A Basketball Video Clip

I was finally able to upload a video to the blog, so I wanted to add this video of Emily's last basketball game. She improved so much this year (although she never scored any points). This clip shows some of her natural athletic talent and aggressiveness. It helps to have Daddy cheering her on, too. Every time he'd tell her to steal the ball she'd usually get it.

Pirate Party...guess who's 4???

Our Dillon turned 4 and we had a little Pirate Party at our house on Saturday. We had a pirate map invitation with burned edges. (I love the internet by the way...I found so many ideas as soon as we took off with the pirate theme.) We made pirate hats, played musical islands, pin the X on the treasure map, and had a treasure hunt. A Pirate cake...

And lots of happy pirates...

Some tidbits about Dillon at age 4: He gets compliments on his hair all the time. A bowl cut and highlights....can't beat it! He's very tall - people think he's in kindergarten, or going next year at least. He likes to wrestle with his daddy and Cameron. He's very sweet to his little sister, Lilly. I was so sad when he moved up to Sunbeams. They were together for a few weeks in Nursery and he was helping her be happy. He has graduated from Speech therapy...yippee! He loves to ride his bike, play Legos, make forts, and play castle and pirates. He loves to give hugs and kisses. He calls his pirate telescope a "sceletope"! He says many funny things as you can see on the sidebar. Most of the quotes are from Dillon.

Most of all, we all love you so much Dillon! You are a sweet boy!

Basketball

Emily is trying her hand at basketball this year. Many girls from her class at school are playing in the league. She has one friend on her team, and her dad's the coach. It's fun to see her classmates that we're playing just about every game. Her friend Jessica is defending her in the picture above.

So far, we've lost 2 games, but the team was much improved during the 2nd game. She's learning lots and having fun. The highlight for her last game was her 4th grade and former 2nd grade teacher coming to watch. She's great on defense and almost stole the ball on Saturday. We're working on the traveling and double dribbles. :)

I'm playing catch up on the blog because we have a great snow day! The kids loved playing in it and are now inside watching a movie and having some hot chocolate. Lilly liked it for a little while. Then she wouldn't keep her gloves on and was frustrated that her hands were cold. I think we have about 3 inches and it's still coming down pretty hard. Joe made it to work safely.

Nie Nie

Cool....she's back. What a story...

http://www.nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/

Home safe and sound

We had an experience on Friday that we've been anticipating many months now. I'm so relieved it's done. Dillon had to go into the hospital to have some dental work done under general anesthesia. It was a frustrating revelation that it would be necessary. Seems that he just doesn't have good genetics for teeth since we don't feed him fruit snacks all day or not brush his teeth as we were first questioned about!...Anyway, it was too much work for him to go through awake.


I've been nervous about it for so long and was so relieved that all went well on Friday. The child life specialist, nurses, and especially our pediatric dentist were awesome. Dillon got to decorate his breathing mask with stickers, play with toys beforehand, and enjoyed the Versed he got before being wheeled down to the OR. He was giving us a thumbs-up and was asking, "Is this the hospital?" It was pretty funny. I hated to take a picture, but I wanted to record this event. Here's our boy getting ready to go into the OR and practicing blowing his pinwheel with Daddy to be ready for the breathing mask.

Melt my heart...

This afternoon in a snuggly moment only an almost-4-year-old can provide, Dillon hugged my neck and said, "I'm glad you're home, mom." Me too, Dillon.
Wise words coming from this little boy. :)

Love those dresses!

So, when Emily was young I wasn't so into the dressy/girly look. I don't really know why. She did wear her fair share of cute dresses and clothes with flowers, but most likely when we went out on the town she was wearing a Gap red pull-over with navy blue lettering. Many people thought she was a boy especially because of her lack of hair. One day I even got so tired of it that when a woman behind me in line struck up a conversation about her and asked, "What's his name?" I responded with a boy name...can't even remember what I said now. Well, I have to say that having Lilly after 2 boys, I am in love with dresses. Here is Lilly sporting a new one she got from Santa...

And since I was such a bad blogger in December, here are pics of the kids with a few of their favorite presents. Lilly loves her new grocery cart and play food.

Dillon loves jumping away on his trampoline. (I love his hair when he bounces.)

Cameron loves playing Glow in the Dark Air hockey with Daddy-O.

And "Wii" all love the Wii! We were trying to avoid the whole gaming system thing, but with children getting older, their Christmas lists change drastically from toys to big ticket items. You know...cell phones, lap tops, what??? I never asked for things this expensive, did I? Well, we are completely pleased with the purchase of the Wii. It is fun for the whole family. We often have bowling games after dinner. And so far, incessant asking to play the Wii (my main concern) hasn't happened.