Maddie's Thoughts

Tonight, like every Sunday night, we settled in as a family to watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  We started watching this as a family a couple years ago, and we really enjoy the messages, the stories, and I guess the goodwill it shares.  It is not uncommon to see a few tears shed.  Tonight was a special 2 hour edition...probably a little too long for Kenzie, and Maddie was starting to fade as well, but with Spring break this week, we let them stay up for it.  About 1/2 way through the show, we noticed that Maddie had taken a notebook and cleared out some of the scribble pages and was writing.  We can always tell, because she asks for help in spelling some words.  Anyway, after the show was over, she wanted to share a "song" she wrote called "Life is Happy."  This is ALL HER.  We had nothing to do with it, which makes it even more special to hear.   We asked if we could put this up on the Blog because it meant sooo much to us to hear her thoughts...our only wish to her (and we told her)...is that we hope that she always feels this way :-)

Life is Happy

Things are happy, so is Life.  I love it every night.  Life is very happy!

God gave me Life so I love it and I cry life is so happy!

I Love my Life.

Since this is pretty "deep" we thought we try to uncover what all made her life happy....and see what was going on in that little, almost 8 year old, head.  Here is the list she rattled off:

1) Everything

2) Family

3) Church/Sunday School/Jesus/God

4) Nice Home

5) The Cabin

6) Friends

7) School/P.E.

8) Sports (Softball, Soccer, Basketball)

9) Nice Neighborhood

10) Arts and Crafts

11) Animals

Pretty Cool.

COOKIE TIME!!!

OK...calling all Sweet Tooth fans, here is your chance. Your chance to have 2+lbs of pre-made cookie dough at your fingertips. When that urge is there to bake some cookies, simply scoop, bake and eat. How easy is that!

Maddie's School is having a fundraiser where they are selling Otis Spunkmeyer (I love that name) cookie dough. They also have, pretzels and brownies. There are about a dozen different types and all are $15 each. We have about two weeks (April 7th) to collect as many orders as possible. So we need your help. Here is a link to the "brochure"

If you have any trouble accessing or viewing the brochure we can send it to you via Email.

Of course we would love everyone to buy multiple tubs, however, there is 1 snag. When the orders come in, they come to us....so as much as we would love to have those of you in California, Arizona, Louisiana, etc. buy a few items, it might be a bit tough getting 3lbs of frozen cookie dough to you. That being said, another idea is that you buy a Tub as a donation, and we will find a local group that could benefit. A WIN WIN WIN situation.

So, that is it. After looking through the brochure if you find your mouth watering for a cookie, simply drop us an email (mjandsj@comcast.net) or give us a call and we will work out the ordering details. Again, we only have a couple weeks, so hurry while supplies last!!!

March Snow

Well, there is A LOT more to report on, but we just had to get out there some pictures and video from the surprise we woke up to this morning.  I guess we heard that there was a chance of snow, but these flakes were HUGE.

View out the front of the house...

View out the back of the house....

Videos of the monster flakes....

ON - TO - STATE!!!

The chant was loud last night at the Saint's two playoff games last night. It brought back some memories for when we were in HS and had the chance to go to State. Both they boys and girls were in Winner to State/Loser Out games...it was all on the line. Steph, the girls and I decided earlier in the week we were going to head down to support the teams...in fact, the AD at Hope and Assistant Coach for SLHS talked with me after Church last week about getting a rooter bus of Hope 7/8th graders to go as well. So, with the help of Cary and Kristin, I rode with 11 7/8th graders down to the game in the Hope school bus....while the kids, Steph and Julia went in a bit more comfortable car.

The games were reallly great. The boys won their game...a bit nervous throughout, but they were clearly the better team and put it away late. The big news from this is that Brett promised the team he would get a Mohawk if they won...I will have to get a pic of that! The girls game was probably one of the best games we have seen in a really long time. It was back and forth...SLHS was down 7-9, then they came back to lead by 1 at Half. SLHS built a 9 point lead at one point in the 3rd, only to have TBS come back and take the lead. The girls came back to take the lead and after some clutch free throw won by 3!...All the students stormed the floor to celebrate...pretty cool!

