It's official. I can't go to Zach's soccer games.

So I officially either can't go to my first born child's soccer games .... or I have to go "incognito" and watch from the sidelines of another field and drive in another car.

I think I told you all that Zach had such a great soccer game a few weeks ago that he told me I could go to the next game... he was so excited....and he two great practices following that game and we even roped our nanny, Caitlin, into being Sam's assistant coach. So this past Saturday was Zach's second game of the year (they skipped Easter week). So ... me and the girls went along ... and it did NOT got well to say the least!!

I will give Zach this - the weather was almost 80 earlier this week (I even turned on the air conditioning for a couple hours) and then it went down to the 40's and windy on Saturday. He was positively FREEZING. So he pretty much cried the whole time and wanted to sit with mommy. Which didn't help the girls who were cold and crying too. (arrgh!!)

Here's some pictures of them practicing beforehand and he did get in for the first couple of minutes, so I was able to get a picture or two. Poor kid. (Poor mom.) These girls better turn out differently in the "mommy's girl" kind of way and it better be DADDY who can't see their first ..... ballet dance or something! :( (Smile, Sam!!)

(He's crying here looking at me to get off the field. As you can see, it's holding up the game!)

Well you all have a great night. Pray that one day I'll get to see him play in an organized sport. :)

Love,

Rachel xoxoxo

I have a question!

I have a question. I'm sure someone out there knows the answer though I am sure if I wasn't so lazy I could probably Google it and get the answer myself.

How are the Oscars awarded?

We watched "No Country For Old Men" last night. Oscar Winner, wasn't it? Okay it had a good story to it, albeit it was extremely gory and bloody and very violent - if you like that sort of drug-dealer, cops & robber, good guy tries to get the bad guy before he gets his wife type of movie. I do ... though to be honest I could have done without so much gore. Anyway......... we spend two PRECIOUS hours (anyone with three kids knows that two hours on a Sunday night are precious!!) watching this move that has a decent plot....a great cast....it won the academy award.....but it has one of the worst endings on a movie that I've ever seen. Seriously. The credits started rolling and I felt CHEATED!

So my question is who chooses the winners of the Oscars ... and what the heck is the criteria???

Rachel's official recommendation? Rent instead of buy this flick, people, or better yet.....don't waste the time if you hate endings that leave you going "THAT'S IT?" !

Home improvement project!

Be on the lookout for before/after pictures .... we are starting two major home improvement projects this week.

Here's a picture of what our new floors are going to look like (minus the really modern decor in the background...this was just copied off the flooring company's website!):

It's actually a high grade "laminate" flooring which is what every single flooring contractor who came out to look at our project pointed us towards --- laminate vs. hardwood. We're doing our whole downstairs (foyer, living room & dining room (AKA the playroom), kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, family room) so it is a pretty major project. They all recommended laminate because of the durability with having three kids ages three and under ... plus such a big part of the room (the living room/dining room) is actually the playroom where they have ride on toys, a slide, a trampoline, and all sorts of other toys that can potentially damage real wood floors. Apparently this is really easy to clean too - so even better! We are very excited, and this is supposed to look and feel like real wood, so ... we'll see! I'll send you before/after pictures when the floor is in.

We're also getting a fence this week too, which we're also really excited about. This will make it so much nicer to have the kids outside .... not have to worry about them running out front or into the cul-de-sac ... they're starting that on Friday - depending on the weather (it's been rainy the last couple days and the forecast this week doesn't look promising.) Maybe we'll also get a PUPPY one of these days? *hint hint*? (JUST KIDDING!) As much as I'd love a puppy, a cute, funny, bulldog (or a yellow labradoodle) we just have too much going on with three toddlers.....I mean, they're not even potty trained yet! eesh!

Have a great day!

Hippity Hoppity Happy Easter!

Hi everyone! Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful weekend! Sam's sister Donna and Rick and their kids Jessie and Chelsea (or Chessie and Jelsea as I always call them) came in to visit from the South Jersey / Philly area and we just had a wonderful time. Eating, drinking, playing games (Rock Band, lol) and listening to music as well as tons of playing with the little ones. We also had a bar-b-q with our neighbors Jen & Kurt and their little ones (Seth & Brody) on Saturday (it was almost 70 degrees most of the day) and we just had such a nice time all being together - even our nanny, Caitlin, joined in the fun time!

The kids had a great time coloring eggs (well Zach, anyway ....we weren't brave enough *this year* to let the girls try THAT) and then waking up to their baskets and going outside to find all the eggs that the Easter Bunny left. It was funny watching them look out the window to "spot" the eggs before we went out there ... it was a mad dash to get the ones that they saw beforehand!

We then had Easter dinner with everyone, including Catilin and everything turned out GREAT! I made a ham - really for only the second time in my life - and it had a spicy glaze that you put on near the end to give it a nice brown coating and it had a spicy tangerine chutney that you spooned out on top of the ham ...YUMMY!

Here's just a "couple" photos, I'm sure you're getting tired to my new camera by now. Which I still love, by the way, In case I haven't mentioned that today! ;)

Anyway, hope you all had as wonderful and as blessed day as we did. Love you all.....Goodnight!

Rach xoxoxo

More new camera shots! YAY!

Ok, it's almost 1:00 AM, and I'll probably regret this tomorrow ...... but I had to post some more shots that I took this evening (Mind you this is only about 20 of the probably 100 that I took!!) ! I love love love my new camera! Too tired for captions tonight, maybe I'll add them tomorrow...sorry if you can't tell who's who! (Zach's in the blue!) :)



Night! Love you all! xoxoxo!!!

New Camera - Quick Post

This is just a quick post to put some photos up that I took with my NEW camera today! My wonderful husband came home from a business trip this week with a MAJOR surprise present for me....the Canon XTI Rebel 10.0 Megapixel PLUS a telphoto lens that I've been DROOLING over for like EVER! WOOHOO! I'm going to take an online photography class, but here's some of the shots I took with it... the clarity is AMAZING! I took these out of my bedroom window while the kids were outside playing.