Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Red Sox # 1 fan!!!

The season officially started yesterday and I have some pretty excited boys in my house. The DVR is already full of pre-game, the actual game, post-game, highlights, and I think we even recorded it twice! I don't think anyone would argue that Cameron is their #1 fan. Mr. Stockwell (the para in Cam's class) knows how much Cameron loves the Red Sox and he kept checking the score for him yesterday, and gave him frequent updates!!! I love it. This is what I thought having boys would be all about it. This child lives for Red Sox baseball.

So, yesterday I got all the facts on Tokyo. "Mom, did you know it's a 13 hour time change...do you think the players are tired, did you know they play in a big Dome, did you know Dice-K and Okajima are from Japan, do you think they are happy to be home, will the Red Sox learn Japanese, Manny and Moss hit homer's.....etc" That's all I can remember, he was talking a mile a minute! (hmmmm, wonder where he gets that from???)

Well, this morning I wake up to the tv blaring from the family room and Cameron talking to himself! I go downstairs and he's ready to go! "Mom, did you know Terry Francona gets in trouble for not wearing his uniform, Beckett's arm is hurt so he's on the injured list, do you think Manny will hit another homer today, do you think J.D. Drew is really hurt...he's probably just really tired with the time change, guess what....Pedroia shaved his head, he has little spikes all over!" With my eyes half open and my mind spinning, all I could do was smile and try to process what he was saying so I could answer him...I just wanted the questions to stop! I don't know how the kid ever falls asleep at night. His mind seriously must run in overdrive all day long.

I think I am getting my payback! I remember waking up at 5am everyday and I know that it made my mom crazy. I may not have been shouting off baseball stat's, but at that hour it really doesn't matter why they are up....it's just annoying that they are up and when one get's up....the other's are soon to follow! It's a good think one of us is a morning person, and NO, that person would not be Jarrod!!!

I guess I should just be thankful that all the games are not in Japan and I don't have to worry about anymore 5am games. Well, it's definitely "Game On" in the Neeley house. Ready for another season of Red Sox baseball. Anything you want to know, give him a call....I'm sure he would be happy to share his knowledge with you and it will give us a break from listening!!!


***The pictures are from a game they went to last season. Jarrod got tickets to the Hartford box and was able to take the boys. I honestly don't think I've ever seen the boys so excited, esp. Cameron. Jarrod let them wander around before the game and being the brave one that Cameron is, he was able to get down by the dug-out during warm-ups. He started yelling "Hey Big Papi!" a guard told him he had to get out of there, but not before Ortiz came over and signed his ball for him! I think he almost hyper ventilated!!! David Ortiz is Cam's favorite player and my new hero!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Easter Egg Hunt

It's been so much fun establishing new traditions with our friends in our neighborhood. They are just like family to us and we love spending holidays with them. We started this little easter egg hunt last year and it almost got forgotten this year. Easter kind of snuck up on us but we pulled it together and despite the cold weather enjoyed the afternoon with our kids and our friends!






















It's not easy to get this many kids to stand still for a group photo. I must of snapped 20 pictures to get one with them all looking at the camera. You'll notice Cameron is not in the picture. He had a small melt-down because his mother would not let him leave the house in a t-shirt and shorts. What a mean mom!





























He perked up and decided to join us. He even shared some of his eggs with our little neighbor next door, it was so cute.




























Ethan was too cool to hang out with the other kids!





















The big boys had just found out that there were 2 eggs with money in them and started ripping through there eggs to see who had the $$$. It ended up being Cameron!























Our little one's could not wait to get inside to check out their candy. They all plopped down right in the middle of the front yard and went to town!






















Another group shot. I think I put this on by mistake and can't figure out how to get it off!




























Ethan filled up his basket in about 2 minutes. He was so cold, 5 minutes later he was inside messing up the boys video games!






















We tried to make it a little harder for the big kids so we put all of their eggs in the woods behind our house. They were still up their hours later finding eggs.




























I think Lexi may have been more excited to see her friends than to find eggs. She is such a little social butterfly.

The Paragraph!

A couple of years ago Jarrod came home from work one night to find a very agitated wife. Not completely uncommon in our household, especially with 4 kids! The reason for my frustration that particular day was because of an email that he did not respond to. He looked at me, smiled and simply asked me if I had ever learned how to make a paragraph? He then explained to me how hard it was to read my emails because they were just 1 big long jumbled up mess and he would stop reading the long ones a few sentences in. I'm sure I got mad, but decided that I would not write the big long emails anymore w/o using paragraphs! My mind is constantly in overdrive and I have a tendency to think faster than I can type, so I of course do not stop to think about adding a space, I'm just trying to keep up with the crazy thoughts in my head!!!


