That's a Wrap!

We have officially ended the crazy 2019-2020 school year. I never would have believed that we would go though everything this year brought.

A national pandemic. Everything shuts down. Life cancelled. Distant learning. The ONE year I get to have my girl in class, we get sent home for 10 weeks.

I still made my kids dress for the last day and we took our traditional pictures. I wanted to see our comparison of who had grown how much! Every year we use me as the comparison. As you can see, it appears I am shrinking.

They have grown and were happy to have their picture taken with their favorite teacher of all time!

This kid takes the cake though. He shot up this year, but I actually think most of the growth was during the pandemic. I don't think it will be long and I'll be looking up at him.

It's official, we have 2-5th graders and an 8th grader. We have no idea what next year will look like. We do know we will enjoy our summer, relax, and make the best of whatever comes our way. I do hope for Connor's last year at SMS that we are able to return to some normal way of schooling, and life!

What's new? Ken and Mary Edition

A lot has changed since 2013.

We moved in 2015. Our "new" house is just over a mile from the old house. We love the quiet cul-de-sac life we are living! We have the best of town and county...pizza delivery out front, wildlife out back

Rood Wildlife Preserve

The week we moved, Ken changed jobs. He stayed in the sporting goods industry, but made the move to apparel with Augusta Sportswear. We have no idea what we wore before he worked there! The company recently acquired Pacific Headwear and he is thrilled to be back as "Hat Guy".

I am still teaching, but I made the move to 4th grade 5 years ago. I have enjoyed the change and the maturity of the kids. Three years ago my teaching soulmate came into my life!! When we finished each others sentence at the interview, I knew we were going to be a great duo. And if you ask us, WE ARE!!

We did not plan this great outfit combo, it just happens.

As the kids have grown, Ken and I have added to our family hobbies. We were so excited in 2014 when we bought a camper. We wanted to be able to camp and make memories as a family and we have. It has been one of the best decisions we have ever made! Camping is going to be getting a post of its own this summer!

We lasted a few years of camping before we got the itch for some water toys. We started with 1 and quickly realized we really needed 2! We spend a lot of time at the lake in the summer, somehow it's just never enough though. It won't be long and Connor will be fighting me for the drivers position!

Date night on the water!

I was asked by my running friends to run a half marathon with them in 2018. I immediately said no way, I could never. Ken encouraged me to go for it and he said he would join. So not only did we survive 2018, we went back for more in 2019!

In 2018, we froze!

Much better weather in 2019!

In 2017, my dad lost his battle with cancer. It was a long painful road. I have never experienced such  hurt before. He still lives in all of us and we talk about him often because I want my kids to remember him. I love this picture of them at our Veteran's Day celebration at school. I can hear him now, telling people about how he had to get out of the house early to go eat donuts with the grand kids! 

I have continued to bake and decorate cookies. It is my therapy and I enjoy it tremendously. I have trained some great help and they have really increased by productivity. 

                 

Very recently, I have acquired a new hobby...stay tuned, I'm going to be making some t-shirts! With help from my side kick!

Phew, that was our past few years in a nutshell. I'm going to update the kids too, at some point :)

Easter 2020...

The one where we were quarantined!

Easter looked different this year for sure, but we still tried to add some "normal" Easter for our family.

What does that mean?

We still decorated eggs and cookies. Well the girls did.

Instead of attending mass at church, we attended in the basement. The highlight may have been wearing our pajamas.

We had an Easter meal with just our family. Having more time on our hands meant time for even more baking. This time, a delicious carrot cake.

Instead of an egg hunt with family, we had our First Annual Socially Distanced Cul-de-sac Kids Easter Egg Scavenger. I say First Annual because I see this tradition continuing. This was probably the highlight for the kids. Since Connor was a baby, my sister-in-law has done an Easter Egg Hunt, turned Scavenger Hunt for the cousins. They always look forward to it!

Connor hunting, 2009

2018

2019

When one of the neighbors suggested a neighborhood egg hunt, I took the idea and ran with it!
There were  kids that participated from ages 3-13. They followed clues from basket to basket where they each had an egg and a fun activity to do. The weather was perfect for outdoor fun!

