Messy Children

I was browsing through some of my pictures from this month and I realized I had several pictures of very messy children.  These first pictures were taken on a slightly rainy day where the kids were also using the water hose and making lots of mud.  Emily didn't get too bad, (I think she mainly played with the hose), but Alexis and Ashley were quite muddy.

Then a couple of weeks later we had Nana and Papaw over for Family Home Evening and we celebrated Papaw's birthday a day early with some chocolate cake.  Emily loved licking the bowl.

Then just a couple of days later, Ashley disappeared while I was doing the morning dishes.  I usually try to find her right away, but I was enjoying getting them done quickly without interruption so I waited a little too long.  When I went to check on her I found she had gotten into the treat box.   (We have a box in our pantry we keep leftover candy in from various occasions.)  She had found a big heart shaped valentine made from chocolate and apparently loved it.  Needless to say she went right into the tub after this picture.

Mini Vacation to Columbus

Don always has a couple of times each year he has to go into Columbus for training.  He normally stays at a hotel there and he's pretty busy with classes and simulator time.  He wasn't due for training until May, but in April another pilot called in sick during his training and his partner needed someone to share the simulator with.  So that meant Don got to fill in for the sick pilot and would only be working from 5:00 until around 9:00 each evening.   So we decided we would go with him and have a little mini vacation swimming in the hotel and going to a few fun places in Columbus.  The first day we drove into Columbus and went to Cosi.  The girls had lots of fun playing with all the different exhibits, but we could tell Emily wasn't quite herself.  She kept telling me she was fine, but I could tell something was off.

Sure enough, after a couple of hours she kept asking to sit in Ashley's stroller and finally admitted that maybe her tummy was hurting.  So we headed over to the hotel.  She ended up having some sort of stomach virus.  Having a sick little one throwing up and fevered, away from home in a hotel,  and Daddy gone all evening training was NOT fun.  But we managed alright.  She slept a lot and I had a little DVD player with us so she watched movies on that while Alexis and Ashley watched movies on Don's computer and played with a few toys I brought along.  The next morning we headed back to the house so that Emily could rest better and we'd be at home in case anyone else got sick.  By that night she was much better although it was still a couple of more days before she was completely well.

On Sunday we were all planning on going to Marietta to see our niece, Emma get baptized, but Sunday morning Ashely woke up and threw up.  I made her a little bed on our ottoman and prepared myself for a long day of a sick baby but in reality that was it.  After about an hour of resting she perked up and started playing.  Not long after she started begging for grapes.  I reluctantly gave them to her, thinking she was probably going to throw them up, but she didn't.  In fact she asked for more food and she ended up being perfectly fine the rest of the day.  We called it her 24 minute virus.  Luckily Don was with us all day until he had to go to work so we got to spend time together and Nana even called us on her cell phone right before the baptism started and we got to listen to the whole thing via speakerphone.  We even sang along during the all the songs.

So the next day we headed over to Columbus again.  This time we had lots of fun swimming and everyone was well.  :) 

Ashley got a bit cold by the end and kept saying, "Brrrrr."

After eating lunch we laid her down for a nap.

Then we all headed over to zoo. 

We spent our afternoon exploring the ocean exhibits.

We also headed over to the Australia exhibits and saw the kangaroos.

The kids ended the afternoon playing at the playground area.

Since it was Daddy's last day of training we all headed home after that.  Even though it was cut short, we all had a fun little mini vacation close to home.

Book Club

We are lucky to belong a monthly book club with a few other local homeschooling families. Last month was our first meeting. We decided to read "Trumpet of the Swan" for the month of March. The girls LOVED this book and were so sad when it was over. Then the first Wednesday in April we met together to do a couple of activities with the kids related to the book. I forgot to bring my camera to the meeting, but the kids all said their favorite part of the book, we made a chart graphing everyone's favorite character, and then the little ones colored a picture of a swan and the older ones made an origami swan. Emily really wanted to make an origami swan, as well, even though the children her age were coloring, so I helped her make one. She was really proud of it. When we got home I took pictures of them with their swans. Next month we'll be meeting at our house and doing activities for the book "Heidi".

Early Summer Fun

We've had some very unseasonal 80 degree weather this spring at different times. We've had fun with it by filling up the little pool and playing in the water while we hold our homeschool outside. We've put the water to good use by practicing measurements and pouring and capacity. We also made a homemade compass with a needle, magnet, a bit of cork, and a dish of water. The girls were amazed at how the needle just knew where North was every time time, no matter how they turned they dish. I haven't taken many pictures during this time, (probably because I was busy teaching and didn't think of it), but I did get this cute one of Ashley, all excited to play in the pool with her sisters.

Starting Our Garden

We have started our garden this year.  Alexis and Emily have a little garden that we'll plant after frost danger is over.  We had an old wooden frame of a sandbox we weren't using.  So we decided it would make a cute little area for their own garden.  Alexis and I painted it white and we still need to stencil some pretty butterflies and flowers on it.  We also planted some strawberries, blueberry bushes, potatoes, and spinach.  We have little starter plants growing of tomatoes, broccoli, and a few herbs.  We have plans to plant a lot more after the frost danger has passed, of course, but we have a good start.

Happy Easter!

This Easter weekend was especially meaningful this year, since it also fell on General Conference weekend.  It was so nice to be able to hear the General Authorities voices speak of Christ's love for us and of the importance of family as we celebrated throughout the weekend.  We started on Friday by making some simple little bunny crafts and baking a yummy Easter cake.  It was a new recipe and big hit with everyone. 

Emily especially loved licking the bowl.  :)

After dinner we had a small egg hunt outside.

When we got back inside we took all the pictures out of the eggs.  We arranged them in order and told the Easter Story. 

Then we colored eggs.  Ashley thought this was wonderful and she squealed in excitement.

After the girls got their pajamas on they decided to do an Easter play for us.  It was really cute.

The next morning we got up and found the Easter Bunny had been here.  We looked for all of our eggs he had hidden.  This year Ashley was old enough to understand and get into finding eggs, as well.

The Bunny his their baskets in the guest room closet, but we found them, and they had fun looking through all their candy and new toys. 

They thought their bunnies were tasty, although no one really made a mess this year.  Not even Ashley.  She nibbled neatly at her rabbit.

We got the girls dressed and then we hid plastic eggs out in the yard for them to find for fun. 

Afterwards they played outside for a while and Alexis and Emily began digging a hole to the center of the Earth.  Ashley thought this made a great seat for her.

After the first session of conference was over, we played a few fun Springy games, such as rolling eggs with our noses, an egg on a spoon race, and a rabbit hopping race. 

The best surprise was that Daddy got to be here Easter Sunday.  We thought he was going to be gone flying, but they had him be on call at home that day.  :)  We had fun listening to conference.  We had a tent set up and the girls played with their new color wonder glittering princess markers and pages.  I also printed out lots of different conference fun pages for them to do mazes, color, cut, bingo with M&Ms, dot to dot, paper dolls, etc.  We worked on a jigsaw puzzle of Christ and took walks in between sessions.  It was a cozy, relaxing weekend.