Abby Wins Gold for Zowie Metrics!

Abby with her friend Swetha sporting their Gold Medals!

Abby was in the Science Olympiad yesterday. All local elementary schools competed at this all day big event. Abby was a team with her best friend Swetha in the Zowie Metrics competition. They had to guess how much things weighed and how long they were etc. in metric units. They worked hard the last few weeks and it payed off! Way to go Abby!

Mom My Ride

Lots of people I know have mini-vans and LOVE them. I had a discussion with some of my friends about how wonderful vans were and the next day my friend sent this video. It's hilarious, I showed Andy, Abby and Jake and now they always ask to see the "mom my ride video".

Estee wants to fly

We have acctually started using our video camera we got for Christmas. So we are sharing a funny one of Estee flapping her arms--she looks like she wants to take off. She does this whenever she is excited to see someone. I hope the video gives it justice because it's pretty cute in real life!

Spring is Here!

We had a fun BBQ to celebrate the warm weather in Ann Arbor.
We had a lot of fun and especially enjoyed the following:

Scooter Rides!

Visited with friends.

Played football!

Yummy cake!

Andy's Football team wins the Championship

Saturday Andy's flag football team won the championship! Andy played a great two games and Dan was able to coach the winning team! It was a lot of fun to watch too. Way to go Andy and Dan!

Here is link to all of the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/FootballChampionships

Jake learns to ride his bike!

Jake learned to ride his bike yesterday!! I went to the store and when I got back Dan had taught Jake to ride his bike. Yea, go Jake!

Here are all the Jake bike riding pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/JakeRidesABike

Raccoon!

It's hard to tell from the picture, but this is a raccoon in our squirrel trap. We have had much success with our new bigger squirrel trap. We have taken 6 squirrels to a happy home in a forest far away from our house. Now this raccoon has joined them.
It was a little freaky to see this cage full with something a lot bigger than a squirrel. I thought it was a skunk from the window because it had a stripe of white on it. It was moving all over the lawn trying to get out of the cage. You can see the cage is covered in mud and grass from tearing up our lawn. I was really glad Dan was home to take care of Mr. Raccoon, he probably would have bitten my hand!

Jungle Java

Jake inside the jungle net

Spring Break was all this week. With temperatures in the 30's (during the day) we had to find indoor activities to fill the "I'm bored" days. Two of the days we went to Jungle Java the indoor jungle gym place that just opened here. Jake had a smoking good time here, he played, ran, jumped, climbed and whatever else they do there for a full 3 hours. With only a few "I'm thirsty" breaks. I don't know if you can see from the picture but his hair was soaked and dripping with sweat. He had a great time.

Abby inside the tree (with Flat Stanley) at Jungle Java

Abby had a good time too. She had her friend Swetha there and other girls from our church were there as well. Abby had hurt her toe the day before and didn't like how it got all twisted around in the jungle gym area. So she and some of the other girls had a little art table where they kept themselves busy in between frequent request for money to buy snacks.

It was here at Jungle Java that Estee did her first forward crawl, she did two forward movements in a row. I am counting that as a crawl. She has been so close for a while and she can actually go backwards pretty well. The forward crawl is proving difficult for her to coordinate.

I crawled! Watch out Ward household (and world)!

Oh, Easter

Here are the kid-lets with there Easter baskets (do you think Andy's is big enough?)
We had a fun Easter today! We went to church and when we got home the Easter Bunny had left our baskets and eggs for a hunt. The Easter Bunny very wisely left the eggs and baskets in the house as the outside temperature was 32 degrees. It's really not quite right that it's spring break, Easter and it's been spring for a few weeks and it's 32 degrees! I am sure the complaining about the weather is getting old, sorry.

Estee enjoyed her first Easter candy with the wrappers on.

The hunt is on for Easter eggs!

Dan was home all day with us, it was very nice. You can tell by the look on his face he loved when I turned the camera on him. :)

We took some pictures of Estee in her Easter dress.

For all our Easter Day pics here's a link http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/Easter2007

Estee tries pepperoni pizza

As much as I hate to reveal my super healthy eating habits, I couldn't resist showing this one of Estee discovering for herself how good pizza is......

I guess I left the box a little too close and looked away for a minute. I found her chomping a piece of pepperoni! At not quite 8 months old she probably shouldn't be eating pepperoni, or cheese, or tomato sauce. She sure was enjoying it though. I had to grab the camera and take a picture.

It may be all in my head, but I don't think she likes her plain rice cereal quite as much as she use to!!