Winter 2014

Winter of 2014

The Winter of 2014 will go down as:

According to Michael:  "SNOW"

According to Mommy:  The Winter where Michael had practically no school.

We were slammed left and right between snow storms and ice storms.  School has been cancelled or delayed for many of the days in the last 6 weeks.  Michael has spent many days at home, which have been warm and fun (excluding the one day where we lost power for 16 hours - February 5, 2014 - due to a bad ice storm).

I really haven't felt the desire to get my camera out because the high temperatures of the day have been SO COLD.  Most days, the highs have been in the low 20s.  And with me being preggers, my ski jacket/etc does not fit.  I usually wear Brian's snow stuff to the bus stop to get Michael.

Well, we got a doozy of a storm yesterday, Thursday, February 13th.  Brian's work even closed for the day.  

That's sayin' something.

All told, we got about 12"-14" of snow during the day.  Then, an additional 2"-4" overnight.

We, surprisingly, did not lose power.  I'm sure the fact that Michael and I pulled up wood for 2 hours from the wood pile, filled all our vessels with water, and charged all our devices ensured we would actually have power.  I am always happy to spend a snow day at home, in jammies, with power.  :)

They always say that the first child gets lots of documentation, and the second doesn't as much.

Fortunately, I set the standard pretty low with my pregnancy pictures with Michael.  I have one vertical picture in Seattle on our babymoon at about 5-6 months.  And another horizontal with a flowering bush at a wedding.

Sweet!

SO!  Here's my vertical picture at 26 weeks preggo:

I have the same number of ultrasound pictures so far.  So I think I'll be able to just to copy my old scrapbook layouts to start Lothar's scrapbook.  :)

It is a sweet time for our family right now.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

P

Tuesday, May 21st

On Tuesday, May 21st, two important things happened.  All while Brian was out of town.

The first, I ran into two birds:

When I looked in my rear view mirror, I saw feathers and one bird body on the ground.  I didn't think too much about the second bird body until I noticed something strange under my grill.

YUCK.

Brian was coming home late Wednesday night.  I'm not about to do a bird extraction on my own.  I'm a city girl at heart.  Luckily, Brian took care of it for me on the weekend.  And when Brian pulled it out, it kept coming and coming and coming.  It was a MUCH bigger bird than I expected!

The second thing happened at Michael's baseball game that night.  Mrs. DeColli came to watch Michael and Liam play.  Almost at the end of the game, Michael ended up getting hit in the face with a baseball while he was on the pitcher's mound.  Luckily, it bounced and THEN hit him in the face.

A friend of mine said that he saw it coming and held his glove up to his face to protect himself but it just was barely in time and kind of ricocheted off of his glove.  I'm proud of him for his self-preservation abilities!  I only saw the ball bounce, I didn't see what happened afterwards because I was further away!

There was blood and I tried my best to keep calm.  I'm a bit of a drama queen when it comes to blood.  Explains why I never was interested in becoming a doctor!!

Luckily, we have a fireman/EMT in the stands of us parents - PLUS a mom who is certified in CPR/First Aid - and the coach is a physical therapist.  So I knew Michael was in good hands.  I didn't freak out because I knew they would know what to do.  :)

Mrs. DeColli was great and told Michael he didn't have to go to school the next day!! WHAT!?!?!  He was fine - there was no swelling or bruising even!  He went to school.  We were 15 minutes late and I walked him into class.  Since Mrs. DeColli was there the night before, I knew it would be just fine to give him some extra time to get ready for school.  Michael DID try to stay home by telling me that his legs were heavy.

Uhhh - son - you got hit in the FACE last night.  Nice try.

Friday, May 24th - Visit to Prost German Restaurant!

On Friday, May 24th, we kicked off Memorial Day weekend by visiting Prost German Restaurant in Port Deposit, MD, which is only about 20-25 minutes from our house.

My neighbor, who is local, said to me, "Were you ok there?"  There is a large population of racist KKK people south of us in MD.

I told her - well, my waitress was African American and there was another interractial (Asian/American) couple there so I guess it must be safe in German restaurants in Port Deposit, MD!  :)

Here's father and son splitting their sausage sampler platter that came with a delicious sauerkraut and warm German potato salad:

I had a jager schnitzel with gravy and spatzle, which was SOO good!!  We will definitely be going back.  And Michael should be ok when we get to Germany - he was a fan!

