Catholic Schools Week 2016

Peyton and Jack's favorite week of school!!
Each year they want to step up their game a little bit.  Although, I will say, Peyton wants to do all the spirit days and do them well, and then as we pull into school each morning she gets a little nervous that she's gonna be the only one looking crazy!!  She never is, but that's just the stage she is in: too worried about fitting in and what others think.......ANNOYING, as a parent.

Crazy hair day.....

Third grade got to walk to the skating rink one day.....

Blue and White, spirit day!!

I missed pictures of the other days: crazy sock and hair band day, pajama day, and sports day.

Father Daughter Dance 2016

The Father Daughter dance came and went a couple weeks ago.  This year Maddie caught wind that her friend Nora was going....so guess who else thought she needed to go.  Yep, Miss Maddie.  Dad obliged, I wasn't sure he would, but he did.
I thought I'd maybe get a call an hour into it saying "ok time to come get Maddie,"  But I didn't.  She partied down and had a great time!!  I'm pretty sure Peyton did not enjoy her sister coming, as they had to leave a half hour early to bring her home....that's a big deal in the life of a 9-year-old that's running around with all of her friends.

Maddie LOVED her "wrist flower!"

Love this girl for this...practicality first!!  She came down in her pretty dress and pretty shoes with these crazy socks!  I asked her if she wanted to change or take off her socks, she said, "NO!  Last year I got big blisters!"  Fair enough....if you don't care, I don't care!  HA!!

Maddie hosts her first playdate

Maddie had her first friend playdate at our house.  She invited a girl named Audrey over to play and she was so so excited.  We picked Audrey up after swim lessons and brought her to our house.  The girls picked mac and cheese for lunch.  It was an unusually warm January day so the girls got to play outside most of the time.  Thy had one little argument, but other than that they had a great time!!

We took Audrey home while we were out picking the big kids up from school.  Maddie fell asleep within 2 minutes of leaving Audrey's house.  Audrey's mom had told me that Audrey doesn't take naps anymore.  She texted me after 5 minutes of leaving her house and said, "I don't know why I told you she doesn't take naps anymore, she's sound to sleep on the couch."  All that fresh air and lots of playing wore the girls out!!!

Eating lunch and being silly before heading outside.....

Annie thoroughly enjoyed the nice day and playdate.....

Lots of playing together on the playground......

Pinewood Derby 2016

So last year was Jack and Mike's first go at the Pinewood Derby.  They spent a good deal of time in the garage working on Jack's car.  They did well on race day and Jack had a blast.  This year......well, time snuck up on us and before we knew it, it was the Wednesday before Derby Day.  It was the coldest week of the winter, so Jack (nor Mike) had any interest in being in the freezing cold garage building a derby car.  Mike bundled up and headed out there and got one finished.
The day of the Derby Mike tells me, "I've got a bad feeling."  Well that feeling was legit.....

We get to the Derby and Jack is having a blast....running around playing with his friends, checking out all the cars, eating pizza.....then the race starts.  The first graders go first.  Jack was cheering for all the cars in first grade and having a blast.  Then, here comes the 2nd grade cars.  Jack's car lines up and he is IN IT!!  He's watching.....the cars are released and all the cars race down the track, leaving Jack's poor little car the the dust.  To say Jack was PISSED is an understatement.  He cried and gave his dad a BIG OL GLARE!!!!  Jeanne and one of our friends both took a picture of the not-so-happy Jack....hopefully I can get my hands on that.

Mike comes over and says to me, "looks like I better take Jack to Andy's (which is ice cream) after we leave here."  He calmed down and enjoyed the rest of the derby and enjoyed his Dad's apology treat after as well.

The only work Jack could do on his car.....the painting....because THAT could be done indoors where it wasn't 5 degrees.

Better luck next year, boys......

This guy is still one of the sweetest.....

I don't know that there are many boys out there sweeter than the one I have....just sayin'......

The kids went down stairs to "craft" and Jack came up stairs with this.

Jack's First Reconciliation

Jack's first reconciliation was a few weeks ago.  Not a nervous bone in his body.  We were standing in line behind one of Jack's friends and poor kid was having a terrible time.  Crying and hiding behind his mom.  Kind of sad....but not Jack.  The kids get to pick which priest they go to and Jack picked Monsignor Jack......and so did about 70% of the other kids.  We stood there for a while, but he got it done.
The night before the girls stayed the night with Jeanne.  So we told Jack we would pre-celebrate his confession the night before.  He chose Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, followed by McDonalds for ice cream.

All dressed up (yes khaki pants is big-time for this boy), with his candle after the ceremony.

