Holiday Buntings

I have had a crafty bug lately. (This is likely due to the germy bug that spent two weeks over-staying its welcome in our family. And just when we thought things were on the "up and up", Daniel starts coughing.)

I've already kind of shown you my St. Patrick's Day craft. Here is a better picture. It was really easy to make and was done in one day. (Joseph was trying to get in the picture.)

And here is one that replaced it today. This one was pretty easy, too, though more involved. It took a few days, because of several interruptions.

Now I have to decide what else to make!

I'm confused

I really am. Summer vacation started today...May 25th is the first official day of no school. We have 3 full months of it to go.

Take a look at this weather forecast. Does this look like weather that we should be having the last week of May? I'm feeling more "first week of April" here.

We'll start our worksheets next week, but I'm still feeling really disoriented by the cold and rainy/snowy days. I keep reminding myself that this isn't Spring Break or a teacher workday. These kids are HOME!

My brain is waiting for the smells of summer...sun-warmed/fresh-cut grasses, warm rains, weeds fresh from the garden soil, etc. Only then will I stop standing in the middle of the room, in the middle of the day, wondering: Why are there so many kids in my house (and why is the biggest one involved in at least 3 different altercations at the same instant)?

Spring fever

The kids have a nip of Spring Fever lately. The sun is reluctant to make any prolonged appearances, so it's been one of those situations that you take advantage of the good moments.

The kids had fun with the camera. I'm so grateful the digital age has arrived because I wouldn't be able to afford so much film. They'll likely have fun looking back on themselves in these silly poses when they're older.

If you tell Joseph to make a silly face, he'll happily comply.

Daniel is wooing the camera. Look out girls...you're next!


Joseph loves this house. Leah won't go in it very much because of spiders. (I tell her the spiders are everywhere outside...not just the playhouse.) We're glad Joseph is not afraid of spiders. He'll even attack them (and bees) with a rock in his hand.


Nice. I only allow this picture so that I'll be more motivated to skip the treats.


Daniel's 4th grade Idaho History presentation was this week. He memorized a small part that portrayed him as someone important to Idaho's history. I'll have to come back and edit this post if I find out.


The 4th graders had to learn some square dancing. Daniel was not thrilled that he had to dance with GIRLS! Hopefully, he'll find a girl or two shorter than him when it really matters. Even better, I hope he'll find a girl worth the time and it won't matter what size she is (to either of them).

One of my favorite kind of pictures to take is of the kids sleeping. I've gotten some really great ones. Chad captured this one of Joseph. He LOVES those boots! Definitely appropriate spring footwear.

"Feed The Birds"

Once upon a time, not so long ago (a couple months, really), I made bread.

It was my great idea to include some dried cherries from my cupboard. Ordinarily, this would have been a very yummy idea. As is turned out, the fruit was probably older than Joseph. The unfortunate result was 5 loaves of mostly delicious bread with a somewhat rancid taste.

It tasted best fresh (a term I can only use loosely when some of the ingredients were about 2 years past their prime). It was palatable toasted, if you told yourself not to think about it. And if you drank lots of milk.

But after the first loaf, I knew I would not be eating any more.

My husband was very kind. He used it for lunch sandwiches. When I remarked that it was nasty, he replied, "It's not bad." Eventually, the 2nd loaf was gone.

A couple of weeks ago, he pulled a 3rd loaf from the freezer. OK. Enough is enough. That bread is NOT good! Stop eating it! He said it was good. At that moment, he lost all the credit he's earned over the last 11 years of eating my failed cooking. I thought he suffered through those meals, but it turns out he really doesn't have any taste buds.

I got out a loaf of GOOD bread (don't mind tooting my own horn here) and forbade him (I'll pretend it this way...makes me look powerful) to eat the yucky one. A couple of days later, I took the kids to feed the birds...with an entire loaf of bread.