Unfortunately for me, I'm not used to eating that large a quantity of heavy friend food anymore.  So I spent the evening drinking green tea to settle my stomach.  

Our Memorial Day weekend was busy with friends:
Saturday - had dessert/smores/pinochle with the Hillegasses (school/church friends)
Sunday - had crabs/hotdogs with the Boyes (my grocery shopping buddy)
Monday - had hotdogs/hamburgers with the Resetars (Mops/Church/School friends)

After three years here, we can finally say we are making friends.  I hope to see that they are still good friends with us when we leave!  Friendships change over time sometimes - we can only hope for the best! :)

Thursday, May 23, 2013 - Michael's Spring Show!

Michael had his end of the year Spring Show on Thursday, May 23rd!  He had a speaking part!!

Here they are - lined up and ready to go:

A photographer's kid - I had front row seats!

Here's the video!!  Michael's speaking at the very beginning:

Here's what happens when you don't make sure your focus box is on the right kid:

To my defense, I KNEW my focus box was on the wrong kid, but I hoped for the best.  Because I was in AUTO.  This shows you what happens when you shoot in Auto.  Auto does not always know best.

Michael - singing his heart out:

I tried to upload the video of the whole class signing, but it's giving me an error.  Michael was LOUD and clear - and a bit off key.  He's the LOUD kid.  I find that hilarious.

I guess as he is growing, he is getting his desire for performance from me.  I thought he'd end up like his Dad, but Michael is not shy in front of a crowd.  It cracks me up.  He's been chosen for "speaking" roles multiple times now.  When he was chosen as a wiseman in his PK-4 Christmas play, he froze up and didn't do anything!

This year, that was not the case!  He sang his heart out and spoke confidently for his speaking role.  So proud of him!

The last song was the funniest.  The nurse, who is as old as the earth itself, had a part and she was so funny!  Here's a silhouette of part of that skit:

May 5, 2013 - Brian's First Vintage Baseball Game!

Brian has joined a vintage baseball team!  What does that mean?  It means they play by the same rules as baseball in the 1860's. 

Here are the differences:

• You can catch a ball on the bounce and it counts as a regular out as if you caught it from the air.
• The bats are a different shape.
• Brian is going to have to fill the rest of this out for me.  :)

The first game was in Westminster, MD at the Carroll County Farm Museum!  Yes, it's about an hour and a half away. But we passed by 2 Chipotles so it is ok.

That day, they were having civil war reenactments on their fields!!  SO COOL!

We didn't get to take pictures of it because 1) I had to go to the bathroom so I wandered all over looking for that and 2) we needed to get Brian to the game so he could get his uniform and get settled.

After we did all this, the cannon firing was all over as was the fake shooting.

However, they still had a civil war camp set up!  So Michael and I wandered over there while Brian was warming up.

Michael was NOT impressed with any of it.  He was pretty bored until he saw this guy with the fire:

Of course, fire.

He stayed for about 5 minutes and watched the blacksmith make hooks and such.

Then he obliged me with a photo by the tents, and I somehow did not notice I centered him to have a flag growing out of his head:

Then, he found a dandelion.   This picture could have been much cooler had I channeled my inner pinterest:

Back to the game we go!  They start it with a bat toss:

 And then the team gets introduced. Brian's nickname is "TEX".  :)

LOVE their costumes!  It's like a pirate shirt with a labeled bib.

Here's Michael cheering for his dad:

They had an announcer and everything!  He explained the rules and differences of the game to the crowd, which was quite numerous as they came from the civil war reenactment!  However, by the end of the game, it was just us family who were left.  :)

Brian at bat!

He runs to 1st!

Brian stole a lot of bases while he was playing!  So funny!

Here's a back view of one of his swings:

And Michael holding one of their baseballs.  It's a little softer than a normal baseball, but not by much:

Luckily, there was a playground nearby!!!

Michael had a great time running around! 

He was particularly proud of himself about this.  Asked me for a picture of it:

The game was over quite quickly!  It was such a beautiful day that we were quite happy eating our snacks and running back and forth between the game and the playground!!

