birthday boyS! {40 and 8}

a visit with a favorite fam!

the boys and i enjoyed spending a few days with super great friends before school started in louisville. the weather was SO hot that we spent 2 afternoons at the pool. the high dive was a hit with the boys...it's amazing how they can spend hours doing the same thing over and over again {although i remember doing the same thing as a kid!}.
we are so grateful for friends like the michel's! i only wish they could be closer! so, i am hoping and praying that our kids can cross paths during the college years!

"there's nothing to do!"

another summer afternoon. . . what to do, what to do? the boys finally decided to fill their time with a water balloon fight. when i walked outside i was surprised to find such LARGE balloons. but really, whatever works to keep them busy is fine by me!

tennis anyone?

grant's lesson of choice this summer was tennis.

4th of July Parade

it's our annual tradition to go the the 4th of July parade. i don't really have any exciting pictures to share. just thought i would post the photo that grant took of our family. :)

Sandestin, FL

Rain. We had a lot of rain for our vacation to sandestin. But that just made the sunny days even more special and it didn't stop us from doing fun things in the rain! The most important part was being together with family. The boys LOVE being with their cousins--no matter what the activity! So a week together is super cool, in their book!

One of the best parts of the week was riding in the golf carts. Everywhere. For the most part, this was our main mode of transportation for the week. . .to the pool, to the beach, to the mall, to dinner and boy was it fun!
We spent plenty of time in the pool--only because of the rain--it was a bit easier to swim in the rain than be at the beach in the rain.




We were so grateful to be able to rent a home large enough for our whole family that was beautiful and in a great location. We enjoyed the wharf's many restaurants and shopping. The outlet mall was a great distraction on one of the rainy days. We managed to sneak in a few good bike rides too!


The last supper. . . hmmm, can you tell our last day was sunny and we spent WAAAAY too many hours at the beach? We kept lathering on the sunscreen, but just couldn't bring ourselves to leave the beautiful water, sand and those amazing waves. We all ended up a little pink but it was SO worth it!

Baseball 2010 - Cole

Cole had a super season play baseball this spring. The best part is that he had SOOO many friends from the neighborhood on his team! We loved to watch him hit. . .most of the time he was at-bat he hit it to the outfield!
The season ended with a little ice cream at Handel's! yummo! And of course there were trophys--given out by coach Greiwe!

This season Grant did not play baseball...instead we found him doing other interesting things!

Baseball 2010 - Luke

Once again, Luke had another great season of baseball. He played LOTS of first base and short stop as well and did a fair amount of pitching (typically every other game). At this age, it is hard to get the ball over the plate at a pretty fast speed, so there are not a lot of kids who are successful at it. We were proud of Luke because this was not something he really wanted to do, but he persevered and made huge improvements over the season. He was voted to play in the All-Star game, but had to miss it because of our previously scheduled vacation. Great season, Luke!

Finally. . .the first lost tooth!

Cole has anxiously watched his brothers lose lots of teeth and FINALLY he got his turn. We had a few tears over the anxiety of mommy putting the dental floss around the tooth and while still crying about that, he didn't even know his tooth came out!

Last Day of School, 2009-2010--YipEE!!

WhoHOOO . . . .the last day of school--such a celebration and a thrill to be a future 4th, 2nd and 1st grader! We could leave out future 3rd grader--Owen our neighbor who comes to our house every morning, he's practically the 4th kid in our house!
The boys had such a great school year--Grant LOVED having Mrs. Vadas (a family favorite!) for first grade.
Cole was the third Moritz boy to have Mrs. Walter for kindergarten--ohh, I adore her, and the boys do too--she is so patient with these little ones, she has been a blessing to our family. We are sad to say good-bye!
All of Cole's buddies headed over to one of his bff's houses for a POOL PARTY! The kiddos enjoyed a perfect afternoon swimming and eating cake and icecream-yummo.The kids got of the bus to find a surprise end-of-the-school-year P-a-R-T-y at our fabulous neighbor's house!! She went all out-- yummy food, water ballon and silly string fights and bunches of games. Luke and Owen share a rejoicing "bump!" I love the photo of the water balloon fight below with all the white bellys--you can tell the pool hasn't opened yet! We are officially ready for summer!

Playin' Hookie

Playin' Hookie. . .well, kind of. Grant's class was going to be taking a field trip. The same trip he took last year. I told him he could stay home and of course decided it wasn't fair if he couldn't skip school too! So, I picked up Cole after kindergarten and Luke skipped the afternoon. We were going to go to a museum, but at lunch the boys vetoed the idea because it was SO beautiful outside. They decided to do a little exploring. It was the perfect "Boy Afternoon!"

Young Author's Books

Every year in school the kid's write their own books. In the spring we get to attend the Young Author's Fair. I love sitting down with the boys and reading their books, they are all so proud and we always seem to laugh A LOT while reading them. They also dedicate their books to someone and it's always interesting who they pick. This year Luke picked his brother, Grant to his cousin Grace and Cole picked all of his cousins!

time to. . .play BALL!

i can't even believe it is baseball season again! i guess because the boys played fall ball, it feels like we just finished the season. even though many people think it is a slow moving game. . .i LOVE watching the boys excel!
cole had his first game last night. he appears to have a very natural batting stance and 3 out of his 4 times at bat he hit it to outfield. i think we found our kindergarten power hitter!
part of the fun for him is playing with 4 other buddies from the neighborhood that are on the same time. these kids are going to have a great season!

i love my husband, even if he is wearing spandex!

terry participated in his first sprint triathalon this past weekend. the kids and i enjoyed watching him and our good friend gerald ( i would post picture of gerald, but since he is also my boss. . . i think i might use them for negotiating purposes in the future!) swim, bike and then run. we are all so proud of him. due to a poor {but hilarious!!} bike experience it might be awhile until he does another one!

Easter & Spring Break 2010

we had the most beautiful easter and early spring break. . .warm weather and a fabulous 4 day get-away with the kids. on saturday we had easter with terry's family in mackinaw, il. a highlight?? the easter egg hunt, of course {even though the kids are getting a bit big!!}

mr. money bags went around picking up eggs and if the were too "heavy" (in other words filled with candy) he would put them down!! the goal?? to find the ones with money in them!! thanks, rich, for that!! luke was thrilled with his $5!
we headed to chicago on saturday night to stay with one my "greatest of all time ever" friends: noel and her family! it has been years since we have been able to spend more than a few hours together--so a day and a half was out of this world!

it was a great easter day, visiting our old chuch and seeing old friends--kind of seems like nothing has changed, but we all just now have kids running everywhere.
the kids got along SOOOO well! it was absolutely unbelievable! amazing how kayla (blonde) looks JUST like noel and grace (brunette) looks just like andy (noel's husband) and zel--he is quite the mix, isn't he?? tehee! really he was welcomed home in december from ethiopia and has the cutest face ever!!! so, there were guinea pigs in the house and of course the boys are trying to convince me that we need one. no way. no rodents in my house.

we spent monday morning with my grandma! at 96 she still lives by herself! don't you love the couch?? it's the only one i remember in her house, we think it is about 45 years old. yikes!!
monday afternoon the boys and terry went to the lego discovery place and i got a kid-free afternoon at ikea!! perfect for everyone. a favorite for the boys is staying in a hotel and swimming and jumping on the beds! we topped it off by watching Butler play NCAA championship game.
on our last day we headed to the museum of science and industry. we saw lots of great stuff including the mayes and heiking families from school!