How to Create a Stressful Life

Add the following to what you already do everyday...

Over 8 weeks, set aside a mountain of grading to be done at the last minute, then add 28 report cards to be completed in 2 days. Stir in one 2nd grade program to be viewed by 400 parents and grandparents and add 3 powerpoint presentations to be prepared 5 days before program. Include 2 last minute practices for program to induce handfuls of stress.

Mix it all together to create one joyously overworked and stressed out teacher, then add:

Three church callings

Ten cubscouts to be taught about astronomy

Five families to call about cancelling choir

One major holiday

Eighteen eggs to dye

One baby blessing

One 13th birthday

One birthday cake and a broccoli salad

One little crawler who gets into everything

One yard in desperate need of weeding and planting

AND

One husband who is on spring break and wants wifes undivided attention.

Phew! I am glad those last two weeks are over!

_________________________

(The week in pictures)

Our Program

The program was about Heroes (the Davis Reads theme this year) and it was fabulous! The students were amazing and everything came together really well. I am so proud of these 2nd graders!

This is Sammy on Easter morning. He loved playing with the plastic eggs. And for you book lovers out there, check out this book.

It's called, My Easter Basket and the True Story of Easter

Thanks Lori for getting my mind started on Easter Books. After much research I found this little gem. It talks about the colors in an Easter basket and how they remind us of Jesus. It really kept Sammy's attention. Here are a couple of lines from the book:

"The green inside my basket is like the palms that lay...

upon the ground for Jesus for his parade one day."

We LOVE it (and it sparkles too!)

With Joey turning 13, the Droge's no longer have any "children," just teenagers. And with Adam being on his mission, there's only 2 (out of 8) boys at home!

I made this cake for Joey's 13th birthday. It's not much, but just frosting this took about an hour.

We got together for little Nathan's blessing and Joey's b-day. Here is the constantly changing & growing Droge family!

And finally, a post just isn't a post without this darling face!

Easter Surprise!

Sammy decided to give us an easter surprise:

Yes, he finally figured out the crawling thing, and he has now realized he can get anything he wants. This was one of the first successful tries, and after a zillion little demonstrations to family all Easter weekend, he thinks he has it down pretty good! I guess it is time to start doing some toddler proofing, because he thinks he needs to grow up!

I love pudding

Michelle was making chocolate pudding for the inside of Joseph's birthday cake and decided to give Sammy a try. Obviously he loved it. My favorite part is the table slap at the end, as if to say, "Give me more, I wasn't done!"

Rub-a-dub-dub

Rub-a-dub-dub

One little man (and a couple of ducks) in a tub.

And who do you think he be?

A Butcher...

No, Sammy hasn't been to the slaughter house lately, but Sammy has been cleared by the Doc to eat meats! (I know, it's a stretch.) And - like all other food - he LOVES it. Although you can't really tell, this is a jar of "Apples and Chicken" baby food. Sammy wolfed it down in 2 minutes flat!

A Baker...

A Candlestick Maker...

Think...Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.

What a sweet little Sam is he!

Burying Berries

Yum! Summer is on the way. And this year we are thoroughly looking forward to it because...

Hooray for a yard!

Dave and I have been so excited about getting our yard up and running this year. Last summer we began working on our yard by putting in sprinklers and grass. We even planted a couple trees including two peach trees, but everything else was happily put on hold as our funds were diverted to the sudden arrival of our sweet Sammy.

Today we started on another long awaited project. We created our future rasberry and strawberry patches. Dave got a steal on the potted raspberry plants...which were supposed to be bare-root raspberry plants but since the nursery didn't have any, they gave us 6 pots of $7.49 each plants at $1.99 each!

So we both went to work planting this afternoon and here is the finished rasberry patch. Believe it or not there are 6.5 raspberries growing here. .5 you ask? Well, it may be the lone survivor of the transplants we got from my mom's yard last fall and we aren't sure if it's going to make it. (the other 2 didn't)

In this picture I can totally hear Dickon singing, "When a thing is wick it has a life about it, maybe not a life that you can see..."

Here's Dave just finishing up planting the strawberries. Can you see any of them? I couldn't either. They aren't buried, there just isn't much on the top because bare-root strawberries are dormant during the winter. We just need a lot of faith and patience and they will eventually produce scrumptious berries.

Sammy's looking forward to the berry harvest as well. He's practicing patience while warming up his teeth and gums on my cell phone.

Sammy LOVES (1st Edition)

Eating Ice Cream




This was Sammy's first experience with ice-cream. He loves it just as much as I do. Watch out Cold Stone, we're raising your next customer!