Here's a picture of the team:

Father and son:

Afterwards, there was batting practice for Michael on the really nice field:

Brian pitching to Michael:

Brian after his game!  Loved their uniforms:

When I saw this dino on the playground, it reminded me of a similar shaped creature in Spain:

My how time has flown...

Afterwards, we stopped at chipotle for dinner and headed home!!

May 1, 2013 - Celebrity Visitor Day At SHS

Mrs. DeColli does this fun thing every year where she invites the parents of her students to come in and be a "celebrity visitor" for the day!

It is ADORABLE to do because the kids are JUST.SO.EXCITED to see you and have you there!

Brian decided to go forth and bring liquid nitrogen to freeze things for them to see, which tied into their learning about the states of matter!

First things first - transporting liquid nitrogen from Uncle Air Liquide's house to the school.  Apparently, we needed to do it in a truck.  So we got one:

Which meant Brian spent the entire day singing, "I drive your truck..."

Here's all the goodies in the back:

I think I made 3 trips to Walmart in a span of 18 hours to get everything we needed.

Brian - serious about driving his truck

We planned to do the following "safe" experiments:

Blowing up a ballon and dipping it into the liquid nitrogen to show it shrink and re-expand

Dip flowers into it to show how we could break them because they were frozen

Freeze a banana

Mix boiling hot water and liquid nitrogen to make fog

About 40 minutes before our "go time," we decided to make ice cream.

THANK YOU YOU TUBE!

We popped into Walmart (yea for being right next to the school!) at 10:25 to pick up all the ingredients (heavy cream, half and half, sugar, and vanilla extract).  Showed up at school at 10:50am - and away we go!

We started with a presentation in front of the kids!

Michael had to get up in front of the whole class and practice "public speaking."  He had to answer all these cute questions like:

"What thing does your dad do that you like the least?"

"Give me Noogies."

"What do you like to do with your mom?"

"Play video games."

"What do you like to do most as a family?"

"Play games."

Then - it was outside to do the experiments!

LOVE Elizabeth's (red head in the background) face on this one!

Cryogenic Michael:

I have to say, the biggest hit was making the ice cream.  We mixed the ingredients, and then mixed the liquid nitrogen with the cream/halfhalf/sugar/vanilla.  It was SERIOUSLY the best ice cream we have ever had.  The kiddos LOVED it:

Our school principal, Mr. Brunner came out to eat ice cream and watch as well!  Because that's the kind of principal he is, involved!

We love Mr. Brunner!!!  

All in all, it was a success.  The kids loved it.  Mrs. DeColli loved it.  And we loved it!!!!  

Here's our certificate of participation:

Mrs. DeColli told us we had to put it on our fridge.  Michael made sure we followed instructions!

Afterwards, Brian and I had a date lunch at our fav little spot, Mi Cocina.  We picked up Michael in the truck, which Michael wanted to keep.  And then spent the rest of the afternoon returning everything!!

What a great memory and day it was for our family!

Some time in the last week of April - New Haircut!

Somewhere in the last week of April, I got a cool new haircut!

After it had settled down a bit:

I LOVE my new hairstylist!  She is reasonably priced and taught me how to curl my hair so it is cute and trendy!

Another thing I love about her is that she FIXED my hair for me.  She not only gave me a shampoo and blowout.  She THEN curled it for me and styled it for me!!  All for $10 less than my current hairstylist who gave me pretty boring ho-hum haircuts and would only blow out my hair.

Pretty excited to be hip and cool, even though I am in my 30's and am a mom!

April 19th - First Machine Pitch Baseball Game!

On April 19th, Michael played his first baseball game in Machine Pitch with the Oxford Little League!

Here he is, playing "pitcher," which just basically means you are first to get it by the ball if it comes your way (as evidenced by him getting a ball to the face while Brian was out of town on Tuesday, May 21st):

Here's Michael playing 1st base.  You can see how focused he is:

Here's Michael's at bat where he hit the ball and got to first:

In case you want to see the video of that hit!

Michael LOVES playing baseball and is part of a really nice team.  The parents all have fun hanging out and watching the game.  They are all really great people!  The games are SO much more interesting to watch than the t-ball games because they actually keep track of outs/runs/etc.  They play 6 innings!

Now that Michael and his team have been playing for weeks - it has been really great watching how well they field and hit.  They all have come a long way and it's been fantastic to see!