I'm never leaving...

FINALLY... some pictures of the projects we've been working on the last few weeks... starting with Ben's very cool RAYS room. Poor thing has wanted HIS room painted ever since we painted Carly's, oh about 4 years ago! For his birthday, we gave him a RAYS renovation. He was so excited when he saw it all done (well, we're ALMOST done), that he said, "This room makes me want to live here forever!!! I'm never leaving now!". NEWS FLASH, BEN: If that's the case, this room gets painted PINK the day you graduate from college! I'm not kidding. PINK. We've got more little things to hang up and I need to order a few frames for some pictures and a mini-bat hanger, oh, and Ryan has a new ceiling fan to install... but you get the idea... notice our old license plate above the window, and the newspaper articles from last fall that Ryan laminated... on the opposite wall (painted solid navy blue) where the closet is, he has a shelf with all his RAYS bobble heads and various other trinkets. Also, notice my dresser now painted BLUE!!! Remember when we refinished those all those years ago, Dad?? That's all I could think about when I was painting over that green!

The RAYS logo in the upper right corner is actually a poster I cut up... we really wanted the logo on the wall and didn't want to pay $90 from fatheads.com to get one, so we improvised. My other option was painting it myself... pretty happy the poster worked out!!!

Hat rack... I have a very cool "Inaugural Pitch" picture from 1998 to hang above this... it's in need of a frame, so that's coming...

And since her room is NEVER clean, I thought I'd add a picture of it after Mom spent a day in there! Notice Elfy and the pink unicorn snoozing away...

also, never clean... ok, kidding. But it's usually filled with about 100 loads of folded laundry... actually, I wanted you to see our new comforter. Still looking for curtains.

and our last BIG project... painting the very high stairwell! agggghhhh! I could not watch Ryan on the ladder!

Also, have a few more pictures to get printed off and added into the empty frames... and over time, we will have more frames added... we love seeing all our family when we go up and down a 100's a day!

Oh! we have to still hang THIS newspaper article in Ben's room... before you REDSOX fans get all "wah-wah-wah", you'll be happy to know the RAYS lost their first spring training game, 7-0. oh boy.

Pikachu Birthday Cookies

My sweet sister-in-law is apparently talented at cute babies AND cute cookies! She came over last night with these delicious wonders for Ben's birthday! She said she found an online coloring page and used it as a template for the giant Pikachu cookie she made for Ben. She was sweet enough to give him BLUE cheeks since Ben can't have Red40 dye. The pink cookies were for me and Carly:) These were the best cookies I've ever eaten! MMMMmmmmmm... and yes, Ben was THRILLED to have one of his favorite characters on a special cookie! We FINALLY sang Happy Birthday to him, too! Thanks, Rochel!!!

2nd in the GROSSEST meal contest

My kids are notorious Cranky Eaters. Well, Ben is significantly better these days (choking incident aside) but Carly is so picky and it has caused so many "Meal time battles"... We've had this conversation at dinner many times, "Did YOUR mom make you eat gross things for dinner??"... they just can't believe that SWEET GRAMMY would EVER make ANYONE eat anything gross. I bring up the #1 all time grossest dinner FREQUENTLY, and I just don't think they believe me. Hamburger Casserole, anyone?!?!? UGH. I know my sister loves it, I know my parents still really like it, but just the thought of it, scary.

So, Ben and Carly really love CiCi's Pizza buffet... I do not LOVE this place, so Ryan tends to take them there on random Saturday's when I have worked and am not with them. This arrangement works out well for all of us. I tend to become a Cranky Eater myself when I have to eat at CiCi's. (*side note: it's perfectly acceptable to be a C.E. when the food is NOT HEALTHY). Carly's favorite kind of pizza there is "macaroni and cheese pizza"... surely you remember this incident. She's a mac n' cheese girl. Well, last night was "Homemade Pizza night" at our house... a favorite (read: no one complains about this meal)... and before you get all, Jennifer-is-Betty-Crocker (we all KNOW I am no cook), it's Mamma Mary's thin pizza crusts from WalMart with random sauce and cheese and whatever toppings we have handy. Anyways, we had leftover M n'C in the fridge and I thought I'd make Carly's favorite CiCi's treat... grossest looking thing I've ever purposefully made. She loved it. Ugh.

*there is only M nC on the right side of the pie... Ben had to eat this pizza, too, and I think he might lose his mind if he had to eat something OTHER than "justplaincheesepizza".

FanFest

We celebrated Valentine's Day with the TampaBay Rays! Ryan decided in 1998 that his family was going to support our hometown team.... who knew he'd be able to get his "UNSPORTY" girl on board?!??! They had FanFest today and since we have season tickets, we were able to get in an hour earlier than the "general public". Here we are with crazy Raymond. Ryan is wearing the new jersey his parents got him for Christmas!

