O'Connor's. We watched the Winter Classic hockey game, which for hockey, is about as big as it gets.
Laurie had a HUGE spread of appetizers. The kids did crafts,
played games,
dressed up,
and hung out.
It was just a nice, relaxing day of good food and great friends.