101 Update

I have managed to check off three 101 tasks this week! Yay! I completed: First Communion, watching a Romantic Comedy with Matt and completing 2 months of sending a weekly ecard. As you have seen from the pictures, I made it through First Communion, even though I got teary eyed several times as I realize my little boy is growing up!!

Matt and I watched 27 Dresses last night, it is a pretty good movie. Matt appreciated the creativity of the credits at the end. (Leave it to Matt to make notes on the credits). I am sure I will repeat this task over the next couple of years, but this way we purposefully set aside time to watch a movie together.

It was not too difficult to send ecards each week, it was actually kind of fun looking up different events and reasons to send cards! I am sure I will continue doing this, although probably not with weekly consistency.

This means I have completed a grand total of 13 tasks so far (of I counted correctly). Only 88 more to go!

No he was not in a fight...

Take a close look at the nose and swollen lip. (This actualy looks better than the original pre-bath pic with bloody nose and all) Believe it or not...Garek got this at violin lessons. Each Tuesday we have violin lessons, group lessons (all the kids in the same practice book play together) and a parent meeting for violin. During the parent meeting the kids are supervised by a couple of college students in the gym to run around and play. They love it. But Garek did not get injured during this play time in the gym, oh no, he got injured slipping on the floor. And before you feel too too sorry for him (you should feel a little sorry), I will tell you he did so while throwing a fit because he did not want to go. As many of you know, Garek is a bit stubborn. He did not want to leave the fun at the gym to get in the car and drive home. While trying to convince him of otherwise, Matt suggested he show him where he was playing, and Garek without his shoes on took off around a hallway corner on a freshly waxed floor and bang- FACE PLANT. Now he looks like a tough 5 year old...you know those dangerous violin lessons!!

GAVIN'S FIRST COMMUNION!

On Sunday April 27, 2008 Gavin received his First Holy Communion.  What a blessed event.  It was great that so many people could celebrate with us on this special day.  It was a beautiful day, although it had snowed on Saturday, it was all melted and the grass was a spectacular green.  Granted it was bit chilly for late April, it was gorgeous out!  Matt and I processed in with Gavin and we sat in a pew with him, then he read one of the petitions (this is amazing, since Gavin normally dislikes reading, perhaps doing the Lord's work helped), he received his first communion and they sang a song as a group.  There were 26 First Communicants, so it was cute.  After mass, we had a lunch at our house and hung around catching up and spending time together.  It was nice and I could not ask for a better celebration of Gavin's special day! 

Gavin receives the Blood of Christ

The Dobo Family

The Light Battenberg Family

A Proud Mom and Dad with Gavin!

 

Brothers!

The song the kids sang:

"Jesus in the Eucharist, I believe in you

You have promised me yourself, and your word is true.

Son of God, I long for you, come to me and stay

Be the Bread that makes me grow, more like you each day.

Bless my family and my friends, who are here today,

Help to make us more like you, Lord in, in every way.

May our hearts be filled with joy, and our love increased,

As we join to share in this Eucharistic feast."

Ta da...

Okay so I promised pictures of the house work we have accomplished, here you go. It seems that instead of just putting up pictures and art work on the wall (one of my 101 tasks), we decided to paint all walls on the second floor as well as add crown molding. (Now you know why I have not done much blogging). And instead of just painting there were a few places that needed more work. like the soft drywall we found behind the kitchen counter that had to be replaced. It was definitely interesting. Overall we had liked the colors in the house, but since we changed all out light bulbs to high efficiency ones, it seemed the colors all had a green hue, so we wanted to warm up the colors and make them more true colors with no hint of green. We started with walls like this in the main living room ( I neglected to take many before pics):

The boys also helped with painting. Garek was helping on a living room wall. Gavin was helping with the new red color we added to the front entry way.

Matt and our good friend Jonathan worked on the crown molding, what a great Geometry application in action!!

Now for some "after pictures...

The bathroom (I had previously given a sneak peek, it is now done)

This is the stairway to the main living room:

This is the entryway Gavin was helping to paint

This is the kitchen and dining area:

This the guest bedroom:

I know, I know...

I promised updates on the past couple of weeks, but time just keeps flying by and I cannot keep up with the things that need updating. I will soon have pictures of our completed painting around the house. I will also be able to check off at least 2 more 101 items after Sunday (First Communion). If you have a chance and need to do some extra blog surfing, you will notice at my 101 list that I have finished a couple of other tasks. I am still really bummed that I did not put painting on my list, or crown molding, or re tiling the back splash, or, or or it seems this past couple of weeks.

On top of getting ready for first communion, I did finish another doctorate class and I also decided my triathlon experience was pretty good so I can risk doing another in the summer. SO that means like many of my fellow bloggers, I am now on a training schedule. So far, so good, we will see as I start adding more " brick" training (this is when you do two events consecutively to practice transitioning apparently). Of course, I am not worried about keeping my transition times down, but I do want to make sure I do not have wobbly legs between biking an running or swimming and biking. :)

So it goes in our household...busy, busy, busy. I will be sure to blog again soon and hopefully have some pics to share with you all.

LIFE

Did you play the game of Life when you were a kid? I thought it was fun to play, so we have that game and play it as a family. Gavin in particular likes to play, especially since he has the skills to be banker now! Of course as a mom it is strange when your 7 year old is making comments like "I have to get married now," or "I want to have twins too." It makes me think that I should make them play this again when they are 30 so I can re-live the days from before.

