A good spring week

Unlike the first couple of years we lived in New England, this spring has been nice and warm. That means a lot of days and evenings are spent on the hammock enjoying this:

The seagulls are always there, now so are the geese and an occasional swan and egret.

Ethan, Kirsti, and Ryan had their very first golf lessons this week!  They all did great and Peter and the instructor were shocked when Kirsti's first stroke ever had prefect form in the back stroke.  They will all be going back in a couple weeks for more.

Yesterday we cleaned all day in preparation for my mom coming next week. By all day I mean the kids and I were working for 6 hours. (We'd clean one hour and rest 20 minutes- 5 times). During the breaks I spent the whole time on the hammock relaxing. It is the best stress reliever around! After we finished, we went to Olive Garden dinner and Cold Stone ice cream. Very satisfying day!

And since I never posted this on my regular blog, here are some Easter pictures (they didn't turn out great, but they turned out.) O.o

May flowers, I mean fishers

So, Matthew has been doing preschool with the other sunbeam in his class. We have it twice a week and take turns teaching it at our houses. It has been a lot of fun and Matthew loves going. Anyway, here is a picture of him wearing H hats we made last week:

On the week we did "F" I made little fish for a fishing game. It was so much fun, Joseph and Matthew practiced all the next day. I also used it for a FHE game and I used it for singing time that weekend. It has gotten a lot of use, which is good because it took me forever! (Do you like the blue sleeping bag/makeshift pond?)

Also in the first half of May, Elise had her school play that her drama club practiced three days a week all year for. She had a small part, but did great in it. Joseph and Matthew, however, decided to make the performance as hard as possible for Peter and I (hence the lack of pictures). Thanks guys.

Ethan also had a field trip where he performed the dulcimer he'd made. It was a world culture field trip and there were several schools performing various world wide musical things. Very cool. I didn't realize the school they were at was 30 minutes away and didn't leave the house until 15 minutes before the start of the program. Luckily I made it in time to watch them!  Here is one of their songs:

Also, there was the father/son camp out (or fire camp as Matthew calls it). The boys look forward to it all year and had a blast! The girls and I had a girls night out with some friends who were also solo for the camp out. We went to dinner and then the local high school's play: Fiddler on the Roof. It wasn't bad, but then again I already knew it by heart. Mom, how often did we watch/listen to that movie growing up? 100 000 times? Elise and Kirsti liked it so well, they watched the entire movie the next day and now I am about to lose my mind with renditions of "Do you love me? Do I WHAT?!?"

The week of Ethan

The last week of April involved a lot of Ethan related activities. First of all, he had biography night. Joy of my heart, he picked Albert Einstein. Since it had already been a few months since his last haircut, we decided to let it go until after that night so he could do the crazy Einstein hair.   It took me three stores to find that mustache.  I finally gave up and went to Walmart where I found some white faux fur on clearance.  It made a perfect mustache.  The remnant I didn't use has been floating around the house ever since.  Just yesterday Joseph used it to make his chest hairy.  Like Gimly (the dwarf in Lord of the Rings).

If you can take the background noise (there were 4 stations going at once) here is a video of his presentation.  The IQ line is my personal favorite!

The next night was the pinewood derby. It had been planned a month before, but massive flooding had caused a postponement. Of course, we were only half way done with the car when the postponement was announced. And a month later, we had done nothing. So that is why the weights are glued on top and the paint is smeared with small specks of graphite in it. Anyway, unlike last year when he was 1st, he didn't place this year. But his friends took 1st and 3rd, so he was still happy. 

As you can see, we hadn't yet got the promised haircuts (although in the 2 1/2 weeks since all EIGHT of us have had a cut.)