Bike Rides and Picnics at the Park

Bryan surprised us all by getting the morning off of work so we decided to take advantage of the time we had with him. We got up and ready and took a family bike ride to the church. We played some basketball there. (I beat Bryan in a game of around the world, and he beat me in a game of PIG) Then we rode our bikes home. As soon as we got home Bryan had to leave for work, and the kids and I packed a picnic lunch and headed to the park. We had a lot of fun there playing, eating and throwing rocks into the river. Unfortunately it started to rain so we had to come home. Then we were able to rest for a while and get the house clean. The kids worked so hard that I let them earn $2 each for their efforts. $2 at our house is a fortune, I normally do things one quarter at a time. They could not believe that they had earned 8 quarters!! After a long day, we put the kids to bed and enjoyed watching the Office (which was over really fast!) As I reflect on my day I realized that I had learned a lot of things. Here are a few:
1) Kaylee is growing up faster than I realize. She rode her bike with training wheels the entire way. It was the first time she has gone on a bike longer than just to the corner and back. She learned how to get up and down from the sidewalk to the road so quickly, after just a couple of tries she managed it without having to have a push at the end.
2) I LOVE the Playtex bottles. You know the ones with the liners in them. I have always liked this kind of bottle, but it was especially nice when we were riding our bikes home and Ashton got hungry. Now for those of you who are not familiar with Ashton's eating habits he is a very sporadic eater, sometimes he only goes 2 hours between feedings and other times it is 6-8 hours. But whatever the time frame, when he decides he is hungry he will scream until he gets fed. Anyway, I was able to squeeze the air out of the bottle and he could drink it from a sitting position. It was great.
3) I really like doing stuff with my kids. Don't get me wrong, I have always like doing stuff with my kids. But this week has shown me how much fun we really can have together. It does not all have to be work work work. I would have loved to have gotten more housework done, or at least a little laundry done this week, but the time I have spent with my kids has been priceless. We are thinking about extending our word of the day for longer than just spring break, and I think I will let the kids plan the menus more often. They love knowing what is for each meal.
4) I am grateful for inspired church leaders who help me know which directions to take my life, for having been raised by great parents who taught me well, and being surrounded by friends and family members (whether physically surrounded our just being able to communicate online or over the phone), and a husband who knows and loves me more than I can understand.
5) My life is truly blessed.

Green Kitchen

Well, thanks to Andrea's help over the last two days I was able to finish the kitchen. I still have some touch up work to do where the tape was, but here are some pictures anyway. The kids all helped with one more wall and played really well while we worked. (I did bribe them with 2 quarters if they played upstairs while we finished) Ashton has decided to roll over every time he is put down on his back, but he does not like to be on his belly, so he cries a lot, oh well. I tried to tell him "umbrella" but it did not work, I guess we should have picked out a new word for the day. Oh well.

Umbrellas & Dummies

Day two of spring break was (for me) even more fun than day one. I broke through the spousal opposition and painted my kitchen walls! I went with a fairly dark green. Unfortunately I only almost finished the first coat, so there will be no pictures until tomorrow. The kids had fun, I let them help a little bit, then later on Trevor wanted to help some more, so I told him that he had to get all the little kids to play upstairs, then he could help. He energetically offered to turn on a girl movie "Ariel" (which convinced Kaylee and Addisen and you guessed it...Nathan too) that going upstairs would be fun. Then told Kaylee he would probably be reading in his bed. He went to his room and made a dummy in his bed with pillows under the covers and a hat on the pillow. Then he propped up a book to make it look like he was reading in his bed and snuck downstairs. It worked pretty good, he did get to help for a while before the younger kids wandered downstairs. The word of the day was umbrella, but we were so busy and having so much fun that we didn't have to use it at all! Go figure, so we decided to use the word umbrella today as well. Trevor wrote a story yesterday about how much fun he was having on his spring break. It made all the work worthwhile.



Oh yeah!!! One more thing....Ashton rolled over!! He has been really close for over a week, but last night we put him in bed and then when we came in to check him he was sleeping soundly on his belly. Guess that means no more putting him on the couch, and I have to keep my floors clear of small objects (yeah right, like that is really going to happen!) Maybe we should just pray really hard that he does not choke on any small objects!

Cucumber

Spring break is here for my kids and I decided that instead of just trying to endure it, that I would try to make it something fun. So on Sunday we sat down and made a schedule where the kids each picked out some fun things to do. They also go to plan the entire menu for the week. The first day I think was a success. We got to go to the library where the kids got to check out some books on their very own, brand new library cards. Trevor had even held some on the computer for himself. Then we did my weekly shopping, that's right with all 4 of them! It was not to bad. Then we went up to Bryan's work to pick him up. It is a 35 minute drive each way and Trevor read an entire Magic Tree House book (Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve) in the car. We spent an hour there, playing in the hot tub and watching movies. The kids love the clinic because they can play with all the exercise equipment and eat all the candy they want. We have also implemented a word of the day. Monday's word was cucumber and when ever anyone said it, everyone had to smile, no matter how upset they were. It worked pretty good, even Nathan said cucumber to people to make them smile. We are looking forward to the rest of the week together.

Jog-A-Thon

The kids came home a while back with a form to collect pledges for the schools first annual Jog-A-Thon. They needed sponsors to pledge an amount for each lap that they ran. If they collected $25 in pledges they would get a cool T-Shirt. I hate hitting up friends and family for stuff like this (they do have one more week to collect pledges though just to let you know) So I decided to pledge $1.00 per lap for each kid. For some reason I thought that they would be running around a normal sized track and in the back of my head I thought, OK the kids will run for 1 hour so I think they could at max run around a normal sized track about 6-8 times. Well this morning was the big event, and while I was getting ready the thought hit me that elementary schools don't have a normal sized track, then I thought....Oh no!! They are going to be running laps around the gym! And I pledged $1.00 per lap!!! They are each going to run like 50 laps! I was trying to figure out a way to get out of paying my pledge, or at least changing to $0.25 per lap as we pulled up to the school. Luckily they had the kids running laps around on the playground. It was not as big as a full sized track, but it was about half that size. The kids had a lot of fun, but it was really cold and windy. I am not sure on the totals so I think that they each ran about 20 laps. Nathan even went once around with Trevor! Not to bad, I will have to pitch in the extra five to get them their shirts I guess.

Easter Eggs

We had a lot of fun this year, we had a primary Easter egg hunt, then on Saturday we died eggs, it took almost 3 dozen this year! We will have more next year too, wow! The kids all got new shoes and electric toothbrushes in their baskets along with tons of candy. Easter Sunday was great. Barlow and Andrea came over for dinner, then we watched Enchanted, then had a game of Settlers with brownies and Italian Sodas. What more could you ask for? (Other than more family and a Settlers tournament!

My Kids Favorite Things

I thought it would be fun to ask my kids what their favorites were so that you could all get to know them a little better. But I put them in the wrong order so if I were you I would scroll down and start with Trevor's then read Kaylee's then Nathan's and then Ashton's. It will work better that way. Anyway.....enjoy!