it could happen to you

does anyone remember that movie? where the waitress starts talking to her customer and he says that if he wins a million dollars that he will share it with her, and then does...both.

that movie is really beside the point. chad and i did so bad on our march madness, ncaa tournament picks, that we decided to enter another contest on yahoo for just the sweet 16. if you get all the games right, you can win a million dollars. of course, there will be a lot of people who get them all right, so the tie-breaker is if you guess the score at the end of the game right. if there still is a tie, then they go to what you guessed as the half-time score. in the last pool, i took north carolina all the way to the finals, and since i did so bad...i decided to pick them being upset in the first round of the sweet 16. didn't happen. but, i was 5 for 6 until davidson went and won. i had them losing too because they are a 10 seed, i think...and they barely won one of their games to make it into the sweet 16. oh well...now i'm 6 for 8...which is pretty good for a girl who really doesn't know what she's talking about when it comes to these basketball teams. chad knows which ones play the best defense, and which ones play better in tournament situations, etc. etc. etc. but he's not doing any better than me...so neither of us are going to win a million this weekend. so really the title of this blog should be...it didn't happen to us.

i went to go see the musical, the spelling bee last night and it was so good. i went with my mom, and a friend and her mom. we had so much fun. in the lobby, a guy came up to us and asked my friend and i if we would like to be in the musical. they were casting 4 people from the audience to be a part of the spelling bee. now...a few things were going through my head at this point. one, i am a terrible speller. two...i get stage fright. three...you don't get to be a part of a broadway musical everyday. and four...this could be my big chance. i could get discovered and whisked away to new york to start my broadway career. (ok. that last one was just coming from my "dreamer side" of my brain.) i then pretended to step up to the mic and started singing "the sun-il come out, tomorrow..." it was at that point that i may or may not have embarrassed myself. everyone was laughing though. and i prefer to think that they were laughing with me...and not at me. we did decide that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to be in a broadway show...OR humiliate our mothers...so we went to the casting person that the guy directed us to. they were picking 4 people to represent the audience...so probably, 1 child, 1 girl, 1 guy of different ages and so on. so, i knew that we would both not get picked. we got interviewed together though, which was really funny. when the casting lady asked if we had any hobbies, my friend said piano and i said, "spelling. s...p...e...l...l...i...n...g." she asked what i did for a living and i told her i stayed at home with my 3 kids. then she asked where we got our news from, such as cnn, newspaper, etc. i said, "playhouse disney." she thought we were quite funny. however...we didn't get chosen. oh well...i guess it just wasn't my time to get discovered. (we decided that we were too funny and that we would upstage the actors.)

that may...or may not have been our attempt at comforting ourselves.

so...it COULD have happen to me...but it didn't. again.

Ahhhhh........Spring Break.

i love spring break. i loved it then. i love it now.

this week, we took it easy. relaxed. shot the breeze. kicked our shoes off.

a lot of times, one thinks that one should go on vacation or have some big special activity planned for weeks like this. well...there is something to be said for having absolutely no plans. that was us this week. at the start of the week...no plans. on friday, after colton got out of school we took them to blockbuster and let them each pick out 2 movies for the week. colton picked the bee movie, and cars. chase picked buzz lightyear (some spin off from toy story) and didn't want to pick a second one. aiden picked cinderella 2 and strawberry shortcake. but other than that...nothing.

we ended up having a really good week. every friday night, we let the kids have a sibling sleepover. this is where they get to get their sleeping bags out and watch a movie and sleep in the same room. every night, aiden asks, "can i sleep with my boys?" and every night, i tell her, "you have to wait until friday night. on friday night, you can sleep with your boys." i love that she calls her brothers "her boys". so...they were pretty excited that every night could be a sibling sleepover, and they loved waking up every morning on their own. they would play upstairs in the playroom together for hours if i let them. we would eat breakfast around 10 and that meant that i did not have to make breakfast and lunch. i love whoever invented brunch. it had to be a mom who didn't enjoy cooking. the first couple of days we just hung out around the house and enjoyed not having to be anywhere.

