Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society

First, I want to say how proud I am of my husband. He is an amazing man. He has an amazing mind and will push himself to exhaustion to complete a task. He finally had a chance to go back to college after 14 years of illness and he is working very hard. His lyme disease still affects him every day but he pushes through the pain to go to school. He is doing a great job and was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society a few weeks ago. We were so proud!

He got his certificate and a white rose out of the deal followed by dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings where the kids tried to beat Mr. Smarty Pants at the trivia game... Did I happen to mention what Scott is studying?? PHYSICS! Congratulations daddy on a well deserved honor! We Love You!

Choir Field Trip:: Past & Present

Eli had another performance with his 5th & 6th grade choir so I took a long lunch break on Monday and went to watch him perform. The kids gave a great performance and had quite an audience too. After the singing came lunch and shopping but when Eli's group chaperone didn't show up, he asked me to stay with them. I couldn't resist my 10 yr old asking me to hang out with him and his friends so I said YES! :) Needless to say, his Choir teacher was pretty happy about it too and once we had it all worked out I was in charge of seven 5th graders!

Top Left- Eli is on front row.  Third from the right. Top Right- Two of Eli's best friends. Bottom Right- Hungry Kids.

The kids wanted to eat at Fritz's (like they did last time that Scott was their chaperone) and since Eli didn't bring any money for lunch I was happy to buy it for him. We had a great time. First, one child accidentally stole my ONLY onion ring....sniff, sniff....and then my cheeseburger ended up with someone else and when she started scraping off all my goodies....we figured it out. Instead of swapping hamburgers (because she wanted my cheese) she gave me the pickle she was scraping off.....Ho Hum.....not necessarily a 5 star meal but the company made up for it. We had a lot of fun! Eli asked me to sit next to him so I was at a booth with 4 of the 7...

I even got a 5th grade compliment which made my day! One of the 5th graders from another class asked me... "Are u Eli's SISTER?" Me- "haha, No. I'm his stepmom." "STEPMOM? How old are you? You only look 20! And you are way too cool to be a stepmom!" Hahaha :) Don't u love 10 year olds?


And before I forget, I wanted to add Eli's other choir performance from a few weeks ago when they performed at a local church. He is starting to hide from my camera....but I have my ways! And once he sees us he can't help but smile....and sometimes laugh. Shame on you daddy for making him laugh! :)

Top Left- Eli is back row, far left, bright green shirt. Bottom Left- Part of an act/song...."Daughter will you marry...nay father nay....Will you marry a farmer...nay father nay...."

The song goes on and on until it gets to Eric here in the red...and the answer is Yes, father Yes....and since this is one of Noah's good friends, you can see him on the far left videotaping Eric's performance.

And this is my usual shot after any school performance. Proud papa with Eli and our newest addition Tony. Tony is Noah's good friend and has stayed with us quite a bit. His mom and I have become good friends and Tony now calls me by my "BonusMom" nickname....it's pretty funny. He is pretty small but man can he EAT!  Love having the kids' friends wanting to spend time at our house! I am pretty sure it's cause we are cool or it could have something to do with the cool loft....but I'm not going to push my luck and ask. :) Good Job Eli on all your performances! 

The Jellybean Conspiracy...

Last week Eli had a theatrical performance of "There's no such thing as normal." The production was brought to his school by the Jellybean Conspiracy group and it was developed to help the kids learn and understand what Autism is and how it affects some of their classmates. It had an interesting story line, funny songs and even dancing. Eli was a dinosaur in a museum exhibit and he got to do a robot like dance. I actually had tears in my eyes at one point as I was imagining how a new parent would feel when they find out their baby isn't like other babies. You love that child, want the best for them and want others to see their potential too. I'm not sure why that emotion hit me so strong during a silly performance but it did...After the performance the kids had an opportunity to speak about their experience and it seemed like the musical taught them a lot about Autism. The Jellybean Conspiracy wants their theatrical productions to tell a life-changing secret: "Everyone's life is important and each person has the potential to make a unique contribution to the world." I thought it was great.

Eli is the red headed, cutie pie in bright green on the front row...He wasn't too thrilled about dancing but he did a pretty good job and made us smile. Good job Eli!

Pink Eggs, Pink Cars & Chocolate Bunnies..