Jarrod has been very supportive of this blog. He gives constant encouragement and praise and it gets me excited to keep adding to it. Well, he came home the other night and much to my surprise......I received the "paragraph" talk again! Just for the record, I really do know how to make paragraphs! What I DO NOT know how to do however.....is make the paragraphs show up on this stupid thing! I have played with all of the settings, I have added more than one space, yet when I click the little orange button to publish my post, it ends up 1 big long jumbled up mess. So, as much as it really does not bother me to read the big long jumbled up mess, it's making Jarrod crazy and he promised me that we would fix the problem! I think he's convinced it's a "user" malfunction!

Sorry , no pictures for this post. It was just something I've been thinking about all day and decided to throw on here. Jarrod will get a good laugh out of it.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Cameron

Heads up to anyone reading this.....it's a long one!!!




















Not the best quality photo, but sadly enough....it was the only recent photo I could find with just me and Cam. We need to be better about that, maybe it's because he is so active that we can never pin him down long enough to get a picture!


This sweet little boy of mine has been consuming most of my thoughts over the past few weeks. I worry about all of my kids, but always a little bit more with this one. As a mom, I feel like it's my responsibility to be the strong one. Let me tell you, Cameron is the strong one. He is my biggest source of strength each and every day.


Any "1" of the challenges that he faces each day would be enough to make most people want to quit and give up....but not Cameron. He is just that much more determined to prove that he not only can do anything he sets his mind to, but that he can be the best! He faces things head on and has no fear, at least you would never know it. He has more confidence than I ever had at his age and I know that is what will take him so far in life.


I love his passion and his energy and I even love his stubborness. There are days that I want to pull every hair in my head out because of this stubborness and the fact that he will never take NO for an answer, but I have realized that he has such a fire in him and that he will never settle for anything but the best.


Jarrod and I have always worried that Cameron would struggle with relationships and friendships. It has actually been one of my biggest fears for him. It has been over the past year that we are realizing just how loved this special little boy is, and not just to us! Everywhere we go, people know him. The school...of course, grocery store, movie theater, gas station, swimming pool, gym, you name it. You cannot help but smile when you look at him. He has so much energy surrounding him and his smile and laugh are so infectious. He makes friends quite easily and wants to be everyone's friend.


You would never know it by talking to him because he is so funny and sarcastic and loves to be silly....but he is very caring, loving and sensitive to others feelings and needs. I think he is very much a people person, he is so natural and happy around anyone he meets! He is so blessed to have so many people in his life that care so much about him. I can't even begin to describe the feeling I get when I see him get off the bus with the biggest smile because Mrs. Randall got him SI for kids, or Mr. Stockwell laminated a Red Sox article for him. It's been hard for me to think about how much more time these people get to spend with him than I do and to trust them with my child. I no longer feel that way. I know w/o a doubt that they love him and want him to succeed! I know that because they cry right along with me through the ups and the downs.


Anything you ever would want to know about the Red Sox, ask Cameron. He used to get up at 5am and read everything he could about every player and then quiz the entire neighborhood. Last season he would walk to the bus every morning and ask our friend next door about something that happened at the game the night before. She would just laugh and tell Cameron that she didn't know, that she hadn't watched it. Well, one morning Cameron didn't ask and she stopped him and said "Cameron, you didn't ask me about the game last night!" He said "yeah, you never watch so I didn't ask" She was so excited by his excitment every morning that she had watched that game so she could talk to him about it the next morning! He had our entire neighborhood wanting to go to his little league games!


I told a friend tonight, that I hope Cameron knows how special he is to his mommy. I am so proud of him and how much he has accomplished in his short life. There are so many things that do not come easy for him and he just plows into them and works that much harder. I know that my thoughts are all over the place and for anyone that actually reads my ramblings, I am truly sorry. I just wanted to share Cameron with you. On the outside most people would see him as a very energetic, fun-loving, sometimes hot headed 9 year.....but I see so much more.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Mom got an A!





