We took advantage of sunny spring day and headed for the Greenbelt in IF. This was the week Rebekah had been sick and I was tired of being stuck at home. We didn't stay too long and Rebekah was feeling pretty yucky by the time we left.

Yep...mid-April and we still have brown grass and leafless trees. But at least we can get by with only jackets and the snow has melted.

The girls were very good about sharing their chunks of bread. We thought we were going to feed the ducks, but we had more seagulls than anything. Luckily, homemade wheat bread is very filling (even for birds) and we had plenty to go around.
Joseph was more than willing to throw out the bread. I nearly lost baseball-sized chunks of bread at his doing, but grabbed his arm quickly enough...several times.

Sarah sat behind us at a safer distance from the water. She doesn't know she missed out on throwing bread. She'll get it next year.

There is a little war memorial in the park that the kids had to check out. Heavy weaponry...the perfect backdrop for a snap shot of children!

I hope no other little kids stopped by to feed the ducks this day. We filled them up so much that they had started swimming away!

FOOLish

I've been missing! Actually, I've been in Chicago. There will be more on that another day.

But today was April Fools' Day. And what a day it was!

Here was one of the biggest jokes played:


We drove home in a blizzard last night. The snow (magically) stopped at the state border, but it caught up with us today. The kids made several large (3-4 foot diameter) snowballs in only a few seconds. They were in heaven.

Then Daniel got one of his bright ideas and Chad's hand saw.

A snowball wedge anyone? You may notice Daniel's lack of winter gear. That's the foolish in the April Fools' day. I would say it's his age, but I rather think it's just him.

Because we were out of town until late last night, my April Fools' Day (from now on, it will be AFD) planning was poor. Actually, I forgot all about it until earlier this morning, I think. Last year, we were visiting in Utah and I had to resort to pouring chocolate milk on the kids' cereal. There was even less planning then. Two years ago, I went all out. (Read about it here, but scroll down most of the page to find it.) Today I found some good ideas that didn't require much work or planning.


We had cake for dinner and baked potatoes for dessert.
Leah referred to the cake as "healthy cake". She just didn't know exactly what it was...until we cut into it.

It's meatloaf layers and mashed potato frosting with cherry tomato strawberries and ketchup writing. It was very yummy! We also had salad.

Daniel was not enthusiastic about his dinner.

We hinted about dessert enough that he finally choked it down...mostly.

Dessert was vanilla ice cream, shaped and rolled in baking cocoa powder, with a dollop of whipped topping sour cream. It wasn't until the kids actually dug into their potatoes that they realized it was ice cream. :)

This was a lot of ice cream to eat in one sitting! And I think I've had enough cocoa powder to last me a little while.

Here was one of the potatoes before I started peeling. I almost felt sorry for this guy! He looks like he knows what's coming. Those eyes came off nicely under my vegetable peeler. I thought it was a very appropriate potato for the occasion.

Sarah sat in the high chair and played with her tray during dinner. What a cute girl!

Now, Easter is officially the next holiday. I boiled 3 dozen eggs this morning. We'll probably decorate them tomorrow night. I also got out the Easter bin to take a mini inventory. I found another AFD surprise inside:

Somehow, we missed this little fellow in one of the Easter baskets last year. Two peanut M&Ms sat out in the garage for a year. If I was about 30 years younger, I'd probably eat them anyway. They've surely melted and frozen a time or two. Yummy. I threw them out; Joseph cried.

And speaking of Easter...the girls wore their dresses to church on Sunday. Leah's holding her matching purse, but you really can't see it against the dress. Joseph is missing a shoe as a result of a tantrum at picture time. What a great-looking bunch of super kids!

Our Easter Events

Easter is at least a 3 day event for us. This year we started with egg coloring on Thursday night. Rebekah couldn't remember coloring eggs last year, so it was all new and exciting for her. Everyone got into the fun and before we knew it, all 35 eggs were colored.