They are off to state in Spokane next week after they play for seeding today. I was thinking about it, and it was 20 years ago when I had the chance to go to state and we won 8th place....Let's hope this year's Saints can come back home with some hardware.

Jr. is Back!!

Well, I have to be honest...I knew he would be back! I knew the minute that he was released by Chicago and he no longer had the big contract and they had a chance to get him on the cheap...or cheaper. I have to say that I am pretty excited that he is back in Seattle. It was pretty cool to see how much he appreciated the fans when he was here last year, and that he made statements about wanting to retire here.

I remember when I was in HS and he first came the M's...then when his Dad came to play with him...and when they hit back to back homers...and finally when we came flying around 3rd to beat the Yankees in 95...or how about 8 straight games with a home run. I was a huge fan. I collected all his Baseball cards...even rookie cards ;-) I even have bought the Ken Griffy Jr candy bars. Actually, in anticipation of some time like the present, I wrapped up two and put them in my parents freezer. Over 15 years later, and a even with a new fridge, they are still there...We actually unwrapped them last year for some reason.



So, all I have to say is welcome back Jr. I am not sure what the year will bring, but I am still a fan...as our a lot of others here in Seattle. I dont think you will have any problem making that extra incentive money for attendance :-)

Kenzie Birthday Eve

Well, it is Birthday Eve for Kenzie. Today was her shining star day at school. Steph made a batch of Mikey Cookies dipped in Chocolate for the P3 gang. Kenzie was a little under the weather yesterday so we weren't sure if she was going to make it, but she was a trooper. We were going through our digital library of photos and pulled out a picture of her 1st, 2nd and 3rd Birthday. We will add a 4th in a few days.

Brand New


1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

LEST Recap

OK...so I kinda missed the Day 2 recap, so we need to wrap it all up here.

Day 2 was "Zoo Day" as we have started to coin it. It started with an early breakfast at the hotel then off to the Gym for the Semi-final game for Gold. We were playing a team from Montana that was a lot taller and faster, but we felt good about our chances. I'll spare you all the X's and O's and cut to the chase...we lost a close one. We came out with a lot of energy but about 1/2 way through the 2nd qtr, we lost a key player to injury. From there they pressured us and we never could quite recover. The loss put us in the game for 3rd place the next day.

Meanwhile the blue team, who won on day 1 (but couldnt advance) played another great game. It was back and forth the whole game, and they ended up winning by 1 point! The coolest part was that since the team they played couldnt make the game the next day, they allowed our guys to play for Consolation. They were super excited.

The girls team also had a great day, coming out on fire and never looking back for their 1st win of the season. The Win kept their hopes alive for 3rd place in their division. Drama also performed, as well as spellers, piano, etc....it was a "Zoo" of a day two!

Day 3 was all about "Victory"....except for the Boys Gold team. The guys played Zion, a team they beat earlier in the season, and although they came out strong, seemed to get sidetracked by a number of things. It didnt help that we lost the same key player to injury again in the 2nd possession of the game. We just couldnt manage anything on offense, and they were hitting almost everything they put up. So, the Gold team went home with nothing :-(

The Blue team on the other hand played by far their best game of the entire season. They showed a ton of patience, took good shots, played great defense, and in the end were victorious to capture the consolation prize! 3 days, 3 wins...and a trophy! The story for the tournament was our girls team, who just the day before earned their 1st win of the year, also played their best game so far and won 3rd place! They were SOOOO excited.

After all the BBall was done, we headed over to the Concordia campus for the awards. Drama took 2nd, Grant got a blue ribbon in Piano (and we think 1st overall, since his name was announced first), 2nd in spelling, Consolation in Knowledge Bowl, etc. Overall a very successful LEST.

LEST means the end of the bball season. Cary and I had a fun time coaching. Every year is always a bit different and you never know what to expect come LEST. Definitely have to thank Steph for all her patience since this is pretty time consuming with practices, games and then the tournament.