Amy in Pics

I stole this idea from Tib's blog! Thanks Tib! (:

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Amy

2. What is your favorite food? French Onion Soup

3. What high school did you go to? Home School

4. What is your favorite color? Red

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Robert Pattinson

6. Favorite drink? Ice Tea

7. Dream vacation? England

8. Favorite dessert? Chocholate

9. What you want to be when you grow up? Author

10. What do you love most in life? My family

11. One Word to describe you? Sassy

12. Your flickr name? Saphire ice

My Pet Peeve

Have you ever had someone say something like this to you...or is it just me?

Eww, that smells bad...hey Amy, smell this...see what you think.

Mom, my hands smell weird, here you smell them...see what you think.

Oh, nasty!! That tastes horrible...here Amy, try this...see what you think.

What do I think?? Are you serious???

If it smells bad, throw it out! If it tastes bad, stop eating it!! If your hand smell, wash them!!!!!!

And keep them away from me!!!

The Sniders Do Disney...

Today we took the kids back over to Disney for the day. It was part of Alex's BD plans, since he didn't have an official party this year. He decided that he wanted to go to Epcot and have dinner at the Japanese Teppan Edo steakhouse.

The kids were so excited that they were actually going to have the food cooked at our table! Our chef was wonderful and had an array of jokes and tricks that kept the kids busy for quite a while. We ate dinner with a Mother and daughter from Jacksonville. She was amazed at how well behaved the kids were. I told Jamie, we better leave now while they still think we know what we are doing!

(I will finish in the morning...I am soo tired!)

I have been such a slacker...

I can't believe it has been almost a year since I updated this! The. guilt. is. killing. me.

Ok, it is going to take me a lot longer to update this than I thought. I have started typing about 10 times now and the kids just will not have it.

I will be back later tonight! Just don't hold your breath.

Finally...and update!

I have been so bad about updating lately! My only excuse is being distracted with life.

William's head is MUCH better! His scar is healing so well that it is only a little pink line on his head. In time, you will hardly be able to see it!

My sister Julie and niece Kiley are down for a week right now. Kiley is such a doll, everyone loves her! I am sure we will have tons of kid pics by the end of the week!

The boys are doing better in school. We had a meeting with Alex's teachers to discuss a few things that were concerning us. Like doing 4-5 hrs. of homework a night. I think we have things under control now though. He is doing very well actually and I am proud of him for working so hard. Will is well on his way to reading by himself now. He is always looking for words to sound out. hehe!

The girls are my buddies this year. They follow me around everywhere! I can't even get a shower alone these days. Meg is learning her numbers and letters and Kate can say almost anything I say. So, I have to be very careful! She also gets into everything she can find! Makeup, food, lotion, soap, water...sigh. She keeps me busy!

We took them to the beach this weekend and they had a blast. We made a huge sand castle and found a million shells.

As for me...I am alive. So, that is good. (:

Our night in the ER..

Ok, so I took the boys to Karate and dropped them off...my Mom was going to pick them up at 5 and I took the girls back home to start dinner. About 5:30 I got a call from my Mom and she says...well, the boys were running around playing tag and Will fell and hit his head on a post. He is ok, but he may need some stitches. I am bringing him home for your dad (he is a Dr.) to look at and we will go from there. I was like, ok...is he alright? Yes, he is ok...but he will probably need stitches...We all went out and the first sight I got of him was him sitting in the back seat...covered in blood, holding a towel on his head and crying. I started to freak out. Alex was holding the towel on his head so it wouldn't bleed so much, but it wasn't working! He went through an entire roll of paper towels and a wash cloth and it was just dripping down his back and all over me and the seats. The poor kid was hysterical asking what they would do to him at the ER. He didn't want stitches. So I tried to calm him down and held the towel on his head. My Mom drove us to the ER and my Dad stayed with the other kids. Jamie wasn't home yet and wasn't answering his phone. I walked him into the ER and said...he fell and hit his head and it's spurting blood everywhere. Just then he moved and the blood sprayed out of his head and all over my arm. The guys was like, oh wow...ok, let's get him in! He made me go wash my arms off and he put him in a wheel chair. Now at this point Will has stopped crying and is just standing there. Everyone that walked by was watching us and asking if he was ok. It was so scary to see that much blood coming out of your child! They took us right back into a room and lots of people came in and hooked him up to machines and started asking questions...the main one being, what happened? I must have answered that a million times while I was there. Well, he was running around after Karate and someone knocked him over and he hit his head on the corner of a wooden post. By this time they were trying to examine his head to see how bad it was, but there was so much blood they couldn't see anything. So, they cleaned him off a little and finally saw about a 2 inch gash in his head. It started spraying blood again and they had to have him lay back down on a towel...he is now soaked in his own blood, it is on his shirt, his shorts, the bed, the towels, the Dr., me and my Mom. They injected him with some numbing medicine about 15 times around his scalp and then started the stitches. He was so calm during all this, he didn't cry once! I was amazed!! He actually started joking around with the Dr. and asking him what he was doing up there. LOL! He had to have four staples put in, but we didn't tell him what he was doing at the time. After he was done he looked at me and said, "hey, it feels like I just got staples in my head!" I was cracking up! We are home now and he is finally sleeping. They said I have to keep him with me tonight, to make sure he is ok. He is still bleeding a little, but nothing like before. I am just so happy he is ok and I NEVER want to see that much blood again!!