We signed the kids up for Rays Rookies Kids club and they got shirts and hats... then we walked all over the field, which is really pretty cool. We pointed to our seats (way up high over the 3rd base line... these are our FAVORITE seats!!!), and then we took a tour of the dugout and Rays Clubhouse... pretty cool. We've seen it all before (EVERY YEAR!), but it's still pretty fun for us... obviously, since we keep going back!!! Here they are in the dugout... the security guard actually said, "don't touch the phone. There's no one in the bullpen"

Here they are coming up the stairs heading into the Clubhouse... (Ben is being a GREAT big brother and blocking Carly on purpose... Ahhhh, back to normal!!)

Little Miss on the field... a lady had just walked by and said how cute she was "Those eyes!" and I looked at her and thought, She IS pretty cute, and snapped a picture! She always looks even prettier in blue:)

We had a fun day... we are HUGE fans of tradition, so we were happy to take part in one of our family favorites!

Ben's Birthday... a Celebration of Life!

For Ben's 10th Birthday (FEBRUARY 12th... Happy BDay Tracy!!!) he wanted to go to the Animal Kingdom, instead of having a party. This sounded like an EVEN BETTER idea when Disney announced you can go to one of their parks FOR FREE on your bday! SCORE! We all had a GREAT time... here are some of the highlights...



Here a "Massai Warrior" plays "Happy Birthday" to Ben as he was walking by... they had given him a button that said "Happy Birthday!" with his name on it... he had mixed feelings about wearing the button, but we think he enjoyed it for the most part. We need clarification from Grammy and Papoo on whether or not a Massai Warrior would actually know this song...



Extra special THANK YOU to Auntie Tracy (Happy Birthday!) for making sure we made it over to Maharajah Jungle Trek to see the fruit bats. COMPLETELY FASCINATING and Ryan's favorite part of the day! We watched them for a long time and were just amazed by them. Ok, probably not everyone's "thing", but we ALL liked them:) This one is eating lettuce. Apparently, that is what they do... other's were chomping on melons and one was "grooming". You can thank me later for not posting THAT picture here!

Also on the Trek, the Tigers... Beautiful! Put the lens of my camera right through the netting and zoomed WAY IN (I was really far away) and she sat there so calmly.

Here are Ben and Carly in line for Expedition Everest... giant roller coaster that they LOVED (it was their favorite part of the day!!). Please note the tshirt we gave Ben for his big day... "Just one more level"... they didn't have one in Ryan's size, or they BOTH would have been sporting them! Ok, I actually went on this roller coaster, too! I haven't been going on RC's anymore because it completely messes up my equilibrium and well, I'm chicken. I'm fine with that. So 1/2 through this one, I realized that Ben's-Birthday or not, this was a very bad idea. They went on it 3 more times while I waited. Am I proud of myself for going at least once? No. Stupid, Stupid Girl.

Ok, this was originally MY favorite part of the day... Lion King show. Pretty amazing! We ALL really enjoyed it. We especially loved the "Monkey's" on the trampolines and swings... we decided this would be GREAT jobs for Uncle Johnny and Aunt Randee. Pretty sure we have already seen Johnny doing 1/2 those tricks already on the tramp... all he needs is a monkey suit. Do we have your name for Christmas this year?! Hmmmm....

The giant tree in the middle of the park is actually a 4-D movie, "It's a Bug's Life" which was very fun... smelled suspiciously like bug spray in there. We got to wear these fun glasses...

Waiting for the train ride to the petting station. Another fun part, the kids really loved "brushing" the goats.

Exiting the park... Mickey and Minnie were waving "Goodbye" to us... this is the best picture I could get as they kept their hands up waving so much!

So, what ended up being my favorite part of the day? You might have heard this amazing and scary story already... but I feel the need to share again as it is a true picture of how gracious God is to us. We completely believe that God is in control of all things and that sometimes his plan is not what we pick or even understand... we are thankful that his plan for Ben and us was to give us at least one more day with our amazing son. While we were eating dinner on the way home, Ben completely started choking on his chicken sandwich... I say completely, because there was NO AIR moving and his airway was completely obstructed. (Enjoy that nursing lingo). My mind went into Nursing Mode and suddenly I was performing the Heimlich on my son. After about 5 attempts, chicken came flying out (never been so happy to see that!) and he was breathing again. We were all pretty shaken up, but let me tell you... so thankful that God protected Ben and our family and that we were spared what other families have had to endure. We've decided it's never bad to have a reminder of how short life is and that it is definately a GIFT from the Almighty... My favorite part of the day was hearing him breath! And being able to hug him afterwards and thank God for the 10 years, plus 37 weeks that Ben has made us smile!

