Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everyone! Once again the Easter Bunny (EB) made a mess in the house with his bunny tracks. Megan was worrying about them all week and she was going to tell the EB "not to make a mess this year so Mom and Dad doesn't have to clean up the mess", but she chickened out. Oh yeah, Megan sleeps with the door open every night, except for last night when she asked me to leave the door closed, very tight. Alison and I figured it was because she didn't want the EB to come in her room. We asked Megan this morning and she confirmed our hypothesis.

Here is the family frosting the cut out cookies from last night. All in all, we had a nice quiet Easter, just the five of us. We are getting on the mend, Megan appears to be feeling a lot better from yesterday (she turned down a night time snack last night, which NEVER happens). Annalyse still has a runny nose and watery eyes and mine (Alison) has turned into a runny nose. Last night, I thought Megan and I would be going to the doctors for bronchitis but it doesn't seem it anymore.

Meredith is still healthy, she is actually starting to walk pretty good, about 10 steps at a time. She will probably be walking good by the end of the week.

Getting Ready for Easter

Well, we were hoping for a nice relaxing weekend with not much to do and unfortunately Alison, Megan, and Annalyse are not feeling the greatest (with colds). Hopefully a relaxing day tomorrow will help things out.

We got our new van on Friday. We haven't driven it a whole lot yet but Megan loves it so far.

We colored Easter eggs today. Mike decided to make marbled eggs. They turned out better than I thought they would.


After dinner tonight, we made cut-out cookies. We plan to frost them tomorrow. Megan was excited to make them but she only lasted about 5 minutes until she said she was done making cookies. I don't think she felt to good. Mike cut out the cookies with the twins, they seemed to enjoy sitting at the table watching him.



Have a good Easter!

PS. Picture of Me with rolling pin, not AUTHORIZED for blog use!

Another Week

We are back, we try to update once a week, usually on Sundays. We might post once a while during the week if we have anything interesting to talk about. This past week was pretty uneventful. The weather was nice during the week, so we were able to go outside and take walks.

"Egg Hunt"

It is that time of year for the annual egg hunt that we attend at the park downtown next to the water. Megan has come a long way from only getting one two years ago to the first one filling up her bucket with plastic eggs filled with candy. Also some of the eggs have winning tickets in them which they win a big Easter basket full of candy and toys. Megan finally found one this year so she was pretty happy to find a winning egg.

"Birthday Party"

Couple hours later after the Easter egg hunt we went over to our neighbors house for a birthday party, which is usually entertaining as they always have nachos and popcorn. Alison left early for a bachelorette party, so I had the three kids, yikes! It turned out OK, except for Meredith being the human vacuum cleaner. She kept crawling under the stools at the bar and eating all the fallen popcorn. Towards the end, the moms allowed me to hang out with men for a while for some "man" time as I was hanging out with mom's most of the time watching the kids. Leaving was interesting, but handled very well.

"Meredith musically inclined?"

See the Video below, she loves to sing in the microphone and she bebops all the time to singing and music. We find it pretty funny that she knows what a microphone is for. I suppose she watches Megan, but still she goes at it every time. We are not sure what talent she'll have, but we do know she will not have a singing voice as neither side of the families are song birds, except maybe my mom who could at least carry some kind tune.

"Tomato Soup"

As some of you know, the Voakes' grew up on Tomato Soup as Dad (John) would make that for us when mom wasn't home and for some reason all of us kids still enjoy it. And of course I had to pass it along to my kids, so Megan asks for it all the time and today I introduced it to the twins. Meredith was not so receptive, but Annalyse loved it. Alison, said Meredith pretty was full already as she ate a lot of grilled cheese sandwich prior to the life changing event. Below is Megan with a Tomato Soup mustache.

"Bowling Update"

I think I am back to my old form in bowling as I bowled a 722 series (240 average) and a 635 the week before. I have been in a big slump as of late (9 weeks of shooting sub 600 series and a couple sub 500 series), but hopefully the warmer weather broken the ice of my cold game. Sorry that was bad:( Overall, our team is fifth overall, but on the move. First place will be hard to catch, they have a commanding lead with only 7 weeks left.

