Updates....

I keep swearing I will update more and more and then....life gets in the way. So..ahem...

I, Joanie, do solemly swear to UPDATE this blog more frequently. There. It's official.

Really, though, I should update more. We have family all over the place (shout out to the IL's in FL!), many, many FFF's (Far Flung Friends) (shout out to Anth and Erik, the Czerewko's, et, al.)
So, I am going to try and keep you filled in more frequently on our ever so exciting life. Do me a favor and leave a comment once in a while, so I know you are out there :)

STAR WARS!!!

How stinkin' cool! We went to the Franklin Institue Science Museum to see the special "Star Wars - Where Imagination Meets Science" exhibit. Adam was in awe. The child has been OBSESSED with Star Wars since age 3. They had original costumes, R2, C3PO, Luke's landspeeder and so much more! Adam went decked out in his Anakin costume.

We were in the exhibit for a loooooooooooooong time, then went and saw the movie "Far, Far Away: The Worlds of Star Wars" in the Fels Planetarium and then went to see the IMAX movie "Dinosaurs Alive". Finally, we toured the rest of the museum! We are members, so we go all time and did'nt mind missing a thing or two! We were there from opening to closing - and we are beat!

Andrew took a friend and Wayne joined us. I think we wore him out - good practice for Disney World (only 203 more days, not that I'm counting or anything!!!)

I would highly recommend this exhibit if you are a Star Wars fan!

SNOW DAY!!!!!!

Well, only 3 inches. But hey, it's better than nothing. And, we got a snow day out of it! What was supposed to be a full week of school turned into a very short one! We were supposed to have school on Monday (President's Day), but the week before, there were so many kids out sick that they decided to close on Monday and disinfect the whole school! Then, the snow on Friday caused another closure! The kids enjoyed the snow, even though there was not that much - and I enjoyed staying in all day, since I was sick.

Too long since I posted....again.....

I have been so bad about updating my blog! Things have been busy as usual. Shouldn't that be normal now? I spend WAY too much time volunteering at the boys school. Way too much time. But, it is something that I love, and right now, I am able to do it. With tuition and everything else costing more and more, who knows how long that will last, so I might as well enjoy it while I can!

So much has been going on the last few weeks:

1. We bought a new (well, new to us) van. Our good old "Silver Bullet" was starting to nickle and dime us to death. It had almost 100,000 miles on it, and was starting to need lots of work. So, we bought a 2007 "pre-owned" (don't ya love that "pre-owned"-call it what it is USED!) Chrysler Town and Country Touring Edition. I LOVE the Stow and Go Seating and the Sirius Radio. The boys love the DVD player - even though they have not used it yet!

2. We added a new member of the family. On January 16, we got Max. Max was (yes, WAS) a cute "Winter White" hamster. Max died 1 week after we got him. We were very upset. So, what else is there to do but put the body in a bag and cash in on the 14 day guarantee. Yup, ya gotta take the body back to the store. So, off the PetSmart we went. We came home with Sam. Sam is a "Blueberry Dwarf" hamster. He is so much fun! We are all really enjoying him (Grandmom and I are enjoying him the most, believe it or not!). I will post a pic very soon!

3. The kids got their report cards - both did excellent! I was very proud of them! We are looking forward to Easter break in March - 11 days off - WOOHOO!!! We are going to go to the Franklin Institute to see the Star Wars exhibit. We can't wait for that!

4. I am still obsessivly planning our Disney trip - only 240 days to go! I know I am driving Doug and Wayne crazy, but I am really looking forward to going! We are really going to try and surprise the boys - really surprise them. Wake them up in the morning and say "come on, we are going to the airport and going to Disney NOW" type of surprise! We'll see if it happens!

So, that's our life in a nutshell for right now. I will post some pictures of the new wheels and the new hamster very, very soon!

I can't believe it's been so long....

Where did the time go? I can't believe my last entry was HALLOWEEN! I gotta get on the ball! So much cool stuff has gone on since then! Thanksgiving was great - we all ate at our house and had so much fun. Christmas was a blast - we did a lot of fun things with the kids and really enjoyed the holidays. The boys Uncle Wayne got them (and us!) a Wii for Christmas-we are having a blast with it :)

For New Years, we went with friends to Lancaster, PA, to a hotel (Howard Johnson's) with a great indoor water park. The kids had a blast staying up until midnight and "partying" in the room!

Then, back to reality - school for the kids, work for Doug and the usual craziness for me!

We hope to have a great year ahead with a lot of things planned. The biggest plan is Disney! We are heading to see the Mouse on October 3rd! We have been saving for this trip for a year, and can't believe we are only 262 days away - LOL!

So, my New Years resolution is to keep my blog updated--think it'll happen????

Happy Halloween!!

Ahhhh...Halloween. My least favorite holiday, and the one the boys live for! As you all know, every day is Halloween in Adam's world! I tried sooooo hard to convince Adam to be Capt. Jack Sparrow, since, for his birthday, Grandmom bought him the costume from the Disney store and Aunt Jean bought him the hat and wig. But no way. He wanted to be Anakin Skywalker and there was no talking him out of it. So, Anakin he was. Andrew was easy. He couldn't wait to be the "kid abducted by the alien" that was Russell's from a few years ago!

Speaking of Russell....since he is the cool 8th grader, he is way too cool for "costumes". But, St. Margaret's really does it big on Halloween. So, Jean came up with the idea for him and his friends: The Verizon Network. It really was a cool idea!

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands!

Andrew's 2nd grade class recently read Ready Freddy and the Pumpkin Elf. In the story, the class has a pumpkin decorating contest. So, Andrew's class thought that would be a great idea.

We talked about what he wanted to do and some of the ideas he kicked around were: a soccer ball, a baseball, a monster and a globe. He decided on the globe. We spray painted it blue, Doug drew all the continents on it and Andrew painted them and labeled them. We think it came out great! The class will vote for their favorites on Wednesday. There were a lot of very clever ideas!