Wordless Wednesday

My 'Lil Punks

Manic Monday

Its official.....Spring Break is over. (SOBS heard across Texas!!!) It was so dreadful this morning when the alarm went off and it was still so dark outside, no thanks to daylight savings time. My feet just didn't want to make it up the stairs to wake my sweet sleeping angels. UGH!! Mind you, it was 7:00 AM so it wasn't all that early, but that first morning back after vacation is always so hard.

Now that Spring Break is over, I am less than 2 weeks away from the Family Dance and Auction for my son's school that I am co-chairing. Talk about being Manic!!! One of the most favorite things that I get to do are the signs for the corporate donations that we receive. We put them on the cutest paper that has a theme for each donation. So if it is a Bar-B-Que dinner gift certificate, I put it on a cute western paper. If it is admissions to a water theme park, I look for a cute summer paper. I love to stand in front of the racks and look for just the right piece of stationary to put it on. Here are the ones that I am starting with.

There are a lot of duties that I can delegate to others, but I just love doing this part! The name of the store is called The Paper Lion in McKinney. They have the BEST stuff. I will probably go there about 5 more times by the time we are done. The computer tech at the school, Sharon Allen prints out the "copy" and does all the computer, font, logo work for me. She is just wonderful and not to mention, my sweet neighbor. This event takes a Village and the villagers are awesome and come armed with their sleeves rolled up ready to work. I am really excited this year because several of our local businesses that have donated things have also been gracious enough to donate extra little items that we are going to give to the volunteers that are helping us out. I am so grateful to the following businesses in helping me say thank you to our volunteers.

Strikz Bowling Alley in Frisco gave us one free hour of bowling for coupons for the volunteers.

Origins gave use little goody bags with mini facial samples along with a coupon for the volunteers to get a mini in store facial. Thanks Charla!!!

A quick update on March Madness. I was in the lead until yesterday and then Hubs took the lead from me. I really stunk it up when I picked Texas over Duke! What in the heck was I thinking?? I know better, but I guess I am a Texas loyal as they come, or at least Big 12 loyal. I have OU to go pretty far too. I picked Wake Forest like the rest of you and was shocked when they got beat. I did pick Siena and Dayton though!! Hehehe. Really bummed that Mississippi State didn't do better. Come on!! They won the SEC tournament. That had to mean something don't ya think?? Can't wait until Thursday to see what happens.

March Madness

Today is the first day of March Madness for College Basketball. I don't really follow college basketball, but LOVE college football, and starting to have a passion for college baseball.

I am particularly fond of THIS player, my nephew Ben Flora #28 for the Texas Tech Red Raiders. He is a left hand pitcher and was the 2008 Texas 5A Player of the Year. His team, The Plano West Wolves won the 5A Texas State Baseball Championship. Go Wolf Pack!

He is a true freshman.

I gotta thing for crisp new "white" uniform pants.

But you are gonna need a big 'ole jug of this for a boy with white baseball pants!!

OK, OK....I know the title of this post is March Madness, but I tend to get a little carried away when it comes to those I love, and the things that those I love,...LOVE.

I decided that it would be fun if Hubs, the boys, and I all filled out a bracket for the NCAA tournament. Got this great idea from BooMama. http://www.boomama.net/. So this morning the boys and I filled out the brackets and it took.........FOREVER!!! ( what was I thinking?) Little Man wanted to know EVERY team that I had picked or Big Boy had picked. Who did Dad pick? Oh my gosh!! I kept telling him, its "YOUR" choice. I read him the information, stats, seeds, looked at the mascots, etc... and then explained it was "your choice". As I was telling him that (for the 100th time), I realized it was just like Love and Logic Parenting. As parents we lead by example and hopefully our offspring will REMEMBER our example and hopefully CHOOSE to follow suit. I was so encouraged that he was following my lead that I was actually having an "ah ha~ pat pat on my back " kind of moment. It made it all worth the painstakingly time it took to get the brackets done.

