Rock Chalk Jayhawk Go KU

Last night was a fun night to be in Lawrence KS. KU beat Davidson to make it to the final four and the town went wild! Check out the video. Students and families alike all came out to show their support for KU. People flooded Mass St. and horns were going off. The crowd was shouting the KU chant and it was a huge street party! I have only lived in kansas for 3 years and I grew up in NC so there was a little cinderella cheer for Davidson. Davidson is the prettiest little community on Lake Norman and I spent a lot of time there-this should really put that town on the map! They almost beat KU. If the last 3pointer they through up at the last second would have gone in, they would have won!!! The kids were really into the game, or maybe it was the brownies at the party that they were so excited about! But once we got downtown to the street festivities, they were chanting rock chalk jayhawk go KU! They have a song they sing, "Derek is a jayhawk red and blue with a beak and yellow shoes!" I think they had more fun than Jeff! Jeff had to breathe before he could enjoy the celebration! He was really concerned that Davidson might pull it out!

Monster Love

Savannah came over again today! Yes they are cuddled up watching a movie! Savannah found out that Madeline came over and I don't think she was very happy about that!!! Should we be worried yet??? I had fun too! We painted our nails and Noelle was totally into Savannah painting hers!! Savannah is the girl from the first blog in the spiderman costume!! The spiderman family reunited today.

Are Dinosaurs Monsters?

We found huge dinosaurs last night! We have this awesome restaurant called T-Rex Cafe in KC! I don't know maybe it is a chain now but I have only seen the one in KC. Nat, Jax would absolutely love it! They have life size dinosaurs throughout that move, meteor showers, underwater creatures, frozen tundra creatures- all his imagination could handle!! You can tell by the pictures that the kids had fun! My mom had fun too! Noelle is still afraid of the dinosaurs because they are so big! I told her that they don't eat litle girls that wear pink hats so she kept her hat on all night until her mean big brother took it from her and she shrieked in fear!!! I couldn't help but laugh!

More Pictures

Noelle had her nails done yesterday! She looks so glamorous! This is how I entertained her while Derek got his hair cut! She wants her hair cut every time he gets his done but I want hers to grow long so it is just a matter of distracting her until she forgets she wanted her hair cut too! She is learning to sit so still and wait for them to dry! The ladies at the nail salon just love her and they usually add flowers to her thumb nails and yesterday they put rhinestones on her nails! She thinks that is so great!

Mama Monster

My mom flew in today! We picked her up at the airport this morning and she is here for a week! She is doing a great job keeping up with us! It has been a busy day. We went to Quinton's for lunch and to lids to buy the new hats the kids are wearing! She brought Derek a new wallet and was nice enough to put some money in it! So of course he wanted to buy something! The nice thing is he bought Noelle a hat at Lids too! From there we went to the big easter egg hunt on Mass St. The kids found a ton of eggs, its not hard because they dump them by colors in the middle of a huge park! They were happy with the eggs and the candy and Derek jumped in a big air filled cage! Noelle even went down a big blow up slide. Jeff was still smiling in this picture because it was before he waited in line for an hour to get a spiderman handmade balloon. Noelle got a princess wand and it popped before we even gt back to the car!!! We are making chicken casserole now for dinner and Mom has offered to babysit while Jeff and I go out tonight! They will all probably crash by 8. It has been a long day! Just like when my parents came to visit when I was in college, I don't feel guilty leaving to go out after they fall asleep!! All of you friends out there that have gandparents local, count your blessings! Free babysitter, you gotta take advantage of that!!

Spring Break Means More Monster

Seriously, they are coming out of the woods and there are so many off them! Yesterday the normal neighborhood gang was at my house and I had pinky sweared with Derek that he could have a play date, too! Luckily he wanted one of his girlfriends Madeline to come over. She is sweet and shy so we sent the neighborhood monsters home when she came over! Today calvin, the biggest moster of all, stopped by with his dad. I think his dad knew we would invite him to stay if they stopped! I bet he was ready to have a break! He is in Derek's kindergarden class and he is all little boy! I looked out in the back yard and he had a pot in his hand aimed and ready to throw!!!! Little red-headed Eddie Haskell (remember from Leave it to Beaver?)! Enjoy the pics dad! My mom is coming tomorrow and I know it is hard on my dad to stay back in NC so we will keep you posted with lots of new pictures this weekend! I finally figured out why my phone is recording video in blue. Hopefully this will be the last blue video!

Monster Hair

So sorry I haven't blogged this week! I mentioned I was interviewing and I drove to and from St. Louis on Monday-that was a long day in the car!! I think I needed all day Tuesday to recoop!! The good news is I got a nice offer. I am waiting to see what happens with Wyeth before I give my notice. My boss was let go this week! :( The crazy thing is I am still getting calls from other companies that I may be more interested in. Maybe things will work out even better than I planned! Mimi if your reading this, the book Who Moved My Cheese is really helping me through the lay-offs with Wyeth! I'm not hemming and hawing!!! Definately looking for new cheese!

