Girls' Fun Day Out

This is spring break week for Katie, and we decided that I would take yesterday off to spend with the girls, doing something FUN! 

Like any good day off, we started by sleeping in a little.  After breakfast, we got dressed, then watched a little bit of a movie we had on the DVR since the YMCA nursery wasn't open yet.  Then we went over to the Y so I could work out and the girls could play.  They always like going there, playing with different toys than what we have at home, and working on various crafts to show me.

I showered up at the Y, then the girls and I were off to our next destination:  the credit union!  Since Katie gets an allowance now, she decided she wanted to get a bank account.  Natalie, of course, had to have one, too. The night before, we counted out all the piggy banks to see how much the initial deposits would be.  Let's just say I was fairly impressed at what they'd stashed away!  So we set up savings accounts for each of them, and the woman there was so sweet, letting the girls put their coins in the machine and help count their own bills.  They also got Kids Club folders full of information, games, and coloring pages.  How neat!

It was nearing lunch time, and the girls wanted tacos at Moe's.  Knowing what we were going to do for dessert, I drove to the Moe's that is farthest from our house because that's the one that's closest to The Cupcake Spot.  Hooray, cupcakes!  We love going there, but it is a bit pricey, so it's always a treat for us.  We picked our cupcakes (mine was Key Lime Pie!), gobbled them up, then bought 2 more to take to Colin and his dad.  The girls had so much fun.  Katie had chocolate crumbs from head to toe.  Literally.  Colin and his dad were very appreciative of the tasty treats we brought back for them!

We came back to the house and Natalie was sooooo tired.  Unfortunately, I think she was overly tired, because she didn't nap well at all.  Katie rested for a bit, then played Barbies.  Once the girls were up, we planted our tiny little flower pots we'd received from the Easter Bunny, plus a couple more we had at the house.  We got those out on the back porch to get some good sunshine, and then came back in to finish the movie they'd started in the morning.  With them engrossed in that, I cleaned the kitchen and started supper.  We also talked to my mom for a while and enjoyed just hanging out and playing at the house.

It sure was a fun day with my girls! I'm glad I was able to take time off in the middle of the week to make it happen.  :)

Happy Easter!

As usual, the girls love getting up early on Easter morning to search for their eggs and baskets.  This year, the Easter Bunny hid a soccer ball as well.

Natalie

Katie

Then we got all dressed up for church!  The girls had new dresses that Colin's mom made.  She'd received some leftover bridesmaid fabric from a friend, and made them these adorable little numbers.

How sweet are they???

You know I LOVE church on Easter because I love all the fabulous music.  And we capped it off with the Hallelujah Chorus, which is the one song where I really pretend I can sing and belt it out like nobody's business.  You can't beat that! 

We went to Colin's parents' later in the afternoon.  Besides Easter, we also celebrated their birthdays from the week before.  They had an egg hunt for the girls in their yard before we had dinner.

Found one!

It took a while to spot the one tied in the bush (far right)

And after dinner and ice cream for dessert, the girls put on a fashion show wearing some of Grandma's clothes.  What a fun way to end our evening!

Natalie prefers the "serious" look for posing

We hope you enjoyed your Easter, too, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord.  Hallelujah!

Spring Soccer Saturday

Soccer has started!  Natalie wanted to play again, and after a 2-year hiatus, so did Katie.  We do have some conflicts with swimming lessons on the calendar, but we are managing them as best we can during this season.  We just finished our games for week 2, and this time, I brought the camera!

Natalie's team is the Lemonaders, fitting for the bright yellow they are wearing.  Her coach is very intense, but always positive and encouraging.  Natalie is still a bit unsure about the group sports thing, mainly because she doesn't like people taking the ball from her.  She's doing better all the time, though, and we love to watch the improvement in her and her teammates.

Natalie takes a shot during warm-ups

Natalie coming off the field - and what is with Orange #9?  Too big for 3-4 league???

Katie's team is the Frogs, named by her and Lauren in honor of their kindergarten teacher's love for frogs.  They fought hard against the Purple Dragons this week and came out with a 2-0 victory.  And guess who scored 2 goals...  KATIE!!!!!  Katie had never scored a goal before, so 2 in one game was a huge deal.  She was so nonchalant about it, though.  We were so proud of her for that, too, for keeping a good attitude and playing hard the whole game.  Way to go!

Katie in action

Coach Mike wants a high-five after Katie's 2nd goal

Katie and the Frogs on the move!

Two games down, six to go.  This should be a fun soccer season!!!

Children's Devotions for Lent

(Now that Lent's almost over, I realize I probably should've written this a long time ago.  Oops!)

At the beginning of Lent, Katie's Sunday School teachers passed out a Lent Devotions calendar to each family in the class.  The purpose is twofold:  there is a (very) small devotion every day, written for kindergarteners, and an activity for the kids to put coins in a sharing cup.  On Easter, all the kids in the class will bring their change-filled sharing cups back to Sunday School, and all the money will be donated to the Florida United Methodist Children's Home. 

Some example devotions and activities:

"Pray for President Obama and his family and pray for our country.  Put a coin in the cup for each President your family can name."

"Thank God for family members that love you.  Put a coin in the cup for each grandparent or older relative that loves you."

"Thank God for your friends who love and care for you.  Name 10 friends and put a coin in the cup for each."

