Palm Sunday

A beautiful mass at Shrine this morning despite the cool, wet weather. The kids all had a sleepover with Grandma & Grandpa last night. Poor Grandma Paula has to go back to work tomorrow after her two week break but less than two months till semi retirement. I had a busy work week myself, always a mixed blessing, but thanks be to God I was able to get it all done between Grandma being off this week, taking the boys with me or working in the evenings.
We are looking forward to a blessed holy week and nice weather coming.

Grandma Paula got a new suit for Mikey (not pictured) and Petey wore one that Grandma Alice picked up for him at Goodwill.

out and about

St Patrick's Day greeting from 1st grade

Isabel brought our video camera in for Student of the Day today and did a little video tapping.

We got most of the backyard cleaned up and Hershey got a little sun and some needed excercise.

This Butterly was out and about enjoying the sun and posed for a few photos.

a spring in her step

Golden, Brown & Delicious

Mikey has decided that he likes to cook and it actually makes him want to eat so I helped him make some blueberry muffins.

the great outdoors

The boys are enjoying the nice weather and finally getting back outside.

look before you leap

This little guy was in my shoe in the garage this morning, frozen solid.

happy days are here again

Amazing what a difference a week makes

Teamwork

The Junior Varsity Flames finished the regular season with 4 wins and 5 losses. Friday night was the start of the tournament and we got a call from Coach Miller saying that he had a funeral to attend and asked if Leighanne, the most "motivated" parent at the games, would fill in for him at the tournament. How could she say no?
Well our girls won the first game against St Paul despite missing 1 great player! They got to stay for the next round against Steiner but lost by one point! It was as good a game as girls junior varsity basketball can possibly get! The girls on Steiner were all 6th graders and all at least a head taller than the SSA Flames. At one point we were down 2-10, but with full court press in the second half, our team was able to dominate the court and wage a comeback like no other! There were some bad/missed calls from the officials and even the girls on Steiner pointed them out so we know it wasn't just sour grapes! I think they really gained a respect for each other and the whole team even rooted for us at the game this morning against St Paul for 3rd place. Another VERY close game that was tied until the last 20 seconds but we lost 10-12. We in turn stayed to watch Steiner take on Emerson and root them on but Steiner lost 22 to 6!

A few "in action" shot of Coach Leighanne. At one point the referee told her she needed to "calm down" when she disputed another missed call.

A one in a million shot gets the ball stuck between the rim and backboard and it actually happened twice. Once in our second game in the final seconds and again in our second nail biter in the final minutes! Even though she doesn't relish the circumstances that led to her pinch hitting as coach, Leighanne is so grateful for the opportunity to have worked with these girls. She was blessed enough to be able to take off early from work and make every game of the season and most of our girls are fifth graders and have never really played the game before. The transformation in their play over the season was so fun to watch and so impressive considering how little they were actually able to practice (I think they actually had more games than practices!) Our girls have heart. They have hustle. They are GREAT sports. And their full court press game more than one team a serious run for their money this weekend and we just couldn't be prouder of them. Holy Spirit, Fire up Flames!