OK by now you are probably wondering why I have posted these pictures of my gorgeous husband taking pictures of himself! Don't worry he has good reasons! The first reson is I was too tired last night to get off the couch and take his picture!!! The real reason is for sweet Jackson, my nephew! Jackson was very young when I started dating Jeff. He came to NC to visit and I have to admit I was a little freaked out because he looked like he could be Jeff's son! He is following right in Jeff's footprints, cubs fan, drummer and now he wants his hair to look like Jeff's!!!! I think we should be worried!

Jack, there are so many hairstyles, are you sure you want this one!! How bout Brad Pitts! Thats a cool do! Good luck on your quest, the good news is you have good genes on your side. I checked out your great grand dad McCarragher's hair and your Papa has great hair too so you should be able to grow some good dreads and keep them for a long time!!

And They Were Swinging

Jeff is getting brownie points for being a great dad today! He decided to hang a real swing for the kids! I tried to make one last year and it has served its purpose but this one is definately better! The swing I made was just a piece of lumber and yellow string! It never swang straight and it knocked a few people out that came into its path!! Just kidding-but it could have! I am getting Jeff out tonight! He is kicking and screaming but he is going to the county bar!! His buddy Kevin who is the sports anchor here in Lawrence and his girlfriend Rebecca have teamed up with me to get the stick-in-the-mud out for fun!!! Rebecca and I have really become close lately because we have so much in common! She is a scientist who developed drugs and now she is a sales rep that sells to Pharma cos! And he is a sports journalist-crazy coincidence! It's fun though because she knows a lot about the inside pharma stuff and can carry on an intelligent conversation with me while the boys watch sports!! We'll see how tonight goes at the country bar! It at least should be a good laugh! I have my final interview with Sanofi Monday in St. Louis! Wish me luck!

By the way, the time is off on the blog. It is 6:50 not 4 something. Don't worry we are not up that early!!!

I told you Derek was a budding photographer! He was so proud of this picture he wanted to send it to my parents last night! I told him if we waited I would put it on the blog so Mimi, Laura and Jeannie and Dan, etc could see it! This is his new tooth coming in! I guess that is obvious!!! He took this picture with his phone in the car last night! I went for a run. Heather I am taking your advice and getting back into running has not been as hard this time. I guess because the weather has been so nice and I am just happy to be outside. I will tell you running on the beach is way better!!! There are a lot of hills around here. Derek rode with me to clock the distance that I had been running and I could have sworn it had to be 5 miles-it was only 3!!! But considering part of the way is straight up hill, I'm going to give myself credit for 5!! Jeff reminded me that 3.2 or something like that is a 5k! The last 5k I ran was for the firefighters in Norfolk, VA and that was a loong time ago!! Well Derek is enjoying running to school. Noelle has gotten smart and she asks to take the stroller when we go to school! But Derek runs the whole way to school with Mack! We have all become couch potatoes this winter so I think Derek needs the exercise too!! He seems to enjoy it. OK, I've got to go referee. The kids are arguing who woke up first! Seriously, does it really matter. I am starting to think my parents had the right idea just to have one child!! I never argued with anyone this early in the morning!!! Well, I take that back, maybe I did argue with you mom!

More Pictures

Derek wanted me to take a picture of him with Mack! The camera battery is dead so this is as good as it gets with the phone! If you look behind Derek, you can see all the toys! My house is always a mess with toys! I pick them up, they pull them down!! Oh well, they are having fun!! You can see what a great dog Mack is-he lets the kids just love on him, lay on him what ever makes them happy!!

Sleepy Monsters

Mack woke us all up barking this morning at 6! I took a quick picture of the kids, sorry it's not very good! I didn't blog yesterday and I'm sure my dad needs his blog fix for the day! A bad picture is better than no picture, right? Jeff brought Derek a Cardinals Jersey home from Arizona and I had to pry it off of him-finally today he is back to his Royals gear. He is really starting to get into sports. He likes watching it on TV now! His favorite is Nascar!!! He takes his matchbox cars and races them. It would be cute if he didn't constantly ask me who I was cheering for. It's usually Jimmy Johnson or Jeff Gordon! The only problem is his races last 20 seconds so I am asked every 30 seconds who I am cheering for! And I get a constant play-by-play of how the cars are doing!!! He gets that naturally from his dad being a play-by-play guy for so long!!! Noelle dressed herself this morning and of course she has on her flip flops that jeff brought her from Arizona! To bad the weather will be back in the 40s this weekend, she has actually been able to wear the flip flops here lately. It has been in the 60s the last few days and I have noticed some of my bulbs are trying to come up-but its suppose to snow again this weekend!!!! Just a small chance but definately rain and low 40s! Have a great day!!!

