march madness

to give a clue about what's going on in our home, let me just say that the boys were kept up past bedtime on wednesday night because there was a very important deadline on thursday... ncaa picks had to be determined before the tournament started!! yesterday afternoon was the start of our "family basketball season". all six of us have our brackets filled out and we've got some tough competition between us! (fyi, as i write this on friday, taylor and i are in the lead... and he's about to go down today!!) i shouldn't admit this on a blog that my family can read, but last night's vcu victory over duke was a good thing for me only... all of the abbott guys went with duke! (it might be my feelings toward my parents' dog - named duke, of course - that i decided not to go with them this year...)

anyway, its a good thing i like basketball because otherwise, i think i would be a "basketball widow" during march madness. the brackets make the games interesting enough for the boys too, because it stirs up all sorts of competition between brothers!!

ed has his first practice for soccer tonight. he's joined an "over 40" league with a bunch of guys from our town, so this should be fun (i hope!).

the middle school has a dance tonight, but drew doesn't want to go. he says it isn't fun to just stand around in a dark room with music playing... hmmm, i remember liking jr high dances quite a bit but as i remember those times, i'm secretly relieved that he's not interested! of course, maybe he doesn't like them because they don't usually play heavy metal music? (since that's all he listens to!) he's headed to a friend's house tonight and then gets to babysit his brothers tomorrow night while we go out for st. patty's day. track is going well, so far, but i'm taking him to a doctor on monday to check on his knee (football injury from the fall). better safe than sorry, so i want to be sure there's nothing really wrong before he gets too far into the season.

taylor was very excited about the dance, but then announced last night that he wasn't going. that will likely change back and forth several times before tonight, so we'll see. since drew joined the school track team, taylor's interest in the sport has grown considerably. i hope it lasts because we think taylor would love track (and be good at it!), but you can't be on the team until 7th grade, so he's got to wait until next spring. in the meantime, he's getting lots of compliments on his babysitting skills (kids just love him) and still working hard to keep on top of school assignments. taylor's latest interest is woodworking. as often as he can (or rather, when he can't play runescape on the internet), he's down in the basement working diligently. i have no idea what he's making, but he's gathering every spare piece of wood and hammering away!

noah called me as soon as i got to work today to ask for a new shirt. apparently his shirt got caught in his locker and ripped. apparently, the hulk look doesn't work at school. i don't know what it is about that kid and clothing, but he's a "work hard, play hard" kind of guy and his clothes often pay for it!! noah's doing great work at school and seems to be getting better and better at the bass clarinet (new instrument he picked up this year... a few months after we bought his clarinet! oh well!). he loves playing music and is really excited about the progress he's making. now, noah is just itching for spring to come. noah loves being in shorts and t-shirts and playing outside. at least he got a few days on the trampoline before this cold front hit us!

as for evan, things are pretty much the same. he's doing well at school and just takes pleasure in all sorts of "little things". last night, he had an "aunt lucy" moment when he got to rip his sock up (it had a big hole). between that and the basketball bracket competition, he was having a blast. you know how babies will get all excited about a box rather than some fancy, expensive toy? that's ev. kitchen tools continue to be a favorite, but he'll take just about anything and find a way to play with it. ev is still playing soccer (and getting better!) and is getting ready for baseball this spring. and like noah, he's anxiously waiting for nice weather to play outside in! ev's teacher is a big sports fan and so he was really excited to take in his brackets today to show mr. may!

okay, that's it for now. i'll try to get the boys to write updates over the weekend! maybe...