This would be the latest BIG project that Jake was assigned at school. In History they have been learning about Africa. At the end of the unit each child got to pick a country to research. Leave it to our child to pick the country that we've never heard of, Mauritania. I actually asked him if he was sure he was pronouncing it right when he came home and told me! They spent a couple of months on this unit and then were given 3 weeks to complete this monster of a poster. The teacher was very very very specific on the size of the poster, what had to go on it, and in which panel everything had to go. We instantly started having flashbacks to the last

BIG project when they studied the Shakers and we spent a week driving to every bookstore and library in a 50 mile radius to find an "authentic" shaker cookbook, then trying to locate the ingredients, and half the neighborhood staying up all night editing his journal and making batch after batch of bread that never did turn out. We were going to do things differently this time. We made a timeline, Jake got a lecture and we were thinking that this one was going to be different. We were so hard on him. He needed to find better pictures, more detailed maps, well written captions, more accurate graphs, etc. etc. etc. You name it, we kept telling him he could do better! We got down to the weekend before it was due and mom and dad stepped in. We swore up and down that we wouldn't, even told our friends at dinner that Saturday night that he was on his own. 2 straight days were spent making the thing look perfect, we printed photo's off the photo printer, used multiple web sites to verify his facts, we even added sand to the paint before we painted the poster to make it look like a desert.....and we were very crabby to Jake the entire weekend. Jake came home the next day all excited to tell us he got an A, to which Jarrod replied "Your Mom got an A" ! After the posters were all turned in and the kids presented them, they set them all up in the gym and all the families were invited to come and see them. Jarrod took Jake and not 20 minutes later I get a call from him saying "We owe Jake a HUGE apology!" He said that most of the posters were not painted, many of the pictures were hand drawn, and the only specific graph that they were required to do was to compare the per capita income of their country to the US.....apparently ever single poster had a different per capita income for the United States, but we were pretty sure Jake's was the only correct one.....we should know.....we did it! Jake was doing his poster the way a 7th grader would do it and we set expectations that were way to high! A big lesson was learned in our house that day......save the poster so when Cameron chooses Mauritania in 3 years, it's already done!!!

Straight hair like Giselle

"Enchanted" seems to be on perpetual rewind at our house this week. Lexi wants to watch it over and over, but only the singing parts! When it was time to do her hair this morning she asked to have it straight like Giselle's. So, I started to pull the elastic in like we usually do and she got upset. She said that "Giselle does not have an elastic, she just has it straight" I smiled and said Ok, straight it is! We got the flat iron out and made it straight and as I expected....she was not happy. Lexi has a lot of hair on the top of her head and it was hanging in her face. It was driving her crazy. We finally compromised on a small clip to hold some of it back and she asked for a picture to send to daddy at work! As I was taking this picture this morning, I realized how fast she's growing up. I keep waiting for the day she tells me NO MORE BOWS! I think that day may have been today and I'm in denial!

***I'm not sure if it's just her or if I need to fix the settings on my Camera, but she has such a hard time with the flash. Every picture we take of her indoors she squints/blinks. Any suggestions? (we're looking for a new camera, it's slightly overwhelming!)

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Lexi's 1st date























Lexi had her very 1st date last night w/ her daddy! It was the daddy/daughter dance in town and all the little girls k-6 were invited. She has been excited about this for weeks. She's been giggling about it all week with her little girlfriends, she even talked to one of them on the phone about what kind of dress she was going to wear. She had to start getting ready after lunch, and daddy was not allowed to see her. She wanted to have a new dress and we drove all over creation trying to find white shoes for her tiny little feet. Jarrod ended up fnding them (w/some help) at Walmart of all places! We curled her hair, painted her nails, and put on lip gloss. It was so much fun, I was of course in heaven.....and she looked absolutely adorable! Jarrod told her that she could pick out his tie and I could not believe how excited she was. She went straight for the purple one so it would match her dress. We took lots of pictures and it was actually kind of hard for me to not be there with her. I missed her. She is such a little daddy's girl though and I know she loved every minute of it. Jarrod spends so much time with the boys and sports and so I think it was so good for her to have her special night with daddy. Jarrod said she walked into the school and the 1st think she said was "I want to go find my friends"! He was secretly bummed out, he wanted to just hang out with her. Jarrod said she quickly found them and said that we could not have planned their little outfits more perfectly if we tried. He said that all 4 of them had little flowered dresses and cardigans! I wish I could have seen it. Of course, leave it to the dads to not have camera's. One of them may have, I'll post a picture of the 4 of them if we can find one. She asked Jarrod to dance with her, but she said that he couldn't dance all funny. I'm have flashforwards of my teenage daughter being embarrassed of her parents! She came home with a princess crown and a huge smile on her face. It was so much fun to listen to her talk about her night out with daddy and her little girlfriends, she did not leave a single detail out. We have a collection of princess crowns growing on top of one of her shelves in her room and this morning she was already talking about which crown she was going to get next year.

Quiet weekend?


