Ping Pong, Masks, Snow & More

What do you do in the wintertime?  I'm not sure of the rest of the words to the song, but around here our activities vary! 

Cal has been into acquiring pennies.  He's taken several trips to the bank to cash in bills for pennies.  A couple of times the kids have sorted them and created art with them.


We finally got some snow here and there.  What a weird winter we had.  Sadly we missed out on a really good snowstorm.


To lighten up the long, drawn out winter, I surprised Lee with a ping pong table topper!  Well, I didn't get it to light up the winter, but just because I wanted to surprise Lee. It was so fun having it out.  We have put it away and need to get it out again soon. It fits great on the table with the extension in it.




Once we put the table away the kids still wanted in on the action...


Elden and Haley made it on the Character Counts board at school!




I went in one afternoon to "help" some fifth graders with masks.  I actually didn't do much, but I was glad I was there.








Cal also enjoys making 3D drawings. Pretty fun! 




And Haley likes making pudding...instant and tapioca.  And we love eating it!




We went to a special women's meeting in Richmond.  Elder Renlund and his wife Ruth spoke to us. Such great testimonies were shared, and they are hilarious!  I enjoyed riding down with friends and spending the night at my friend's parent's house.  And I got to see a former sister mission, Susan Tunks, and a younger current sister missionary Sister Grigg!  Love these ladies!


The next day I met up with the family at EMU.  The kids had their yearly piano festival.  They play two memorized pieces for judges.


That night Lee drove back to Richmond with Clark and Cal.  They enjoyed a special fireside with Elder Renlund as well. It was packed for both events!


Sleeping in a metal basket is always a good idea...


Clark finishing up his Eagle work!


On Sunday, after the two special firesides, we had a special stake conference with Elder and Sister Renlund.  We were encouraged to be at the church building, as opposed to watching the meeting via broadcast in our local ward.  We arrived two hours early to the meeting because I wanted a great seat!  Well, we got one!  And it was fun because Troy Buer, who was in Marshall Branch with me, is in our stake and the current young men's president, his wife spoke at that conference.  I would have been very nervous speaking along side an apostle!


We were too busy the day of St. Patrick's day to celebrate, so we had a belayed dinner on that Sunday night of corned beef and cabbage.  Yep, my kids love it!


Here is that penny art.  Pretty awesome!


Lee randomly received this bag in the mail.  I claimed it.  Sadly it was very wimpy and I think ripped my first day using it!


With extra indoor time, it means extra indoor activities.  Shanna and the other kids love slime and playing with it.  One of Shanna's creations:


And a required creation Clark had to do for advanced geometry.  Pretty awesome!


A couple weeks later we got more snow.  This snowfall was more substantial, which is always nice! Outdoor fun.






Indoor fun!










Time to prep those Easter eggs again!






And we FINALLY cleaned out the shed.  Finally.  It's so much better now! I wish we would have taken a before picture.  I still am a firm believer in the remove-everything-then-sort-and-trash-the-stuff-then-move-your-saved-stuff-back-in method.  I saw it on a blog a couple years ago and I use it quite often. The best way to organize and clean areas!


A few pictures of things we wanted to remember but not keep.






That afternoon we went to our neighbor boy's birthday party.  He and Elden are the same age and have a lot of fun together.  That evening we headed to Bruster's Ice Cream for pj night.  Wear your pjs for a free, small ice cream cone! Yum! They have "big" small cones.


We've been making changes around the house.  I guess it was finally project time.  We added some new shelves in two of our closets.


And a fun primary sharing time I put together....


At a friend's house for Sunday dinner.


Haley enjoys little crafts like this detailed scissor cutting, and then taped it upright on the bar.


The other house project is having this new cabinet built.  We hired someone to do the bulk of the work.  There were a few problems with it and it's still not perfect, but it's finally done.  I'll have to show some after pictures.  We are slow getting things done around here.  Well, I am! It's finally painted with food items moved in.  We took out the storage shelves from Clark and Cal's room and moved the bedrooms around.  I didn't realized how many things those two big shelves held!  We definitely lost good storage space.  All the kids are downstairs now and we now have a playroom upstairs.  Maybe more pictures to come?  One favorite change I love is that we had an electrical outlet installed in one of our closets so our printer can be in there. It's a wireless printer and it works great in that space.  Love it!