The Home Builders NCAA Bracket Challenge 2009

For the past 7 years our Sunday School Class has held the Home Builders NCAA Bracket Challenge during the NCAA Tournament. The first 2 years Raymond and I came in second. We rarely ever pick the same teams to be in the Final Four or to win the entire tournament, except for last year when we both picked Memphis to win it all and this year we both picked North Carolina. Side note, the past 2 years I have been awarded a Certificate of Excellence for knowing more about basketball than my husband. Anyway, this year Raymond finished second among the guys, I finished first among the girls and we as a couple were the winning couple. For our knowledge of college basketball (or maybe just the sear luck of it all) here is what we won and get to keep for the next year along with the bragging rights.

The LaBron James (Yes, I know he never went to college) Trophy - Our names and the year are listed on the back.


Our Certificates of Excellence

Another A-Line Dress

I feel like I am getting pretty good at making A-Line Dresses :) This is a Michael Miller print. Thank you to Crystal, Sandy's mom from MDO, for the fabric!

My next project is not going to be an A-line dress. I have 3 beautiful coral coordinating fabrics that I am looking forward to making into another style of dress. Right now I can not decide between Belle Elysse Tiered Dress (click on the name to see the dress), Miss Madeline, Peasant Dress, both from http://www.youcanmakethis.com/, or Sugar and Spice from Kwik Sew. Anyone want to voice their opinion? I will not make any promises seeing that I only have 2 of the 3 patterns I mentioned above. I hope to make a decision in the next few weeks. I have some scrapbooking I want to catch up on over the next week or so.

FedEx Delivery

Abby is in obsessed with all things FedEx. She even wants to be a FedEx Pilot when she grows up. The other day when Raymond arrived home he found a FedEx Package at the back for Abby. She was so excited to get a package from FedEx.

Raymond gets the Best Dad Award for getting a small FedEx box, filling out the mailing slip and leaving it at the door so Abby could have a package at the door.

Happy Easter

Easter Morning - Easter Bunny Baskets

Hunting eggs at home

The girls worn their rain boots because it looked like it was going to rain.

Dying Easter Eggs

Saturday afternoon we dyed Easter Eggs.



Allie

Abby

The girls eggs

Painting the eggs

Highland Egg Hunt

Saturday after our soccer game we went to Highland's Annual Easter Egg Hunt. The girls had fun hunting eggs and playing on the inflatables. We had a great time being with our church family.


Ammie, Allie and Abby

Abby found a new friend in Karli, Karli helped Abby go thru the inflatable obstacle course and Abby was by her side till we left. Here they are going down the inflatable slide. I went down it with Allie and then with Ammie. It was a lot of fun.

Soccer Game

Saturday was the girls first soccer game. I was a little worried because Allie cried Thursday night at practice. Although it was cold Saturday morning both girls did well. Abby scored a goal and is getting better at not using her hands. Our team's name is the Tigers. Our coach said it was because 3 of the kids had on Tiger shirts at the first practice and they like the LSU Tigers. The name fits us just fine.

Allie cried during the game for the following reasons:

-when she was kicking the ball and the other team tried to kick it away from her.

- when playing goalie the teams were not coming to her end of the field.

-when they did come to her end of the field and she was kicking it out to her team (after a save)and she was not allowed to keep kicking it down the field.

-when the other team had a free kick and all 3 of our players were lined up in front of the goal and the kicker kicked the ball right into Allie's tummy.

I am sure by the end of the season things will be better. We did win our first game. To be honest I did not think we were that good

End of the game tunnel

New Mailbox

Raymond had to replace our mailbox on Friday. Our old one was about to fall over into the street. Abby was daddy's little helper all morning, starting with a trip to Lowe's and finishing with concreting the mailbox post into the ground. She had a great time helping Raymond.

While working on the new mailbox Raymond taught her our address and she has "taught" Allie to say it as well.

The Little Fuzzy Caterpillar

After not having that much to blog over the past few weeks I have about 6 items to post. So here is the first one.

The girls have enjoyed the arrival of caterpillars so far this spring. Thursday afternoon they found and much to my surprise Allie picked it up and let it crawl on her hand and arm. I finally convinced her to let it go on a bush in the front yard.

Friday Abby wanted to know where the caterpillar was. I told her it was outside on the bush. She wanted me to go find the caterpillar and thankfully Raymond found it (well we told her it was the same one). She then runs inside and gets her The Very Hungry Caterpillar book, goes outside and reads it to the caterpillar. Raymond comes in and tells me this after she finished the book. She was so proud of herself. I would have loved to watched her read to the caterpillar.

Here is a video of the Abby singing the Little Fuzzy Caterpillar Song.

New Dresses & Easter Baskets

New dresses I made the girls




New Easter Baskets I bought the girls

Practicing hunting eggs

What a Difference a Week Makes!

Last Tuesday at this time Tiger fans were either angry, sad, worried, mad, confused, or any other emotion you could have when your basketball coach leaves your school for bluer grass. Last Tuesday Tiger Coach John Calpari announced he was leaving Memphis to go to Kentucky. I was upset about it at first, but I still want to believe that it was a hard decision for him to make. Anyway, enough about the past, today Josh Pastner was announced as the Head Coach. He was an assistant under Calpari and AZ former coach Olsen. So today Tiger future looks a little brighter than it did a week ago.

Last Thursday's Front page of the Sports Section was a picture of Coach Calpari and a red plane. Abby asked me if the red plane was a FedEx Plane. I told her no, it was bad plane because it took our coach away. She told Raymond on Friday that the red plane took our coach away and that it needed to go and get him back!

Last night when Raymond told her our new coach's name, she said Josh Pouncer.