Playing Hookie

Yes I let my kids skip school yesterday. Were they sick? No! But it was my mom's last day here so we kept them home. For lunch time we went to Chuck-E-Cheese. This is a big treat for them because we only go about once a year. They had a blast. Riana caught on to the whole ticket and token thing real quick. After 2 1/2 hours it was time to go home. They each got several little prizes and a blue cotton candy to share. Riana doesn't like Cotton Candy. ..not yet. We loved our special afternoon.




After that fun day, Grandma came up to play with the 3 girls before bed. She brought some magic popcorn. They had never seen popcorn made this way. It was the old style that you pop on the stove. They were fascinated by how big the top got and wanted to see it explode. No explosions but they ate the popcorn anyway.
After that fun day, Grandma came up to play with the 3 girls before bed. She brought some magic popcorn. They had never seen popcorn made this way. It was the old style that you pop on the stove. They were fascinated by how big the top got and wanted to see it explode. No explosions but they ate the popcorn anyway.

Shayla's First Communion

May 2nd
Shayla was very excited for her 1st Communion. Any time she spoke to someone she would ask them if they were coming to her communion. There were 71 kids split between 2 time slots. I picked the 12:00 knowing it would take awhile to get everyone ready. Here she is in the basement of the church waiting to go upstairs. She wasn't nervous about reading a part of the prayer in front of a packed church.

After mass we all went to her favorite place to eat... the Chinese Buffet. This was Dawn's idea. A brilliant one at that. I thought this would be better than having it outside at home. Then I would have less to worry about, like the weather(which was rainy), how much food to get, who to invite and who to leave off the list. So we had a family party at the restaurant. I had them reserve a section for us so we had a whole area to ourselves.
Those who attended were: Shayla, Me, Jeff, Trin, Riana, Jeff's mom Linda, My mom Sue(from Minnesota), My Grandparents (from Vermont), Uncle Jimmy and Rita, Bobby, Dawn(from New Jersey), and Tara.
Here she is after the party. She even kept her dress clean!
I am sure this is a glimpse at her future as a bride.
God Bless Shayla.

Earth Day

For Earth Day, Shayla had asked if we could clean up the parking lot a block away from our house. We visit this empty parking lot often in the summer to ride bikes. Also there is a permanent puddle that has formed. In the puddle we collect tadpoles. So I agreed. Wednesday it had rained so we went on Thursday, April 24.
I used a very large trash bag and we filled it. The bottles and cans we found I left in a pile for the guy who comes around each week and collects them out of recycle bins. I was surprised to find that 3 cans still had beer in them. Even though we could have filled 2 more bags full I feel we made a little difference in making the Earth cleaner. Good idea Shay!
My mom was here so she helped out too.