"Softball"

Well after years of prodding, Andy and Nick finally talked me into playing softball. I told myself I wasn't going to play as I would only play hardball. Well reality finally hit, so I will play some softball this year in the spring. It is only a fun league, as we recruited people who never really played ball. I will be playing short stop. I know I know, most of you thought I would be playing catcher, since I played throughout my entire hardball career, but catcher is softball is really boring. If anybody wants, my team is putting a pool together to see which body part I'm going to injure. All because my Dodge Ball days (the last couple of years) I kept get weird injuries, like breaking a rib and cracking two of my fingers. My bet is a concussion, a frozen rope to the head as my reflexes are not the same as they used to be. Just a hunch.

"New Car (actually van)"

I never thought this would happen, but the Voakes' are getting a minivan. It is the only practical vehicle for us as our Explorer is too small now, plus our lease is coming due. We decided on a Honda Odyssey (silver) as it is an 8 passenger van. We will still be able to put all three kids in the middle row. We really wanted to buy an American vehicle but none of them make an 8 passenger van. I know most of you say, who cares, but most of our neighbor work for the big three or they are engineers for tier 1 and 2 suppliers. I haven't told them yet. I guess if anything, we'll have less birthday party's to go too. We are getting it on Friday! I asked Alison if she wanted me to have them paint flames on the sides; she graciously said 'no'.

Meredith

Annalyse

OK I guess I'll let you all go, hope you all enjoy the week. - MAMAM

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Well, it's that time of year again. Easter is getting close. We have been trying to get Megan excited the past week to see the Easter Bunny. (For those of you who don't know, she likes Santa Claus beacuse he is real but doesn't like the Easter Bunny, Chuck E. Cheese, Paws the Tiger, etc. because they are not real and do not talk). Anyways, she has been telling us that her sisters can sit on his lap and she will just sit next to him since he only has two legs, pretty logical on her part. Well, the one and only Easter Bunny was at Morley Candy Shop today so we thought we would take the girls there to get their picture taken. As we walking, Megan was getting very nervous and started changing her mind of where she would stand, each time getting farther and farther away from him. Well, when it was our turn, she would only hide behind the stroller. I even bribed her with a chocolate bunny but it did not work. The Easter Bunny felt bad for her and rolled her an egg filled with chocolate. As we were leaving she told Mike and I, "At least I still got chocolate, that was nice of the Easter Bunny." Yeah, Megan is "Ms. Glass Half Full," she always looks at the bright side and needs to get that "jab" in at you. By the way, the twins didn't think much of the Easter Bunny either.

Here are some other pictures from the weekend:

Meredith:Annalyse:

"Crap My Pants"

Pretty Funny Story:

The entire MAMAM family went Easter dress shopping (no dress for Me) last Friday night at Great Lakes Crossing (shopping mall). We finally decided on dresses at Osh Kosh. When Alison was checking out, Annalyse went poop. So we all went into the bathroom (family restroom) for diaper changes and etc. As we were putting away some stuff under the stroller, Alison noticed an unpaid dress under the stroller. We asked Megan about it and she said she put it there. So of course we were laughing pretty hard about it and we decided to return as it was pretty ugly. Alison decided I should return the dress back to store so I took Megan and Meridith and as I walked out of the restroom with the dress in my hand there were Four Cops/Security guards standing outside the door. I almost crapped my pants. I was thinking oh my god, oh my god. I continued to exit the restroom without eye contact and kept walking, while hiding the dress on the side of the stroller. Apparently they were waiting for some other people. What are the chances of that?

Megan and I were watching the Brett Favre Press Conference during dinner. Poor girl was literally crying with tears. She kept saying "I don't want him to retire". It was pretty cute. Alison couldn't stop laughing at her.

Well with that, we wish you all ado, as we are suppose to get a big snow storm Friday/Saturday. So I better get some rest as I have shoveled more this year than I have the previous 5 years we lived downstate.

Welcome to Our Blog

Well, here the Voakes family goes trying to stay up with technology. We are going to give this blog thing a try.

Yesterday was a very sad day in the Voakes household. I am sure you all know by now - Brett Farve has retired. I can honestly say, I think Megan was a little more upset then Mike was (unless she just knows how to "play it up").

Meredith has been very into dancing lately. Here is a video of her dancing with Megan's "Funky Monkey." She loves to "bop" her head to the music.

Annalyse continues to get better and better at walking. She doesn't move too fast, but she gets to where she wants to go!