 

Before we indulged in our Easter meal, we were introduced to "Daddy's Driveway Workout". Four of us got our sweat on while one of us decided to opt out. They are begging for more of this!! This is what quarantine does to them :)!

I leave you with our family Easter picture, 2020

We're back!

It's been a loonnng time, but I am hoping to get back into blogging!

Why now?

The blog came up the other night at dinner and the kids about died when they heard I had a blog that I actually posted things on at one time. Molly asked to see it and her face when she was going through the posts were priceless. I don't scrapbook or print pictures unless they are needed for a project to fill a specific frame.

So, this a my gift to my kids. Memories they will always have to go back and look at. Recipes that we make that they can easily access some day. Special events that our family was a part of. I hope to post more of all these things and much more.

Here we are. My how they've grown right before my eyes. Join me as the Rood's continue to roll though life!

Spring Break

We are on Spring Break this week, can you tell?!? Go figure, but really who can complain about 10 days off!?

We kicked off the week with a little breakfast treat. I had made these once before and the kids gobbled them up, so I thought it would be a fun first day of break treat. Mine didn't turn out as pretty as hers. They were yummy though!

I also took Connor roller skating for his first time. The school sponsors a skate a couple of times a year, but we don't usually go because it is on a school night. He was excited, but after standing up once and wobbling he sat down and was ready to take off the skates and go home. I convinced him he'd get better and we weren't giving up! After one circle, I wasn't sure I was going to make it! I was just about sweating from holding him up and my back was hurting! Thank goodness for these amazing inventions!! It helped him and he got so much better! He can't wait to go back!

I may have a slight obsession with baking, right now it is with cake balls. I had 120+ in the freezer to decorate this week. I am no professional and if you look close, they really aren't that pretty. However, I love making them. It is almost therapeutic for me. They taste delicious too!

This batch we are delivering today when we go visit this sweet guy! He is the newest addition to our "teacher mom" play group. Luke Ryan was born on Friday and we can't wait to meet him. He makes the 8th boy, dominating the 3 girls!

No major plans for break just playing, cleaning, organizing, baking, and hopefully a little relaxing too!

Connor is officially 6!

We had a little celebration for Connor's birthday today. Just us and the grandparents. Very low key and enjoyable for all! Connor woke up this morning to crepe paper on his door and balloons blocking his way down the steps. He picked pancakes for breakfast and we just hung out around the house all morning. Once the company arrived, he wanted to get right to it!

Lookin' good!

  He was quite surprised by with a Kindle fire from us. Hopefully this will prevent my phone and ipad from disappearing so much! He seemed to love it. I now have to learn more about how to use it!

 What is a birthday without legos!?

He wanted chocolate cupcakes, so I put a pinterest twist on them and turned them into shamrocks. I thought they turned out pretty cute and the girls were really impressed!! 

We had a great weekend and I can't believe my baby is 6. He is growing up before my eyes and I don't want to forget a moment of it!

Birthday Week Kick-off

At our house, we celebrate birthday week and sometimes more! This year, we gave Connor the choice of a family party, like we have always done or to pick 2 friends and go to Monster Jam. Really?!? Like we had to ask : ) So Monster Jam was the weekend before his actual birthday and it kicked off the festivities! He wanted to take two boys from his class, one of which is a neighbor. The neighbor said he'd go with their other son, so here they are enjoying the dust in the arena! 

 Ken was good about taking and sending pictures, I preferred the pink truck!! As you can see, she turned out to not such a good driver. Are they stereotyping women drivers as part of the show?!?

 The boys seemed to enjoy the girl getting shot out of the canon best! They came back to our house and it is all they could talk about. One of them said, "She got shot out of the canon and didn't even died!"

 After the show we celebrated with the boys and our neighborhood family with pizza, cake, and ice cream. Easy for me and they all loved it!

Connor told Ken the next morning that it was a really nice birthday = success.