Playing favorites...

So my kiddos definitely have their favorite things...

For Drew it is hands down baseball... Play catch with him, pitch to him, just give him a glove, ball and bat and he is a happy boy. Good thing it is crazy spring baseball season and he has plenty of practice at home and usually one or more games a week to him busy.

As for watching baseball - well... he takes after his daddy which means he is usually yelling in frustration at the TV telling the Brew Crew that he can't watch anymore and then proceeds to ask to play Wii instead. Which our game of the week is Super Mario Sluggers -- Imagine that... more baseball! Love the passion!

Playing for fun with his little bat and bouncy ball...

This has to be one of my favorite pictures of Drew ever... it reminds me so much of what this precious boy is all about lately!

And my sweet Madi... what can I say... She LOVES to play school ALL... THE... TIME and the apple does not fall far from the tree. I spent countless hours playing school when I was her age and all through my elementary school years. I had textbooks and teacher guides from teachers that I would help at school... So when we checked Madi's teacher's auctions at the carnival and saw that she had offered up student teacher for the day one little girl's dream day at school was not far off as her daddy was about to pay whatever he needed to and would have done just about anything to give her that opportunity. What an awesome daddy?!?! So Thursday April 28th has been on Madi's radar since the minute she found out she would be student teaching that day! She was so excited she woke up an hour early and couldn't sleep. She cheerily got in the car and couldn't wait to get to school. Her teacher is SO amazing and set out this incredibly special day with presents at the end to boot. My sweet Madi walked out of that school with the biggest smile I have seen in a long time and declared that was the best day ever -- even ranking it above spending her 6th birthday at DisneyWorld being spoiled endlessly! That's pretty big stuff!!!

Here is Madi grading morning work...

Mrs. Maggart supplied her with a clipboard to walk around the room with and check in on all of her students.

Mrs. Maggart also had her own special desk set up for the day

Her clipboards with her daily plan and checklists... oh how Madi loves a checklist.


Her very own reading group...

Reading a chapter of their book to the class at the end of the day.

Top that off with getting to bring two friends to the classroom for lunch and the bag full of goodies from Mrs. Maggart... she had one incredible day!

My sweet boy...

So I owe these pictures to Katie... and not due to my lack of taking pictures but due to scorebook duties! Thanks for snapping these pictures of Drew for me Katie -- they turned out way better than if I would have taken them!

Spring Break

So I vowed this year I would be better about taking pictures of everything and anything! Do you think that has happened??? Ummm NO! Needless to say my camera batteries (yes I have a backup) had been dead for a month and I decided to charge them when I was packing to head back home from Spring Break. Seriously a month and not a single picture snapped! Despite my lack of pictures... I still wanted to document our Spring Break as I like the blog to look back and remember funny stories and things we did that I tend to eventually forget! So here is my photo-less Spring Break post! Spring Break this year was... eventful! We decided to drive to Wisconsin... we left Saturday evening about 45 minutes later than anticipated... not bad considering who we are talking about and I think we remembered just about everything! Yay Me! The time changed over night -- Marty was really ecstatic about losing another hour of sleep on top of the driving hours! :) The drive took 17 hours and 15 minutes which was actually one of our better times! Needless to say when we were about 10 minutes from the Wisconsin border we spotted trouble! White and fluffy trouble -- SNOW! Seriously -- it was spring break -- it was supposed to be springy. It doesn't matter when we head to Wisconsin lately... Fall, Spring or Winter -- there seems to be snow! Watch out 4th of July -- it has happened before and it is bound to happen again and we seem to bring out the best of it! :) Though the snow didn't cause any driving complication, it was still snow and it was still COLD outside! I refused to bring winter coats on a Spring Break trip so we toughed it out for the first couple of cold days and then it wasn't too bad but I have to say that snow never melted the whole week. Arrived at my parent's house around lunch time and settled in, ate and then got ready to go to my sister's new house. It was so fun seeing their new house. When it was time to head out, we loaded up the van... grandma forgot her purse... oh grandma -- so we turned around. No more than 2 blocks back away from their house and less than 12 hours in the glorious state of Wisconsin -- our windshield cracked! Agh... Now granted it had a little help -- it had been chipped for awhile but seriously! So now the van needed a new windshield... that was a work in progress over the next couple of days but we managed to get it done pretty painlessly! The last few days of our trip were spent up in the Wisconsin Dells. Water park, chlorine, hot tub, chlorine, lily pads that tore up Madi's hands, chlorine, playing cards til the wee hours of the morning, shuttles, more water parks, chlorine, waterslides and chlorine... By the way did I mention chlorine??? They go a little overboard with the chlorine there. A few days full of fun later... Madi was covered in scrapes, broken blisters and bruises, we were all exhausted and it was time to hit the road back to my parent's house. One last Friday fish fry, tearful goodbyes and we were back on the road. Exactly 17 hours and 15 minutes later... we arrived back in the sunny 80 degree Texas weather and collapsed! Then Sunday came! :)

