Crazy Dress Day

It's Catholic Schools Week. And the thing I dread the most each year about this week is "Crazy Dress Day".

The day that the kids dig thru boxes and closets we usually avoid in order to layer a perfectly crazy outfit to wear to school.

And I have to say for Mom not being incredibly helpful and not enjoying the process, the kids have been very successful, many years winning the vote of their peers as the best dressed.

And of coarse photos are taken at home before my crazy kids head out to school. And this year would mark my favorite because of this photo of Kelly and Emma.

I guess capturing a moment like this makes the crazy day all worth while after all.

Creative Absence

I have been neglecting my blog the past month. That is because we have been on creative overload here at home. Kevin has been drawing extra large page after page for his oversized book called Unhooked...

Kelly has been working on an art project about Quentin Blake for the academic fair.

Connor has been busy studying for finals. Not very creative you may say, but as I was filing through his papers I did find some great doodles that he had drawn during class.

And then there are all the second grade projects Delaney has been working on...the dinosaur diorama, the book reports, coloring, writing. Who knew second grade could be so exhausting.

Myself...I have been super busy creating projects for the Bella Blvd booth at CHA and Class Kickoff at The Scrapbook Store.

And of coarse Ricky and I have had our hands in on all the projects the kids do. I am glad to say that after three weeks of all that, the scissors and glue can be laid to rest in the drawer. And this past weekend I finally had time to vacuum up the gigantic dust bunnies that have accumulated around the house.

I invite you to come back and check out the blog the next week or so. I plan on making up for all the missed blogging days, and share some of what was created during my absence.

Ugly Dog

Wow two weeks have gone by. I have spent a lot of time with changes in the family. Starting a high schooler, new coaches, new schedule, new job, new paint in my bedroom. In the past two weeks I have spent a lot of time behind the wheel of the mini van. While I am there, I think of all the things I would like to post on my blog. But time at the computer has been limited and the late night hours I usually keep are shortened because after getting up early, and all the chasing around during the day, I am pooped out at 10pm. Oh I can't wait for summer 2011.

But the next two weeks I am taking some time off in between my old job and my new job to do some catching up. So here is a post about Emma...

Emma is our four year old basset, dachshund mix. Not a bad combination of creatures but a true mutt. The kids all call her ugly dog. She is a sweet little thing with the softest fur. But a bit shy at times and often looks worried and guilty when you turn her way.

A good sport though because she allowed the kids to take her into the pool. When she got out she was even uglier than ever. Poor Emma.
After Emma's dip in the pool I found a rendition of her on the kitchen table that Connor had sketched up.
A good likeness of our water logged little wiener dog!

Back to School

This morning in the rush to get out the door, I tried to quickly capture and image for the first day back to school....

When this little first grader who was anxiously waiting to put on her new pink tennies, snuck into my lens. Maybe not the best photo, but definitely a "back to school" memory I want to remember.

Back to School

It's that time of year again. Getting ready for back to school. I may be one of the few moms that actually likes shopping for the school supplies. I take the kids along on the journey and let them have the little pleasure of picking the yellow notebook or the blue, and indulge in Delaney's excitement to discover all her "pink" supplies coordinate.

But I find it a personal challenge to cross off the multitude of items on the list, only feeling a sense of accomplishment if I do so at the lowest price possible. Heaven forbid that I would pay top dollar for any of those supplies. It seems I would rather study newspaper ads week after week, and drive miles out of my way in order to purchace Crayola crayons and wide ruled notebooks on sale for $.20 instead of the recomended retail price of $.99

On the Bella Blvd blog today they are also celebrating back to school with some projects from the new Midterm line. The colors and patterns are fantastic and coordinate just perfectly with those red and blue plaid uniforms that my kids wear everyday. Here is a bit of what I created from the line for CHA.

Seems like I just took this picture of Connor and his friends on their last day of grade school together. Summer goes by way to fast! I can't believe school starts back in less than a week. But I can't be in denial, it's 4pm, time to head up to school and meet the teachers, load up the car with the kids, the backpacks, paper towels, disinfectant wipes, notebooks, crayons, tissue, markers, pencils, dictionaries....I guess the best part of back to school is getting all those school supplies I shopped for out of my kitchen and back to school!

Just Plain Crazy

Good morning from the McElvain house. We are dressed and ready for "crazy dress day" at school. And a special recognition to Connor who is sporting shorts that date back to 1992. I purchased them for Ricky, and a matching blue plaid pair for myself from the clearance rack at the gap to wear to a Jimmy Buffet concert. (I'll have to find that picture and post it later.) Anyway all the kids look swell, but I think Kelly out did herself....

Happy St Nick Eve

Tonight is the Eve of the feast of St Nick. The tradition in our family is for each child to ask the good saint for his charity by putting out a pair of shoes before going to bed. This in the hopes that he will leave a treat or two inside.

