That's gonna leave a mark.

With the warm weather and March Madness, we've been outside and Nate and Tessa have been inspired to shoot hoops and work on their basketball skills. The other night though, the concrete driveway got the best of Nate's nose. After a quick time out for an ice pack, he was back on the court dribbling and shooting. It also made him look pretty tough for tball tryouts on Saturday morning!

The nice weather has made it tough to get the kids inside for dinner, bath and evening routines. Mom and dad negotiated dinner in the driveway for a much needed bubble bath that followed!

Nemo Schmemo.

And, it's on to Beginners swimming lessons for Nate! He passed preschool swimming lessons tonite. He was the giant of the class and his father stated that he would have "been embarrassed" if he didn't pass, but Nate managed to make us all very proud. He mastered the kick board, dove down to the bottom to retrieve the dive toys as directed and swam from one end to another as if he had fins. Now, I didn't say he swims like he has gills. He certainly hasn't mastered keeping his face in the water and bringing his head up briefly for air. Instead, he likes to stop completely, rub his eyes, wipe off his face, glance around to make sure everyone is watching him, shoot a thumbs up to mom and dad on the pool deck and then he continues on merrily. We're hoping he takes after mom's swimming skills as Daddy and Uncle Todd are known to have never passed Beginners swimming lessons back in the day. They were the only boys who shaved in their classes! Nate's next class is in the big pool where he cannot touch the bottom. This should be interesting. When we lived in AA and took him to the Rec they tried to advance him prematurely. The teacher finally realized that it probably wasn't a good idea to have Nate in the class since he was spending the majority of his time underwater trying to bobble up for air because he couldn't touch or swim.

Zack Attack! Numero 7.

Cousin Zack decided to have the whole Neuey clan (sans Amy and Molly because Molly decided to barf and become febrile the night before their departure) up to God's Country for his 7th birthday festivities. Gramma Char and Papa Kenny made a pit stop on their way home from Florida and Lola and Paige road tripped from Columbus. We spent an afternoon at the Chelsea Treehouse and the kids played and played and played and Aunt Lola and Aunt Jen got to read gossip magazines all the while!

We got Zack a super-d-duper Detroit Tigers birthday cake complete with orange and blue candles. Zack was rather concerned that the cake would say Michigan. A brief conversation enlightened the young boy that Detroit and the Tigers are in Michigan and that he simply doesn't like the Wolverines. Do you think there is some brainwashing going on here, or what? Zack got some pretty cool stuff for his birthday too. We had a fantastical fun family weekend.

* It appears as if Zack's name is spelled incorrectly, however, it is really just a 'fancy' K that you can barely see in the picture. I'm not that bad of an aunt, geesh!** We let Zack cut and serve the cake. This is a great tactic to minimize superfluous cake leftovers as he served rather generous and messy pieces.

Weekend Getaway: 'Cago

We loaded up the minivan and headed to Chicago, better known as 'Cago according to the kids, last weekend. We had a cooler chock full of Capri Suns, grapes, pineapple, cheese and a grocery bag full of a variety of snacks. We picked the kids up after a lunch to hit the road. Despite having just eaten lunch at school, mommy spent the first hour with her neck cranked and arms in the back seats handing out snacks and drinks to Nate and Tessa who insisted they were "just starving." It was mostly the novelty of the plethora of special snacks that are more often deemed special and even sometimes illegal. Have any of you ever witnessed these kids sucking down a juice box in record speed? It's pretty impressive. Anyways, it was proving to potentially be a very, very long drive. A couple movies later, a long nap for Tessa, and only an hour away from our destination did we have to start to hear the complaints that "it takes forever to get to 'Cago" and that Nate's "legs were going to fall off." Needless to say, Troy and I do not think that we'll ever be road tripping to Florida or out west with this bunch despite special snacks and the luxury of DVD players.

We went to visit Lisa, JT, Katie(4) and Sam(18mos)...finally! Busy schedules and fevers have postponed this trip a couple different times. It was a great weekend. Even though there was still snow on the ground the weather was awesomely springy. We had a hard time keeping the kid's coats on them. We played in Katie and Sam's bounce house, went to the park, and went to a fantastically fun place called Make a Messterpiece. At MAM, Katie and Nate got to run around on the jungle gym, make Banana Sushi in a kitchen class (sounds gross, I know) and do some drum painting that was really, really messy and fun! Saturday night Katie and Sam's very special babysitter, Mimi, came to corral and entertain the kiddos while the big kids went out on the town. Of note, mom managed to bowl a lifetime best 163 on Saturday night! We're considering a King Pin tour to hustle for college money for the kids.
Katie and Nate playing on the sand table.
Sam and Tessa at the park.
Tessa and Kate swinging at the park.
Katie and Nate all dressed to go drum painting.
Katie and Nate all splattered with paint!
Chef Katie and Chef Nate making Banana Sushi.

Big Ole Baby Christian!

Our new baby cousin arrived today! Aunt Kelly had a scheduled c-section, thankfully, as Christian weighed in at a whopping 11lbs 11oz. Yes, that's eleven pounds AND eleven ounces ON his birthday! Congratulations Kelly, Sam, big sister Haley and big brother Keaton!

UM Hoops

We went to the UM basketball game last night. We got to see Coach Rodriguez sitting several rows in front of us and we certainly contributed to many Wolverine programs as we spent a lot of money and time at the concession stands! The half-time show was the Piston Flyers that use mini-trampolines to do crazy basketball shots. Therefore, this morning, Nate and Tessa were inspired to rearrange several toys and pieces of furniture in the toy room and kitchen so they could "fly" and "dunk." Luckily, no one was injured. And, we decided we should probably start with something much simpler, like free throws.

Spring fever.

With the help of his dad, Nate built a pretty cool snowman today. He was sure to get out his Snowman Kit that Gramma Char gave to us. You can tell that we have a little spring fever in the house as the snowman is ready to play baseball! Not so sure if a baseball player should be puffing on a pipe, but, oh well. He is wearing his heart patch.

Speaking of baseball, we signed Nate up for tee-ball league in the spring. Nate's birthday missed the cut-off date but we called to ask if he could sign up for the 5 and 6 year olds since those would be the kids he goes to school with next year (I know, that's a whole other issue we're dealing with...he's going to go the school. yikes.). Anyways, the manager said they would let him sign up and then they would decide at evaluations. What? He has to try out for tee-ball? Seriously? They don't even do kindergarten screening in this district! I guess this is the big leagues around here. Baseball is a pretty big deal. Therefore, Troy, who is trying to live vicariously through his son as well as planning his retirement fully based on his son's athletic potential, has been tying Nate's right arm behind his back and running drills ever since the sign up meeting! No pressure, Nate.