Spring is here and so is BASEBALL...

Baseball season officially started this weekend with opening ceremonies and the first game. This is the only picture I have of Drew before his game as I managed to acquire the official scorebook keeper job for our team! Hopefully... I will manage to get some pictures at some point! Drew had a great first game... getting on base for both of his hits and batting in a run! Yay Drew! So for now GO GIANTS (the RRYBL ones -- not the other ones)!!!!

Let it SNOW...

Let it SNOW... I can say this since I don't live in Wisconsin anymore!!!So once a year when we go up there we are silently requesting snow to play in! :) We were not let down again this year as we arrived to a nice new snow -- it was still all pretty and white! So the first morning I headed out to Target to get snow pants... well I bought Drew snow bibs that were immediately returned for snow pants due to his refusal to wear "bibs"! The second round Grandpa went and bought a sled for them to use too! A couple of days later, we all put on our snow gear again and went sledding at the big hill that I used to sled at when I grew up there! Oh my... I forgot how intimidating that hill is(especially to walk down... NO comments Michaela) and how crazy busy it is. It was so fun to watch Drew going down the littler hill all by himself then grabbing his sled and marching his way back up. I did finally do the big hill with Madi a couple of times and it definitely brought back the fun memories. No pictures of sledding the hill was too crazy and too wet to have the camera out!

Christmas Morning...

We had a fun Christmas Day at the house! Madi and Drew decided on Christmas Eve that they wanted to both sleep in Drew's room. Needless to say Drew may not let Madi do that again. Madi woke up at 4 in the morning and went to see if Santa came! She went and woke Drew up so he could go see too! She waited until 4:45 a.m. to come and get me to which she was told she needed to go back to bed it was TOO early to wake Drew up -- well me too! We made it until almost 8 a.m. When Drew came down he was dragging and we couldn't figure out why he had no interest in anything under the tree as it wasn't until later that Madi uncovered her above doings... Crazy girl!!! Once Drew woke himself up they both found a small intriguing present. Santa left them iTouches! Madi tore through the rest of her gifts managing to give thanks and hugs at superspeed in between each one. Drew on the other hand only needed his iTouch. We had to ask him to open his other presents. Oh how different our two kiddos are! :)Unfortunately all the excitement and lack of sleep thanks to his sweet big sister... Drew was passed out by 6:30 p.m. He missed Christmas dinner and everything!
Sweet Drew all snuggled up!

Ice Skating

The awesome lights and the cozy fireplace made it really feel like Christmas at the ice skating rink! Coming from Wisconsin this 80 degrees in December just doesn't cut it! :) Here was a view in at the ice skating rink when they were clearing the ice.Drew wasn't so sure about going at first. As soon as we got in by the rink he said he changed his mind. We figured we were in for a long couple of hours if we even lasted anywhere near that long. After seeing Madi and I laughing hysterically on the ice from the girl who can dance but could barely remain upright for more than 5 seconds... he decided to give it a shot! He did awesome! By the end of the night, the two of them could let go and Drew was picking up some speed! :) Madi and Drew took their fair share of spills and not many were very graceful... Marty went down a couple of times too... the kids pulled him down he claims! :)
Madi after the first round of slipping around the ice...

Drew holding on until he felt comfortable...

Daddy with both in tow...

Drew venturing off on his own...

Madi on her own...

My two sweet kiddos... well they were sweet today anyhow! :)

The property had a ton of Christmas lights all over so we walked around and finished our hot cocoa after we were done skating!