Spring

Hi friends and family!

Yes, I know I have been bad about updating this blog. Part of me blames it on my computer. (The other part is me, yes, I know it is hard to believe that!) The computer went and completely filled up on me. Yep, I can not load any more pictures, download music, or even jokes because the computer is completely full! I guess I take too many pictures. I am hoping to clean up the computer soon. For Christmas, Sam got me a 1 terabyte external hard drive. So I will be transferring all my pictures over to that...one of these days. And as soon as I do that I will be able to post pictures again!

Ok, now that I got that off my chest, it is time to update y'all on our family. Spring is our busy season! From February to June, it is CRAZY around here! The end of February brought us Grant's 5th birthday. He was so excited about turning five. He had a great, low key birthday. And got all kinds of new toys and money! It is so hard to believe that he is now 5 and will be starting kindergarten next year. In fact, Grant is all signed up and ready to start kindergarten in the fall. He can not wait to ride the bus and go to "the boys" (the twins) school. Too bad they will be going to Jr. High...ugh! Grant is taking the season off from sports. We were going to do swimming lessons during the spring but when I went to sign Regan and Grant up at noon on the day it opened, ALL the classes were full!

February also brought us Sam and mine's (is that right??) 11th Anniversary and 13 years that we have been together. It gets better and better every year. I am so grateful for all that Sam has brought to my life and I look forward to many many more years together!

March brought us something new to our lives. LACROSSE!! The twins have started playing it this year and LOVE it!!! It is a great combination of soccer, hockey, and kinda basketball. We are all enjoying learning about lacrosse. A couple of weeks ago we went to The Day of Rivals at Raven's Stadium. It was a long day, 3 full college games of lacrosse (two of them went into overtime), but a lot of fun. That helped us all learn more about lacrosse. The twins are picking up on the game really fast! Both are starting, Ethan is playing defense and Ian goes back and forth between defense and middie. I have really enjoyed watching them pick up a new sport, (that lets admit..not too many Texans know about)that they didn't know that much about. I look forward to watching them grow in this sport. I think they will be playing it for many more seasons!!! Grant has enjoyed it so much that he wants to play too. He has to wait until he is in kindergarten to play though. And Regan loves to pick up our fiddle sticks (smaller lacrosse sticks) and playing.

Next month is going to be a little crazy, it always is! There are birthdays galore in April in our family. My little sister's birthday is April 12, my "little sister" (my sister's best friend) Kari's is April 13, my cousin Lauren's is April 16, Regan's 3rd birthday is April 19, the twins' 11th birthday is April 23, my 31st birthday is April 27th and my cousin Michael's is April 29. So like I said....it will be a little crazy!!

Hope everyone has a great and blessed Easter. We start our Spring Break tomorrow too. Thursday I think we are heading to the indoor water "park" in Germantown. Friday we do not have anything planned. Saturday will be spent all day at the University of Maryland looking around the campus, tailgating and watching the Maryland vs Virginia lacrosse game. Sunday we are heading to Hershey, PA for the night. Not sure what all we will be doing there but I am sure Chocolate World is in our plans!! We will be back Monday night and Tuesday will be a relaxing day to get the kids ready for school on Wed. I promise pictures will follow soon!!! hopefully!! haha

Finally ;)

Things have been a little hectic here lately. We have been busy busy busy with soccer. The twins are doing great this year. Ethan has really taken to being a goalie and is really enjoying it. Ian has been playing forward and mid back and they are both learning a lot. They will continue soccer into indoor soccer for the winter. Which is their FAVORITE! Grant also played soccer this year. It was his first season. It is so cute to watch those little ones out on the field. :) Regan isn't playing just yet but it didn't stop him from dressing in all his soccer stuff for Grant's games and practices. He had to have cleats and shin guards too. He will start playing next fall.

Regan taking a break from running around

Ian doing a throw in during a game

Ethan doing a throw in during a game

Grant at practice kicking the ball

School is going great for everyone. Ethan and Ian are in Mrs. Clark's 5th grade class. Both were asked to be in the enrichment program. I am so proud of them! Their MSA scores and grades qualified them for the enrichment program. It has challenged them in good ways.

Grant is loving pre-K. He looks forward to going every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. He is starting to get excited about kindergarten and riding the bus to school! His speech is coming along and the speech teacher (he goes to the twins school twice a month for speech) is very pleased with his progress.

Regan is also going to "school." He goes on Mondays to Parents Time Out at the same place that Grant goes to preschool. He is still adjusting to being away from mom but has a good time once he warms up. Mrs. Judy says that he just likes to cuddle with her for about 5 minutes but then he ready to play. It has been nice for me to have a little break!!

Sam and I are doing great. Sam is getting ready for the craziness that is Christmas. And I plan on keeping busy through the winter painting the rest of the house that needs it (family room and all of upstairs.) That should keep me pretty busy. I just finished painting the playroom and Sam finished the dining room. I will post pictures soon. I am LOVING my dining room. Sam also finished the design I requested on back wall of the powder room!! It looks great too.

Sam and I have also been involved in stopping the redistricting of our neighborhood. It has been very time consuming. Sam has been trying to go to all the FEAC and school board meetings to show our disapproval of this move. Tonight we had a little victory, FEAC rejected the proposal for "G4." So now we have to see what the school board decides to do. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the school boards decides to redistrict another area and keep our town together.