Monster Mash

I don't have any picture yet this morning but I will paint a picture for you! I was laying on the couch this morning tying to wake up and Derek came down and snuggled in beside me, then Noelle came down and snuggled in at our feet. Then Mack came over and jumped on us and layed across all of us!! The kids thought it was so funny. He has to be 50lbs now. I'm sure it would have been a funny picture but there was no one else here to take it. My mom comes to Kansas in 2 weeks! I am so excited because I have been homesick lately! One of my best friends Kelly has a beach house in NC and we are planning a trip home and then to see Kelly in July!

Too Many Monsters

OK my house was a revolving door yesterday! The weather was nice and all the neighborhood kids migrated to my house! Maybe because all the other moms kick them out or maybe because they know I'm a sucker and I'll give in to their persistant pleas for food! Smoothies are the big hit at my house! I always have frozen berries in the freezer and then I don't feel so bad about the other junk I give them!! Oh well I like having them-I think it gives me an excuse to be a kid without looking rediculous! Yes, I still love to ride a skateboard!!! Avery, the little girl on the drums reminds me so much of myself! My neighbor was a boy and I always had to do the boy things just to hang out with him! It was more likely for me to ride a skateboard or play basketball than to get him to play dolls!! Derek is getting really good at the skateboard. We set up a small ramp yesterday and he is attempting it! Noelle can run over it with the best of them!!

More Pictures from the Zoo

We Found the Wild Things

We went to the Zoo in Topeka yesterday and had so much fun. I hear the Zoo in Kansas City is spread out so I'm glad we went to Topeka. It is a very small zoo but just perfect for the kids. It's hard to beat the zoo we had in Virginia but this was nice. Derek is a budding photographer he took some of these pics. The ones that are very blurry were taking with his Phone-not a good camera! I think the giraffe was trying to kiss me! We were very close!! Derek just thought that was the funniest thing! My favorite part of the whole day was when I told Noelle we were going! She started jumping up and down singing "we're going to the zoo zoo zoo and you can come too too too!!!" The scariest moment was at the lions! It's kinda freaky as a mom watching the huge cats watching your children! Especially with the attacks recently in the news! We basically had the whole zoo to our selves! Outside the zoo there is a big park with lots of things for the kids to play on. By then I was bored and cold but I still let them play for a few minutes! At the petting zoo the big sheep baaaad at derek! It scared him! I laughed so hard! Then he thought it was funny so they baaaad back and forth! So we saw Lions, bears snakes fish hippos, apes-I loved by the way! They looked so in love and she was picking at his ears! That's true love!

Cookie Monster

Does she look quilty or what? It is snowing again today and it is suppose to 18degrees by 4:00! My girlfriend Natalie emailed me some motivation this morning! Nat, it's too cold to even walk here!!!! Mom says they have daffodils already in NC! Noelle wanted to make cookies today and I wasn't really in the mood to make a mess of the kitchen so I went on-line to find an easy recipe and this one is a keeper because it's sooo easy! I want to share it because it is so easy even the dads can do this! 1cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar and one egg. Mix together and put by the spoonful onto baking sheet. You can press little fork marks into them, Noelle enjoyed that! Bake at 350 for 10min. They are thin and chewy but so easy and the kids loved them! I know I haven't put many pictures of Derek lately but he is not standing still long enough! If the weather is nice this weekend, it's suppose to be at least 40, I am going to take them to the zoo. He needs to burn off some energy!

We Did It

Well that wasn't so bad-Noelle decided to run too! Derek stayed in the lead and won the race! The run to school went well but the run home was a little much for Noelle! Michele, she cried like you use to when we first started running! Just kidding she did great! That was a long run for her-she's gonna look hot in her bikini this summer! You can see her rosie cheeks when we got home! She asked for waffles right away when we got back!!! I broke a litle sweat! Jeff is on his way home and Noelle is on her way to bed, so I'll try again! This time a little faster!! I don't know if your still checking the blog Rosie, but if you are, do you remember when we decided to start running before work?

Trying to Motivate the Monsters

OK I need some help from my friends and family! The weather is getting better-and we are going to spring training this weekend so hopefully when we get back, spring will be here. It has been a long winter and I have enjoyed baking and eating cookies!! So now it is time to lose the winter blas and pounds I have packed on! Why is it so hard to motivate when u get older??? I have tried the gym-boring! So I use to run so maybe I'll try that again! Heather, if your reading this give me some tips! My friend heather ran the rock-and-roll 1/2 marathon for the first time a few years ago!! And Michele and Kelly use to drag me running! I need you guys!! So today I am starting. Derek and I are jogging to his school and Noelle is taking her bike! It was so much easier to go for a jog before I had kids!! Wish me luck! I'll take my phone and maybe we'll get some funny pictures of getting mom back into shape for summer!!!!

