...after all, tomorrow is a new day

As I sat folding clothes this morning in the quiet of my house, I was thinking about the past week. As many of you know, I was inflicted with a dreaded childhood disease last week. I somehow contracted Hand, Foot & Mouth! It was the most horrific thing that I have ever had! They can give you drugs for childbirth and gallstones (which are the only two hospital worthy events in my adult life), but there are NO drugs for what I had last week~ Only good thing to stem from this were a loss of 10 pounds and minimal talking for a week!

Anyway, I reflected on how wonderful my children were during this time. I give them a hard time about obiedience and such, but when the chips were down, boy did they pull through! Emma stepped up and fixed breakfast, packed lunches and when it was supper time, she made sure they got fed (granted, they ate cereal and bagel bites for 3 days, but they ate!). It was a rough week, but we got through it and guess what, my kids were not scarred in the process!

Those of you who TRULY know me, know that I am a "what you see is what you get" kind of gal. My house may not ( ok, DOES NOT) look spic and span all the time (OK, any time!), but my friends are welcome, ANYTIME! I love my crazy, mixed up family!

Rich is getting ready to graduate from College! May 16th! We are all so excited to have him back full time! It has been a long 3 years on all of us, but the end is very near!

Payne is about to graduate from Kindergarden. No more babies! YEA!

All these events are leading up to a full summer for us St. John's and I can't wait for school to get out so we can get started!

So, today is my new day: Gonna work on this blog so that our distant family can enjoy the simpleness of our lives!

Oh and Boy, I sure do hope those Red Sox can pull out of this hole that they are in! Gotta love BASEBALL

Love to all!

Angie

Class Reunion

As some of you may know, I am about to have my 20 year Class Reunion. I had posted the address to this blog on the school website not thinking that anyone would visit, but several have responded that they want to view the blog, but it was private. So I have made it public for any of you fellow classmates. I have not updated in quite sometime but I promise to try to make time Sunday to update the blog so those of you who do read it will know what is going on the our lives!

Long Time, No Blog

It has been a really long time since my last entry. I am not sure if anyone even follows this blog. I know that Richie does while he is at work. I think all of "his people" get a kick out of the happenings at the St John house!

As I reflect on the last several months, I can think of a lot that has happened since my last post. The family took their vacation in late July and drove to Boston! It was great. The kids travel really well, we are blessed there. Rich and I left the kids in the care of Auntie Deb and Dawn and the BatVan in the care of Uncle Bobby, and he and I went to Milwaukee for his FBI retrainer. We had lots of fun, just the two of us. That is the first time we have been off together without kids since we were expecting Payne. It was some much needed time away. When we returned to Boston, Rich took me to see the EAGLES at Boston Garden's! That was too cool. To be as old as they are, they can still rock! They went onstage at 8p.m. and when Rich and I left at 11:50 p.m. ( we only left because the last train out of Boston was at midnight!), they were still onstage!

There were no accidents while we were gone, until the day we were to leave to head back home and Payne was watching Uncle Bobby work on the motor for the waterfall for the pond in the backyard, and Payne put his little hand on the pump motor to brace himself so he could see the polywogs in the pond and burnt his hand. Rich, Auntie Deb and Payne made a quick trip to the ER and got it all wrapped up then we left for Alabama. He was no worse for the wear and was swimming again in just a few days.

While Rich and I were in Milwaukee, we both read a wonderful book. The Shack. My Sunday School teacher, Ms. Tommie encouraged us to read it. I loved it. Rich loved it. That is the first book I have read in years. If you get a chance to read it please do.

When we returned from Boston, school began. Emma is in the 5th grade, Meggers is in 1st and Payne is in 4P. It is hard to believe that in August, Emma will be in middle school and Payne will be in Kindergarten!

I promise to keep up with my blog this year because I don't keep up with family like I should and this is my way of saying that I love you all. I have good intentions but you know what they say about that!

I love you all and please let me know that you are reading this or else!!!

Angie

This pic was from Christmas Eve. Santa drove through our neighborhood on an old firetruck. We caught up with him and the kids jumped out and got pictures with him!

Summer Fun

Let's see, what have we been doing since school got out? Well, we started out at Water World and are now spending our days at another pool. We are having lots of fun and making lots of memories. We went to the beach for the day not too long ago. This was really the first time that Payne remembers the ocean. He told me that he liked the water, just not the sand and seaweed. The seaweed was only bad right at the shoreline, then the water was beautiful! Meg loved playing in the sand and Emma and Rich had fun using the face masks and checking out under the sea!! Here are a few Pics:

We are also getting ready for vacation. We leave the end of this month for Boston and Milwaukee. We are driving the kids to Rich's sister and he and I are flying to Milwaukee for an FBI Conference. This will be the first time since right before Payne was born that Rich and I have been away just the two of us! We are looking forward to getting to know each other again! We will return to Boston on the 30th and Rich bought me tickets to see The Eagles at Boston Gardens!! I am PUMPED. I love the Eagles and cannot wait to see them. This is my anniversary present. Rich and I have been married for 13 years and I love him more today than I did then. Really, I do. I just love him different than I did 13 years ago. If that makes any sense!!

