I stand corrected

OK, so Jon says "priceless" is a bit of a stretch!

The scoop on our Disney adventure

Well, we're back at my parents' after our 3-day trip to Disney (one day at Magic Kingdom and one at Epcot). Only Mychael, of the boys, remembers Disney, so it was neat to experience their wonder and excitement. The Buzz Lightyear ride is always fun, especially for the smaller ones, and we saw the big parade and some of the fireworks, too. Myself, Jon, my dad, and the three boys got to do Thunder Mountain twice (Zach and Nathan definitely have the need for speed), and we all did Pirates of the Caribbean, plus the Haunted Mansion. Being Spring Break it was very busy, but with a combination of speedpasses and waiting for cerain lines to die down we never waited longer than 30 minutes. The best part of the trip was the Storybook Princess dinner...to use Jon's word, Jordan was "agog." She couldn't even eat after Jasmine came over and spoke to her and hugged her, she just sat and stared (those pictures are on my mom's camera, I'll get them as soon as I can). Cinderella kissed Zach on the cheek, and I wish you could've actually seen his reaction. He was smiling so big it looked like it must hurt, and he just giggled uncontrollably for about 5 minutes. "Aw, shucks," says it best (visualize Goofy). The cost of dinner for 8: $275 (ouch). The cost of a photo with Ariel: $31.25. The cost of one agog Jordan: You guessed it, priceless!

Disney '08

this and that

We had a nice Easter, my brother, Adam, and his family, and my other brother, James came over for dinner. Then all of the boys (big and little) played a long game of HORSE out in the driveway, it was great watching my kids having fun with my siblings. I went to mass with my parents and Jordan in the morning, our good old friend Father Ralph celebrated the mass...what a card he is. I really enjoyed it, Jordan slept. Then we went by to visit a friend named Mathew at the hospital there in Tampa. He is 5 years old and went home with Hospice on Monday, he has fought a brave fight.

My mom and I took the kids to the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa yesterday, I shared a picture of us in the hurricane room (simulates winds of 75mph), and lying on a bed of nails! We leave later today for Orlando so we can get up real early tomorrow and be at Disney first thing (Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, Epcot on Thursday). I have to say that we are so aware that while we're having a wonderful visit with my family, getting to do fun stuff, my sister-in-law, Kit, is up in New Jersey with her dying father. Also, her mother has been extremely ill with the flu. And then, as I mentioned above, there's Mathew.

Florida

We arrived on Thursday uneventfully (that says a lot when traveling with 4 kids on a plane), with beautiful weather here in the Tampa Bay area. My brother (Adam) brought his kids over, it was a happy reunion for the cousins, with Austin and Zach hitting it off well once again, and Jordan was happy to have another girl to play with. I have already taken a ton of pictures, imagine that!

Spring fever!!

We have had some seriously gorgeous days this week, with temps around 70. Mychael even sat outside in the driveway to work on drawing his superhero comic he invented, "Froggy Man." Jordan loves the sandbox, and Nathan and Zach played in the creek off and on during the day on Thursday. And we are very much looking forward to our trip to see my parents in Florida next week, during which we will also go to Disney and Epcot. We are signed up for a dinner with the princesses, we'll take one of Jordan's dresses for her to change into...not really for the boys so much, but I think they'll enjoy Honey's reaction to it all. Nathan tests on Tuesday, then our Spring break officially begins, yay!

this and that

Since I hadn't posted in quite awhile, I thought I better or my faithful readers will stop checking! Here are the highlights of the last couple of weeks:

Since I forgot to post about it earlier, let me mention that Zach's last hemoglobin A1C came back as 6.6 (the previous was 6.5). The goal for diabetic kids is 7-8, adults is 6-7, and for normal people it's below 6 (it lets you know what the average blood sugar is over a period of 3 months). Zach's doctor was very pleased with his, and when I said we were hoping for it to be 6 this time, he said he didn't even want us to try to get it to that point because it might mean he was having more lows. He said he thought it was perfect, and that he was being managed as well as someone on a continuous blood glucose monitor (because Jon and I are human continuous blood glucose monitors, checking between 6 and 12 times a day!). He also said that if he had a whole day of patients like Zach, he would feel like the most brilliant diabetes doctor!

Mychael got 100% on his big science fair project, in which he put green bananas in different containers to see which one kept bananas the freshest the longest. His bananas were still completely green after the 7 days, and after doing some research we learned that it was because the bananas were picked too soon and never began producing ethylene (a gas bananas produce as they ripen, or you can artificially "gas" fruit with it to ripen it). He was the only one to have this result, it was pretty cool.

Jordan is completely potty trained now, wipes and everything, dry at night. I'm not even the least bit sad (she also hasn't nursed in 2 days, I'm not sad about that, either!).

The boys finished up Upward Basketball yesterday, and in the last period of the game Nathan (who had yet to score a single basket all season, just like last year and it broke my heart) got to make 2 freethrows, and made both of them (we think the coach arranged this before the game with one of the refs, he wanted Nathan to make a basket as badly as we all did!)!! It was an awesome moment, and it was so cute watching Nathan trying not to smile as he ran back down the court towards us, just elated. I was like, "whew!!" Mychael got another 4 baskets, he has really turned out to be one heck of a player.

Only 3 of us ended up getting the flu, and Jon is living proof that Tamiflu works, he recovered in about half the time that Nathan and I did.

That's about it for the updates, and here's a picture of Zach and his cousin, Isaiah playing guns. I included a picture of my mom with my sister's little boy, and Jon's mom with her newest grandson, Isaac.