Rock Climbing

Today the two older boys and I headed out to REI and other shops to get some presents for Erik. First things first...they needed to try rock climbing! Above is Curtis at his destination! He wanted to ring that bell SO badly! I was SO glad he made it!

Curtis on the way up!

Johnny watching Curtis!

All done..now it's Johnny's turn!

Johnny headed up the rock.

He made it ALL the way to the top, but didn't want to take his left hand off to ring the bell. He was too scared and said he wanted to come down! I was SO proud of him too! What fun they had doing this, and it built a lot of confidence!
Whew...worked up an appetite and needed to go out for lunch, before hitting up the shops! We had a great day and it's not very often I just go out with the older two!

Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving weekend this year was extra special. We found out that my sister Megan is expecting a baby boy! That's right...my Dad will OFFICIALLY have his entire Infield- six grandsons! (Mom told him he was NOT going for an outfield!)

Megan told us in a very cute way...after making me wait 23 LONG hours to find out! (It was killing me!) My mom cut the cake, and if the cake pink inside, it was a girl. If it was blue, it was a boy! The look on my mom's face was priceless! This was after an afternoon with all the boys together and trying to keep them entertained! My Dad made some GREAT marshmallow guns for the boys that kept them entertained! Was a great day with family and we have MUCH to be thankful for!

I'm Thankful For...

It's that time of the year again. The time of the year you tell your family how thankful you are for them. The time of the year when all the cute projects are sent home, and your house is decorated with them! Last night Curtis was in bed and asked if I saw his "Thanksgiving Place Mat" in his backpack. I told him I'd go down and look at it when he was asleep. (Normally I would do this with him...but I was in the ER with Andrew last night. Toe problems AGAIN! Never a dull moment around here.)

So, around 11pm, I take this lovely place mat out of his bag. First thing I look for is "me" of course. Nope, NO mommy. But wait, what is that blaring thing on the left side of the page? Yes Folks, you got that right, my kid is Thankful for "POOP"! I was mortified! To top it off, he did it at his CATHOLIC school! Wonder what the teacher thinks of me? Oh, wait, I volunteered to help in the classroom today. SUPER....I can't wait to see her!

Horse

Two weekends ago, I was in the Milwaukee Area, visiting my grandparents. (KIDLESS!) I got to have lunch and hang out with one of my favorite people, my cousin Christa. I was telling Christa Christmas ideas, and her face lit up, and she said, I have something in my basement that Andrew would LOVE! When she told me, I got so excited, b/c I had been looking at garage sales for a horse for Andrew! Let's just say, when I got this baby home, Andrew was a MANIAC on it! He loves it! Now when the boys are at school, I'm like a "life guard" sitting by the horse! Thanks Christa for the AWESOME horse! Andrew LOVES it!

Couple of funny stories:

• We are doing Thanksgiving up here this year at Megan's house. Erik tried to tell Megan how to cook the turkey this weekend. It was cracking me up b/c #1 she is a Home Ecomonics teacher, and #2, my turkey was SO dried out last year! Gotta LOVE Dr. Leaver!
  
• Erik took Andrew and Johnny to the park yesterday. I was gone with Curtis. When they came home, Andrew was wearing NO coat...just a long sleeve onesie. He had on a brown sock and a white one. I said to Erik, "Where's his coat?" He said, I couldn't find it, so he just wore Johnny's Packer coat and he looked so cute in it! (Yeah, it's a 5T) Those parents at the park must have thought, WHO IS HIS MOM?
• We got to the skating rink last night for Open Skate and I go to put Johnny's skates on, and he has on Andrew's OTHER brown sock and OTHER white sock! I was DYING! That is SO Erik! So, I had extra long socks with me. Curtis got ready, and went out. I pulled out Johnny's and I accidentally brought my LONG TUBE socks from softball! The kid went from Andrew's socks to my long softball socks!
• Curtis was all about skating around the rink and reporting how many falls he had, if any each time around. Johnny was all about rubbing his gloves on the ice, and licking and sucking his gloves to get it all off! GROSS ME OUT!
• Curtis this morning was eating breakfast and he slurped his millk out of the straw. (I HATE that.) I was busy making lunches and I barely even noticed. He looks up at me, "Sorry!" Then he said, "I really didn't mean to do that, and GOD knows I did not try. It was an accident!" LOL!
  

Maniac Mc Gee!

She's gonna be a WILD one!

Meredith mastered riding the horse with NO hands! Isn't she the CUTEST?

COME ON PEOPLE!

Ann Marie needs to sell 1,000 t-shirts to build the well in Africa! Come on people....spread the word! Here's a look at the womens shirts!

Here are a few of the women's shirts, we are printing on pink, blue and green. All of the shirts are printed in dark brown ink. I have a medium green underneath the small blue so you can sort of see the difference in sizes.
The green sort of looks like mint chocolate chip ice cream, this one is an XL.
I had to cut my head off in this picture because I had a crazy expression on my face. If you are a taller person (I'm 5'9") the women's fit is a little on the short side. I'm modeling a small and it seems to fit fine until I lift my arms up. The unisex small is comparable in width but a bit longer then the women's fit.

Andrew's First Haircut

Andrew's hair has been driving me crazy lately. I'm not one who loves to fix "bedhead" every morning. It was driving me "batty" when I had to "feather" back his side burns. So, I bit the bullet and got his haircut. He officially went from my baby, to my big boy..but I like the out come!

Here he is on the way to the haircut!He's looking a little unsure of what is about to come at him!The finished product! It's hard to get a good picture of this kiddo! He is a MANIAC!

On another note, ever since we took the boys to Notre Dame they have been in love with it. When they kick a ball, they yell just like the students did in the stadium. When they play, their team is called "POTRE DAME." It's a mix of the Packers/Notre Dame! So, when Johnny was singing this song at the kitchen table last week, I thought I'd catch it on tape! Makes me smile to watch this, b/c he seriously thinks his voice is SO good! Enjoy!

Building a Well

My sister Ann Marie has been busy on a special project; to build a well in Africa in her son Geremu's name. Below is a copy of her blog post about it. If you are interested in ordering a shirt or two, contact me or Ann Marie. She will be here for Thanksgiving and will deliver the shirts to me, and I'll get them out to you. I just need a size and your money before Ann Marie gets here! GREAT gift for Teachers, etc and for a GOOD cause!!


We have been busy working on setting up a fundraiser to help http://www.water4christmas.com/ Water4Christmas is working with http://www.charitywater.org/ (this is the same organization we raised money for Geremu's 2nd birthday last year). Charity: water is a non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. 100% of public donations directly fund water projects. This has been quite a process and has taken some time to get to the point we are at. We are lucky to have a supportive school district as well as friends & family that are willing to support the cause.

So here is what we are doing. We are making and selling t-shirts for $10.00 and putting all the profits towards building wells. We started to print the t-shirts last Friday and my students are so into all of this and they are learning a lot in the process. They look pretty darn spiffy if I should say so myself. They have the water4christmas logo on the front with a quote on the back along with the charity:water web site.

We are doing this because we have witnessed people drinking unsafe water and we have seen the long term affects that unsafe water has. We have read the statistics that unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Everyday 4,500 mothers bury their children due to contaminated water. This lack of access to clean water is recognized as the leading cause of death in underdeveloped nations. And it just doesn't have to be. (For more information visit the websites mentioned above.)

So here is my HOT model you might notice he is growing a little something on his face. His department has declared this month "No-shave November" so I've declared this month "No-nooky November":)