wednesday, the kids got to spend the night with my parents and that is always a big deal for them. chad and i got to go to church that night and then go eat afterwards and watch a movie that we had rented.

thursday, chase got a haircut and then we met friends at the park for a picnic and egg hunt. we came home just in time to catch the start of march madness. we love march madness in our house. well...i'm not sure aiden and chase love it. but, the rest of us do. and they play along.

friday, we took them to NASA and they got to see the rockets that are displayed on the grounds. that was really fun for the boys, especially. chase loves anything "apollo 13". even though it is called a saturn v rocket, chase calls it an apollo 13. i think that he finally understood, yesterday, that it was a saturn v and that there were a lot of apollo missions. then, we picked up lunch and brought it home. then, aiden and i went to target and the fabric store to get ribbon to make a bow for her hair to match her easter dress. that afternoon, i took colton and aiden to see horton hears a who. chase didn't want to go, so he stayed home and enjoyed the afternoon with daddy. last night, we ate dinner outside and then they all slept in the boys room.

this morning, chad went to feed the homeless in galveston with some people from our church and the kids and i boiled a dozen eggs to dye here in a little while. they just brought down all their blankets and anywhere chairs. aiden just informed me that they are going to build a "fork". tonight, i have to work at the saturday night easter service.

tomorrow, we will go to church and then head to my parent's house for lunch.

it's been a good week. i love having all my kids home with me. i had a realization this week too. colton is 7 years old...which seems really young. but, these 7 years have passed by so fast. in another 7 years, he will be 14. i can't believe that. our time with them goes by so fast. to think of the time that he leaves for college makes me want to cry my eyes out. it makes me appreciate each day with them more...and realize that it doesn't have to be spring break to make each day special. just waking up with them makes it special. and each moment is a gift from God...to be enjoyed...to be cherished. each snuggle...each game...each story...each bedtime...all little gifts of time. there will be a time when they won't let me snuggle them...or want me to tuck them in. they will tell me to leave them alone. they won't ask for me to come play with them...or come lay by them...or come read to them. so, when they climb in my lap these days...for some comfort after they didn't get their way, or they got their feelings hurt by their sibling, or they are trying to buy time because they don't want to go to bed yet...i will remember that there will be a time when they will no longer fit in my lap. and i'll whisper to them how much i love them while i kiss their heads. and then i'll say, "let me hold you a little longer."

the spelling bee and a cross dressing cat

a few things on my mind. some serious...which will not be talked about tonight, and some not so serious...which will be the topics of the evening.

i'm not sure how i entertained myself before my 3 children. these days, i wake up every morning wondering how they will make me laugh today. and, it usually doesn't take long before it starts. for example...

every monday, colton gets his spelling list for the week. throughout the week he is supposed to write a sentence for each word and then on thursday, i give him a spelling test. this has been an enjoyable thing for us both. he loves coming up with the sentences and i love to pretend like i'm a real teacher when i give him the test. i have total flashbacks to fourth grade. that's when i remember taking spelling tests. my teacher would say the word...then use the word in a sentence...and then say the word again. so...obviously, that's what i do. so last week, one of the words was "shell". after colton went to bed, i looked over colton's sentences. this was his sentence for the word shell.

"we shell play football today."

i found it humerous. i read it to chad and he laughed and said, "even if the word was "shall"...who talks like that anymore?" i think it just shows how well colton knows the Bible!! they are always talking that way. ok. that's probably a stretch.

this week, one of his words was "child". this was his sentence...

