Nice while it lasted...

I am by no means an avid college basketball fan but like many Americans I love to be a part of the NCAA pools during March Madness - not for money of course, that would be illegal ;) I love some good competition any way I can get it so I fill out a bracket each year and hope for the best. I am somewhat interested the first big weekend because of all the games. Then as I see how my choices weren't the greatest, I lose interest until the final game. This year however, my black magic method of picking got me pretty far! As of Saturday night after the North Carolina win over Louisville, yours truly was #1 in the pool! I entered in Mike's pool at work and I've been in the top ten since last weekend's games. I was so impressed with myself - until tonight. Memphis beat Texas....I am currently in 23rd place! ugh. How can one game cast me down so far in the list! Well I do have North Carolina winning it all. So I will still hold my head high if I at least picked the big winner of all the madness. Go Tar Heels!

Craft Time!

A few weeks ago I went to a card making party (aka - some serious girl time!) I had a ton of fun and I thought I would share some of my creations. Nyla was our great hostess and she made it very easy for us to make some beautiful cards. Her website is below if you are interested.

http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/nylakelley/

Dinner Time

Peek - a - boo

Guess who?

Zach after a dinner of spaghetti!

Making Progress

Zach has taken another big development 'step' this week! He is taking a few steps if we hold his hands or he can now walk behind his toy truck. Here he is zooming around the family room. I think he looks a bit like Charlie Chaplin when he is walking - he just needs a cane! At the end he gets stuck in the corner. So cute!

Zach is back in contention for our poll. With our weather looking more like winter than spring right now the daffodils are falling behind!

Easter Sunday

We hope everyone had a great Easter Sunday. We enjoyed our visits with Mike's family. Here are a couple pictures from our day. Zach looked so cute in his little sweater vest and new shoes!

Happy Easter

A joyous and happy Easter weekend to everyone. As we celebrate Easter we are reminded of our new life in Christ. Last year we took this celebration of new life quite literally and welcomed Zachary into the world on Good Friday! Our Easter weekend was spent in the hospital with our new baby boy. So even though we have a few weeks until April 6th and Zach's 1st birthday, we will always be reminded of this birth this weekend as well.

Here is our sweet little guy on his first Easter - 3 days old!

Welcome Spring!

Ah, the first day of Spring. It was awful chilly this morning, but this afternoon has brought us a perfectly clear blue sky, bright sun and relatively spring like temperatures. It even inspired me to take Zach and Pete for a walk in the neighborhood. Yes, I am that desperate to get outside!

I wanted to update everyone on the blog poll. Thanks to all 8 people for voting so far! :) The polls are still open so vote early and vote often!

Here is the running order so far as I see it:

Its neck and neck between Zach's first birthday and the daffodils blooming. We have 17 days until the big day and here is a picture of the daffodils from this afternoon.

A close second is Zach taking his first steps. He is the real wild card - One day next week he may wake up and decide today is the day! So far though he is not showing much interest in walking. In a distant, distant 4th is Pete and his ability to behave. Ah Pete, you just have to love him for who he is. And someone actually did vote for Pete I see! Very funny...

Ode to Spring

This Thursday is officially the first day of spring. So on Thursday it will be nothing but sunshine, birds chirping and flowers blooming right? No, I don't think so either.

You are in for a treat today. I wrote a poem! I think it is inspired by the gloomy weather, the rain and my cabin fever. Oh and probably because every book I read these days consists mainly of pictures and rhymes! Enjoy!
note: please to not attempt to correct any of my punctuation or grammar in the comments! - thank you :)

Oh springtime, Oh springtime
I ask you to come
With your warmth and your flowers and your bright sun.
Oh springtime, Oh springtime
How long will it be
‘Til we see again this season and the buds on the trees?

Enough with the snow and the cold and the ice,
Seeing green grass again sure would be nice.
I love all the seasons, yes every one
But I am certainly ready for winter to be done!

Top O' the Morning to You!

Happy St. Patricks Day to everyone. Do you have your green on today? Remember its socially acceptable to pinch anyone who is not wearing green. Your friends, family, complete strangers - anyone!

Irish Toast

Here's to your roof, may it be well thatched.

And here's to all under it, may they be well matched.

When Irish eyes are smiling, Tis like a morn in spring.
With a lilt of Irish laughter, You can hear the angels sing
When Irish hearts are happy All the world is bright and gay
When Irish eyes are smiling Sure, they steal your heart away.

It wasn't a total disaster...

Yesterday, we took Zach to get an official haircut. The one I did before just was to get his hair out of his eyes. So we went to Cookie Cutters to have the total kid haircut experience. Zach wasn't impressed. The first sign that things weren't going to go well was that she used a hairdryer to clean out the seat from the previous haircut. Zach is much better with loud noises than he used to be but there are still some things that get to him. Vacuum cleaners, ice machines and yep - hairdryers. So he started to cry but seemed to calm down after a bit. They put in a video for the kids to watch during their haircut. He was holding it and when the woman took it from him to put it into the dvd player he of course cried. We gave him the box back to hold and that subdued him and the video sort of kept his attention.

Here is he doing pretty well...

And then.....not so well. Another stylist starting using a hairdryer on her client. That set him off and there was no turning back. He had huge tears running down his face and was pretty vocal about the whole thing. The cute part was that he kept that dvd box in his hand the entire time, while he was screaming and everything! He did keep his head somewhat still so they stylist could cut his hair without too much trouble.

Here we are back at home, happy again and looking quite handsome!

Did you know?

You probably know that the date of Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. But, did you know that this year Easter is as early as it could possibly be? Thursday March 20th is the vernal equinox and Friday March 21st is a full moon. Meaning March 20th is Holy Thursday, March 21st is Good Friday and March 23rd is Easter.

And you doubted me!

I know when you read this post you thought it was merely a cabin fever induced rant about how my snowman decorations still being up in March is causing the continued winter weather.

BUT, I put away the decorations on Saturday and behold the sun came out and the snow is melting! Coincidence? I'll let you decide!

ps- Ok the decorations are not technically put away. I just moved them to the extra bedroom out of sight and I still have my polar bear glasses in the kitchen. So that must be why there is still snow on the ground. I'm working on putting them all away don't worry!

11 months

Zach is 11 months old today! Our little baby boy will be 1 year old soon. This mommy is getting a bit emotional about it for sure! Here are some recent pictures of our little cutie.

I also recently decided to be very bold and give Zach his first haircut! It was more like a trim, but just enough to get it out of his eyes. It went as well as could be expected!

Before and after pictures! So handsome!!

Its all my fault...

I have been lamenting lately about winter and how it just keeps coming back. We had one small reprieve on Sunday. It was a beautiful spring day as well as one big tease. Tuesday, Old Man Winter dumped a nice mix of rain, ice and snow on us that turned our backyard into a slushy swamp! This is a picture from today. Do you see the river running through the yard! ugh.

But since then I had this revelation that maybe all this continued winter weather is my fault because I still have my winter decorations out! I have snowmen all over the house. Eeep! Take a look at this one - His sign says "Let it Snow"

I'll have these taken down asap and possibly spring will come and soon!

Monday Fun

I saw this on our friend Jenni's site today. Looked like fun! You can go here to create your own.