Mel's Box of Chocolates

While mommy is more than happy to sit indoors during the winter, daddy likes to get out and move.  So on a sunny Sunday he decided to dig out the roller blades and take the kids out for some exercise.  While I declined putting on my own blades, I did at least zip up the coat and head out to snap some pictures. Daddy is an amazing roller blader and Zoe loves when he zips up to her and then picks her up, in case you can't tell by that look on her face. She was focusing really hard on getting her feet to glide, something mommy still has trouble with!  But, daddy was right there coaching her on. While Dylan declares himself "more of an indoor person" he even looked like he was mildly enjoying himself. Trying to keep oneself up and moving on roller blades requires quite a bit of effort and after awhile the kiddos decided it was time for a break. So they crashed right where they were...   I love that Dave is the kind of daddy that gets us up and moving {or at...

Growing up my grandparents, cousins, and the rest of my extended family all lived about 10 hours away in Michigan. The time we got to spend together was special and I have fond memories of hanging out with my cousins, having sleepovers, and crashing at our grandparents.  I always hoped that one day my kids would be able to create some wonderful memories with their cousins too. Two girl cousins and one dinosaur This weekend the kids I took a road trip for the long weekend and headed to North Carolina to see my brother, his wife, and their two kids.  It's about a 6 hour drive so it takes some planning, but thankfully my kiddos are pretty decent with car trips so it doesn't cause too much anxiety making the trip.  We usually try to make the trip every couple of months, but we hadn't been down since November so our time to play with the cousins was long overdue.  We left Friday right from school and then came back Sunday night. Short, but definitely a sweet visit. ...

One of the perks to becoming a 4th grader is that students can join band, which Dylan couldn't wait to do.  Since I never played an instrument, learned to read music, and to be honest should only probably sing in the shower, this band thing was totally new to me. Dylan was ecstatic though when he brought home his French Horn and although it's been quite the struggle to get him to practice regularly, his band teacher says he is a natural with the instrument. Last month, he participated in the winter concert at school, his first of what I'm thinking, is going to be many band concerts. I could tell you the story about how he failed to tell me that he needed a dress shirt with a tie, and how I panicked trying to figure out how to find a shirt in two hours while trying to teach my class.  I could mention how I even considering stealing one off my own students back or how my mom saved the day by stopping at the store to buy him a new shirt and tie, but let's just focus o...

The shirt says: Anything my brother can do, I can do better! For more Wordless Wednesday pictures be sure to visit 5minutesformom !

The promise of snow was in the forecast.  It's been there at least a couple days of the last many weeks so it was nothing new.  Throughout the last few forecasts though, that is far as it has gone.  Just a promise!  I would get so excited, go to bed with my pj's inside out and backwards {it's a teachers secret, but obviously not working this year}, and wake up to...NOTHING!  Then I'd end up being in a bad mood because my dream of a snow day or at least a delay would have been ruined.  So when I heard the forecast of snow last night, I wasn't impressed.  No excitement, no special bedtime routines, no prayers for snow before bedtime. So imagine my delight when I got "the call" at 5:15 this morning saying that school was CLOSED!  Oh yeah.  The best part is that today was Dave's day off too so we got an impromptu family day. I started the morning running to the bank and grocery store, then came home to set up an eye doctor appointment for Dy...

It sounded like fun times when Zoe first asked if she could host a Valentine's sleepover with some of her girlfriends.  She was just too darn cute talking about the invitations she wanted to make, planning the menu, and organizing the activities and crafts they would do.  I was so impressed with her party planning skills that I caved. So the invitations went out and everybody was going to be able to make it! Now the day has come and I must confess I'm a bit nervous. I was feeling just fine about the whole thing, but whenever I told anybody that we were having 6 little girls for a sleepover, they would look at me like I was crazy and then wish me luck. I started to wonder, what was I thinking. But oh well.  Too late to turn back now! So in the truck on the way from school I will have three extra little girls and then when we get home two more will meet us for the fun. Upon our arrival, our first activity will be creating super cute Valentine picture frames wi...

A few weeks ago Dyl excitedly came into my classroom after school to tell me that he won the preliminary round of the spelling bee so he would be representing his class at our school's spelling bee. Well today was the big day. Our school's Spelling Bee. The day started off with an hour delay which left to question if it would be held today or not considering it was supposed to have been first thing in the morning.  We got the word it was still on so I made a quick trip into Dyl's classroom to give him those mommy reminders and wish him good luck.  He was pretty nervous! Through all of our conversations about the bee the one thing he always said was he just didn't want to get out in the first round.  He never said he hoped to win or make it to the top three, he just didn't want to get out in the first round.  So he and daddy studied {although I will admit that it wasn't until a few days before the big day} and we reviewed some tricky words, then it was g...