"we have one good child."

i didn't even bother to ask him which child he was refering to. speaking of spelling...i'm very excited because my mom and i are going to see the broadway show "the spelling bee" with my friend and her mom. i've heard that this is one of the best shows on broadway. it is coming to houston and i think it is going to be really fun.

a few days ago, i was getting ready to run some errands. my usual routine is to get the kids ready first and then let them play while i get ready. then, i call aiden into the bathroom so that i can do her hair. she loves to come in a little early while i am putting my makeup on. she always says the same thing. "i need my lipgloss." this makes me proud because i am a complete lipgloss junky. i let her put it on herself and she, of course gets it all over her mouth. it's clear...so i don't really have an issue with it. people just think she's really shiny. well, the other day, i turned around and she was putting lipgloss on boo radley. (did i mention that we have boo radley back?) why she was doing this makes sense. but why he was letting her...didn't.

then there was today at target...where aiden loves to go and chase hates to go. in the little girls department, they had little easter purses and hats. they had both white and pink ones. i figured aiden would go crazy over them...due to the fact that she loves purses. i was right. while my attention was elsewhere, i turn around to see aiden turn the corner...sporting the white straw hat while swinging the little, white purse. what i did not expect to see was my sweet little chase...in his soccer uniform...wearing the pink straw hat with the little, pink purse on his arm. shockingly...that wasn't the funniest part. he had the hat down over his eyes. so as aiden was skipped toward me with agility, there was chase...running into the racks of clothes. i was rolling. obviously, he learned this behavior from boo radley. shhhhh. don't tell chad.

aiden's protector

this superhero "phase" is really hanging on. chase dresses up like superman or batman nearly every day. on saturday, he put on the bulky superman costume and then put a sweatsuit over that. you can see his cape hanging out the back in the picture. he then found a plastic pair of those coke bottle glasses that make your eyes look really weird...especially if they only have one of the lenses in them.

(side note-he wore these glasses to church on sunday. that was interesting. we were getting out of the car and he asked me if he could wear them. i said, ok. colton said, "don't wear those chase. people will look at us funny." i told colton that i was glad that chase didn't care what other people thought about what he wore. i said that the only person we have to worry about is God and that i was sure that He wouldn't care if chase wore those glasses." colton just sighed.)

anyhow, he was being clark kent. this went on all morning and through lunch. after lunch, they wanted sweetarts for dessert. aiden got 2 after chad had said she could only have 1. he told her to put the 2nd one back and then something funky happened. she started screaming this high-pitched scream that sounded like she was seriously injured. we thought she had bit her tongue or something. i mean, it was a new scream. one that definitely required stitches or something. oh no...she was just mad. she said that chad had "hurt her feelings". we looked at her with an "are you serious?" look and then he took her into the other room to have a talk with her about how she can't scream like that when she doesn't get her way, etc. etc. etc. i peeked around the corner to see how the little chat was going and saw chase hiding behind a wall watching the scene. it looked like he was talking very softly into his wrist. i listened to what he was saying and this is what i heard: "lois is in trouble. i repeat. lois is in trouble." then out of nowhere, he flew into the room, threw himself in front of aiden and put his hand up in front of chad's face and said, "you stop. this is my friend." then, he whisked her to safety as chad tried to compose himself and i reached for the camera. i think we were just out-smarted by a 5 and 2 year old. colton just rolled his eyes. i actually think he wondered why he had never thought of it.

and the oscar goes to....

with all the disney and animated movies out...it's enough to confuse a person. especially if you are aiden or chase.

currently, the favorite movies to watch in our house are aladdin and beauty and the beast. we not only watch the movies...but listen to both movie soundtracks as well.

as i type, aiden is dressed up in her cinderella costume, complete with heels and all, and chase in the ever popular, being held together by a thread due to being worn constantly for the past 2 years, batman costume. i heard her knock on the door to the room chase...i mean, batman was hiding in. chase said, "whooo iiiiiiiiiiis it?" aiden...i mean cinderella...said, "tinkerbell." i immediately laughed and decided that this was a play i did not want to miss. so i listened closely. then they acted out a scene from aladdin to the music of beauty and the beast. i paused for a moment...took it all in...and decided they both deserved academy awards for their creative screenplay adaptation.

and that's when i decided to get my old soccer and swim trophies out to present them their awards. if only i had a red carpet and paparazzi.