Spring has Sprung!

Sadie and Ada attended a preschool program (run as a class at our local high school) this year and LOVED IT! They came home every day with new crafts and projects and songs they had learned. Here they are the week before Easter when they had an Easter egg hunt.

I love hearing the occasional "Want to be best friends?" . . . It doesn't happen every day, but when these girls decide to get along they are so sweet it brings tears to my eyes.

Michael remains an amazing little boy.  Ooops! I mean "big boy."
This kid soaks up knowledge like a sponge, is always thinking about something, and forever asking questions. He was accepted into the gifted program at school starting next year, so hopefully he'll have a teacher who's able to quench his curiosity. 

Michael LOVES chess --so much so that I volunteered to run the school's chess club, just so he would have a way to play with other kids. I am not a great chess player (Yes, I admit Michael has beat me fair and square several times), but we spent the year learning together and had a great time.

Joseph continues to be a joy to everyone in our family. He is such a happy little guy that the kids routinely vie for his attention. (Ada: "Oh, Joseph. Want to come play with me?" Sadie: "No, he's playing with me right now, Ada!" Ada: "Come on, Joseph. I'll let you play with my monkey." Joseph eyes the stuffed monkey and happily defects.)

Strawberry picking by myself with four small children was quite an adventure . . .  Only Sadie ended up lost, and I think there were less than a pound of strawberries ingested before we could weigh and pay for our buckets. So, I guess I can chalk that up as a successful outing, right?

This was the closest I could get to having all four kids looking at the camera at the same time. Michael has entered that boyish stage of refusing to smile for pictures. At least in this one, he's not making funny faces or giving someone bunny-ears.

The Saturday before Easter, we had a lovely celebration at my cousin Charlotte's house again this year.

It was wonderful to visit with everyone

and as always, we came back with LOTS of candy, despite my personal quest to fill as many eggs as possible with non-candy substitutes. (Yes, I know it's not as exciting to open an egg and find a sticker instead of a roll of Smarties, but do kids really need to ingest two pounds of sugar and food coloring every major holiday?)

The kids had Easter baskets waiting for them Easter morning at home, too. . . . Yes, I broke down and gave them a little candy, too. 

Camping with Aunt Sarah was so fun last fall that we decided to do it again in April! 

And Matt was able to come this time too this time.

Our shelter wasn't quite as nice as the previous one, but we made due. Apparently it has been some time since someone had used the shelter, and the door was left unlatched during that time. We found lots of bugs and spider webs, and a pair of wrens made a lovely little nest inside the shelter just above the door. (You can see it in the corner of the picture with Sarah.)  We didn't realized it was occupied until one of the birds starting flying around our heads as we were arranging our sleeping bags Friday evening. We finally managed to get him outside, but the next morning we found the second bird, presumably the mother, flying around trying to get outside for breakfast.

Because there was large thunderstorm passing through, we packed up a little earlier than expected. (No fire-grilled eggs and bacon for breakfast. So sad. We had to make due with leftover hot-dog buns and tortillas.)  And we left the door open for the birds to come back to their nest.

Michael had his first team-sports experience this spring playing soccer. It was great.  Their coach was so patient and encouraging!  He was on a team of all beginners, so there was a big learning curve for everyone.  

When Michael scored two goals in the same game, he was on top of the world!  . . . We already signed him up again for the fall.

Just a cute moment I caught --two boys and a book.

Mr. Smiley

One morning after breakfast, I was cleaning up the kitchen, and Joseph was "cleaning up" the kitchen table (i.e. looking for tasty things on other people's plates that they hadn't finished eating). One of the kids saw him doing this and pulled the chair he was standing on away from the table, thinking it would simply pull him away from the food.  Instead, Joseph landed mouth-first on the edge of the table and then head-first on the floor.  He knocked some teeth pretty badly --one was chipped and one was loose and bleeding. We put in a quick call to my brother Jeremy (a dentist) who reassured us the loose tooth would probably go back into place by itself, which it did within a few weeks.

This was one of Joseph's few sad faces. --He was sick with a high fever, so who could blame him?-- He's even cute with a sad face!

Here is Michael on his field day. They had all kinds of creative games to play --much more fun than the boring relays we did in my elementary years.

We are still gardening --if you can call it that.  At this point, I know we've put so much more money into trying to get things to grow than we have saved in actual produce. But it's fun, so we're going to keep doing it. With my dad's help, we actually added a lot more beds along the back fence this spring, so maybe eventually it will all equal out . . . 

We would have had a decent potato crop if it hadn't rained non-stop for two month straight. Most of the potatoes rotted in the muddy soil, but we managed to salvage a few.

One thing that has grown really well is our zinnia patch. They just keep going! The girls bring me new flowers several times a week, so it's a good thing I have so many little vases for them. I keep them in the kitchen window so they can brighten my mood even while doing dishes. They really are very cheery flowers.