Happy Birthday, Marley, a day late!!

Don't worry -- I called her yesterday and left messages on Marley's phone to say "Happy Birthday" and I'm spending most of next week with the kids while Teri and Jeff are off on a business trip. It's so appropriate that Marley chose to be born on April 15th! Go figure! Not hard to forget, for sure! And she decided to make it really good by arriving at 3am!! But, she is one special gal who has brightened our lives over the years.

It's just hard to believe that she is 13 already! Just yesterday, I was holding her in my arms as an infant. And then bribing her to go to kindergarten with dance shoes. She was determined NOT to go to school and hung on to her dad's legs. Teri called me in desperation so I asked Marley what she wanted really badly -- she wanted new dance shoes. I told her if she would go to school for just three days, I would come over and buy her dance shoes. Well .. that was a long time ago. She is finishing up grade 7 -- just one more year before she heads to high school. She has lots of friends -- no lack of them at all and is busy with all kinds of activities. I'm not sure how well she likes to fish but this photo was taken during spring break.

Tax season is over -- woohoo! My neighbors probably heard me yell "Hurray" last night -- just kidding but inside I was quite excited that it was now over -- well, sort of. I filed almost 100 extensions so have my work cut out for me over the next months!

So, tonight, I will relax a little more -- actually, Sandi, Tyler and I headed for the beach today -- and I got quite a bit of sun in just a little over an hour. We always warn the northerners who come down and head for the beach -- do not stay out long and make sure you are protected with plenty of sun screen!

Enough for now .. I'm getting sleepy writing .. and I'll start to ramble really soon!

Easter Morning

Tyler (Sandi's 8 year old) is usually less than thrilled -- way less than thrilled -- to stand up in front and sing with others. Usually he insists, "No, thank you!" However, yesterday morning was different -- as you can see (he's on the far right), he was quite happy to do the motions. The first song he didn't know as well but the second song .. "There was a shake and a rattle and the stone was rolled away" (or something like that) ... of course, I decided to share it here!

RJ's Birthday, etc.

It seems I have little time to get things posted on my blog ... I guess that must mean I am busy and that is a good thing, I think. Although I am looking forward to my schedule slowing down somewhat!

We celebrated RJ's 6th birthday on Saturday. His birthday was one month ago -- March 11th but it seemed that our schedules were so crazy that his birthday celebration was put off until Saturday. But we had a great time .. he's quite the little guy and as he told his mother (Shonna), "I'm 6 years old. I am a man now!" Hmmm ...

So, here are a few of the photos that were taken that day ... Ava must have known she couldn't have cake -- so she just decided to chew on her foot!