Thankful Thursday

Of the many blessings I have, I am thankful for:

- Fast moving lines
- Sunshine
- Kind, calm people in a normally stressful environment
- Turkey sandwiches
- Deviled eggs
- Window seats
- Wifi
- My iPod
- Having an Android phone

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Easter

^"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."

-John 3:16-17

Beautiful day with my beautiful family. Enjoying each other's company and delicious food, cooked with love. I have a thankful heart. His grace & his love are humbling.

Happy Easter.

Earth Day 2011

The kids and I are pretty earth conscious year round; try not to be wasteful, recycle, reuse, etc. But it was still fun to do some extra things just to celebrate earth day.

We cleaned up the yard a bit. Jackson got to learn how to use the lawn mower and the kids were discussing who was going to get to mow the lawn this summer. They both wanted to do it! Great for Rusty and I since we wont be doing it every week. I'm pretty sure, however, that the novelty of mowing will wear off fairly quickly, so we'll see how long it lasts. We planted some wild flower seeds & grass seed, especially for shade,  to try and fill in the bald spots of the lawn next to the garage. I hope it fills in well.

Our neighbor's tree drops lots of pine cones in our yard over the winter. Instead of throwing them all away, we gathered up a basket full and made bird feeders out of them. We headed to the park to place our bird feeders in the trees. Of course we played for a little bit too, but it was still a bit chilly. We also took some fun pictures on the grass to spell out "Earth Day". I was cracking up watching the kids try a figure out the best way to make each letter.  We picked up any trash we saw at the park and threw it away before we left.

It was the perfect day to drop off our growing pile of newspapers at the recycle bins at the back of Jackson's school.

 Here's a picture Ashleigh colored. I love it.

Spring Break

The fruit trees are flowering and bulbs are blossoming but mother nature still isn't convinced it's spring around here. So, while I would have loved to have spent spring break in shorts and flip flops, lounging poolside, we still made the most of this cool weather.

I printed off lots of coloring sheets & mazes for the kids to do. Popsicle sticks, a glue gun and a rainbow of paint colors alone are good for endless possibilities...and hours of entertainment.

We cooked, we baked, we played and we crafted all week long. Jackson had a sleepover Monday night; had I not told them to lay down and start a movie around 1 AM, they may have stayed up all night. I admit it was great to hear them laughing and giggling all night long but I don't like going to sleep while they are still up and it was past my bedtime. Tuesday I took all three kids to see a movie. They chose HOP, it had some funny parts and was pretty cute. The boys sat in the very front row at the theater!

A few of my favorites projects were the string eggs we made by dipping embroidery floss into starch and wrapping it around balloons. They turned out fantastic! I wish we would have made more. I'd love a whole basket full of them. We'll have to make them again next year.

Dying flowers was fun too; the kids liked watching the food coloring drops as much as watching the flowers change colors over the last few days.

The most delicious project were the edible nests, complete with eggs. Yum!

Didn't take a picture of the cookies, but looked like these

 We did head out to the park on Thursday, even though the weather wasn't great. We played for about an hour on the playground before the wind started to pick up. I had two kites in the trunk of my car (meant to go with their Easter baskets) and I couldn't resist giving them to the kids early. A windy day and the wide open field of the park; what a perfect time!

The tails on the kites were much longer than I was expecting, they looked great and the kids loved it. Ashleigh had to chase after her kite after letting go of the string, but lucky for us the sting snagged on a tree and we were able to get it back. We must have been quite the site to see however because the tree it got stuck in was young so we couldn't climb it without the branches simply breaking off. Our solution was Ashleigh standing on my shoulders stretching up as high as she could to reach it!

Ashleigh's kite had Buzz Light Year, a character from one of her favorite movies (Toy Story), as the kite launched into the air she proclaimed, "To infinity, and beyond!", which is his tag line. Very fitting.

I had just pulled my phone out to take a video of the kids flying their kites and Ash let go of her string again. All I could do was stand there and laugh as she was screaming and running after it. I thought for sure it was a goner but we recovered it again. The third time however, she wasn't so lucky:

I wonder if it's still stuck in the tree. I told Ash I would buy her a new kite but next time we are tying the kite string around her wrist! haha   By then the wind was really blowing hard and it was starting to rain. It got very cold, very quickly so we headed home to snuggle up with some snacks and a movie. 

Thankful Thursday

Of the many blessings I have, I am thankful for:

• Self propelled lawn mowers
• The smell of fresh cut grass
• Power windows
• Umbrellas
• Kites, especially with long tails
• Having things to be excited for
• Nature hikes
• Living here for 20 years and still discovering new places to go and new things to see
• Inspiring movies
• My kids wanting to help the less fortunate, even on their own 

The funniest thing..

I'm sitting here updating my blog and Jackson wants to use the computer to play a game. He's been playing with little ninja action figures from the goody bags for his party. He put one ninja on my left shoulder and told me it was the bad version of me and on my right shoulder put another saying it was the good version of me; he whispers into my ear with a little accent for each ninja:

bad ninja: "Don't let Jackson play the computer"

good ninja: "Please let Jackson play the computer because you are such a nice person. You are kind and nice like Jesus because he shares everything."

Hahahaha! I'm sure it was one of those you-had-to-be-there moments but I laughed so hard because it was unexpected. Where does Jackson come up with this? He is so funny.

Party Time

Although our family celebrated Jackson turning 8 on his actual birthday, his party, with friends, was this weekend. He was very selective and only wanted to invite four of his closest friends from school. He took invitations to school on Monday, and by Friday night I had not gotten a single R.S.V.P.  Jackson was worried that no one was able to come or his friends forgot to show the invitation to their parents. Only one guest ended up attending, but It was his very best friend, John. They started laughing and having fun the second he got here. I don't think Jackson even cared that no one else was able to come. Actually a  bit excited that the two boys had a chance to earn double the prizes from the games. (Ashleigh was happy that she could play too and get a goody bag.)

They played the 'fruit loop' game first. Where they race to eat fruit loops off a string, without using their hands.

 Next was the 'cotton ball' game, which is a family favorite of party games. The object is to move as many cotton balls as possible from one bowl to another, using a spoon, while blindfolded. It's much harder than it sounds and usually there's only a few cotton balls that end up in the second bowl. The best part comes from the other people watching. All the spectators Ohh and Awe about how many cotton balls they have actually moved and make it sound as if theres a huge amount collected. When the player takes off the blindfold there are usually only a few cotton balls in the bowl.

Jackson won 1st with the fruit loop game and John got 2nd. Ashleigh got 1st with the cotton ball game, so they all got to pick prizes. We had them wrapped so they got to pick one. They were all wooden animals (snake, lizard, crocodile, and scorpion) that came with paint and a brush. (One of Jackson's favorite craft store projects).

Next was food & gifts. The request for the party was pizza & cupcakes...and the chocolate fountain. We had marshmallows, pretzels and strawberries to dip in the fountain (which is always a hit). The cupcakes were vanilla with vanilla frosting and with a wide variety of sprinkles on hand, Jackson wanted each person to be able to decorate their own.

Jackson was excited to get a Nerf gun from John. It was identical to one Jerrick & Sierra had given him for Christmas. Now he can have Nerf wars and it be a fair battle. After eating, I put on the tattoos they got in their goody bags. Then they painted the wooden animals and played games on the trampoline until it was time to leave.