I Am Thankful

Something I received through email that I felt I should post.

I AM THANKFUL:

FOR THE GOOD WOMAN
WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT,
BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME,
AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

FOR THE FINE MAN
WHO IS ON THE SOFA
BEING A COUCH POTATO,
BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME
AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.

FOR THE TEENAGER
WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES
BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME,
NOT ON THE STREETS.

FOR THE TAXES I PAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM EMPLOYED.

FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.

FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.

FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE.

FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING,
WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING,
AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME.

FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING
I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT
BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

FOR THE PARKING SPOT
I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING
AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION.

FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM WARM.

FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH
WHO SINGS OFF KEY BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN HEAR.

FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.

FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES
AT THE END OF THE DAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.

FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.

********AND I AM THANKFUL FOR THE crazy people I work with
BECAUSE they make work interesting and fun!

AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE.

Fall Update!

Update on us! It's been a crazy couple of months! John finished soccer the beginning of November and his coach highly suggested he play in the spring, as he has a knack for it I guess. I am glad he enjoyed playing. Mom and I took the boys to Rodgers Farm to pick their own pumpkins. They really had a blast running around and getting covered in dirt! LOL

Dave is still slaving away at Elderhostel, hoping and praying for something else to turn up in the job market before Senior Tourism dries up permanently in this crappy economy. :( I am still up to my eyeballs in 2nd grade but I love the kids! Paperwork is tough this year but I know I will get a hang of it eventually. This year is flying by!

John is 3 months into 1st grade and reading pretty well. He is really sounding out words now and decoding all on his own, which is really cool!

Kevin is still getting speech therapy every week and is really making strides this past month! He is starting to attempt two or three words in a phrase. Not always correctly, but at least he is attempting it!

Patrick is still being a little silly sensitive bean, and gets funnier every day! Boy is he big too! He can wear a 3T already-- so much bigger than John ever was!

Patrick, John and Kevin- doing their best pose at Rodger's Farm

Halloween was upon us before we knew it! A very generous friend of mine gave us two costumes that her twins wore last year. So Patrick was a dinosaur and Kevin was a monkey (how appropriate!!!). John decided he wanted to be an animal too and he current favorite animal is a giraffe! He had to wear a toddler costumer because we couldn't find him one that was his size or a pattern to make him one. He was happy though once removed all the elastic in the sleeves and pant legs. It fit much better then!

Pat the Dinosaur, John the Giraffe, and Kev the Monkey

Going out the Trick Or Treat in our neighborhood-- it was a blast!

And now we are waiting for Santa to come and visit us! Christmas is right around the corner, this is the first year the twins really know who Santa is and are really excited about it too!

Soccer Season is here!

John is playing soccer this fall. He seems to really like it this year! Kinda got right in the middle of all those big boys and took the ball right down the field to the net! The coach even said he was pretty surprised because that such a little guy was not intimidated at all. :) Dave got some pics of John last weekend.

John and the Gray Blazers

Run John RUN!!!!!!!!!

They didn't win but they had a great time!

We Love Books!

Got some cute pics of the boys enjoying reading, their favorite activity (other than movies, trains, eating, swimming etc etc LOL). They got some train books from our friend, Kathy and they loved them!

Say Cheese Kevin!

Intense Train Spotting!

Best Friends!

A Long Overdue Update on Us!

WOW I just realized that I have not updated this since May! I guess the summer was so much fun I kinda forgot! Opps!

Update on us: I started back at school with the kids in 2nd grade on Tuesday last week. It's been a crazy busy week but I love my kids and I know we are going to have a great year! It was so much fun to see all the kids from last year too and gets hugs from some of my students that are now in 5th grade! They all look so much bigger too!

John started 1st grade on Wednesday too and is in Mrs. Andrade's class. He is wearing his tie, belt and uniform now and he is soooo darn cute!

Cute uniform huh?

Hanging out at his table

Kevin and Patrick are getting bigger and bigger by the minute! Patrick can repeat anything you ask him too, almost perfectly! He can say "Haverhill, Massachusetts"! :-) Kev is still having trouble with words and is going to see a Speech Therapist soon (if she ever calls us!) but today he repeated the word "tunnel"! I was so excited about that! I don't have any pics from Sept but I have a few of them from August.

Reading with Nana
(Kevin, Patrick and John)

Kevin at Davis Farmland

Patrick at Davis Farmland

Lillian and Julia are getting big too. We visited them on day at the end of August, and they are 6 months old now! They look like carbon copies of Luke!

Julia and Lillian

Dave is still at Elderhostel but is working on things with his connections at Comcast. Keep your fingers crossed. John started soccer on Saturday and really loved it for the first time! His coach said that he was very surprised and impressed at how well John played today and I am glad he really enjoyed it! He will have a practice once a week and a game on Saturdays.

Not much more to report but we did have a great summer, we thoroughly enjoyed the pool, spent a lot of time with Nan and Nanny and our friends and we are now sweating to death during this Indian Summer! First one in a long time, that I can recall!

Graduation Day and Happy News!

Well, long overdue, but finally, I graduated from Lesley University School of Ed. with my M.Ed.!!! It was amazing and humbling to have the chance to share my accomplishment with my family, my friends and my professors. And after all these years pursuing my Masters, and all this educator can say is -- it was awesome! John and Dave came down with my sister, Beth and cousin, Kristen. My mom stayed home with the K&P because she worked that night before and the twins were too young to sit through a 4.5 hour graduation. I missed them but after the ceremony, we drove home and took everyone to Friendly's for a late lunch/early dinner and ICE CREAM SUNDAES! YAY!

