Who is here???

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                      That is the question Syd asked as we turned the corner to our house. My response being I don't know. We need to go find your Dad. As she went running to see who was at the house I waited for her to come back. She kept asking her Dad who was here his answer being the Easter Bunny left it. After a good bit of torture he finally admitted it was his.

How do you like Steve's spaceship? (That is what my cousin Chris said it looked like.)

Yes, even though it looks too small. Steve has plenty of head & leg room. Syd also has plenty of room sitting behind him. He was glad to give up the extra space of his old car to have one with better gas mileage. Also little things like air conditioning & rolling down his window were also a perk
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Syd at the wheel. Heaven help us it will happen all too soon. She said she could drive now because she could reach the pedal with the seat up. UGH!

Anderson thought it was pretty funny.

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Getting into things

Anderson figuring out how to spend his spare time.

Forget the nursery rhymes Anderson has decided to go straight to hard stuff and read some Dean Koontz.

                                      

We can only hope he likes to read as much as his sister does!

And The Winner Is......

Shannock Valley B

Congratulations Girls on the tournament win & going undefeated!!

Well we survived the tournament very well as you can see. The girls did a great job and won all of their games. They were pretty tired by the end of the day.

All of the teams were made up of third & fourth grade girls. Let me say I learned alot that day. Now I am one who cheers & sometimes yells (never at anyone elses kid mostly defense & hands up) from the stands. (Go figure huh? Sorry it is in my nature I grew up with a Dad hollering at me to sacrifice my body while playing second base in the church softball league. Seriously, Dad grown men hitting the ball at me. What were you thinking?) These parents from the other schools were down right ruthless. Normally the one school has four teams well they combined all their good players for one "super" team. Those parents were actually banging the bleacher for foul shots. Hello People! They are in third & fourth grade. Our lucky girls had to play them twice. We did have some folks from our side start to bang in the championship game but our coach put an end to that quickly. Good for him. He told his team that they didn't need to do that to win.

I would like to say that I think there is something in the water in a couple of these towns their girls were huge. They were all taller than our tallest girl. When you are a head shorter than your opponent it gets a bit rough. Our girls were in there with the best of them. Lots of bumps & bruises but held their own.

A great thing happened that day though and I was so proud of our girls. The Dayton team has a girl who has Down's Syndrome I believe her name is "Evie" Well when she got the ball and yes her teammates passed it to her several times our girls backed away so she could try & do something with it. Well wouldn't you know it she dribbled halfway down the lane and lined up for a granny shot. And it went in!! That gym erupted into cheers & clapping. it was the most amazing feeling. I am so proud our girls have that kind of good sportsmanship.

Sydney & Anderson posing with her trophy. That is the closet he has been to it since.

Birthday/Slumber Party

We celebrated Sydney's 9th birthday with a sleepover. When she first asked my first response was "Have you lost your mind? Do you not realize how small our house is?" Well I guess I had 2 responses. Basically, I was in shock because she had never mentioned it before. Lucky for me I did not have to tell her no. My Uncle Lou & Aunt Sally were to be in Florida at the time and graciously let us use their home.

So 4 giggly friends later, 1 little brother & 1 terrific Grandma (who hadn't been feeling well) the party was under way. Oh, did I mention 1 father who was ready to get the heck out of there?

Here is her cake. I decided that I would make my own icing and try to decorate it. Huge thanks to Elizabeth for sharing a recipe with me. She has made some awesome cakes. Well I had no plans on getting  that fancy. at least I know I can do it. For my first attempt I got the icing a little soft. But with as tired as I was and as late as it was I was happy with it. 

Everything was going great til some of them decided to get up at 6:30 am. I mean come on Anderson normally doesn't get up that early. I figured with them not going to sleep til 11:30 pm I would be good til at least 8:00 am. WRONG!!

The gang is all here!

The treat bags I decorated for everyone. They only cost a dollar at Micheal's. We decorated wooden frames and ceraminc animal statues. These are some crafty girls.

Grandma & Anderson playing.

Lucky for me all of the girls were great with Anderson and didn't mind him being around. They were constantly giving him toys & making sure he was happy.

Yeah for good friends!!

Well I wasn't sure I would ever see this again. A Fowler wearing the number 32. Sydney is playing basketball this year. Sydney decided she would wear the same number her Dad did when he played. Sorry it is a little blurry it is hard to catch them standing still.

Actually we are almost at the end of the season. She is really enjoying it. I think she would play entire game if she could. The girls are even running & shooting hoops at halftime. You think they would be tired they run ALOT! Her team is made up of third & fourth grade girls. The coach does a really good job of making sure they all play. Sydney has decided she like defense the best because her ball handling skills are not that great. Hopefully, Steve and her will work on that this summer. Right now she doesn't have alot of arm strength. She actually was practicing foul shots before a game and managed to hit 2 of her teammates right on top of the head. Those were consecutive shots by the way.
She has played against some girls that are quite a bit taller than her. She is not afraid to go after them though. They even played in the fifth grade tournament last weekend. It didn't go so well for them. The other girls were huge, but her team kept the score pretty close.

On the move again.

This was at the end of the game where she got her first basket. YEAH!!! Unfortunatlely Steve had to work & missed it.

Our tournament is in a couple of weeks so that should be interesting. Go Spartans!

Snow Event #1

At the beginning of the month we got about 18inches of snow at our house within 24 hours. This started a week off school for the kids when another snow came between Tuesday & Wednesday (more photos to follow).  So I figured I would take Anderson out for his first major snow fall & get some photos. Of course Steve being at work this proved to be harder than I thought. With so much I couldn't just set him in the snow as I would lose him. Lucky for me his big sister loves to help with him. Until she gets snow down in her boots that is.

This is a shot I got while trying to dress Anderson for outside. One might think this would be easy as he is only 8 months old. People who have children realize this is no easy feat. Especially, when the child does NOT like to put on his coat.

Sydney hopping into the snow to show how deep it was. What she really did was fill her boots with snow UGH! Which of course was followed with whining. After we emptied her out the photo fest continued.

Holding up her brother so he didn't fall in the snow. He did play with it a little but his gloves are so big he wasn't able to do much.

A couple of outside shots. One which you can tell was the walkway to  the house. The other I was trying to get a shot of how high it was from the ground. Didn't get it all the way to the ground. But the blue sky is awesome.

Lucky for us we didn't lose power. And did not get as much as our family & friends down in MD. Who ended up with over 30 inches of snow within the first 24 hours of the first storm.

Happy Valentine's Day!!