This summer Peyton came to visit us. We enjoyed having him this summer and as always the trip was way too short!! Here are a couple of pictures from his visit. I will post more soon in a post dedicated to just Peyton's visit.

Peyton and Sam July 2009

All 5 boys!!

from top to bottom-left to right:

Peyton, Grant, Ian, Ethan and Regan

PawPaw and Mimi's visit

12/31/08

PawPaw and Mimi came to visit us and to have a late Christmas with us. We always enjoy having family stay a few days with us. The boys had a blast with the toys and movies that PawPaw and Mimi gave them and Sam and I enjoyed visiting with them the couple of days they were here. Thanks for coming to visit us and come back soon!!!

New toys and soccer

12/29/08

Here are the boys enjoying some of their new Christmas toys and Ethan playing goalie at a indoor soccer game.

Ethan playing goalie

Regan and Grant                          Regan at the soccer game

Regan and Ian riding around                                 Grant on the power wing

Cool Man

12/26/08

Regan with Grant's sunglasses. Too cool for school!!

CHRISTMAS!!!

12/25/08

Yes, I know I am still running behind....one of these days I will catch up on everything. Until then here are a few pictures from Christmas day.

Christmas (early) Morning

12/25/08

Now Christmas Eve might have been easy but mid-night Christmas was HARD! Sam and I went to bed at about 11:30 PM because we knew it was going to be an early morning...we had no idea how early it was going to be!!

At about  3:30 AM I hear Ethan whispering to Ian, "Hey, Ian, I think its time to go downstairs. Wake up, lets go." Sam and I both spring out of bed and stop them. Sam sets their clock so the know exactly what time it is. They go back to bed. We go back to bed...or atleast try to. I couldn't go back to sleep right away, finally I drifted off. And wake to "Ian, lets go downstairs." I look over at the clock it is now 5:30 AM (We told the boys that they couldn't go downstairs without us and they couldn't wake us up until 6:0o AM.) Again we jump out of bed and this time we let them come in our room and lay on the couch and watch tv. Again, we tried to go back to sleep, but that didn't happen. At about 6:15 AM (I can't remember if the twins woke up Grant or if he just woke up) Grant came in our room. And finally at 6:30 after much begging and pleading, we let them wake up Regan so we could all go down and open presents.

What an eventful and EARLY Christmas morning!!

The excitement is BUILDING!!!

12/24/08

Waiting on Santa is soooo hard!! Especially with 4 boys! The twins announced to us on Christmas Eve that they were going to bed at 8:30 PM that way Santa would have plenty of time to get there. And let me tell you, they were ALL in bed by 8:30 PM! No complaints, no nothing! And they didn't play in bed, talk to each other, they actually went to sleep! WOW I wish Christmas Eve was every night in my house!!!

Grant and Regan doing push ups

Showing me their muscles! My strong boys!!

Regan about to do a forward roll or a headstand

Wrestling before bed

Ian getting ready for bed

Ethan reading the Grinch before bed

Sweet Regan before bed

Grant having one last snack before Santa comes!

Santa's coming to town

12/22/08

Every year, ok well for the past two years that we have lived here, Santa has come by on the fire truck. Grant asks me atleast once a week ,"When is Ho Ho coming on the fire truck." He's been asking since June! So he finally came. We had just gotten home from the grocery store and I thought we had missed him down our street. We watched him go down all the streets behind us and then he came down our street. YAY we didn't miss him! Poor Regan was sick (we had just found out he had pneumonia) but he was so excited Ho Ho was coming, so I tried to bundle him up as best I could and across the street we went. Oh and did I mention it was FREEZING outside! So cold that as soon as Santa passed our house, he jumped in the fire truck so he could warm up!!! And we ran in the house as fast as we could too. In case you didn't figure it out Ho Ho is what Grant has always called Santa and Regan has picked it up now and that is also what he calls Santa.

The boys and our neighbors waiting for Santa

Did I mention it was cold out??

There he is!!!!

Another new trick...

12/15/08

Regan was playing in his playroom one day. Of course I hear the usually pulling down all the toys and dumping them. After a few minutes I went in there to check on him and this is where I found him....

Climbing on his bookshelf

wait a minute

no mama, I don't want to get down

Am I cute or what!?!?!

Merry Christmas

The Varney Boys

(lt to rt) Ethan, Grant, Regan, & Ian

From our family to yours. We hope y'all have a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year. Here are some pictures that I took for our Christmas cards. 

Love,

Sam, Kayce, Ethan, Ian, Grant, & Regan

Grant Russell Varney

Regan Samuel Varney

Ian, Regan, & Ethan (Grant was having a melt down during this picture)

Ian Michaele Varney

Ethan Franklin Varney

Bang on the drums all day

On Friday Grant and Regan disappeared from living room area. So I go upstairs and find them in the twins room. They both know that they are not supposed to be in there (there are too many little toys that Regan will put in his mouth). So there they are sitting in the floor with Ian's drum pad and sticks. I finally got them out of there but we had to bring the drum pad down so they could play me some music. It was very cute!! Here are some pictures on them making some music. (Ian was not too happy when he got home and his drum pad and sticks were in the living room).   :)