Leah likes to combine her holidays. She's got her Halloween shirt on here.













Joseph is coloring his only egg here. He did try for the easier way to get that egg out. Yes, his hand was orange.













Nathan used the most concentration decorating his eggs.













Daniel probably used the least. He did end up with a green thumb...that should help in the garden next month.

Rebekah was surprisingly deft with the little wire. She really only cracked one egg and it was the first time she picked one up.














This picture says it all. They had messy hands for a few days.

Our egg hunt was on Saturday. Here are the baskets all ready for the kids. You can see some of the "hidden" eggs on the back of the couch.














The butterfly nets were a big hit. They were only $1.25 at the grocery store. Best news? We haven't broken one yet!

The bubbles were pretty exciting, too. Look closely and you'll be able to see some. Poor Joseph was wistfully watching the fun. Like our vibrant-green grass? Spring is reluctantly coming to our corner of the world.

The best part of the day was the actual egg hunt! With 35 real eggs and at least that many candy-filled plastic ones, everyone had plenty of chances to find an egg.

It looks like Nathan is sliding into home to get this egg.













Daniel helped Joseph find some eggs. Actually, Joseph didn't have any trouble finding the eggs, he just didn't know what to do with them next.













And here is our Easter dress picture right before church. This is one of the reasons we made it to our bench just as the meeting was getting started. You'll notice Leah's pleasant expression. She doesn't like wearing tights. (Actually, she doesn't like wearing much of any of her clothes, but that's a different post all of its own.) You may notice that Daniel doesn't have shoes on. He still doesn't know where they are. The boys have matching ties, excluding Joseph.

And that's our Easter story in pictures. On Sunday, we had a ham dinner. Chad made it and it was very yummy. Next we had FHE on the Easter story - complete with 12 plastic eggs, each filled with a scripture and something to do with the story. We watched "The Lamb of God" and then ate a bunny cake I'd picked up at the store.

Everything is now put away and there is only a handful of that blasted plastic grass floating around the house. I really like holidays, but I'm so thankful when they're over. The kids really like holidays, too. They just wish they'd last more than one day. (Rebekah was convinced that today was Easter, too.)

And here's a little proof that the Easter Bunny really did come to our house!

Sing with me!

If you've spent any time in Primary at all, you'll be able to sing right along:

I looked out the window and what did I see?

Snowflakes falling and many bare trees.

Isn't it nice? It's now May 12th. Someone get Mother Nature a new calendar!

May-ry Christmas!

Yes, folks, it's May. I think that's supposed to be a spring month full of beautiful flowers and blossoming trees. But here is a picture shot yesterday, late afternoon. Yesterday was May 9th. Summer starts next month. No flowers, but lots of snow flakes. Luckily, it was gone today and the weather was PERFECT. I even rode the riding lawn mower and mowed 3/4 of the lawn. Crazy Idaho.

The big TaVaci concert was this afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa Black and cousins Ethan and Andrew came to watch and support Daniel and Leah and play with everyone. (Do you realize that I just used 6 'and's in that sentence?) I have some pictures and videos, but I also have laundry. So maybe I'll get it posted tomorrow.

The kids had fun playing with their cousins and grandparents. Thank you for coming!!

MAY DAY! MAY DAY!

This is a MAY DAY distress call!

Someone has stolen Spring, Summer and Fall and returned Winter. Be on the look out for suspicious persons attempting to conceal lots of sunshine, warmth and beautiful vegetation.
*
Use caution as suspects may be mentally unstable and unpredictable. Perpetrators may be headed south, hoping to blend into their surroundings more easily. All you folks in Arizona and Texas be especially watchful!
*
Dispatch all law enforcement with due speed as the seasons must be replaced ASAP. I have a garden to plant and I may kill the kids if they have to spend one more day playing inside! The snow pants are packed away and I refuse to get them out again before October.
*
Good luck on your mission to help Mother Earth regain control. We are on your side!