One last Shout Out to TRACY... Ben's birthday buddy! I still love it that he was born on your birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Ri-ght to be Bright

Ok, one of my biggest PROBLEMS is multi-tasking. For real. I spend so much time excessively multi-tasking that NOTHING gets done. Take "right now" for instance. In the past 10 minutes, I have folded 1/2 a load of laundry, made 1/2 a bday card for Ben, took some pictures, made 1/2 of the bed, cleared 4 books off Carly's book shelf, let the cats out, drank 3 sips of coffee, talked to Laurie on the phone, hung up a shirt, considered taking a walk, downloaded new kodak software, and am making an entry on my blog... oh, and I got Kristin's college address off my email account. I think this justifies a nap, if you want to know the truth. Here's how it REALLY went down hill this morning... While folding laundry and telling myself I was going to stay FOCUSSED on ONE task, I came across this Tshirt. Now that I think back, the kids were talking about how Ben made a tshirt at school yesterday. I apparently didn't pay much attention. ANYWAYS, when I pulled this out of the laundry, it occured to me I needed to: take a picture of it and put it on my blog... well, the picture came out sideways, which reminded me I needed to download that software, and touching the computer reminded me I needed Kristin's address for her Valentine's card (rats! wrecked the surprise!), which reminded me I needed to finish Ben's bday card, which was by the laundry again, so I hung up a shirt, then Laurie called and I wandered upstairs, where the bookshelf and bed came into play, then came back down and the cats were crying, then the coffee was there and I remembered I wanted to go for a walk so I wouldn't feel the least bit bad for eating pizza for dinner. I'm tired. AND I DIGRESS! ugh. It's a problem.

Don't turn your computer off yet... there IS A STORY HERE.

All month we've been worrying over Ben taking the Florida Writes test (FCAT business) and we've been working really hard with him. ORIGINALLY we were lead to believe he had to score a 4 to advance to 5th grade, which just isn't true... he had only been getting 3's in practice. Frustrating, considering he writes books all the time and is BRILLIANT (not just a Mom's point of view, he really is). Anyways, the test was yesterday and we are all relieved it's over... apparently they made these tshirts at school and well, it just cracked me up. Maybe it's not as funny after all of the above, but it still made me smile... and completely made me lose my train of thought and focus. oh well, sometimes that's important, too:)

"Ri- or Write to be Bright!"

I'm especially enjoying the "Beat the cat" sign!!!

*sigh* it has just occurred to me why I love the "If you give a mouse a cookie" book so much.

Sweet Moses!

So I ran by my parents house the other day... you know, to pick up the "Buggin' Out" bill that needed to be paid... and to get the chalk line thing we needed to use for our painting project in Ben's room. Carly reminded us the WHOLE WAY out there that GRAMMY had told her she could get TWO snacks when she went next time (guilt snacks, since they refuse to come home from Israel, and she's been missing them something terrible). As we were departing the Parental Homefront, by eyes caught on something in the garage. Of course, I had to bring it home. Shouldn't have been in the garage to begin with.

I mean, REALLY? Moses. In the garage. What is WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?!??! Have you no respect?! That statue has been in our family for YEARS. Seriously. And there he was, teetering on the edge of a shelf with napkins and paperplates that were on sale at Target 6 years ago. Clinging to his staff... which, I might add, COULD be used as a weapon, if needed. Fortunately, he has been rescued. Sweet Moses. Thank Goodness I showed up, right Mo?

Honestly, I should have put him right next to the statue of Dad and Uncle Ike-y hugging each other after a baseball game. Another Melton Classic.

Eli's Visit

LAST WEEK, Eli came to spend the afternoon/evening with us! I have had trouble getting pictures on this blog, so I'm behind in my post... ANYWAYS, we all had so much fun playing with him... we took him for a walk in his stroller (no memory card in the camera that I made sure to take with us, so no pictures of that!), and Ben and Carly rode their scooters all around him. I don't Edgar reads our blog, so I will pass along that they ran into him about 10 times and the scooter races had to be rearranged once it occurred to Ryan and I that having Eli be the finish line wasn't the smartest idea. When we got back to the house, Eli cuddled up with his cousin!!

Carly LOVES holding this little boy! We were amazed to see he actually is starting to look a little like Ben, so that made us smile! He ate his dinner, then he fell asleep...

I thought this was really sweet... especially with the Longoria shirt he was sporting. This brought up the little song I wrote for Eli, and he loves it when we sing it to him... Feel free to give it a try yourself. Sing it to the tune of "I'm a little Teapot"

I'm a little Rays Fan, Yes I am

These are my fingers, These are my hands

When I get all grown up I'm gonna be

A Pitcher for My Rays, you wait and see!!

Yup, there are motions involved, as you can well imagine. He is HIGHLY entertained by his fingers these days, so this song REALLY works for him. Sorry, Rochel, you are going to have to write your own Tiger's song. I'm not helping you out with that one.

After walking, eating, napping, and singing, we had Media Center time with the cousins reading stories to Eli. He seemed to enjoy Circle Time!

And here Eli is enjoying our dinner with us... He had crazy cousins hanging over his head the whole time, so he seemed to really enjoy the meal. We really enjoyed out time with him, and besides the scooter incident(s), we were all really well behaved and didn't try anything too crazy with our little sweetie. Have to say, our evening made us really sad that the rest of the cousins aren't close enough to come and hang out with our family!

Come back, Eli... surely your mom and dad should be going on a date EVERY WEEK!