Graduation- 2008

Today, my good news is that I was offered (and I accepted) a 2nd grade teaching position at my school for the 2008-2009 school year! I still cannot believe it! I DID IT! I made it into this field! I am excited to work with my new team and with some of the kids I had this year in 1st grade. :)

Trains, Cars and More Trains!

Another exciting weekend full of things that little boys love to do! On Friday, Nana and I took the boys to Klickety-Klack Railroad in Wolfeboro NH. Its a hobby shop that also has an HO train set up built in, and kids can run it as long as they want for $4. It's really fun and John loves it! So K&P got their first taste of the RR!

John showing his brothers how to view the trains!
They were so cute, moving the stools around to get a better view!

Look Pat! I see trains AND cars!

Kevin really likes the circus scene!

Patrick got his first Thomas the Tank Engine Conductor Hat,
just like his big brother!

John also went to a birthday party on Saturday at Checkered Flag in Haverhill, MA. It's a cool indoor go kart track. The little kids go on a smaller track and use karts that are like bumper cars. John loved it!

John and his friends from school!

John choose the green car,
just like his hero, Junior!


Speaking of Junior, here he is!!!

And on Sunday, John got his birthday gift from my mom. Nana (and Auntie Beth) took him on Amtrak Downeaster to Boston. They got the royal treatment (so much nicer than the commuter rail!) and they went to Fanueil Hall and the Aquarium, and Legal Seafood for lunch. He even ate Lobster Bisque! I was shocked to hear that! My little boy is growing up fast!

John and his Downeaster train!


He even got to ride the Green Line, which he LOVES!

We have Fencing!

Thursday night we finally went and bought the fencing to be delivered. $1100! YIKES! That does not even include the cement and gravel we need! OUCH! Anyway, Dave is starting the staking today and soon we will know exactly where the posts are going.

We got rid of the old tree branches today all over the yard and so at least that is done for another year. :) Now our yard has so much sun, which will be great for the grass!

The boys are really enjoying the sandbox and playset!

John has two birthday parties to do today, boy is he busy! One at a GoKart place and another with a High School Musical theme! LOL He doesn't even know what that is! LOL

Fences, Neighbors, Tantrums and the Sand Box

So it looks like we are going to get a fence after all. It's just going to be seriously downgraded to a chain link instead of wood. Very expensive wood, and vinyl is too much so chain link it is! Anyway, we worked it out and it will cost us about $900, if we do the labor ourselves, but we really need one to have a pool again this year (city ordinances and such). And WE HAVE to have a pool!

We also need the fence because the boys will not stay in the yard! They (well Kevin at least) start heading over to our neighbors yard because they have toys in their yard for their grandchildren. I am so tired of fighting with Kevin (and Patrick) about NOT going in that yard. A fence would fix that! And I talked to my neighbor about it so I don't think they are going to be upset about the fence going up. :)

Yesterday, the twins, John and I went down to visit a friend of mine and had a great time. We also went to Lowe's on our way home to get playsand and fertilizer -- Patrick and Kevin (mostly Pat) had a KIBBY in the store! I was so embarrassed! Their outburts of emotion these days is getting really awful -- terribles 2s are really upon us in the worst way. :( I am not looking forward to the next 1 1/2 years. Ho hum.

On a lighter note, Patrick LOVED the sand box so much that I could go up on the deck and light the grill, go in the house and get the hot dogs and hamburgers, and get the milk cups etc with him and John hanging out in the sand box. He DIDN'T MOVE ONCE! It was so cute how much he loved it. Kevin still needed a fence. ;-)

Happy 6th Birthday John!

John's 6th Birthday was on Tuesday, April 15th. John choose Spaghetti without sauce as his dinner and we had the last of the birthday cake from the bowling alley Birthday party last Saturday! John got tons of Transformers, framed picture of his hero, Dale Jr., and tickets to his first ever NASCAR race (in Loudon NH, June 28th).

Yummy Spaghetti!

Pat likes it too!

Kevin loves pasta too!

Happy 6th Birthday John!


Dale is the MAN!

WOW that is a lot of Transformers!

Raccoons and Tree Limbs!

Here's the latest drama! About a week ago, our neighbor noticed that a raccoon was living above the kids' playset. So in order to get her out of the branch in that tree, we called a trapper. $300 later he sprayed some male raccoon scent in the hole and around the tree to get her to leave the nest! YIKES! We haven't seen her since, so we are hoping she relocated.

So now we have to remove the tree limbs in order to make sure someone ELSE does not move in! $700 because of the height and location of the branches! HOLY SH&T! (pardon my French folks) So $1000 later and we don't even have new cabinets in the kitchen. :-(

On a happier note, Spring Break started yesterday, and despite the fact that I finally came down with the kids' stomach bug, today I am better and it is a beautiful sunny day! And I did get paid for the long term sub work I did in 1st grade too! Thank God since we needed it to take care of our raccoon and tree limbs! LOL

First Post!

I'm trying my hand at this blogging thing! Never too late! I'm going to try and update it regularly with pictures of what is going on here since time is limited for me keep up with my scrapbooking.