Sensational Seven

If you know anything about Matts you know that he considers anything worth doing is worth doing to excess. Luckily, this it seems that seven is all about sweetness and expression.

EXHIBIT A:

"Mom could you please not throw away my homework? Because it makes me feel like you don't respect my hard work when you do."

EXHIBIT B:

"Mom, I'm so sorry that I hurt your feelings I'm going to try to do my very best to never do it again." (completely self initiated after I had a meltdown that had something to do with boys and messes and noise)

THE present

EXHIBIT C:

"Mom, I just love you so much. More than anything and not just because you gave me the best present in the world. I love you the most because you are the best mom ever"

And because you CANNOT turn seven without celebrating with your friends...we threw together a quick party. Let me just reiterate that Legos are genius. What else could keep 10 children entertained with minimal planning and minimal destruction?

Mattson: The way you you embrace life and live it to the fullest brought life and light back into our home. You are passionate and curious and always striving to do more and be better.

We love you so much and can't wait to see what seven brings.

Madness

March Madness is quite the tradition at our house. Starting my senior year of HS when I won a bracket to when I was in labor w/Matts and we watched the blue Devils to present day when I go against everything I believe in and rearrange our living room to better watch games all day and let the boys stay up until 10:00.

This is what C thinks of the Jimmer haters

C choosing his picks

This is fun!

We all have out strategies; C whatever food looks tastiest, G whatever word association he likes best (letters from his name in their name,or Oakland b/c it sounded like Oakley who he misses so much or Gonzaga b/c it sounds like ninjago), M whatever mascot is toughest, Me whatever random tidbits I've picked up, R whatever the all powerful spreadsheet dictates.

To each his own.

Going beyond

Every 9 weeks Matts has to complete a GBR or "Going Beyond Requirement" for his target class. Their first unit has been "Stepping into Target" aka fairy tales 101. You can only imagine how Matts feels about this. Luckily, there are very few specific requirements and there is an emphasis on initiative and creativity. Here's what he (and Reed) turned out:

Princess Kylie in the dungeon, guarded by the evil Lord Hiss

Quite pleased

Prince Superkid with his Meerkat and Komodo dragon legions

The finished product

You've got to give the kid credit. He managed to incorporate his "incession" with armies, legos, snakes, komondo dragons, meerkats and superkid into a project on fairy tales. If that doesn't demonstrate creativity I don't know what does.

The conflicted life of a 4yr old

Recently we've been working on G's prayers, trying to stretch them from standard and repetitive to more thoughtful and personal. Apparently it's working b/c both his primary teachers stoppped me after to church and told me G had given an incredibly heartfelt prayer that even included "the monster earthquake in Japan". G really is such a gentle soul with an tender heart. As one teacher put it, "on the one hand I wanted to burst out laughing but on the other hand he was so sincere that I could really feel the spirit."

Fast forward to tonight after a fun-filled weekend and a long sunday that led to a somewhat traumatic bedtime.

"Please bless Mommy because she's the worst and she's the best...and I don't like that Mommy makes me go to bed, please help me to be good and make my bed nicely."

Wanting so badly to be good, but struggling with being only 4,

Spring has sprung

This weekend we kicked got in the spirit of spring with soccer, spring cleaning and fun! To make it all the more fun Cath, Scott and the girls came down to help us welcome the most beautiful season in Atlanta.

Madi 'teaching' Gray to read.

Miss Iz taking her role as babysitter VERY serious. Right before the picture her exact words were "He's just so cute".

By the end of Saturday Christian was pretty much done.

The missing link. Two of the cutest, sweetest kiddos in the world.

Obviously too busy enjoying the cake to take a good picture.

Perhaps my favorite line of the weekend; "The birthday girl is happy" which was repeated whenever we ate, played, or celebrated.

And the cleaning part? Scott hauled an unbelievable number of power tools down south to remodel our garage. With less expense and time than we anticipated Reed and Scott did a fantastic job.

There's no business

This past Thursday Mattson had his vocal debut. He had the great honor of being a soloist for the lovely song 'I have music in my soul'. Let's just say that for what he may lack in tone he makes up for with enthusiasm.

An Adorable G ready to support brother

Excited, but a little spoltchy. We had a minor melt down in which I was convinced my 6yr old boy had been switched with a hormonal teenage girl. Let's just say the phrases "I look terrible", "I'm never coming out of my room again" and "You're trying to ruin my life" were hurled down the stairs at me with frightening conviction.

The crew

That's Amore

Once a year Reed and I have the fantastic opportunity to escape our kiddos. It's the perfect time to reflect, set goals and reconnect. This time we didn't accomplish any of those. Through the haze of babiness/preschool/gradeschool/church/sports/work that is our life all we could manage was just enjoying our time together. And you know what? It was exactly what we needed.

The best part? Well, other than my Kindle (Kendall's Kindle ha, ha which I LOVE) was the fact that Reed planned the entire trip. Hotel, flights, destinations, cuisine. He researched it all, scheduled it all and paid for it all :).

A week with no decisions (other than what 3 gelato flavors to mix) made for the best vacation EVER.

Not bad for a 30th birthday.

Our good friend Ivan

After a quick (or not so quick) nap we met Ivan for a tour of the city. Who is Ivan? A great guy that Reed has done deals with at the GSMA and who was raised in Rome. Basically the perfect guide. It was a completely dizzying, delicious and enjoyable day.

The Colosseum

Just down the street from our hotel. Fascinating and tragic.

Boca de Veritas:

I'm completely confident. Reed not so much. What does this say about us?

Trevi Fountain

So romantic

***Yes, I'm wearing sunglasses in 75% of the pictures. But, we celebrated my 30th birthday in Barcelona at Cafe de L'Academia with a fabulous dinner that went into the wee hours of the morning and then pushed straight through to catch our flight to Rome the next morning. ***

Giolliti's

Completely delightful. Ivan graciously took us here. All other gelato pale in comparison and yes, nociolla, chocolate, fruit with creme is the winning combination

Never far

Reed thought it would be amusing to document the fact that I couldn't go 24hours w/o checking in on the boys. I know I was at the Pantheon, but in my defense I was coordinating a doctor's visit/pharmacy/insurance for a miserable 9mth old.

A GINORMOUS thanks to my mom and sister for taking the boys. Our sitter's Grandpa died 48 hrs before I was flying out. After a few frantic hours I resigned myself to leaving Cath with 5 kiddos under the age of 6 for an ENTIRE week. In her defense, I didn't doubt her ability, just her sanity. In my defense I left her a 'sanity' budget. As for Grandma Candi, apparently even with a sick baby she's waay more cool that I am.

Well that's the short version of our trip. Spending a week in Rome with my love was perfectly perfect. I'm so grateful to be married to such a hardworking, FUN man.

And that concludes my one lovey-dovey post for the year.

My kicks are better than yours

As a final act of awesomeness my mom got the boys new shoes. I absolutely detest shoe shopping for the boys (me, not so much). I detest the ugliness, the exorbitant prices and the complete shortage of velcro options.

(I have a goal to send my boys to college w/o knowing how to tie their shoes)

After a LONG afternoon of too many stores and waaay too many seemingly identical pairs that just 'didn't feel right' we hit the jackpot. A week later Gray in particular is completely enamored with his shoes and their super sonic speed. Or, as he put it at breakfast this morning;

"These shoes make me faster than God"

I didn't know we brought some good old-fashioned hubris home as a souvenir from Rome. Apparently a nice baptist preschool+Peterson confidence =

COMPLETE DOMINATION.