March Madness in the Titler house!

This such a funny example of the personalities of our children...
So the Hoosiers have been hot this year and, although I have cheered the boys on during good AND bad, the kids really caught the fever this year!  Fair weather fans.  Eric had them fill out their NCAA Tournament brackets this evening. 
1) Rylie picked who she thought would win each round based on familiarity and hopes.  She picked based on places we've visited or lived, people we know and also tried to create "Cinderella stories").
2) Madelyn picked her winners based on logic.  She analyzed the win-loss records and discussed the strength of the teams' schedules with Eric.
3) Kai picked his winners based on who's the best, not surprisingly all #1 seeds made it through.  You may think he did that because he's 4, but you must understand that the boy can't STAND to lose ANY competition.  Whether it is football or Wheel of Fortune, he will change his allegiance depending on who is winning.  He often says, "I'm cheering for the one in the weed (lead)."  I won't be surprised if he throws his whole bracket out by round 2, pops his thumb in his mouth and pouts for the rest of the tourney.  As a side note, he had a really hard time not picking Butler to win because, as he says, "I loved that it has 'butt' in it"--typical boy, typical Warren.

They all picked IU to win!  No matter the personality, they are all smart!

Funny stuff and other updates

My family often asks what Kai is saying that's funny these days.  The thing is, he's hilarious all the time so it is hard to pinpoint certain things.  These come to mind:

Watching the IU game, he points to the guys in their warm-up suits and says, "Mommy, they are wearing their pajamas!"

He is fascinated with the Wax Vac infomercial .  This is a product that claims to clean the wax out of your ears with ultrasonic technology.  For a while, he was convinced that Madelyn was going to buy him one with some of her birthday money.  Several weeks later, I gave him a pretend credit card that I got in the mail and asked what he was going to buy with it.  “A Wax Vac, a pretend one.”  Two months later, he says, "I wish people wouldn’t give me stickers all the time (stores, church).  I wish they would give me money so I can buy a Wax Vac."

"I either want to be Spiderman or Superman when I grow up.  I’m not sure which one yet."

This is just sweet goodness: I ask, “Kai, why do we sing songs about Jesus?”  Sweet boy answers, “Because he loves us.”  The maturity of that answer from a 4 year old astounds me.  We love because he first loved us. -1 John 4:19.

A funny one from the girls:

One day, we drove by a homeless man with a sign.  Madelyn asked, "Did his sign say Homeless?" Rylie adds, "A vegetarian homeless?"  It really said, “Veteran Homeless”.  We are sorry we had an uproarious laugh at your expense, poor homeless man.

In other general updates, we have been busy with school projects, visits to the local museums (Children's, Fine Art and Science) and libraries for theme events (like celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday) and tennis lessons for the girls.  Rylie participated in her first one-mile-fun-run as part of her school's 5K fundraiser.  We thought this might be a great way for her and Eric to exercise together.  Unfortunately, she said she's never doing that again.  It didn't help that she was in the throws of a stomach flu at the time, but...

Coming up, we are looking forward to having our friends Jen and Michael, the Barradales, and my mom and sister visit in the next few months.  We are heading to Charlotte in a few weeks for Spring Break to spend time with family and friends and getting excited about Brian and Sandi's upcoming wedding in a month.  And, we're looking forward to Flying Squirrel baseball season starting; we are so close to the stadium that we can walk there. 

Still desperately searching local friends for everyone!  Madelyn has been blessed with her new friend, Lily, who's in her class and lives down the street.  Kai loves spending time with his friend, Cooper, who is the son of our long-time Richmond friends, John and Jill.  I guess the problem really resides with Eric, Rylie and me.  boo hoo.