This is us looking at the different teams. Yes, that's me STILL in my pj's. Hey!! Cut me some slack....Its Spring Break!!!

Finished brackets~ready to roll, just in time for the first tip off.

Big Boy and I are in the lead for now....We gotta figure out a prize for the winner!!

Open House

Last Thursday was Open House at our elementary school. Back in the day we called it "Texas Public School Week". Now the PC term is "Open House". We had a really good time seeing all the cool things in Zack's class and visiting with his teacher, Mrs. Showalter. ( She is just great!!). When we walked down the 2nd grade hallway it was lined with the "death of parents" projects. It was the 3D animal project where each student created their own original animal that combined 2 different animals and made a new one. They had to do research on their animals and write a report, and then for the finale, create a 3D version of the creature.

Zack's creation was a "Shog". Shark + Frog = Shog. I particularly like the toothpicks that he used for the teeth.

I know alot of mommas and poppas were really glad when this project was done. No matter how hard you try to get your kid to do the work, they just lose interest. I think I would rather get my tooth drilled without Novocaine than deal with this kind of school work. I am not sure how much they really gain by doing this sort of thing. I will say it sure made it fun to see all the parents (0ops!), I mean kids hard work!

This was another project that we got to see. The students were studying different "landforms". It was really interesting to see this piece of work, because the only "parent homework" for this project was the batch of "salt dough" we had to make for our student to bring and then they did all the rest of the work at school. "HALLELUJAH!!!
One of my favorite parts of the "classroom tour" was when we first arrived to Zack's class. We had these nifty name tags that our kids had made that "looked" like us. Then we got to "wear" them the rest of the tour. I have never laughed so hard and been so thankful that my son didn't throw me under the bus like some of the kids did. One mom had a bikini on ( thank goodness that wasn't me!), another had some semblance of a martini or wine glass in her hand and one of my friend's boys had drawn her hair brown, when she is a blond! Mere was like "I think I must need to get my roots done!". OMG!! This must be how our kids see us!!! Then we all walked around with our "badges of honor or HORROR" on for the rest of the night. It was funny to see how the kids had made everyone. We live in a small and very close community and almost everyone knows one another. I still laugh thinking about it!! Oh my sides hurt!!!

Spring Break 2009

We are offically on Spring Break and The Hargroves are having an old fashion "Staycation". We have started this week off with lots of sleepovers, playdates, and swimming. Hubs decided that it would be worth a "pot full of money" for our sanity to heat our pool for the week so the boys would have something to do at the first sign of the dreaded words..."I'm Bored". Now we can say, get your suit on and let's SWIM!!! I can say in the last two days I think we have gotten our money's worth! We started off Monday morning with the pool around 78 degrees. The boys would get in the hottub after swimming to warm up. (Thanks Dad!) It was actually warmer in the water than it was outside. The boys are swimming with some friends Kasen and Keegan who spent the night. They had a good time having the Handals spend the night. They live close, but not close where we see that often. Fun times!!!

Off to the Rocket Park at lunch for a picnic with more friends, The Moye Boys. Thanks Mrs. Marianne for thinking of that!!! Marianne and I had fun catching up with each other while the kids played. This was fun to break up the day!!

This is why they call it the "rocket park". This 3 story play structure is like a space ship. It is really fun and the kids had a blast.

The Hargrove Lagoon at 90 degrees!!

Back in the pool with friends from our street.
Ziggy (aka Kyle), Jackson, Mitch, Zack, and E-Man (aka Ethan).

My Big Boy

Little Man

The boys look like they are hanging on for dear life on the edge of the pool, they are actaully VERY good swimmers and we call them "Water Dogs". They love to swim thanks to their fabulous teacher, Mrs. Margaret. She is known as "THE" swim teacher around these parts. Your kiddo WILL be swimming by that 9th lesson!! She is amazing and worth the moola!!

Oh what a fun filled day!!! Early dinner and those boys sure slept good!!! Happy Spring Break!!