May Madness

School is only one week from being out! How on earth did that happen so fast? I will have a first, third, fifth and seventh grader next year. The years just keep sailing by. I've had an increasingly difficult time keeping up with all 4 of the kiddos this year. Now that they're all in school and all have many end of school activities, it's just a full time job keeping up with all of them. Mark and I have tried to split up to cover it all and it's sad for us not to both be able to be at everything together but as the kids get older there are more and more things that tend to overlap. So Ella's class took a trip to the Houston zoo, which I went on, Mark Thomas's class went to the movie theatre, Ben's class went to the Natural History Museum also in Houston, which Mark went on and Max's trip unfortunately was canceled due to the swine flu but he's had other rewards for being such a great student at Marshall that not all kids were able to participate in so he's ok. Seems to have out grown that whole field trip thing.

I drove to Houston with a girl friend so we could get home earlier to head to Dallas for Memorial Day weekend. Our attempt to leave early was totally foiled by the road crew working on the highway so we sat in traffic for over an hour. I had been in NYC for work that same week for two days and was so tired from traveling but my sisters conned me into coming up to the Big D. So at 6:00 p.m. after Ella and I finally got home from Houston I took all 4 of the kids up to Dallas and we had a great time hanging out with my parents, sisters and their crews.



And with all the end of school parties we've also thrown in a few birthday and slumber parties. Ben had two of his buddies spend the night last night. Ella went to a birthday party at the Queen B this morning and MT is at a birthday party right now from 2-9. When Matthew's mom called to invite MT and told me the time, and then asked if MT could come, I felt like shouting a resounding YES. Such quietness having one gone for that length of time. Is that bad? Probably, but hey, I'm just keeping it real. Ella had a fabulous time. Flash backs to the Bippety Boppety Boutique at Disney World. She's got enough glitter on her to shine in the dark. When one of the boys that stayed with Ben had his mom come to pick him up she saw Ella and said, "I'll never get to do that. I'll just have to take myself someday." She has three boys!