Preschool class of 2011

I am so far behind that I haven't blogged about any of our fun "end of school" activities.  And, believe me, there were plenty of them !!  Anyway I have a few minutes so I am gonna quick take a couple minutes to get Molly's Pre-school Graduation on here. 

Her Graduation day was a very busy one.  Emmett had his field trip to Imagination Station.  His Grandpa Steve ( my dad ) and I were chaperones for this trip.  We had a really great time all the while learning a few things too.  Who would of thought??  Anyway, I had to be gone all day and then try to come home make dinner for my family and prepare for the party afterwards.  But I got it all done, just like I always do stressing the whole time :)

Here are a few highlights of the night...

Emmett took this.  I had the choice of either out of focus or Chad's head cut off.  So I chose this !!

Molly & one of her best friend's Emerson!

More friends...we are very blessed with a great group of girls that will be in Molly's class.  There are so many that come from such wonderful families!!

Party Time!!!!

The next day is always the traditional preschool field trip to the zoo.  I always enjoy going with several of the other parents ( mom's) and taking whatever kids I have at home.  Here is some of our day...

Emerson~Molly~Gracie~Reese

I played softball and went to school with Reese's Mom.  Chad works with and has been best friends with Reese's dad Forever (yeah, they are that old ;)  I went to school with Gracie's dad and worked with her mom.  And, Emerson needs no introduction the "Tina & Jenny" era started way back in 1988 on the first day of third grade.  I love the history that we have we all these wonderful families and look forward to our kids having that now too!!

Trouble...but OH so much fun!!

It was a wonderful day...until it started to POUR!!  But we made to the car with only minimally getting wet and we pretty much were ready to call it a day anyway!  Thanks for such a great year Molly!!  We love you and are so proud of you!!

Standing Behind Your "Man"

Well today marks the one week mark since the shot heard 'round the "Buckeye" world.  I wanted to blog about this because Jim Tressel's resignation is a big deal in our house.  Anyone who know us, & especially Chad, knows that we love our buckeyes. 



When Chad turned on the TV mid-morning on Monday he naturally turned it to the sports channel.  This is favorite channel to watch when he has a day off work.  His timing was impeccable, if that's what you wanna call it, because it was just as the "news" was breaking.  He looked over at me and gave me a look that I have never seen in the 10 years we have been together.  It was almost as if he had seen a ghost.  In fact, he yelled at the kids who were running through the room in a way I have never, never heard him yell before.  I had to remind him that these were HIS children and it wasn't their fault that Tressel was having to do this.  He paused the TV, took a deep breath, waited for the kids to make their was through the room and then continued to watch the news unfold.  Ahhh....the luxury of modern technology!!  We can pause and rewind.  How did parents ever watch TV before this invention ?!?!?

Anyway, I have my thoughts about Coach Jim Tressel.  You may not agree with me but for now this is my blog and I am going to give my opinion.  I still think that he is a stand up guy.  I am not gonna lie, I don't doubt that I would have done the exact same thing if I had been in his shoes.  I also believe that every coach in the NCAA would have done the EXACT same thing.  I think that Tressel is held at a higher standard than most college coaches and this is one of the reasons I have loved being a Buckeye the past 10 years.  I love being associated with a team that tries to have some sort of morals in a time where they are almost obsolete.  So if they slip up, I like to compare it to myself.  I try to always do the right thing but do make an unwise decision once in awhile.  I don't want to be judged for just that one or couple mistakes.  I want to be remembered for the good things I have done.  So that is why I am not quick to jump on the "I Hate Tressel" Bandwagon.  He has brought alot of joy to many Buckeye fans this past decade and that is what I will remember him for. 

If I had to pick one coach to let my boys play football for it would still be Jim Tressel.  I know he looks out for those players just as if they were his own children.  I feel that is how he got himself into trouble by trying to protect them like hopefully their own parents would.  Society likes to see successful people fail and that is why they are eating this up.  And I will have to agree with Dane Sanzenbacher said when asked about his thoughts on Coach Tressel's resignation..."The higher up you are the harder you fall."

So in closing I just want to say..."Thank you Coach Tressel, it's been a great ride!!"



Monkey See, Monkey Do

How often do we see our kids mimiking what we do?  I have had a couple of expierences where I find my kids "pretending" to do some of the things we do in our everyday life.  Sometimes they are proud mommy moments and other times I shake my head and think is that really how it is??

About a year ago Molly had a friend over.  They came barreling down the stairs with dress-up clothes and shoes on.  I asked why they were in such a hurry and where they were going?  Molly's reply was..."We are pretending we are going to church and we are going to be late!"  I decided it was time to start getting up earlier on Sunday mornings becasue this was our usual Sunday morning routine.  This was definately not my proudest mommy moment.

Well yesterday my kids redeemed me.  I walked out of my room and this is what I saw...

....This is my kids version of playing "Library"! 

That is definately one thing that I never played, at least I don't think so!  One of the things I try to do often with my kids is visit the library.  I have really high hopes of going a lot this summer.  I am glad that my kids seem to really enjoy going to library since they are obviously re-creating it at home.

I am sure my kids will continue to do things everyday that make me wonder if I am doing a good enough job as a mother.  I just hope that once in awhile they throw in a thing or two that show that maybe once in awhile I am more than just "good enough"!

What a View....

Have you ever heard the song by Lonestar, "My Frontporch Looking in"?  Well Tonight while  I was taking a walk around the 'hood...(neighborhood) the songs lyrics came into my head!  