Each week as we get closer to the weekend, Jarrod and I start the emails back and forth. What do we have going on this weekend? Who has what sport at what time? (Is it possible for the 2 of us to get everyone where they need to be.....we joke that it takes both of us and a small army to get everyone where they need to go....and on time!) We are thankful for friends and carpools! So, needless to say we usually have really crazy weekends, but we love it. This is what I always thought being a mom was all about.
This week however, the emails were a little different. NO SPORTS! Basketball just ended and we have a small break before baseball, lacrosse and spring soccer start. (Cameron still thinks he is playing all 3, we'll let you know where that one goes!)
The last couple weeks have been kind of long for the kids, especially Cameron. They just finished CMT"S (Connecticut Mastery Tests) and so I think we were all looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Apparently "OUR" idea of relaxing and "THEIR" idea of relaxing have 2 very different definitions! What started with friends coming over after school, quickly turned into a full on slumber party.....if you have boys, than you will understand why all of the furniture was removed from the family room!!! (not really, we just decided to clean the carpets this weekend!)
So, what we thought would be a quiet, relaxing weekend, ended up being crazy and loud and soooo much fun! We started bed time at 11 and were kidding ourselves that we really thought 6 boys would fall asleep that early! Especially after (I don't know how many cases of ) pop, ice cream, popcorn, and whatever else they could find in the pantry.....I should not be surprised 1 went home with a sick tummy!
I'm sure I have more than 1 parent mad at me. I did not have the heart to tell any of them that the boys did not sleep! I could still hear at least 1 of them when I fell asleep around 1:30 and I heard the video game tournaments starting back up at 6 the next morning! It's kind of funny to see how competitive they are, I had to finally shut it off to shove food down them all before Jarrod shuttled them off to baseball try-outs. We'll save that discussion for another day! (I get so worked up over the political side of little league sports.)
I get a little crabby when my house smells like dirty boys and there are socks, backpacks, video games, every imaginable piece of sports equipment, and shoes from one end of the house to the other.....but if it were all to go away, I know that I would really miss it.
So, did we get our quiet weekend? Nope. Would I change a single minute of it? Nope! I love the noise. The laughing, the silly contests they make up, the sound of the basketball bouncing in the drive-way, singing in the car(loudly and very off tune) ,basketball off the pantry door in my kitchen, watching them play baseball on the green.....I'll take it all, because I know it makes them happy and that's all that really matters!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Poor Bella

Just to clarify "not me" is not the dog. Let's not even go there. As much as I feel sorry for the poor thing, she makes me crazy most days. I was not thrilled to have a dog. After 13 years of Jarrod and the kids begging for one I finally gave in. I really do not like anything about having an animal. She goes potty on my floor, she chews on the furniture, and her little hairs make my eyes itch! The kids really do adore her though, I have to keep telling myself that daily when I'm ready to give her to the next person that knocks on my door! As if getting shoved into a kitchen cabinet was not enough torture for 1 day, I was on the phone with Nicole B. this afternoon and was not paying attention to Ethan and Lexi. I thought it was so cute that they were sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor coloring and getting along. You would think that after 4 kids I would have learned that silence and giggling are never a good combination. I guess they were bored of tracing their own hands and feet, so they thought they would do the dog's! Ethan was holding her feet down on the paper while Lexi traced and cut her little paws out. It actually was kind of cute to watch, until the dog got loose and ran and I noticed two very guilty faces and a pile of little bella hairs all over the paper and the floor. I was laughing to hard to get mad. I know it really was not funny, but you did not see the look on the dog's face, PRICELESS! The poor thing ran for her life.

Not Me!


This morning's post would be inspired by the 7th person residing in our home. This person goes by the name "not me"! I'm sure many of you have a person by this name residing in your home too, I guess you stole our name! I have yet to actually meet this little person, but he/she sure does do a lot of naughty things. More recently "not me" has managed to clog both toilets, fill the dog's food bowl with mini-marshmallows, put lip gloss on the dog, color their brother, un-roll an entire roll of toilet paper onto the bathroom floor (and we wonder WHY both toilets are clogged!), finger paint the bathroom mirror with lotion, and color the wall in the boys room with a big red marker! Imagine my surprise when I opened the kitchen cabinet this morning and found bella in there! At least "not me" was nice enough to give her a blanket and her bone! I am looking to find a new home for "not me" if you are interested.....I'm taking offers! Either that or Jarrod's birthday is next week and he would love a jumbo pack of Mr. Clean magic erasers!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

1st time for everything

So.....I'm all for trying new things and I am so excited for this one! We have family and friends all over the world and I thought this could be a fun way to stay connected to everyone. I am so bad at sending pictures and even worse at emails....and forget snail mail! So, if you really want to know the good.....the bad....and the crazy things that go on in the Neeley house.....have at it!!! There is never a dull moment around here!