Spring is in full swing here and I am loving the warm weather! The pretty tree blossoms are disappearing and the green leaves are popping up practically everywhere. Yearly spring activities have happened around here like Spring Fling, the Spring Piano Recital and the Aaronic Priesthood Commemoration Camp-out (AKA Fathers and Sons Camp-out).
For the kids' birthdays we let them pick one treat under $5 at the grocery store. Shanna and Haley each picked a tub of vanilla ice cream swirled with orange sherbet. Thankfully they have eaten it pretty sparingly here and there, along with sharing it with siblings.
Spring Fling at our elementary school was the second Friday in May. It's such a fun night, but it's also super busy. As the PTA treasurer I was in charge of getting all the money change for the different stations. Once spring fling was over I was also in charge of counting the money. It took my friend and I two hours to count it.
Clark stayed home from Spring Fling this year as we weren't go to be doing any fun activities for very long. Haley was home sick with strep, so it was nice that Clark hung out with her. Elden used his tickets on the big slide, and he also enjoyed a snow cone.
Shanna and Cal played the "wind tunnel" game twice. Each of them grabbed a couple of dollar bills, along with coupons to redeem for full-sized candy bars. They quite enjoyed that!
After our short jaunt at the school we picked up Haley and Clark and headed into Harrisonburg. Lee grabbed some pizza and after we ate he headed off with the boys to their yearly camp-out commemorating the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood here on the earth. Read about the priesthood--the power of God on the earth--here. Did you know that there is a new visitor center almost completed in Harmony (now called Oakland Township), Pennsylvania? I am sure I have seen the statue/monument that is currently there as we toured that area when I was younger. I am excited about the new visitors' center. I guess it will open this fall.
With the boys on the campout the girls and I eventually headed back to the school to count money. Haley was basically out of the 24-hour-contagious-zone so she came along too, and I didn't want to leave her at home while it was dark. She and Haley watched an Ernest movie while we counted money.
After dropping off over $9000 of spring fling money at home (I deposited it in the bank the following morning), the girls and I went to DQ to get our treat for our girls' night. We pulled into DQ at about 10:05. Well, they close at 10:00. Ugh. I told them we could go back tomorrow or go to the grocery store and pick out some fun treats. They chose the grocery store.
After arriving home and creating our desserts, we watched some Kid History and then I watched A Chef's Life on the PBS Roku channel.
The boys didn't get home till almost 4pm the next day which was kind of fun because Friday night had been busy. The girls wanted to do a craft and pulled out their letter and paint Lois and Jeff gifted them for their birthday. Later we went on a bike ride behind the community center here in town. There are a bunch of trails back there--I've never been back there before! I ran while they rode their bikes. I wanted to run 2.5 miles in, and then do 2.5 miles back. It was really slow going and the girls were done before we had reached a mile. We did do 1.5 miles, then turned around. I finished running when we got home. After we were home I heard Haley tell Shanna, "Can you believe that mom ran all that way?" Pretty cute! And I quite enjoyed the comment I must admit!
They were excited when I said they could turn on the sprinkler.
Ah, the care-free life of little kids!
Meanwhile, back at Slate Lick Lake...the boys had a great time! Lee bought a four-man tent a few days before the camp-out. He recently bought a 2 man tent for Clark's first scouting camp-out, and we already have a big 8 man family tent. The 2 man would have been too small for 4 guys to sleep in, and the 8 man much too big (and more time consuming in setting it up). I told Lee that he'll be going on this yearly camp-out with all the boys for 6 more years and would get good use out of a 4 man tent during that time. So we decided to get yet another tent. Within the last couple of months we went from a one-tent family to a three-tent family! Cal helped set-up the tent. It was nice and quick! I am guessing maybe Elden helped too? At least he helped make the photo more interesting, ha ha.
Elden loved playing frisbee with Lee that night. Apparently he did not want anyone else to join in on the game...just him and dad. I think his love language is quality time, like Cal.
They had fun playing in the river too.
The boys enjoyed singing the campfire song to us that they learned at the program that evening.
The next morning after a yummy breakfast and packing up, they eventually headed to the church for a scout activity. There were a few parts to the activity. One being an epic Nerf gun battle. Clark enjoyed gathering the guns and bullets that we own to bring to the activity. Quite the layout in the church gym!
After they ate lunch they headed out on a bike ride. It was great because Lee fit all the boys bikes-and his-in the back of his Mercury mini-van. Hopefully we'll get a 4-bike bike rack this summer. Too bad they don't make a 7-bike bike rack. Time for a truck, right?!