Anyways, one of my complaints about Life (the game) is that it has changed! You now have bank loans if you go to college, the salary amounts are linked to the type of occupation you have and you do not get gifts for getting married or having kids!! Some of it had become more "realistic" but at the same time, it seems inflation has not affected the game of life, the low and high ends of the salary scale etc are the same.


All in all it is a lot of fun to "share" games with our children that we once played (even if it is not exactly the same).

Gavin does an excellent job as banker

Garek reacts to a move

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to Jake and Jody! They were married 4 years ago today, and might I add they had one of the most adorable Ring Bearers - Gavin! (there are 2- Garek was adorable 2 years later in Andee's). Okay, so I may be biased. If you all remember Jake and Jody's wedding it was a beautiful and fun celebration of marriage! A gorgeous day in April, no one could have asked for better Duluth Spring weather! There was a lot of singing and dancing at the ballroom and we all got to bed late. What a great day! We were all glad to be part of it!

Little Plumbers

So as Matt already eluded ...there was some plumbing involved with the "painting" of the bathroom. The boys decided they should help. Luckily during the episode there was no "plumbers crack" from any of the boys!! Garek really got into the plumbing, even reminding daddy what supplies he needed to pick up at the hardware store!! If daddy has anything to say about it, our boys will be true Renaissance men- they can cook, play violin, soccer, do household maintenance. They will be quite a catch in the future (even though Garek tells me he will live with me forever).

Garek consulting with Daddy

Garek is actually doing plumbing in this picture!

How did this happen?!

I was doing so well...and now I have gone a week without blogging. It makes me sad. But I will show you some pictures of the past week so you can see what we have been up to...

BATHROOM (APRIL 4-5)

Why didn't some of this end up on my 101 list?!! This is what I have been saying to myself the past couple of weeks. This is our upstairs bathroom. After we moved in, we change our light bulbs to the high efficient variety- as you may or may not know, these give you a different "color" of light. It makes a lot of the walls in our house a green tone that Matt and I do not like. So out bathroom was a brown color, I do not know if you can see the greenish color or not in the picture...

So we painted it...brown. Only this brown is called "Belgian chocolate" and looks much less green! Although I still have a couple of things to hang on the walls, here is a sneak peak....

FLYING KITES (APRIL 4)

While daddy was painting the bathroom, the boys and their friend Sarah were attempting to fly kites in the backyard. (Notice the lack of green, this was one of the first "warm" days last weekend.)

Gavin is trying really hard

Look at him run!

Success!!

Garek is giving tips to Sarah on flying kites

A VISIT FROM GRAMMY AND GRAMPY (APRIL 5)

Grammy and Grampy came down to hang out with Garek on Sunday April 6, while Matt and I brought Gavin to a meeting for First Communion. Because we were quarantined during the time Garek was to have his family birthday celebration, Grammy and Grampy brought Garek's B Day present. Notice, that he received star wars legos and clothes. I point out the clothes in the box, because in Garek's mind, all he got were the star wars legos :) (Notice they were even wearing the right shirts for the occasion).

VIOLIN RECITAL (APRIL 8)

On Tuesday Gavin and Garek had a violin recital. This was Garek's first time on stage. He did a beautiful bow and Gavin played the twinkle variation A and the twinkle theme. They both were great! We will put a video clip in here, but for now, some cute pics....

Garek waits in "the wings" for his turn

Gavin waits for his turn

Gavin- what a cheesy smile

Garek starts his Beautiful bow-

down..2..3,

up..2..3,

smile..2..3

Okay, so I only got through last Tuesday on this post. I will post more later.

April Showers...

Well at least they are true showers and not the snow variety. Yesterday it was beautiful, today not so much, but I do look forward to the green grass of spring! I love spring, rain smells good, the leaves opening on trees is great, we get to spend more time outside, and the bike path in the back is now clear of snow!

I thought I should share some of our plans for April:

Start indoor seeds for garden plants
Finish painting the upstairs (I do not know why I did not add this to my 101!!)
Complete a class
Have a great First Communion Celebration!
Go to a violin recital for Gavin and Garek
Participate in a pancake breakfast fundraiser
Participate in Science on Saturday- a fun day for younger elementary kids
Get the garden tilled and plant sturdy things (like carrots)
ENJOY SPRING!!

At the races...

A week and a half ago Gavin entered a pinewood derby car into a race. He belongs to a group called AWANA, (it is pretty much a kid's bible study), and they hosted a derby. This race occur ed while Kaleb was down visiting so Matt took Garek, Gavin and Kaleb for a boy outing. Gavin's car did not win, but we were proud of the fact that he worked on finishing his car all on his own. When they were all done the boys all got to go to Dairy Queen with Matt!

Gavin Kaleb and Garek watch the races

Gavin looks worried as his car races

Gavin's car is the red one with a black strip in the middle

Quarantine is lifted, finally

So Matt is spending his first half day back at work...finally. That means life can start getting back to normal and I can get some rest. It turns out that the boys and I did not get influenza, as we were at the doctor for a 5 year old checkup. However, I ended up with walking pneumonia. Never fear, one round of antibiotics and I will be good as new! Of course working online means I will not be missing much work or anything, I just plan to get to bed earlier.