Spring is here and the Allergies too!

Finally it is Spring although this past week you wouldn't know it in Virginia! We've had pretty cold weather, actually. But the obvious signs of Spring are around, including the sneezing,stuffy nose,itchy and watery eyes !!! I have always suffered from seasonal Spring allergies, but Steve had not. Not until, that is, about two years ago, when out of the blue, he developed all of the classic symptoms I usually get before I even got mine!!! Mine seem to have gotten less severe the past few years, so I don't even need to get prescription medicine anymore. Over the counter stuff works fine, although i have to get the heavier duty "D" versions, like Claritin-D or Zyrtec-D . Sam had really bad allergies when he was not even two and his doctor told me at the time that she had never seen any child so young have them so bad! He's grown out of the prescription strength medicine as well, but still suffers during this time. Felicia is affected as well. The only ones allergy free in this house are Bethany and Ellie. They are so lucky!

So Lucky!

Yesterday we celebrated St. Patrick's Day at our house! We all wore green and for some of us, it was difficult to find something green!!! I made tacos for dinner and dyed the sour cream and the water green and of course, we had green lettuce and green peppers. I sliced the green pepper from the bottom to show the kids that it looked like a shamrock when it was cut that way!
We had St. Patrick's Day trivia where they each received a green M&M for a correct answer.The question, what country is St. Patrick the patron saint of? Ellie answered faster than anyone, so cute! Way to go, Ellie!
I had found a 4 pk of these snakes (party favors) on clearance at Target for like $.75 or something, so we played a game where they "drove all the snakes out of Ireland", following the legend of St. Patrick.
I like to end the day telling them how lucky I am to have them!!!

What are we watching?

We definitely tend to watch a little more TV in the winter because it's cold out, not as much to do because it gets dark early. The girls favorite channel to watch is The Disney Channel, but those shows really grate on my nerves, so I convinced them that they should give up The Disney Channel for Lent and they agreed. Yay, no disney Channel for 6 weeks! The kids (except for Ellie) are not allowed to watch TV during the week anyway.
Sam is always tuned in to either Survivorman or
Dirty Jobs or something else on the Discovery Channel when he watches TV.
Ellie loves Mr. Rogers (remember him??) and Olivia , but mostly she picks a DVD to watch
Steve doesn't watch much except TMC to see old movies or the he watches Discovery with Sam.
My favorites to watch are Survivor, Desperate Housewives, The Apprentice, Househunters on HGTV and Jon and Kate plus 8.
In the summer, the TV is turned on much less, the kids are outside until dark alot, or even until after dark playing flashlight tag in the neighborhood.

Deja' Vu ?

Well, this week we now have temperatures in the 80's, sunny and pleasant, a far cry from last week's 30 degree temps plus a foot of snow. However, there was one thing in common this Monday that also happened last Monday and that was losing our power!!!
Today around noon I was in the kitchen preparing some food for lunch and dinner. All of a sudden, no power! I run outside and speak to my neighbor who tells me that he just heard a transformer blow and it will probably be a few hours before we get it back! AHHH! Not again! Well, I was just about ready to get ice for the cooler I was going to put all of my freezer food in when the power came back on around 4:30pm. I had just gone to the grocery store this morning and the freezer was stocked with lots of food, including ice cream and meat. Needless to say, I was elated when the power came back on, saving me from doing all of that!

There's a Teenager in the House!!!

Today is Bethany's birthday and she turned 13 today! Bethany invited two of her best girlfriends whom she doesn't see on a regular basis to share her day with. We went out for lunch at El Paso and then for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. When we got back home, we played 13 questions about Bethany, a trivia game. She opened presents, then the girls played outside in the 80 degree weather until it got dark. We ate dinner out on the deck. Bethany wanted jambalaya for her birthday dinner, so that's what I made. We had cake after dinner, then the girls decided they wanted to sleep out in Ellie's playhouse outside. They are out there right now, with their flashlights and a radio. We'll see if they last all night out there....

Winter Wonderland

Well, we've wished and hoped and dreamed about it happening all winter. Well, not me, really, but the kids did!! And, lo and behold , we got SNOW!!!!! Almost a whole foot of snow to play in and sled in and shovel and make forts etc... the kids had a blast all day long. I was more concerned with the fact that we didn't have power and wondered how long we'd be without, but just before dark, we had it restored and I am a happy woman tonight!!!

VCU Basketball

Sam and I attended a VCU Rams basketball game Sat. night with other members of his team from school. Sam's team is the Rams so his science teacher got discounted tickets for all those interested and we went to the last regular season game against Georgia State. We won by about 20 points.Now VCU will go to the Championship.