Fun With Cousins

We're on Spring Break so we drove to Idaho to spend a few days with my sister, Tanya and her family. The weather hasn't cooperated but the cousins did find a few moments to play outside yesterday. Tanya's house is so fun with a swing set, trampoline, and an apple tree that just begs to be climbed! We will head to my parents house in Utah tomorrow morning for the rest of Spring Break.

Look Ma, No Hands!

After a year of not having a trampoline, I was surprised at how well Connor, Bryce, and Lauren could land their flips. We're glad Tanya's family has a trampoline for the kids to practice on!

Finding Your Happy Place

Bryce found his happy place!

Happy Birthday Hunter!

Hunter had his birthday party at Laser Quest. In the days before his party, I was getting really nervous as we hadn't had anyone RSVP. Thursday, I had Hunter call the people he invited to see who was coming. In the end, only 2 friends didn't make it but 2 of Connor and Bryce's friends came instead.

When the kids signed in for each game, they chose their game name. Hunter chose Tic Tac for both of his games. The kids all had a good time and Hunter was happy with his gifts which was mostly of the green variety. He went today to Walmart and blew almost all of it on a new Star Wars Lego set.

Happy Birthday Hunter! I can't believe you are already 10!

The Zoo

I went with Lauren on her field trip to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Amazingly, my group was well behaved and everyone had a good time. We didn't get to see all the animals because the bus was leaving but we were happy with what we saw. Hopefully we can go again and spend more time at each exhibit and see everything. Maybe next time we won't get rained on either!

St. Patrick's Day

It all started yesterday at the Music Store when the salesman asked Kiersten if she had a green dress to wear for St. Patrick's Day. Kiersten of course, wanted to know what St. Patrick's Day was. I decided to really get in the spirit today with the kids. We had green pancakes for breakfast, Kiersten had green macaroni and cheese for lunch, and for dinner we had key lime sherbet and Sprite Shakes. Kiersten also wore green goggles to swim lessons.

Connor asked me why we were celebrating St. Patrick's Day when we have never done it before. I told him it was because Kiersten was so excited about St. Patrick's Day. He told Kiersten to get excited about every holiday so we can do more "special" things to celebrate. I answered with my standard response, "We'll see."

H2 Whoa!

Connor had his Spring Band Concert tonight. Every piece with the exception of one, had to do with water. If you are really interested in hearing the Sequoyah Middle School Beginning Band, I am posting the three songs they performed. Connor also is in Band Club which played two songs but we didn't record those.

Connor is sitting on the right side of the band, on the left of the girl in the green shirt. I know it is hard to see so I thought I'd give you a heads up.

Connor's Band Teacher, Ms. Kreider, had her left arm in a sling because sometime between the end of school and the concert, she had a piano fall on her arm. She left right after the concert to go to the hospital. This will be one concert she will never forget!

Adventures in hauling wood Part II

Finally, after 6 weeks, we are seeing the end of the pile of wood in our driveway. Thanks to a couple of friends, one who lent us his chainsaw and one who lent us her log splitter, all the wood has now been cut down to size and split. The kids have been working hard the past 2 days to stack all the split wood. Keith especially has been working hard with the chainsaw and log splitter. There is still wood in the driveway waiting to be stacked but we are hoping people from church will want what is left.

Epic Sayings

Once in a while one of the kids will say something that cracks us up for years to come. The last epic saying before today was when we were driving out to Utah for Tanya's wedding. Bryce was 4 years old at the time. Since we were driving west, the sun was setting and the angle of the sun hit the kids right in the eyes. Bryce was complaining about the sun but there was nothing we could do about it. His reply was, "Do you want me to go blind?"

Today we woke up to frost. Keith was getting ready to take the boys to school so Connor thought he would help out by scraping the windows. He scraped the top of the windshield instead of the middle of the windshield to which Bryce said, "We're not looking for airplanes!"

Hopefully the kids will continue to keep us laughing through the years!

Museum of Flight

There are several museums around Seattle that sponsor free admission on the first Thursday of every month. We went to the Museum of Flight tonight. It was pretty cool with tons of airplanes on exhibit. I would have liked to spend more time reading all the exhibits but with Kiersten and the others in tow, we had to book it through the museum. I was able to catch a few photos of the kids before my battery died and I wasn't able to get a picture of Keith or Connor.

One exhibit had small model planes which were used during WWII. There were probably two hundred of these little models and one person built them over the course of 7 years. If only I had that much free time on my hands!

Color Crayons

Both Kiersten and Lauren LOVE to color. We have many sets of crayons, markers, and colored pencils scattered about the house. Grandma Lois came to visit last week and lucky for me, she loves to color with the girls. Many hours were spent coloring with Grandma. Kiersten is showing off her Pony Picture she colored with Grandma.

Polka Dots

I saw a really cute idea on another vinyl web site. Since Lauren and Kiersten already have a bedspread that has circles on it, polka dots were just the thing they needed for their walls. Even better, there was no painting involved! Both girls love their updated room. We will have to see what Papa Reid says next time he comes to visit and has to sleep in the pink polka dot room!

Science Fair

I really hate the Science Fair. I dislike picking a topic, conducting the "experiment", and compiling the data on a tri-fold board. I really do not like any part of it. At Hunter and Lauren's school, the science fair is only mandatory for 4th and 5th graders so we got off with only one project this year. Hunter chose "Which Brand of Microwave Popcorn leaves the least Kernels". Fortunately for me, this was something he could do mostly by himself. All of the kids benefited by eating all the bags of popcorn he popped.

When it came time to compile the data, Hunter wrote out most of what he wanted to say. Even though I hate the tri-fold board displays, I hate worse display boards that look sloppy. I told Hunter we could vinyl his board to make it look neat. Usually this is not a problem and goes about as quickly as trying to write in straight lines. Not this time. For some reason the vinyl was not cooperating and it took 4 hours to get to where we were ready to apply the words to the board. I was beyond frustrated and didn't take too kindly to Keith's suggestion that maybe we should just write on the board. My stubborness would not let me quit but in the end, the display looked very neat and definitely not sloppy.

Hunter received a 95% for his project with the only fault being his graph that was missing a label on one of the axes. I am glad to be done for another year.