There's a carrot top who can barely walk

With a sippy cup of milk

A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong

'Cause she likes to dress herself

And the most beautiful girl holding both of them

Yeah the view I love the most

Is my front porch looking in

I don't usually walk around the 'hood, I usally take off and walk the "towncourse".  Tonight there were so many storms brewing so I wanted to be able to get home within a matter of seconds.  While on my walk I was able to see an amazing view.  On the road behind our house in a backyard I saw a very handsome father playing baseball with a young boy and two very cute little kids jumping on a tramoline.

& All of those were mine.  This is My life.  MY husband, MY kids, MY house, MY life!  I am a very lucky, blessed lady.  Now don't get me wrong my life is not perfect.  There's the "other" house that we need to sell.  There's the needing a new car, but for now we'll just repair what's broken (a $600 part)!  There's the laundry, messy house, cranky kids, not enough time to get everything done & all the other day to day problems that many of us face.  But all that is pretty minimal.  I have a husband who loves me, healthy kids, a roof over our heads & food on the table.  It isn't much to some, but for me it's all I've ever wanted.

So go take a walk in your neighbor hood and along the way take time to enjoy YOUR view!!

Several years in the making...

You always know that someday you will throw a baby shower for your sister but you never really think about it until they are actually expecting their baby.  But for me, I started thinking about this day way before that.  I couldn't wait for the day that we would be able to get together with friends and family to celebrate Shannon becoming a mommy.  I knew that when planning this shower the wait would FINALLY be over and we were all ready for that wait to be over.  While Shannon was struggling with wondering if her & Aaron would ever get to have a child of there own, I would always tell her that it would happen and when it did we were going to throw her the "mother" of all baby showers.  Marsha, Mom, Michelle, Alisha, Kara & I did our best to do just that!!

While searching blogs (which is what I usually do in the evening), I found this really cute bumble bee baby shower idea.  I emailed it to Marsha & Michelle to get their approval and with their OK...we were off!!  We had so much fun shopping for all the yellow & black!!

~ Look at that absolutely Glowing Mother-to-be ~

And we all know that the best thing about a baby shower is getting to see to the soon to be mommy open all that baby stuff and imagining her brand new baby using or wearing it all !!   Shannon definately got her fair share of stuff for baby.

~ Marsha & I couldn't wait to get our hands on all that stuff and Organize it ~

She actually thought she had too many wipe...HA!!!  She definately has a thing or two to learn.

After the shower we took a count of how many people were there.  We roughly counted 68 people!!!  That is a lot of people in my house!  It was so awesome to see everyone there and know that there are so many people that are so excited for this baby and how loved he/she is already!!

~ Our cousin Tina ~

& here are some of the people that help make this day happen...

~ I don't know if anyone was as excited for this day as Molly was...not even Shannon ;) ~

~ Yes, we were dorks and even coordinated our outfits.  Ok, so it was my idea so that makes me the dork.  But it was sure fun!! ~

Here is the group of Party Planners after AJ & Kara had already left.  We were so busy that we didn't get a photo until after that whole sha-bang!!  Also missing is Michelle who did her share from all the way in the south.  ( she made the very cool banner :)

I absolutely LOVE this family!!  And I cannot wait to add baby Pohm to this crazy bunch!!

Preschool Graduation Preview!

Molly is graduating from Pre-school on the 24th of May.  I kept debating on whether or not I should have a "party" for her after her program.  Sometimes I think it's not that big of a deal and I know everyone is busy and it's one more thing to go to.  So after contemplating for a couple days, I decided I did it for Emmett I better do it for Molly and Max.  So it was just gonna be cake.  But like everything else I do, it starts out small and I get to having fun with it and it turns into more and more :) 

I wasn't even going to do invitations, but I actually had a day with not much going on.  So what the heck!  I had this cute idea to word it like an actual High School Graduation Announcement so this is what I came up with.  I stole the wording from my nephew Evan's invitation...

These are the jars that I have from my sister's baby shower this past weekend (which I desperately need to blog about  and WILL DO SOON!!!)  So take out the yellow candy and insert the orange & black (GO TIGERS!!! ;)!  This is just the beginning of a few cute things I have planned for Molly's "big" day!  Like I said, it was just gonna be cake and now we are having cake, ice cream & appetizers!!  I really think I should be a party planner because I really do enjoy these fun little moments in my families life :)



A Perry Tradition...

We did our annual egg coloring this year.  I would say that I have a love/hate relationship with egg coloring and pumpkin carving.  I love the thought of doing these things, but it never turns out as pretty as the magazines and there is always such a mess to clean-up after you are done.  But, it is my thought that every child should be able to expierence these two things.  And for those parents who don't do them should be charges with child neglect...ha ha!!

I love when kids get to expierence things for the *first* time.  I say *first* like this because sometimes kids have done them before but they are too young to have remembered it and it's like the first time.  Here is what Max did when we told him we were going to color egg.....

~He went and got the Markers....

...but he quickly caught on~

We invited little Jake to come color eggs because I knew they probably weren't going to do it for just a little 8 month old and I didn't want Kyle & Kara to get charged with child neglect.  So since Kara had plans to go to the musical that night Kyle did his fatherly duty and colored eggs with his son...

That lasted all but 2 seconds before he spilled the dye and made a mess....

So Jake had to spend the rest of the night watching from afar...

He didn't seem to care that he was in trouble.

Now I remember why parents don't do this with kids so little.  I change my mind, you shouldn't be able to be charged with child neglect unless they are over 2 and you don't color eggs  ;)

I don't know if Jake was really excited to be coloring eggs or if he was just hamming it up for the camera because he was being very photogenic...

Here are a couple of shots of the night!!

Are we the only ones who still write on eggs with a white crayon???

And the night ended with Max throwing his sippy cup (yep more terrible twos) and splattering green dye all over uncle Kyle and Jake.  So....it was time to clean up :)

Happy Easter!!!!