After dinner on this eve, Ricky and I had some errands to run, consequently leaving the four kids home alone. Creating this situation, especially close to bed time, there are some concerns for what might happen without adult supervision, especially since Connor is the one in charge. In fact, as we were shopping tonight I thought it was strange that we did not receive a single phone call asking permission for some food, or complaining of a problem. All seemed well, and it was. When we returned home and walked in the door we heard little giggles and a scurry of eight feet running to hide out of sight. Then we came upon a strange sight, a large assortment of shoes placed neatly at the entry way, waiting for St Nick. All the shoes those little stinkers could round up, a total of 37.5 pairs in all...

...oh, and one pair of fishing waders.

I think a lot of the fun being had in our absence was at Delaney's expense. Besides dressing her in the waders and having her reluctantly pose for a picture, the kids convinced her that her odds for more gifts is higher due to the increase of shoes. We'll see about that.

How I Spent Trick or Treat

I spent my trick or treat with an overly happy nun who wanted to go to swim practice instead of candy hounding, a handsome and groovy hippy with quite the mustache, and a made up maiden who insisted she was a princess. Oh, minus my fourth treater who was at a party doing tricks with his pals.

The five of us were off to Muskego to treat with friends.

The sister seemed like she was feeling as hip as her bro.

After some delicious pre treating treats, we hit the pavement with bags in hand.

The fun began at dusk with my family, friends, and my favorite treater of all.

Isn't he a cutie!?

Cupcake Wars

Meet the cupcakes...the one on the right, the one that looks like a spider with a hat, is suppose to be a witch. The one on the left, the one that looks like a hedgehog with google eyes, is suppose to be (hummmmm?) I guess it is suppose to be some kind of creature with google eyes.

Tonight on our table there became an army of witch cupcakes looking much like spiders....
Challenged by an army of google eyed creature cupcakes....
Tomorrow at the 4th grade Halloween bake sale who will win the war and be gobbled up first?

So this morning Ricky carried a half asleep Kelly downstairs. Looking at her, about a forth of the leopard bands in her hair were unwrapped, although still snapped. Not a good sign. I proceeded to unroll and unsnap the rest, and ta-da, we have waves. Amazingly most of the locks were going in somewhat of the same direction. But the real test was a look in the mirror. The result...Approval. Whew! Even her brothers gave a thumbs up. Well, that might be an exaggeration, I should say they didn't say anything negative about Kelly's new look.

So overall the morning went well. Connor flew out the door early to cadet. Forgot his lunch but no biggy. The other three were also ready with smiles in plenty of time. Kelly even squeezed in finishing a Spanish worksheet that she forgot to do the night before.

Then out the door we go. Found a moment to snap a few pictures. But suddenly realized one person dropped the ball on picture day. That someone being ME! I forgot to fill out the picture forms. So I ended up rushing around at the last minute anyway. That's to be expected.

First Day

The first day of school for Delaney. She is so proud and excited to be dressed in the plaid that she may someday despise.

And Connor, on his first day, of his last year in that uniform. 

The other two kids...somewhere in between. But all happy to be starting school. Have a great year. I am proud of all four of you!

What's Missing?

Look at this picture....

Now this one.....What is missing?

That's right....Connor is missing.

We are also missing the loud stomping of his feet going up and down the stairs.

There are no new dirty hand print marks on my ceiling.

I don't have that someone who always has something to talk me about.

The chair and the entry way, where I usually find a pair of his socks, is now clean.

There is no one here to tackle Ricky or compare his height to us....

It is a different home without Connor....

Now Kasey, and Grandma and Grandpa get to experience him for a week....Good Luck!

Love and miss you Connor!

Table Talk

An interesting part of the day at the McElvain house is when we sit down to dinner. You never know what crisis may occur, what spills may happen, or what conversations might develop. I really enjoyed tonight's table talk and thought I might share....

We started out talking about how warm the pool is lately....that led into my story about my dad and how, out of beer cans, he made a solar heater that was mounted on the garage roof to heat the pool we used when I was a kid....that flowed into a whole bunch of tweets from the kids about "how their grandpa is one of the smartest people they know."

The group's consensus.... Grandpa is very intelligent.

"Didn't he teach somewhere?" Kelly asked
"He does now" Connor answered. "He goes and teaches the homeless people how to read every week".

So now we have come to a group analysis ....Grandpa is very intelligent and caring.

The conversation went on for a while with examples of what Grandpa does to support our opinion of him. Any where from rebuilding jet engines, to helping neighbors.

All of a sudden Delaney decided to put in her two cents. "You know why Grandpa is really smart?(Pause as we all wait for the answer)....Because he is OLD!"