Today, we worked in the yards, and after we finished and were cleaning up and watering flower beds, Meg and Payne decided they wanted to learn to ride bikes with no training wheels. Those who know Meg, know this was possible disaster!! She surprised me! Just a few more lessons and I think she will have it. Payne did great also, he is just a natural at everything. He reminds me more of his daddy everyday. There is not a whole lot that Rich does not do well. He masters everything, excepting Mac and Cheese! Payne is going to follow in his fathers footsteps. Here are a couple of Pics from the Bike Lessons:

Love you all,

Angie

I know...

Yes, it has been over a month. Trust me, lots has happened since my last post. Where do I start?

Emma had a science project to do. She choose to do it on Cyclones. I was surfing the web for info on the recent cyclone in Myanmar and she thought it would be interesting. We made a cyclone and Margaret helped with the display board. I think it turned out great.

Mary Meaghan graduated from Kindergarten! She absolutly loves school. She wanted to know if she was starting First Grade in June. I had to explain that we had a couple of months vacation then she would start 1st grade. She was sad at first but then I reminded her of Water World!

This is a picture of Meg-Meg and one of her teachers at Church. Anna surprise Meg by coming to her graduation. This made her day. After it was over, we checked her out of school so she and I could spend the day together, she choose to go with Anna!! Made me feel special!

T-Ball is over and I must say, I am a little sad. I love baseball. Those of you who have known me for a while know that this has always been a passion of mine. I can remember watching moms at highschool baseball games and I could not wait to have my son play ball. If I can brag, I am going to even if you don't want me to, Payne shows some real promise as a ball player. Several weeks ago, he had been begging his daddy to pitch to him. Rich did not think that he was ready, but boy was he wrong. He was hitting them!! Later, he wanted to go to the batting cages and once again, he was able to hit the balls! The best T-Ball game was against the Mets. Most of the kids on that team go to church with us. It was good it was T-ball, because we were all cheering for the RBC kids, regardless of teams. Before this game, we had a big cookout at our house. My mother, sister Debby and brother Eddy and his family were there along with our friends, Neil and Tiffany and their son Landon. Landon and Payne played ball together and Neil and Rich were the coaches. It was lots of fun. After the cookout, we all went to the game. It was really special for me to have my brother there to watch Payne play ball.

Play Ball!!

Well, friends, it has begun. T-Ball Season is now open. Saturday was opening ceremonies and God blessed us with the weather. It rained early Saturday morning and then quit before we even left the house. Each team was called out and names announced. As you can see, Payne is a proud Dodger! Rich is a pretty proud coach too!

I know that it seems that I only talk about Payne, but you must remember, he is with me more than the girls. Keep that in mind.

Meg-Meg is singing at school tonight for our PTA program. Her program is titled "I Like School and School Likes Me". She is soooo excited. She truly does love school. She is still a reading machine. She has read 60 something books since she came back from Christmas break. Way to go, Meg.

Emma had associational Bible Drills this past weekend. She needed 16 points to make it to District in Ozark and Emma got 13. She was upset, but we told her for her first time, that was great. Out of all the first timers, she scored the highest.

Maddi is on Spring Break this week and spending some time with us. Yesterday, we went to clean the van, that is usually Wednesdays job, but I did not do it last week. After that we went to the grocery store and strawberry patch. I think I have decided that I want her to come live with me! What do you think, Lisa, can we work out some kind of arrangement!

I hope you all have a great week and I will post pictures of Meg-Meg from her PTA program later and if I can get Emma's head out of the clouds, I will get some of her too.!!

GO DODGERS!

Happy Easter!!

Well, Easter Sunday was, as always, an event! The children looked precious. Buying clothes was nothing out of the ordinary. Payne is easy to shop for, shorts and a shirt. Meg-Meg was pretty easy also, she is still young enough that she knows she wears whatever we tell her too. Emma on the other hand, well, let's just say, I ran out of happy pills and tried to stay in the car on our last stop. Rich was not letting me off that easy though. We went to Kohls and managed to find a few things that did not make her or myself scream. She ended up looking beautiful. I just can't get over the fact that she is not my 4 year old daughter with the pretty little bishops anymore. I do not want her to grow up and I am steady losing that battle. She is a preteen and I do not like it one bit!!

I was polishing Meg's shoes Saturday night and they were all scuffed up. I thought to myself, why am I letting her wear this million dollar dress and shoes that look like they belonged in the garbage, well, I'll tell you why, I can remember being a little girl and my precious mother always bought me new shoes for Easter. I always had to wait till Easter Sunday to wear them and you guessed it, they hurt my feet so bad that I cried. I vowed that I would never do that to my girls!! I polished those shoes and no one noticed them against her beautiful little dress.

On Saturday night, Rich read Benjamin's Box to the kids before bedtime. Payne pulled out his treasure box and as Rich read each section, Payne would hold the corresponding piece of the story. That is an Easter tradition at our house. The kids love it. It is a great way to introduce the Easter story to young children. We started this when Emma was 3.

Payne had his teeth pulled on Wednesday before Easter, and as you can see he is very proud of his toothless grin!! The tooth fairy brought him dollars and he has hidden them from his sisters!! He starts T-Ball this week so I am sure that before long, we will have lots of ball park stories.

I hope you all have a good week and I love you all.