Snow Day 2016

Shortly after the kids got back to school from Christmas break, it was already time for a snow day.  The kids, and Annie had a great time.  As usual, a big HUGE mess for some snow fun!

Trying to build a snow man, with not much success.  Wasn't a great snow for that.

We will stand here and smile, if we HAVE to!

Annie watches from a far.  Not the entire time tho.  She was actually down there having a ball with them most of the time!!  She LOVES the snow!!  And then she comes in and CRASHES!

Peyton and Jack Differences

While they have their many differences.....the size of their snack is definitely amongst them!

Show Day at Maddie's Gymnastics

Another show day has came and went.  They are always super cute!  This might be our last one for a while, as Maddie has decided to fill her spare time with soccer instead of gymnastics.  So onto soccer we go....after a session of soccer we shall see if she wants to keep with soccer or go back to gymnastics.

So much catching up to do....

UGH!!  A couple weeks ago I finally sat down to get caught up and was doing pretty good at it.  UNTIL.....my computer crashed!!!  After a couple weeks of no computer Mark has me back up and running and now I've got TONS to do!!!

Ringing in 2016

Well, it's been quite a few years since we have rung in the New Year.  This year we decided to rent hotel rooms with a  couple other families and let the kids swim and have fun.  Well, after doing so, we aren't so sure we'd like to spend New Years like that again.  There were about 100 kids (not really, but probably not far off), inside of the little bitty swimming pool.  Once the kids swam for about an hour we got them talked into going up to the room.  The kids watched a movie and ate a lot of junk and the adults played games and ate a lot of junk as well.  All the kids got cranky about 11:45 so we all broke off to our separate rooms and called it a night.  Maddie was asleep before I even got my teeth brushed.  About 11:50, someone pulled the fire alarm and it got LOUD!!!!  Maddie slept thru it all.  The big kids and I got up and went out on the balcony.  The kids loved being in all the chaos.....at New Years lots of people started throwing confetti off the balconies and they thought that was great.
Shortly after midnight it got a lot quieter around there.
The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and let the kids swim for an hour or so.
When Mike went to pull the car around, we had a little surprise.....a nice $1,000 hole in the side of our car.  Awesome way to ring in the New Year, hopefully it's not a pre-curser of what the year is going to bring.

Getting ready to hit the pool.....

Lights out!!!!

Christmas 2015

Christmas came and went.....oh about over a month ago.  We had a great holiday!  We went out to the farm Christmas Eve and came back late that night.  Everyone went to bed late that night, by the time we got home and got the care unpacked.  Mike actually stayed up all night long as he took a telerad shift that night.  I prepared the food for the next morning and then made it to bed about 2:00 am.  The next morning we woke up, put breakfast in the oven and then Grandma and Grandpa Farm got here and so did Grandma Jeanne and Mark.  The kids were chomping at the bit to start diving in to their gifts.
They had a great time opening their gifts and their last gifts (their big gifts from Santa), had a scavenger hunt with them.  Even Maddie caught on to it and had a blast finding hers.  However, once she found it, hers didn't work.  Hers was a power wheels ride-on car and well.....the wires were crossed somewhere inside and it didn't get power.  Awesome!  So we had to take hers into a power-wheels deals the week after Christmas and get it fixed.  So poor girl didn't get to use her big gift.  And what a bummer too, cause it was a perfect day for it!  The weather was unbelievably nice for Christmas day.
The rest of the day we lounged around the house and the kids all played on their i-pads from Grandma Jeanne and Mark.  It drove Mike CRAZY to see the kids on electronics all day (especially since it was nice outside).  I had to talk him down and remind him of what it's like to get new toys (even if they are electronics) on Christmas and that they should be allowed to play on the ALL DAY LONG if they want to.
By 3:00 that day (in true Friedman fashion), we had all the Christmas decorations, inside and out, taken down, stored away, and we were all ready for a nap.
The next day we headed to Grandpa Friedman's and Ilen's for breakfast and more Christmas festivities and then from there we headed to GiGi Ruth's.  The fun kept going and going.....we had a great Christmas!!!  I think we could have all slept for 2 days....but what fun it was!

Getting started passing out all the presents......

Time to OPEN!

Annie's turn, she's been waiting so patiently......

 Maddie's awesome car.....that won't go......

 And then this is what the rest of the day looked like........

Two weeks later....and she's finally got some working wheels.......

oh man!!!  it bites back.  she hasn't quite got it figured out yet.  but she now knows that if she removes her foot from the gas quickly, she slams forward into the steering wheel.  learned that the hard way......