Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. A day set aside to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment. There are several very small change you can make in your daily life to help our Earth's environment. Some of these changes you can see results immediately, like replacing conventional light bulbs with compact fluorescents and recycle household appliances and replace them with efficient Energy Star options (your energy bill will cost you less). Things like, getting your name removed from junk mail lists (which you can do here) and pay bills electronically with online, direct bill pay services. Doing these things will preserve millions of trees. Here are a couple more web-sites of simple thing you can do to protect this Earth.

Make EveryDay Earth Day
Ideal Bite
Earth Day Network
Green Mom Finds

You might not think that doing these things will directly impact you, but they will impact your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and don't you want them to have the same resources from the Earth that you did?

Good-Bye Matt, Kim & Lily

Matt, Kim and Lily are leaving this week to head off to their new home in Phoenix, Arizona. They have been staying at Ed & Lynda's the past week to spend some extra time with the family. Sam and Lily have been having a great time together and I think are going to miss each other a lot. Lily loves watching Ben too and is always asking where he is. We are all going to miss them very much. We wish you guys lots of luck out there! And hopefully soon we will be able to make a visit to see you! Here are some pictures of their new house. And here are some pictures of Lily and her cousins from the past couple days.

Ruined Plans...

Well Andy and I were planning to get Sam married off early, but unfortunately they fixed this law and ruined our plans! Of course I am just kidding, I mean I would like to keep him at home one day a week! They rest of the week I was hoping his "wife" could deal with him! Can you tell the terrible twos are wearing on me?!

Toddlers Can No Longer Marry

What the World Eats

I thought that this was very interesting... check it out!

What the World Eats

Hoppy Easter!

This Easter was pretty quiet. But this was the first year that Sam was really excited about the Easter bunny coming and leaving candy! He found two eggs by his bedroom door when he woke up and I think at first that he thought that was all the Easter bunny left. Then I suggested we go look for his basket. He looked under beds and in closets and finally found it in the shower. And so the bathroom floor is where he went through everything! Jacob woke up not much longer after Sam and found his pretty quickly in Ben's clothes basket. Ben of course had no idea of what was going on, but he did really like one of the new toys that was in his basket. Andy had to work, but the rest of us went to church in the morning. Jacob visited with his other grand-parents and Sam, Ben and I went to visit with my grand-parents. Hope everyone had a nice Easter! More pictures here!

You Have Been Selected!

Andy received a letter in the mail today that he has been waiting a few months for now. It is a letter from Oakland Community College stating that he has been selected for admission for the Associate Degree Nursing Program, that starts this Fall. Over the past year he has been working on his pre-requisites and applied for the program in December. Over 700 students applied with only 250 open spaces. Andy has acquired a straight 4.0 since going back to school and has been working very hard with all his classes. His determination, commitment, long hours and hard work paid off with being accepted on the first try! His plan is to graduate with an associates degree in nursing in the Spring of 2010 and begin his new career. (And probably go onto more schooling too... he really is determined to go far with his career!)

CONGRATS ANDY - I am so proud of you!!!

New Camera

I got a new camera today!!! I have waiting some time for a new one and finaaly found one that seemed easy enough to use as a day to day camera (and one that Andy could handle!), but that also had some realy nice features for the photo shoots I like to do of the kids. so, soon I should have some even more realy nice pictures to share!!!

Canon Poweshot S5 IS

Lily's 2nd Birthday!

Today we celebrated Lily's 2nd birthday. She had a Strawberry Shortcake party (funny, I think I had one of those about 30 years ago!). Lily and Sam had a ton of fun chasing each other with balloons. We had pizza for lunch and a delicious ice cream cake. Lily got a ton of clothes as presents and of course some toys too! Hope you had an excellent birthday Lily! There are more pictures here.

Can I Help?

After dinner I was cleaning up the kitchen and Ben was in his highchair having a bottle. He was almost done with his bottle when it started to fall out of the strategically propped up place I had it in. Sam picked it right up and asked, "can I help and feed Benny?" Sam has been quite the little helper with Ben lately and I love watching him take care of his little brother. Sam stood next to his highchair and helped Ben finish his bottle. I was really impressed, because it took a few minutes for Ben to finish it (which in toddler time is hours!). Thank you Sammy for being my big helper!

Two Sleeping Beauties

Sam has been taking great naps at daycare everyday during the week, but at home on the weekends he rarely takes one. He just doesn't want to lay down with me. Although I know he wants one because he carries his blanket all over the house and is quieter than normal. Today he was helping me straighten up the house and it most of did him over, because he fell asleep right on the floor in the doorway to the bathroom. Ben went down for a nap shortly after that. And for the first time ever both boys were sleeping! I of course went into overdrive and got done as much as I could before either of them woke-up!