Once the guys were home and unpacked, Lee grilled some delicious burgers and we headed out the door to a benefit swing dance at a local high school.
I didn't quite know what to expect. There weren't a ton of people there and the only other adult dancing was a biology teacher. He was really good and danced with the girls, and showing the teenagers some swing moves. He was a "grandpa" age, so for me it wasn't weird at all seeing him dance with the girls, if you were wondering. In one other song a couple that was chaperoning did dance. It was quite awkward getting out there and dancing with a bunch of teenagers we didn't know. I was glad that teacher was out there dancing. It encouraged us to do the same. We danced several songs, then left. We took a little walk in Massanutten, and drove around deciding where to go and what to get for a dessert. We finally settled on DQ. Yay for DQ being so close! All the other restaurants that we wanted to go to closed at 9! On a Friday too! We thought that was too early, ha ha.
For Mother's Day Lee bought me 5 different colors of roses. The kids made me cute notes and cards (except for one...I won't hold a grudge, ha ha).
At school Shanna and Haley made "coupons" for me to redeem. I've actually used a couple already! One was for breakfast in bed-from Shanna. Haley used her's at the same time-cook me an egg-and they brought me a yummy omelet. Thanks Lee for assisting them. Then after breakfast in bed everyone joined us for our morning scripture reading in our bedroom. I used one more coupon that morning-for Haley to make my bed.
Apparently Shanna's vision is similar to mine and Clark's. She is getting glasses!
Some of the cards...
The top one here is from Haley. Cute notes. I love it when my kids write me notes.
In other spring news...we've been working on our front porch. We thought we could knock out this project in January. Little did we know that we had to wait for the weather to cooperate! We're still not done...I think my paint job (not pictured) on the porch was a huge fail. It would be great to just say, oh well, but more time, money and hard work will be involved in fixing the paint job I am sure. I'll do a post about the whole porch sometime soon, when it's really done!
Getting the porch ready to paint!
One night Clark and Cal were supposed to be sleeping or at least being quiet in their room. I found them in the girls room looking at Tikki Tikki Tembo.
There are a couple of field trips left for the kids, but last Friday I went on one with Elden. Every year the kindergarteners sell popcorn to earn money to buy books on a field trip. There is a book warehouse of sorts here called the Green Valley Book Fair. The kids earned enough money to spend $10 each at the book fair, and to buy popcorn and supplies for the future kindergarteners' popcorn sales. After getting books, and for Elden a little stuffed lizard, we headed to a local park for lunch and playtime.
We are at the end of a chain for a Flat Stanley project. I need to send it back to them tomorrow. I was supposed to send a postcard of my area, but didn't try hard to find one. I snapped this picture instead.
This is funny...look what came in the mail to me from Walmart? It's a general ad promoting the independent doctors of optometry that work at Walmart....which they then hope the patients will in turn purchase glasses from their optical. I thought it was funny since Lee does this, and they got my name wrong!
National Chocolate Chip Cookie day was Friday night. After we arrived home from playing tennis for our date, I made some. I love cookie dough batter much, much more than the actual cookies!
A creation Clark recently made. Kids' minds blow me away!
Now for the last "spring" bit in this blog post. The Spring Piano Recital!!! I enjoy going to these. Cal didn't seem to care either way about playing in it, and Clark loves when he is DONE playing.
They each played a solo and a duet. Maybe sometime Lee will play the duet with them. Well, with Cal. Clark doesn't like that idea.
The boys enjoy their teacher and I enjoy that they ride their bikes to their lessons!
If you want to watch/hear their songs.....Cal played "Follow Me" and "Chocolate Song"
Clark played "Topsy Turvy Rag" and "Swinging Smoke Signals". Clark wasn't fully ready with his first song, and it sounded better when he played it at home earlier. He had it all memorized though, which again is amazing to me.
One of my three future missionaries!
Yep, my little boy with a stick and a Lego motorcycle, ha ha.
And lastly we've been doing little projects here and there. Lee is one awesome handy man! Here is the (old) main water shutoff valve to our house. It wouldn't completely shut off the water. Not helpful!
Lee successfully put in a new shut off valve. And now we can turn off the water to our house!
And here is that $8 part I mentioned earlier that fixed our cruise control problem, and our getting-stuck-in-park problem.
We finally put down mulch in front of our house. We did a little bit last year, but actually never finished. Now to plant some more plants and replace that ugly, smashed rain gutter! Owning a house is never boring!