Munching on Pens

Like Father, like son. Dave ALWAYS has a pen in his pocket (Does anyone know an engineer who doesn't carry a pen?). He's always on the lookout for a new-and-improved-multi-functioning-yet-cool pen. This is one of Sammy's features that Dave is particularly fond of. Whenever he gets fussy, we give him a pen and he happily munches away. Perhaps this is why he's got 8 teeth at 8 months!

Pounding on the Piano

I'm starting piano lessons really early. He's going to be a child genius.


Practicing Push-ups

Uh-oh...Sammy's going mobile! Time to start child-proofing our house. Whenever we lay Sammy down on the ground he rolls over and does a couple push-ups.

Growling at Grandpa

This is one of the cutest things ever! Grandpa would growl at Sammy and Sammy would growl back. They did it for about about 2 minutes back and forth. Or course, by the time I realized what he was doing (and found my camera), Sammy was tired of doing it. Sigh.

Chewing on the Cell Phone

Another life saver when we're out of the house and have no toys. Sammy loves chewing on the cell phone. This was an experiment in the name of science to see how 8-month-olds react when a phone rings.

Holding Mom's Hair

A particularly endearing quality. Sammy loves my hair. He "strokes" it while I feed him. It's a definite bonding moment.

Talking in the Car

Sammy loves to "talk." He is very vocal, especially when he thinks he's alone. Sorry, you can't see him in the video...he's on the left side of the screen.

Bonding with the Basketball

Again, we're training him young. If he's going to grow into his genes, he's got to be prepared to be a basketball STAR! He loves trying to eat his basketball. Mmmm, rubber and plastic. Hey, you've gotta start somewhere.

Feeding Himself

This was the very first time I saw Sammy actually get food from his hands into his mouth. Usually he just squishes it and throws it on the floor out of frustration. But he loves trying, and that's part of the fun.

Tearing up Paper

The newest playtime activity. All Sammy will be getting for his birthday is a couple of old magazines.

Way to go Michelle

We interrupt this cutesy bloggery with an update from Dave. Although Michelle often calls this "her" blog, I just have to laugh that I've been trying to get her to do it for nearly 3 years. Well, way to go Michelle! Anyway, I wanted to get on here and do a quick shout out to her for being so cool.

We both just turned 27, which is kinda weird: 30 doesn't seem so far away anymore (right Tanna?).

For Michelle's birthday we got her a step. She fell in love with the step when going to a step class at BYU with Michelle Millet 3 days a week and wanted the real deal--purple and Teal. No picture of the step... apparently some girls don't want to be photographed when sweaty and cute. But they still think we men are cute and want hugs after a nice sweaty basketball game... go figure. ;-)

What kind of cake did Michelle get, a Coldstone one of course!
I guess I was a good husband and made her breakfast..

On to valentine's day, we went out to eat at Famous Dave's and ate way too much. It was excellent.

Sticking with the "way to go Michelle" theme, she outdid me again. She knows I love puzzles and so my valentine's gift was a treasure hunt/puzzle and was a lot of fun. Each hint was a scrambled word saying where the next clue was -- the final prize was an hour massage at massage envy (which was amazing!!!). See if you can figure any of these out on your own:

vexgloob (2 words)

yuuknorersind (3 words)

zeeerrf (1 word)

pigdearba(2 words)

amsteyscolms' (2 words)

ahmwigsancineh (2 words)

abolixm (1 word)

I had a great time! So way to go Michelle!

answers: glove box, under your sink, freezer, diaper bag, sammy's closet, washing machine, mailbox.

Above: Sammy and I trying to figure out one of the clues

Below: All the treats and clues

Also for our combined birthdays, we got a ping pong table! Way to go Michelle! We decided that we should get some fun recreation going in that basement of ours, and this was something we wanted to get for a little while. The first ever game played on this table Michelle won 11-9. It's been a little lopsided since then, but we have a great time and try to get down and play as often as possible, (Jon and Carrie came over and Jon and I played for a couple hours while the girls chatted away).

You can see Michelle's reflection in the window, but if you look close enough, you can also see Simba's eyes! What a crazy cat. We took a few pictures and noticed that Simba seemed to be watching the ball!

Then as if Michelle hadn't one-upped me enough these last few birthdays/holidays, she and Annie threw a surprise birthday with the family for Mike and I. Way to go Michelle! I love you.

Okay, so halfway through the meal Annie was like, "wait we didn't get a picture of you coming in and being surprised." Above is the family saying surprise!, below is a re-enactment of Mike and me being surprised as we come in the door. I'm sure we made those faces the first time! :-)

Okay seriously this is the last thing I'll talk about because I know this post is forever long. On my birthday we went miniature golfing, and took Sammy in the stroller without the carseat for the first time and he absolutely loved it. Especially going over bumps!