Life goes on

Well, after a long posting drought, I'm back! I realized that much time has passed since my last update, and as the title of the post states, life has gone on in the Schreck household. It has been a long, cold, dreary, long, endless, and long winter. We are ready for spring!

Quick recap:

Matthew continues to do well in school. He received a very special honor from the principal and his teachers called the Super Citizen Award. Only a few children from each grade are chosen to receive this award. Students are chosen based on helpfulness, volunteerism in and out of the classroom, and an all-around positive attitude about giving to others. Needless to say, Matthew was extremely proud to receive this award, and we were equally proud of him for accomplishing it. Now if only I could get him to have the same attitude about his chores at home....Anyway, he is doing very well in school and it's hard to believe that the year is nearly 3/4 of the way over. Soon he will be a second grader!

Ryan is still....well, Ryan. He also continues to do well in school, although I think he is more than ready for his teacher, Ms. Sandra, to return to school after knee surgery. She has been gone since December and he really misses her (as do I!). She is a wonderful teacher and we are looking forward to seeing her back in the classroom in a few weeks. Anyway, Ryan's biggest news is that he has officially been registered for kindergarten! In late August of this year, he will begin walking the halls of Oakview Elementary with his big brother. He is extremely excited about going to school, and he has already voiced an opinion about who he would like his teacher to be. That's Ryan....always worrying and thinking ahead (I wonder where he gets that from?). Both Matthew and Ryan will be starting soccer in mid-April.

Natalie is growing by leaps and bounds every day. It is hard to believe that she will be 18 months old in early April. She has started going to day care at a local church and she loves it. Soon she will be transitioning from the infant room to the toddler room, and the only thing I'm worried about is that the kids in there sleep on cots. Natalie may not do well without crib rails. I have a feeling she will quickly realize the amount of freedom a cot affords her, and will be up running around while the other kids are trying to sleep. Who knows, she may surprise me, but this is the exact reason we've decided to wait until she's closer to 2 before we introduce her to the "big girl bed."

In other news, she's talking really well and communicating her needs and wants so much more clearly. She is putting two or three words together at a time, saying "no" instead of just nodding when she does not agree to something, and adding to her already immense vocabulary every single day. We now have to watch what we say around her, because she readily repeats just about everything. She has also become quite the dancer and singer. In fact, Harold caught her yesterday singing along to the Aerosmith song "Sweet Emotion." Yes, you read that correctly. At first, I did not believe it, but then I witnessed it first-hand in the car this morning on the way to school. I popped in the CD, went to track 7, and lo and behold, she started singing. She's too funny.

Harold and I have been doing some house-hunting lately. We have been thinking about renewing our efforts to get our house on the market this summer so that we can finally find a place that fits our family and our needs. How could we turn down an interest rate of 4.5%? In a stable economy, we would never be able to afford some of the houses we've been looking at. I mean, houses are cheap right now. It's great for us, because we'll be able to find a much larger house for a lot less money. It just seems like the right time to buy. Selling might prove to be the hard part.

So that's life in the Schreck house these days. The other day, I looked out my bedroom window and saw buds on the lilac bush behind our house. The days are getting longer, and occasionally, warmer. Birds are chirping and crocuses are making their appearance. Ryan's nose has begun to run and his eyes are itching. The kids are bouncing off the walls. Squirrels are living in our trash can. But I digress. We're looking forward to a fabulous spring!