Happy Spring everyone! Only 12 days of school left! I am so excited about summer. It's almost here!!!
For the kids' birthdays we let them pick one treat under $5 at the grocery store. Shanna and Haley each picked a tub of vanilla ice cream swirled with orange sherbet. Thankfully they have eaten it pretty sparingly here and there, along with sharing it with siblings.
Spring Fling at our elementary school was the second Friday in May. It's such a fun night, but it's also super busy. As the PTA treasurer I was in charge of getting all the money change for the different stations. Once spring fling was over I was also in charge of counting the money. It took my friend and I two hours to count it.
Clark stayed home from Spring Fling this year as we weren't go to be doing any fun activities for very long. Haley was home sick with strep, so it was nice that Clark hung out with her. Elden used his tickets on the big slide, and he also enjoyed a snow cone.
Shanna and Cal played the "wind tunnel" game twice. Each of them grabbed a couple of dollar bills, along with coupons to redeem for full-sized candy bars. They quite enjoyed that!
After our short jaunt at the school we picked up Haley and Clark and headed into Harrisonburg. Lee grabbed some pizza and after we ate he headed off with the boys to their yearly camp-out commemorating the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood here on the earth. Read about the priesthood--the power of God on the earth--here. Did you know that there is a new visitor center almost completed in Harmony (now called Oakland Township), Pennsylvania? I am sure I have seen the statue/monument that is currently there as we toured that area when I was younger. I am excited about the new visitors' center. I guess it will open this fall.
With the boys on the campout the girls and I eventually headed back to the school to count money. Haley was basically out of the 24-hour-contagious-zone so she came along too, and I didn't want to leave her at home while it was dark. She and Haley watched an Ernest movie while we counted money.
After dropping off over $9000 of spring fling money at home (I deposited it in the bank the following morning), the girls and I went to DQ to get our treat for our girls' night. We pulled into DQ at about 10:05. Well, they close at 10:00. Ugh. I told them we could go back tomorrow or go to the grocery store and pick out some fun treats. They chose the grocery store.
After arriving home and creating our desserts, we watched some Kid History and then I watched A Chef's Life on the PBS Roku channel.
The boys didn't get home till almost 4pm the next day which was kind of fun because Friday night had been busy. The girls wanted to do a craft and pulled out their letter and paint Lois and Jeff gifted them for their birthday. Later we went on a bike ride behind the community center here in town. There are a bunch of trails back there--I've never been back there before! I ran while they rode their bikes. I wanted to run 2.5 miles in, and then do 2.5 miles back. It was really slow going and the girls were done before we had reached a mile. We did do 1.5 miles, then turned around. I finished running when we got home. After we were home I heard Haley tell Shanna, "Can you believe that mom ran all that way?" Pretty cute! And I quite enjoyed the comment I must admit!
They were excited when I said they could turn on the sprinkler.
Ah, the care-free life of little kids!
Meanwhile, back at Slate Lick Lake...the boys had a great time! Lee bought a four-man tent a few days before the camp-out. He recently bought a 2 man tent for Clark's first scouting camp-out, and we already have a big 8 man family tent. The 2 man would have been too small for 4 guys to sleep in, and the 8 man much too big (and more time consuming in setting it up). I told Lee that he'll be going on this yearly camp-out with all the boys for 6 more years and would get good use out of a 4 man tent during that time. So we decided to get yet another tent. Within the last couple of months we went from a one-tent family to a three-tent family! Cal helped set-up the tent. It was nice and quick! I am guessing maybe Elden helped too? At least he helped make the photo more interesting, ha ha.
Elden loved playing frisbee with Lee that night. Apparently he did not want anyone else to join in on the game...just him and dad. I think his love language is quality time, like Cal.
They had fun playing in the river too.
The boys enjoyed singing the campfire song to us that they learned at the program that evening.
The next morning after a yummy breakfast and packing up, they eventually headed to the church for a scout activity. There were a few parts to the activity. One being an epic Nerf gun battle. Clark enjoyed gathering the guns and bullets that we own to bring to the activity. Quite the layout in the church gym!
After they ate lunch they headed out on a bike ride. It was great because Lee fit all the boys bikes-and his-in the back of his Mercury mini-van. Hopefully we'll get a 4-bike bike rack this summer. Too bad they don't make a 7-bike bike rack. Time for a truck, right?!
Once the guys were home and unpacked, Lee grilled some delicious burgers and we headed out the door to a benefit swing dance at a local high school.
