My little Beethoven

 Emma had her last recital of her piano lessons with her Aunt Nichole.  My little princess played a song from "A Little Mermaid."

Visit with Grandma Reynolds

A visit with Grandma on Mother's Day weekend was the best for our family!  Grandma is in rehab now and doing so much better!  Thanks for your prayers.  We are hoping we can see her for Emma's first Communion next week.  Don't you love the isolation gowns and gloves?

My Patrick Steward

 My Patrick was given the virtue award for Stewardship for the month of April!

Update on Mom Reynolds

I know I mentioned that we had some health issues affecting the grandparents, and I wanted to give an update on her condition.

 Mom Reynolds had open heart surgery on April 17, and had a valve repair among many other things.  It was a successful surgery and we were very hopeful that everything would continue smoothly.  Unfortunately, a few days after she contracted MRSA (staph infection) and went septic.  She had to go into ICU for about a week, and it was a stressful time for all of us.  The kids can feel the tension and it's been so tough to see her so sick.  She is still at the hospital today, but not in ICU, and anxious to get home.  We know that there are so many people have been praying for her and we are so appreciative of all the prayers and well wishes for her!

We were so happy that last weekend, ALL the Reynolds kids came to town, and were together at our house.  We were missing our heart in the ICU, though!  (God is so good, because John, who lives in Korea, was on TDY in the area, just in time to see Mom!)

We miss you, Grandma!  We can't wait until you are home again.  The kids have been sick the last week, so we are hoping that we are all healthy so we can visit you!

Spring at the New House!!!

James-isms

We are still mastering names in the house.  We can't do "William" but "Mario" is pretty clear!

Happy Monday!

Wishing I had some snazzy linky thing to link my random postings to, but I think those are supposed to come on Friday.  That's me.  Either I am very late, or really early.  LOL

The other morning, I asked Patrick to get William breakfast, reminding him to be sweet, as well as William to be sweet.  I came down the stairs, and William came to me, put his hands on his hips, and says, "Patrick gave me Doritos for breakfast!" Me: "Did you eat them?" "NO!  That is NOT breakfast!  He said I had to eat them because I found the golden egg."  Apparently, that was deemed a great honor to Patrick.  

Do you remember this?  Well, he has totally mastered all names in this house, except William, and will now call my name like no other child.  I keep trying to catch THAT on film, but it's so funny.  It's "Mommy?  Mommy?  Mooo-mmmmy!  Mooooo-mmmmmy!"  Over and over and over again.  Even when I answer him.  He does it like a doorbell, and does that with everyone's names.  He sure knows he has to make the most noise in a house full of people.

We are totally loving our new house still, and I am so excited to see all the beautiful things growing around it for spring.  We have the most GORGEOUS tree in our front yard, and I can.not.wait until it is totally bloomed!  Do you know what it is?  I will do a photo when the whole tree is like this.  We are almost there!!!

 

The 3rd quarter is finished, and my children are showing me how smart they are!  Patrick had 2nd honors (only 1 "B" and that was a 91!) and Emma has her awesomeness in every subject where she is just doing amazing.  She is ready to have number grades and be on the honor roll.  :)

This week, may I ask for some prayers for my sweet Mother-in-law?  She is to have open heart surgery on Wednesday to repair or replace the mitral valve.  She had a beautful annointing on Sunday with Father Bob, and we were all able to be with her to share in it.  We love her dearly and know this is a stressful time.  Thanks so much!

My brother and his wife had their 5th girl right after Easter!  He has some sweet little girls and we can't wait to meet her.  My mother is going to visit and spend time with them and I am so jealous.  Wish I could stow away in the suitcase!

Your dose of cutness for today!  My sweet boys.

• Tommy went to the practice rounds for the Masters last week.  I have all his pictures to show you, from all the holes and the fun stuff like the Tiger Woods skipping a ball over the water.  He took the kid's camera with a front LCD screen, so he was able to take really cute self portraits. 
• We are counting down the weeks until Emma's first Communion!  We actually picked a day months ago, and it turns out to be Pentecost!  How cool is that?  Now, to finalize the dress, veil, shoes, hairdo....
• William has to do his Kindergarten screening next month (he got accepted into the school!) and I am starting to realize I will have 3 kids at school during the day!  Um, excuse me?  How is it possible that I have kids that old?!?
• My Dad has been struggling with some hip and back pain lately, and, since we work our way through life with humor, we are all very quick to tell him that he is walking a bit like Groucho Marx.  We saw him a couple times this weekend, and he had a new permit hanging from his rear-view mirror.  My Emma's take on it?  "Daddy, Papa is handicapped!"  She announced it like it was breaking news and to be sure that Tommy knew.  I guess you had to be there, but it totally tickled me.
• I am totally going to brag for a minute, but I had a REALLY productive day this weekend.  Now, it's nothing compared to some of the supermoms I know who never stop moving, but considering I sit on my tushie most days, the moving of furniture and fun that I had with my boys was so great.  Getting the kids' rooms right with where everything goes is tough, and we are almost there!  Now to tackle our room.  :)

Easter Day with the Families

Alleluia! He is Risen!

 My family has risen as well, very early in the morning, and let me attempt some photos.  Can you see it's still dark out?  It was a cloudy morning for our 7:30 AM Mass, so it wasn't ideal for our photos.  It turned rainy later on, so we didn't do many outdoor photos in our nice clothes.