Happy 7th Birthday, Ashley!

Ashley turned 7 and we celebrated with a Dolly and Me Tea Party.  We invited a couple of little girls from her Primary class to help her celebrate.  We made paper dolls and played doll themed games such as Musical dolls, find the mini doll under the cup, and a treasure hunt to find their doll friends they had brought that "wandered off" during the party.  :)  It was such a sweet party and day.  We are so blessed to have this sweet, creative, funny imaginative little girl in our family.  

Uh Oh!

Somebody climbed on the stool his big sister left out and decided to play with the butter.  What a mess!

Vegetable Soup

This morning I found the kitchen sink sprinkled with lots of little pieces of cut up, wet construction paper. I asked who knew anything about it. Ashley responded, "Oh, I made Adam vegetable soup for breakfast. But he didn't eat it. So I dumped the soup in the sink for the garbage disposal." 

:)

The Story Game

Yesterday Daddy and I were enjoying sitting in the living room with the windows and sliding door open, listening to Alexis, Emily, and Ashley outside on the back porch swing. They were playing "Add on to the Story" where each person adds a sentence or two and you keep going until you get a whole elaborate story. Alexis and Emily were trying very hard to keep the story going in an interesting, varied direction but every time it came back to Ashley she would add in an unrelated part about a talking pickle. They kept laughing and telling her, "There are no talking pickles in our story!" But she would keep insisting every time there was. :) Daddy and I just kept laughing.

We are truly blessed. :) <3 span="">

Mother's Day

1. 
   
2. 
   
3.  I often go walking in meadows of clover,
   And I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue.
   I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over;
   Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.
4. O mother, I give you my love with each flower
   To give forth sweet fragrance a whole lifetime through;
   For if I love blossoms and meadows and walking,
   I learn how to love them, dear mother, from you.

Flowers, homemade cards, and little homemade gifts.  I am so blessed to be the mother of these sweet children.

Franklin Park Conservatory

Today we decided to check out the Franklin Park Conservatory's Butterflies and Blooms.  We had never been there before and I am so glad we decided to go!  They had all sorts of cute displays and things to explore.  They had a demonstration about glass blowing which was interesting, although I'm not sure but that my children were a bit more interested in the Mama bird feeding her babies in a nest above the demonstration.  It was so sweet to watch!  The highlight of the day was the butterfly room and getting to not only view the many butterflies, but hold them, as well.  That evening when we got home we decided to do a little gardening.  We planted some little plants and Adam had quite fun playing in the mud.  

Family Spring Day

Today was the sort of day that was too nice to spend indoors.  Daddy was off so we called school off for the day and spent the whole day outside playing.  We started with a morning outing to the park.  We fed the ducks and walked around OSU Newark's campus, looking at all the statues.  The children played on the playground and we had a picnic lunch.  After that, we headed home and it wasn't long before somebody noticed it was quite breezy and a perfect afternoon for flying kites.  With deep blue skies and temperatures in the 60's, it was the perfect kite flying weather and everyone had fun getting their kites to soar.  After flying kites, the kids decided to do a little bike riding.  Ashley has never been interested in riding a two wheeler until now, so Don put the training wheels back on the little princess bike the older two girls learned to ride on and helped her get the hang of it.  She found it hard to petal, but she kept on trying and Alexis and Emily really cheered her on.  Of course, Adam couldn't be left out, so he followed along with his little ride on toy.  It was such a wonderful, peaceful day.