The pics were taken after he was cleaned up.

My crazy life...

I am not doing as well with keeping up my blog as I would like. We have had a very busy last couple of weeks. OK, this will tell you how crazy things have been... As I am sitting here typing this, it suddenly occurred to me that I forgot to take Meg to ballet yesterday! I had a Dr. appointment in the morning and then we went shopping for Jamie's birthday presents. We picked up Will from school and I totally forgot that she should have been at Ballet! UGH! Alex had guitar and his opera rehearsal (the director told him he was doing the best out of all the boys) also, not to mention Jamie's party.

This past weekend we drove up to Cedar Key to see Jamie's Mom and a family friend from Germany. We had a good time, but got a little too much sun. We took the kids to the playground, swimming and a boat tour. The next day we drove golf carts around the island and then headed to Gainesville to see my sister Julie and visit the butterfly garden. It was beautiful, there were thousands of butterflies this time! My niece Kiley is getting so big and is absolutely adorable!

This week we have a lot going on again. They are putting the new carpet in our house right now and we should be getting it on the market very soon. How many times have I said that now? LOL! Alex has a bunch of papers to write and an audition for his school play Macbeth on Friday. I have to make about 60 name tags for choir tomorrow night and am not feeling well. I think we are all coming down with something. Typical!

Has it really been another week already?

I am so busy. I am so tired. I am so blah. LOL! The kids have been in school for two weeks now and it's going OK. They are just very tired and busy. They have a lot of homework and I think it's a hard adjustment for them. The girls are loving having me to themselves every day and I am working on letters and numbers with Meg. Will can read some now and Alex is really doing amazingly well with everything. Latin is just....mind boggling, but he is catching on so fast. The opera is going to be great and Alex really enjoys it. He is already able to sing in Italian. He is going to audition for Macbeth, which his school will be doing next spring. We are taking a trip with Alex's class to Atlanta in Oct. Jamie and I will be taking the boys. They are studying the Civil War and we will have a great time! I started doing the admin work for Will's choir class last Wed. It was fun but WILD!! Whoa! I have to make the name tags for two classes...so I better get started on those. Meg started her new ballet class and LOVES it! She looks so cute in her little blue costume! I am glad to finally have three days off...well, sort of. Today I could have slept in and wouldn't you know I woke up at 7:30. Sigh! We went and pulled flooring up at our house and the new carpet will go in next week. Hopefully, it will be on the market by then too! Ok, more later...

Finally...some pictures!

I have been so busy with Alex and his homework the last few days, I haven't had time to update! The boys are really doing well in school and seem to be enjoying it too! Alex is already learning so much, it's amazing! I am learning Latin by just reviewing him on the words! LOL! Hey, by next month I should be able to write this entire blog in Latin! hehe! Will is learning a lot too! He is working on his letters and had to memorize his lunch number. It's as long as a phone number! I was like, uhh...geez...but he got it down pat in one day!

The girls are enjoying the alone time with me and I am working on preschool things with Meg. She is counting to 11...sometimes higher and starting to recognize her letters and can count and group objects. I think she knows how to count a lot higher, but she seems to think it's a fun game to trick Mom and pretend she messes them up so I spend more time working on them with her. Clever girl! SO much like I was at her age, it's scary! LOL! Kate is just a doll and the light of all of our lives! She just smiles from the minute she wakes up and always walks into my room in the morning and says.."hi mommy! Daddy at work?" I say yes and then she replies... "oh, ok" LOL! So darn cute!!

Here are some pics of the boys at school the first day!

TGIF!