I've liked these activities because they are short enough to hold a young child's attention span and also interesting enough where they have sparked longer conversations after we've finished counting out our coins for the day.  Katie and Natalie have both enjoyed saying our prayer, counting our coins, and checking off the day's box.  I think this was a great idea!  And the bonus is that all the money goes to kids that need it.  You can't beat that.

Scan & Chuck

"Scan it and chuck it!"

That has been my motto as I've cleaned files, moving from my old office location to my new one.  Once I suspected a move was imminent (a couple months ago), I started purging files.  If I didn't need it, it was gone.  If I wasn't sure if I would need it or not, I scanned it in and tossed the hard copy.  Our copier can scan files and save them to a network drive, and it can feed approximately 90 pages at a time.  I loosely organized my paperwork into piles, scanned them all, then pulled them off the network drive and used Adobe Acrobat Professional to break the 90-some page PDFs into smaller chunks.  You wouldn't believe how many reports, meeting minutes, and payment items I was able to throw out, knowing I had a scanned copy in case I ever needed one.  Liberating!!!

Now that the rest of my co-workers are coming over to the new building with me, we have had approximately 19 years worth of business and personal files to go through in a very short amount of time.  Too bad they didn't take my advice when I caught the scanning bug!  Because truth be told, we haven't had a lot of time for scanning, and our cleaning has been a little more toward the "chucking" side of the spectrum.  Thankfully, we have some guidelines on keeping things that have helped greatly.  Contract payments = 3 years.  Permit-required reports = 5 years.  Other permitting documents = could be for life of the facility, depending on what it is.  I've spent most of the last week going through our central files with my manager, Patty, and we have GREATLY reduced the amount of paperwork we need to move just by throwing out things that we no longer need to retain.  Now we're a little too late to scan before the files get moved, but as we unpack them in their new home, I see an opportunity to scan in more things and weed out the paper files a little bit more.

Isn't it amazing how much stuff we save?  It has been a mind-boggling experience to see some of these things that have been tucked away for so many years.  I'm glad I finally talked Patty into throwing out some of these things.  She's feeling lighter as well without the mountains of paperwork holding us down.  I think all my co-workers are.  For the last week, we've filled up the giant paper recycling bins just as fast as the maintenance staff can empty them.  Frightening, huh?  I think it will be more of the same this week as well!

Treasures

When they lived on the farm, my Grandma Eileen had a small shed filled with antiques that she called her Treasure Chest.  None of the items I received from her actually came from the Treasure Chest, but they are certainly treasures to me.

Natalie loved this singing bathtub Santa when we visited Grandma at Christmas

Katie holds 2 small pouches filled with Grandma's jewelry

I received a box of Swedish items, plus a Minnesota loon

I also received treasures from others over the funeral weekend.

My best girlfriends sent this lovely basket of flowers for the funeral

My brother got me a granite sample from Crazy Horse (blogger is fighting with me on properly rotating it...)

My dear friends at work got me flowers to lift my spirits

I am so blessed to have family and friends who love me and who are there for me!!!  Thank you!!!

"Run to Boston" - I Made It!

With any good goal I'm trying to achieve, I made a spreadsheet to track my progress.  Here is my bar graph showing me creeping closer and closer to the goal:

See where I crossed the red line?  I made it!  With my 3 miles over lunch today, I officially made it to Hopkinton, MA and (slightly) beyond.  The big progress chart at the Y actually shows that I made it sometime last week, but that's OK.  I'll keep on running!  We'll see how far I get before the start of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

Also, I apologize for the lack of posts lately.  With the travel for my grandma's funeral, plus a lot of activity at work helping all my co-workers move to new locations, I've had a lot going on but not a lot of time to talk about it!  I hope to be able to bring you up to speed soon.  :)

Gone From My Sight, That Is All

Last week we said goodbye to Grandma Eileen.  I traveled by myself for the services, as did my brother, so Tyson and I had plenty of time together driving around Minnesota and South Dakota for a couple of days. 

The celebration of life was on Friday morning, April Fool's Day, and since we know Grandma had a sense of humor, I bet there's a part of her that would've gotten a kick out of it.  The church is small-ish, and was absolutely full of family and friends to give her a fitting send-off.  Gorgeous flowers surrounded her urn at the front of the church, just like the flowers she had blooming all summer long on the farm.  We sang her favorite hymns, we had music by two of her grandsons, Robert and TJ (or "my Tommy", as she always called him), we had readings from two of her granddaughters, my cousin Sarah and myself, and my dad delivered the eulogy for his mother.  I don't know how he can be so strong.  Lots of good memories, laughter, and tears were shared by all.

After a lunch at the church, we drove on to the cemetery for a small graveside service.  Winds whipping across the South Dakota prairie in the bright sunshine, my dad recited this by Henry Van Dyke:

Gone From My Sight


I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says;
"There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad
shout;


"Hooray!  Here comes Eileen!"


Her bright blue urn the same color as the sky, we buried her with a pansy I brought from Florida, one of her favorite flowers.  She and Grandpa are together again, and there were more hugs and tears all around before we departed.

Tyson and I stopped at the gas station and I grabbed a snack, Squirt and peanut M&Ms.  Abe smiled in the check-out line as I bought them, and I know Grandma would approve of at least this bit of junk food.  After all, I had already done my crunches that morning.  :)

A weekend full of memories, and I was so glad I could share in them.  My cousin Becci has summed up her thoughts here as well.  Grandma, we will miss you!!!