Happy Birthday Jerome!!

We had a great time for Jerome's 12th Birthday! He is excited that his new privilege is riding in the passenger seat in the front of mom's van and dad's car! His new responsibility is cleaning the shower.

After adding up all of his new Lego toys, he decided that he had 1,842 new legos to put together! Wow! Here are a few pictures displaying the event!

Here we are singing Happy Birthday!


Here is the Loot!

Mini-Mom, Safety Patrol, and Books of the Bible

Kendra asked to wear one of my nightgowns the other night. I said I guessed that she could, and that is how Mini-Mom started. She has been having a great time being "Mini-Mom" each night after bath time. She hops onto the couch (in my usual spot) and asks for things that she hears me ask for. "Dad, could you please scoop Mini-Mom some ice-cream?" I was amazed to hear her tell each set of grandparents that she was now the "Mini-Mom" after baths. Tonight, while we were out, she put on my sunglasses and said, "Now I am Mini-Mom! It is super cute. I hope these days go on forever!



Kevin is so excited because at his school, the 5th graders were all "fired", and the 4th graders were all "HIRED" as the safety patrols! He happily sported his belt all day today. He is a morning and afternoon patrol. In the morning, he walks Kindergarten to class, and in the afternoon, he helps kids get into their cars.



Jerome amazed us all at dinner when he busted out with the books of the Old Testament in order. That was worth a video! Go Jerome Go!

Olympics... Here we come!

We have been bitten by the Olympic Bug! Jerome was so excited to see the speed skaters this week, that he begged me to video tape him "speed roller blading" around our court. He was excited to use the official pose (one arm behind his back) while his feet crossed over each other to make the turns!





Kendra and Kevin got into the action too, while watching figure skating. They both were having a great time "performing" while watching a real performance, I couldn't resist getting out the video camera.

Valentine's Fun

We had a great Valentine's Weekend. We drove down to Ft. Myers to visit with my Grandma. We went shopping on Saturday, and then enjoyed watching the Olympics in the evening.

On Sunday, we exchanged Valentines. I bought the kids giant chocolate Kisses, and my mom got them stuffed M&M's.


Then we played the Wii. Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics! We were all in the luge, the skiing with flips (name escapes me), and speed skating! We only played the games that we had watched the real Olympics play! Then we went to Manatee Park. It was tons of fun!



There is a power plant, and the manatee huddle in a small canal that has runoff from the power plant. The water is much warmer in this area, so the manatee all gather here. You can see them come up for air, and then see their backs on top of the water.




We enjoyed spending time with my Grandma. She heard about this park and then told us about it. It was great fun, all for a buck an hour parking!



The kids even had a scavenger hunt where they had numbers posted all over the park and then activities for the kids to do at each post. Kendra and Kevin tried their hands at gator wrestling, NOT!

January Full of Excitement!

We have had a busy month this January. It was Kendra's 8th birthday (see previous post). My in-laws came for a fun visit. We took the time to go to Disney.... what an adventure. The Jungle Cruise is more fun at night but not recommended for kids with glasses. Kendra was suddenly scared of the plastic animals in the dimly lit forest, and jumped into my lap. With the cold weather, I was sporting a thick winter jacket. The following happened in SLOW MOTION.... her face hit my arm, the glasses hooked onto my jacked, my arm went up to make room for her head, her glasses snapped off her face, my arm went on the top of our seats, over the side, and KERPLUNK, her glasses fell into the dark, merky waters of the Jungle Cruise. It is not likely that we will see them again. Did the insurance cover them, NOPE, only covers broken glasses not lost glasses. I explained that they were not lost, just unretrievable, but to no avail. Here is the last known picture of Kendra with her first pair of Barbie glasses in line for the Jungle Cruise Ride.



$198 bucks later, Kendra is sporting a new pair of Barbie framed glasses!



Jerome finished his first ever official science project, Dinosaur Water in 2010. He received a 100% on this project, and really enjoyed it. Lowell was the photographer, and Jerome and I worked on the research and development. Here he is with final presentation.



Lowell and I celebrated 10 years of marriage in December, but we officially celebrated with a Disney Cruise in late January. It was great. Grandma took the kids (THANK YOU GRANDMA) and Lowell and I loved our time away. We visited Atlantis like we did 9 years ago on our 1 year anniversary cruise. It was a nice long weekend cruise!