Wowsers it has been a long time.....

I'm not feeling too bad since I am only a week or two behind on the picture blog. Still, I have missed out on just about everything here.

So where to start. Our sweet dog did die. We had to have her put down the day after Easter. It was a sad time in our casa. She was my little pup when we had Niko. And for that first year after we had him, she was my bambina. It was bizarre because it seemed like S had no emotions about the whole thing. Then, I found out she hand sanitized a girl's hair at school that day. The good news is that maybe she did have some deep emotions about having our dog die. The bad news is that smothering someone's hair in hand sanitizer isn't the best way to deal with it.

May has been busy busy busy. It seems like I am at the school so many times each week. I'll try to give a quick run down for each kid.

M had her year end performance for dance. It was her first time doing a lift with the boys. I decided I need to give her more credit. She did such a good job. Her pointe work was much more solid as well. She then got some bad virus and was out of commission for some time. She had the city track meet and a 5th grade talent show. I was so pleased with her. I was nervous for her. They placed her last and the 5th graders were getting antsy. There was a lot of wiggling and chit chatting. Then she started playing and that ALL stopped. Why would a bunch of 5th graders stop that for a Seitz concerto? I don't know, but they did! And after they clapped so loudly for her. See kiddo, it often does pay off when you work really hard all the time. Now it's the Shostokovich she has to learn in the next few weeks....

T had a swim meet. The good news was that he finally didn't get DQ'd on breaststroke. (One time he made it through on that stroke but they missed dq'ing him.) The day that DH took him though he dove in for his 50 Fly and forgot which stroke he was doing. Oops! He did a minute to win it type of game for his class business. I guess the kids all wanted to do office tennis and so instead of bringing home the Oreos, he just snacked on them the entire hour. He pretty much ate an entire package. He had his talent show as well. So many people came up and mentioned their surprise that T could play like that. He recently bought a coonskin cap and has been wearing it everywhere. T had a track meet for school. He made the relay team, but then the relay team was last. The tall gangly kids didn't seem to be the best runners.

D has been busy. He has two birthday parties this weekend. He's been a little antsy about things lately. We had a bit of a disaster. His framed picture of him when he was little (came in the frame with him from Texas) fell off his dresser and broke. What I didn't realize was that this picture had been wet before. So when he went to take the picture out it started tearing. He was heartbroken. I didn't even think that it could have happened. The box of pictures I saw in Texas had quite a few wet stuck together ones. I just didn't think about the frame. Anyway, we have photographed it with the broken stuck glass on top and put the special picture in a box so he can keep it, broken glass and all forever.

S is doing better. She got this picture of Jesus on Easter at church and decided to start carrying it everywhere. She seemed to do better. We lost the picture and she was worried she couldn't be good and so I told her to just make the picture be in her memory. So far so good. She's still wanting to blow up often, but she's really trying to control it. Go S! She had K graduation today. She concentrated so hard during the program. She said she's so excited to spend time with me now that school is out. I guess I'm moving up in the world.

C has been a little miss grouchy pants today. But I have to cut her some slack as she has a cold and a double ear infection. She has been funny lately. She likes the word random and will talk about wanting to speak or wave at random people. She said she wished she had a carpool she could do that. She also has surprised me with her learning. The other day she heard the word truck and said something to the effect of , "Hmm... does that end with a k or ck? It ends with a ck." Who taught her that? Today we were heading to the school with the kids and all of a sudden I hear violin playing in the car. She had her instrument in the backseat because she hadn't practiced that morning. What a little turkey!

As for the grown ups.... DH survived the huge layoffs at his company. So all is well for us, but not for some of the people he knows. He's taking a hunter safety course and kind of feels dorky because he's pretty much the oldest person taking the course. He's been biking as he still has injured toes. He got his spot in his marathon but can't run for now. The thing to remember is to not run really steep long hills for workouts or you might wreck your toes. He's hoping he can start running again soon.

I have not been running. How did I get up to 14 miles at a time last year and then not want to leave my house this year. Maybe it's the cruddy weather. I don't know. I just can't get up at 5 something every morning. (Or hmmm... maybe it's that I do things like blog in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping.) Not much to report on the me front. May is the taxi month for moms... so many things to get to. Oh I started working on organizing my cold storage room. Boy does it need work. I've got to tell myself to not buy a single toothpaste that isn't free. I have more than a year supply of the stuff.

The weather is cold cold and colder. The snow is halfway down the mountains today. We put our garden in. I wonder if anything will live. If not, I'll just replant. I'm hoping for the best.