Wow, what a week! We had Alex's 11th birthday on Tuesday, which was fun! He had a HP theme and he went to see the movie again with my Mom and William. We made a big banquet for dinner that was supposed to look like the great hall and dined by candlelight. He loved it! (:

Then on Wednesday Will had his yearly Dr. visit and needed two shots. They were out of one, so I had to bring him back the next day with Alex. He also had to have some x-rays done, to check his sinuses and soft tissue for swollen tonsils. She thinks he may have allergies or need his tonsils out. Sigh. Alex had his appointment the next day and I had to take Will with us, so he could get his other shot. The boys are growing fine and Alex had two shots as well. No more shots until next year! After the shots we went to buy the rest of the boys school supplies. They start school on Monday! This will be the first year Will has ever gone to school and the first year since the 2nd grade that Alex has gone. I homeschooled them the last few years. I am nervous about it, but think it's the best choice for us this year. We will see how it goes and decide what we are doing again next year.

We went to Will's open house last night and met his teacher. She seems very nice and Will loved his classroom. He sat at his desk and drew pictures in his journal. There are 16 kids in his class, so it isn't too big! Tonight we go to Alex's open house!

My boys are home!

I haven't updated in a couple days because the boys are home and we have been busy! They got home around 9:30pm on Saturday. We spent the day cleaning and organizing the rooms. It was lots of fun! I was so happy to see them! They ran up to the girl's room to surprise them and I heard screams all the way from downstairs. They were so excited to see them! It was adorable! We spent a couple hours talking and looking at pictures after they got home. It sounds like they had a great time and did a lot of fun stuff! Sunday I had to go to a choir meeting for about three hours. It was a training meeting for the teachers. I will be helping out with the administrative part in William's class this year. My Mom is helping out in Meghan's class. Alex has graduated to the Word choir for middle and high school students and Kate will be in the nursery. Well, we hope she will stay in the nursery! LOL! After the meeting we did some more cleaning and then had our fish dinner! It was caught by my Grandad, Uncle and cousins. YUM! Both of the boys have decided they want to start blogging now too. LOL! So, I helped them set up a blog and I am typing for Will. Here are their blogs and a few pictures of the boys trip!

Alex's Blog

William's Blog

Zoo Night

Today was another lazy girl's day in. It really is very quiet around here without the boys and all of their extra activities. We haven't had to go anywhere all week. So, we decided tonight would be Zoo night. We spent the day doing laundry and I let the girls take another LONG bubble bath. We used the bubble bar we got from LUSH. I love those things!! (: After that we did our nails and put on makeup. Kate decided to dress up in her hat! She loves to accessorize!

As soon as Jamie got home we headed out to the Zoo. It was packed! Sigh. Luckily, we found a rather close parking space and walked in. We started out in the Asian Garden and saw all the tigers, rhinos and a weird looking sloth bear. Then we went to see the birds and of course...the carousel. They love that thing! Afterwards, while we were all dripping in sweat...did I mention it was REALLY hot?? On to the goats! They had the best time brushing them and Kate kept chasing them around telling them what to do! "Get down....get down now goat!" Then she would push them off a log! LOL!! My little dictator! Meggie just wanted to brush every single one of them. She takes her time and wanders around...taking in everything she sees.

We had a very nice time...on our last night alone with the girls. That's right, my boys come home tomorrow! (:

You know what I forgot...

I totally forgot to write about Kate's 2nd birthday when I started this blog. I feel terrible now.

Kate turned 2 on the 12th of July. I can't believe my baby is not a baby anymore. She has told me so herself. (See previous blog) We had a Tinkerbell party for her because she adores Peter Pan! She enjoyed herself so much and loved opening all her presents. I think her favorite part was blowing out the candles and eating the cake though. My sisters Sandra & Julie and my neice Kiley were visiting at the time, so we had a nice house full! Kiley got her very first taste of cake and made the funniest face! She also fell in love with Kate's new cat...until my sweet little girl snatched it away from her. I keep saying...two year olds are not known for their sharing abilites. LOL!

Where is the rain?

Do you ever have one of those days where you wish it would rain...so you could sink into a big comfy chair and read a nice juicy book? I found myself thinking that last night as I drifted off to sleep... and waking up hoping for the sound of thunder. Unfortunately, no such luck.. so far. I think the rain reminds me of living in England, when I used to sit in the window seat of my tiny bedroom and read. We lived on a 6500 acre estate in the Cotswolds called Cornbury Park. It was surrounded by horse pastures with mares and their foals grazing on the long green grass. Sigh. I am afraid I have never completely let go of my wish to go back there. It's where my love of willow trees, Fawlty Towers, Jane Austin, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and salt & vinegar crisps began. It is also where my love of mystery novels started. I began reading Agatha Christie when I was around nine or ten and never stopped. I am on chapter three of 'The Body in the Library' right now. Now, if it would only rain!





Here is a link to Cornbury Park's web site.