So, I bought myself a cheap, little cash car on Good Friday. After driving the V8 Van back and forth to work for a few weeks I decided that a cash car would save me a ton of money in gas and so I started looking online....and found a super cheap convertible that just happens to be....PINK! On friday, I became the proud-butnotsosureaboutpink- owner of a pink 1995 VW Cabrio convertible. It is in great shape and I am loving the gas mileage! I need to replace the top soon but all in all it is in great shape. I hope to get a lot of use out of it and wouldn't you know that the boys LOVE the pink car? Actually, Eli wishes it was a little darker pink, Noah wants it as his first car so he can spray paint black squiggles all over it and Lucas just thinks a pink convertible is cool! So....anytime I am a little shy about the car the boys are happy to talk her up. They are really funny! I can't wait till Autumn sees it on Thursday! I'll post pics soon. :)

As soon as the boys got home on Friday they asked what festivities I had planned for Easter. Since they weren't going to be with us on Easter day I hadn't really thought about any other activities but it didn't take us long to come up with a plan. Eli asked if we could hunt for eggs in the LOFT cause that would be AWESOME! They all liked that idea so after a quick ride to the store in the pink convertible we had the goodies for our eggs. After an Easter dinner with Grandma and Uncle Billy, I sent the boys to one room while I hid 30+ eggs all around the living room, art room and several in their rooms. It took them forever to find them all but they loved it! Last year we did Easter Egg Geocaching and I think this years event was just as fun with way less planning! I liked keeping it inside where it was warm and dry.

I can't remember who found the most eggs but Lucas found some of the hardest eggs....and I don't think it was because Grandma told him where they all were....

Happy Easter!

I hope you all had a great Easter with your loved ones! Grandma came back home on Friday and we had a small family dinner. Noah made meatloaf cupcakes with sweet and regular mashed potatoes as the icing (with a little bit of help from Scott) and Eli made our salad. Grandma hadn't been home since March 9th and a lot has changed around the loft since then. It was a nice, funny, family dinner.

It was a short weekend with the kids and that mixed with a family issue kinda ruined the holiday for me. I am still feeling sad from the events of Friday and don't really know how to process my feelings. It is one of those things that I can't control and can't fix....and I don't like it. It is really weighing me down.

In an effort to get thru my funk I wanted to share a sweet Easter card that Lucas made for us. It really made my day and I appreciate that it made it to us on Easter.

Front of Easter Card

Inside of Easter Card...."Your the best mom and dad ever! I love you guys!"

How much more could I ask for on Easter? Thank you Lucas for making my day! I love you too!

Dawson Family Holiday

For the third year in a row we celebrated our very own family holiday the first weekend of Spring. We started the tradition because normal holidays can become frustrating with coordinating with two other households....so we created a day that is special only to us...and therefore there is no competition and it gives us a relaxed family day. We typically celebrate the warm weather, spring and being able to enjoy the outdoors again. This year we had PERFECT weather and rather than just celebrate on one day we sort of extended the activities thru the entire weekend....

On Friday, the kids wanted to see where I worked so we loaded up the truck and headed to "ZR". We had a great dinner together, walked around and window shopped and then made our way to my new office. I had never been there after 5 but I had a cool electronic key that I knew would get us in....the kids fought over who would get to open the next door and we even got to use it in the elevator. I showed them my office, my beautiful new iMac which was named Eve (get it? apple....eve....never mind) and then they were all dieing to try coffee or hot chocolate from Flavia the coffee machine. This thing is awesome! It makes hot chocolate, iced and hot mocha's, chocolate lattes (though I need to tell it this is the same as a mocha), hot tea, iced tea, tea lattes, coffee, cappuccino, latte, espresso and many other combinations. It is AWESOME and I love her! The kids were very pleased and spent the rest of our time there fighting over who gets to come to work with me first. Eli really wants to be my assistant and is trying to figure out how to miss school 5 days a week to work with me. They are all very sweet and I love it they want to be with me. They LOVE working at the coffeehouse with me and seem to think an office will be just as exciting. Hmm...

On Saturday, we celebrated like any preteen and teen family would by sleeping in! It may have been because we stayed up late watching movies on Friday but either way, it was a great way to start our Dawson Family Day! We packed a picnic lunch and headed to one of our favorite parks, "SMP". Scott grilled our favorite corn (which we lather with lime mayo, garlic, Cajun spices and Parmesan cheese...oh YuM!), we threw around the football and Frisbee and got Lady Bug to play along too. She caught the Frisbee for the first time and we were all so excited! Lady Bug LOVED it! It was very cute to watch. After we had our fill of lunch, we took the pups to their swimming beach and let them exhaust themselves! On our way home from the park we stopped off at Baskin Robbins to try their new Firehouse ice cream. (I had BOGO coupons!) It has red hots in it and is was pretty good! And then we rented two movies and stayed up late all curled up on the couch....It was a great family holiday and I can't wait till next year! *I havent had time to make my normal collages....so here is a quick and easy one of all the pics from our day at the park. Try to ignore the annoying watermark.