The conclusion....Grandpa is very intelligent, caring, and old.....and makes for a great conversation piece at dinner.

What season Is It?

If I were discribe the weather as cloudy and 55 degrees here in Milwaukee you would probably think it was October or April. Or if you are more familiar with the Wisconsin weather you would guess that it is the first day of July. Because that's the right answer...it has been a little chilly the past week. But don't think that stops my kids from mentally and physically being in the full throws of summer, how ever painful that might be....

Yummy?

What is it?

A. a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

B. Delaney's lunch

C. a vampire meal

D. Kelly's creativity gone wild

E. all of the above

Answer: E and yes that is garlic for teeth. Kelly was nice enough not only to make this wonderful lunch for her sister, but also to warn her not to eat the teeth.

Just give the McElvain's a call if you want to do lunch sometime. I'm sure after this we will have to take reservations.

Big Boy Innocence

Is it his freckles?
His dressing up like a pioneer for his field trip with confidence and with out complaint?
Is it that he still cries easily?
Or how he leans on my shoulder in church every Sunday?
Is it his little smirk?
Or that without inhibitions he kisses and hugs me in front of his friends?

It is all these things and more that make Kevin so wonderfully innocent...I truly love that kid!

A Swimmer's Story

Competitive swimming...love the sport. I think one of the things that makes a weekend of sitting in a sweltering pool bearable is because back in the day my parents did it for me.

Kelly loves the sport too. She can't get enough time in the pool, she is always giggling with all the silly little girls on the team, and now a new twist...she has taken pride in achieving personal goals.

It is fantastic how all the SWAT team members cheer each other on, and celebrate each others victories. This weekend Kelly had some big accomplishments of her own when Friday night she achieved her first state cut in the 200 meter IM at the punie age of 9. Then another cut in the 100 meter back the next day. The best part for me was that I could see she was proud of herself.

Last night after the meet we found a story she started. She is sometimes hard to read, so it is so fun to get a peek at what is floating around in her head.

The story starts out...."Hi, I'm Kelly McElvain. I wanted to tell you about me a young little three year old girl".....a good start to all the chapters, going though to the last chapter...."How Unexpectedly" Hmmmmm?

I can't wait to find out where her story leads her.

Time to change

The annual school spring concert. I contemplated dropping the boys off to do their part and then going grocery shopping to avoid the event. Yes...that is how much I like it...less than grocery shopping.

But tonight proved to be entertaining. In fact it was the first time since preschool that I wished I had brought a video camera.

Connor had given me a heads up that his class sounded "terrible". I don't know about terrible, but the contrast between the enthusiastic, on pitch song from the girls, in comparison to the monotone, tone deaf sound of the hormonal boys just cracked me up.

Peter Brady look out here come the St Matthias seventh grade boys.

Since I didn't take video tonight we will have to get our chuckles from the Brady Bunch. I wish I could fully offer the concert's experience and display of talent on the blog. It was so fun that I have had a change of heart. Next year I possibly won't dread that Tuesday night in May and be tempted to go grocery shopping. I think once again I could enjoy myself if next year the melodies include some hormonal voices and teenage attitude. That would definitely be more entertaining than going out to buy a gallon of milk.

Soggy Saturdays

Kevin started his spring soccer league in mid April but has yet to play a game. So far, every Saturday it has either been raining, or the field appears to be a big puddle of muck. I guess this Saturday the league decided they couldn't postpone the season any longer. So for Kevin and his team it was game on....or should I say mud on!?


I wasn't able to make it to the game so Connor had control of the camera. He took somewhere up around 300 shots during the game. My shutter bug captured some fantastic images of this day when his 5th grade brother was up against the ginormous 8th graders on the soccer field. I hear Kevin did a great job outsmarting the competition and holding his own.

Sunday Morning Prayer

Every Sunday we prepare for morning mass. Picture for a moment a peaceful gathering of our family seated around the table ready to share a breakfast of pancakes and bacon while looking over the readings for that day.

OK, now erase that picture and view reality.... our family in a hectic mess, kids grabbing sugar sweetened cereal, siblings teasing, dishes on the sink, the teenager over primping, shoes gone missing, mom combing hair, Dad writing checks, warnings about hurrying, behaving and staying clean, and at the end of it all...arriving late to church.

No matter how hard Ricky and I try to make Sunday morning different, this is our fate.

So as I sat at church today, still frazzled from the morning ritual, I took a moment to reflect during the quiet moments mass allows. Unsurprisingly my prayers, like those every Sunday, seemed to center around patience and guidance. And then a prayer of thankfulness for those 4 gifts God has given me that cause the need for me to pray for the patience and the guidance.

I guess Sunday morning, with all of it's chaos, is a necessary reminder to help me see my blessings.