I didn't quite know what to expect. There weren't a ton of people there and the only other adult dancing was a biology teacher. He was really good and danced with the girls, and showing the teenagers some swing moves. He was a "grandpa" age, so for me it wasn't weird at all seeing him dance with the girls, if you were wondering. In one other song a couple that was chaperoning did dance. It was quite awkward getting out there and dancing with a bunch of teenagers we didn't know. I was glad that teacher was out there dancing. It encouraged us to do the same. We danced several songs, then left. We took a little walk in Massanutten, and drove around deciding where to go and what to get for a dessert. We finally settled on DQ. Yay for DQ being so close! All the other restaurants that we wanted to go to closed at 9! On a Friday too! We thought that was too early, ha ha.
For Mother's Day Lee bought me 5 different colors of roses. The kids made me cute notes and cards (except for one...I won't hold a grudge, ha ha).
At school Shanna and Haley made "coupons" for me to redeem. I've actually used a couple already! One was for breakfast in bed-from Shanna. Haley used her's at the same time-cook me an egg-and they brought me a yummy omelet. Thanks Lee for assisting them. Then after breakfast in bed everyone joined us for our morning scripture reading in our bedroom. I used one more coupon that morning-for Haley to make my bed.
Apparently Shanna's vision is similar to mine and Clark's. She is getting glasses!
Some of the cards...
The top one here is from Haley. Cute notes. I love it when my kids write me notes.
In other spring news...we've been working on our front porch. We thought we could knock out this project in January. Little did we know that we had to wait for the weather to cooperate! We're still not done...I think my paint job (not pictured) on the porch was a huge fail. It would be great to just say, oh well, but more time, money and hard work will be involved in fixing the paint job I am sure. I'll do a post about the whole porch sometime soon, when it's really done!
Getting the porch ready to paint!
One night Clark and Cal were supposed to be sleeping or at least being quiet in their room. I found them in the girls room looking at Tikki Tikki Tembo.
There are a couple of field trips left for the kids, but last Friday I went on one with Elden. Every year the kindergarteners sell popcorn to earn money to buy books on a field trip. There is a book warehouse of sorts here called the Green Valley Book Fair. The kids earned enough money to spend $10 each at the book fair, and to buy popcorn and supplies for the future kindergarteners' popcorn sales. After getting books, and for Elden a little stuffed lizard, we headed to a local park for lunch and playtime.
We are at the end of a chain for a Flat Stanley project. I need to send it back to them tomorrow. I was supposed to send a postcard of my area, but didn't try hard to find one. I snapped this picture instead.
This is funny...look what came in the mail to me from Walmart? It's a general ad promoting the independent doctors of optometry that work at Walmart....which they then hope the patients will in turn purchase glasses from their optical. I thought it was funny since Lee does this, and they got my name wrong!
National Chocolate Chip Cookie day was Friday night. After we arrived home from playing tennis for our date, I made some. I love cookie dough batter much, much more than the actual cookies!
A creation Clark recently made. Kids' minds blow me away!
Now for the last "spring" bit in this blog post. The Spring Piano Recital!!! I enjoy going to these. Cal didn't seem to care either way about playing in it, and Clark loves when he is DONE playing.
They each played a solo and a duet. Maybe sometime Lee will play the duet with them. Well, with Cal. Clark doesn't like that idea.
The boys enjoy their teacher and I enjoy that they ride their bikes to their lessons!
If you want to watch/hear their songs.....Cal played "Follow Me" and "Chocolate Song"
Clark played "Topsy Turvy Rag" and "Swinging Smoke Signals". Clark wasn't fully ready with his first song, and it sounded better when he played it at home earlier. He had it all memorized though, which again is amazing to me.
One of my three future missionaries!
Yep, my little boy with a stick and a Lego motorcycle, ha ha.
And lastly we've been doing little projects here and there. Lee is one awesome handy man! Here is the (old) main water shutoff valve to our house. It wouldn't completely shut off the water. Not helpful!
Lee successfully put in a new shut off valve. And now we can turn off the water to our house!
And here is that $8 part I mentioned earlier that fixed our cruise control problem, and our getting-stuck-in-park problem.
We finally put down mulch in front of our house. We did a little bit last year, but actually never finished. Now to plant some more plants and replace that ugly, smashed rain gutter! Owning a house is never boring!
Happy Spring everyone! Only 12 days of school left! I am so excited about summer. It's almost here!!!
1 comment:
Great job on being an awesome Mom and making out house a home! Love you!
Post a Comment