Most Important Monster

Our kids talk non-stop! Jeff says that is a sign of intelligence! Well it's making me crazy and I'm loosing my mind! This morning Mack is squeaking his toy and the kids are loud so I am going to make this quick so I can retreat to the peace of a shower! For those of you that know teddy, you can see his is still around and buckled in safely! That is my new car they are squeezed into! When Jeff got his new radio show in KC he had to give his company car back to the drug co. He wanted a small commuter car so I twisted his arm into the Acura because they had a great deal on it and it was so cute! He hated it so that worked out for me! I got the new car and stuck him with the Jeep! I know, the Jeep is not a small commuter car!! I think after driving a small car he changed his mind about wanting one!

Sweet Monster

Derek is the sweetest thing! Last night he asked for something from Jeff and I just caught the tail end of their conversation but Jeff told him we didn't have the money for it and then he joked with him that we may need to borrow some money out of his piggy bank. He does a great job saving his money but last night he was willing to share! Jeff and I were going to the KU game and Derek gave us a card before we left, it was really just a piece of paper folded with staples around it. He told us not to open it until we got to the game. He had put a dollar in the paper so we could have fun at the game! The gme was a lot of fun. It was packed because it was senior night. Before 1/2 time a ku player trough the ball straight in the air and it looked like it was just thrown up in desparation or frustration but another KU player came out of nowhere and dunked it. The croud went wild and they played a clip from Tommy Boy "That...was...AWESOME" http://youtube.com/watch?v=9mEOOGmCDbA

They had a unicyclist for half time. She through one bowl on top of her head, then 2 bowls, then 3 then 4, then finally 5! So she had 15 bowls stacked on her head by the end. She balanced the bowls on her leg until she kicked her leg and tossed the bowls on top of her head. We had seen her years ago at a basketball game but it was still amazing!

Baby Mack

Just a side note, look how cute he was when we got him!

Baby #3

Well, Mack survived the wekend and Jeff didin't put an ad in the paper for him! He really is getting better everday! Look how sweet he is lying her under Noelle's chair just hoping she will drop something! And when I tld him to get out of the dining room, this is the look I got! "Who me?" He is close to 7 months old now. Does anyone know how old he will be when he reaches his full size. His mom is a beautiful brown lab that weighed 60 lbs but his dad is a horse! A very sweet yellow lab that weighed 100 lbs! He definately got his personality an his brains from his dad-so I 'm hopin he got his size from his mom! He is a smart dog. When we went to the breeders house, they were raising him inside and already crate training him and working on sit. Derek told him to sit and he plopped his little butt down-it was the cutest thing ever. Quickly after we brought him home he learned shake and lay down! Not so good at roll over or stay but he is trying!

Monsters Can Go Fly a Kite

The cold front is literally blowing in! We are trying to soak up as much warm weather as we can! I woke up at 6 this morning and cleaned the house because I did not want to miss a minute of this beautiful day! It was warm when I let mack oout first thing today! We had to go fly kites in our neighbors yard because we have 13 trees in our yard and it was impossible to dodge them all! For those of you that have never seen our house, you can see our behind Noelle. And for those that know the story of the biggest monster getting sidewalks, you can see those beind Noelle, too! They came in very handy today-especially when a car came tearing down the road, I was glad the kids were on the sidewalk! (I fought the city pretty hard to get sidewalks put in, I think they gave them to me to get me to go away! I showed up at all of their meetings untill the city commissioners said uncle!) OK, I'm going back outside to finish enjoying this great day! I hope you guys are having a great weekend whereever you are from Florida to Minnesota.

Spring Dreaming

It's Saturday and the sun is out and I can see blue skies! Noelle finished her bath and wanted to put her new easter dress on today! I know the bonnet is over the top, definately litttle house on the prarie! But she picked out the dress by herself and I think it was the bonnet that made the sell! They had much cuter dresses with matching litle baby doll dresses instead of bonnets and I really tried to talk her into that but she wanted the hat!! You can see Mack definately has the life! Isn't he a beautiful dog! Gotta go enjoy this beautiful day before the snow comes back tomorow night! We are headed to the dog park! And next week we go to Pheonix and hopefully when we get home, it will be spring! Oh, Laura before I forget, can you put a link to our blog on yours because Jeannie mentioned that would be nice so she could toggle back and forth. I bet Mimi and her sisters would like that too! I don't know how to, do you?