Times are a Changin'

A conversation about homework yesterday:

Allie:  Mom, I don't get this!  I am supposed to look up my name and see if it there are greater than or less than 20 names.  What?!
Me:  Allie they want you to look up your last name in the phone book and then see how many other people are listed with your last name.
Allie:  Oh.  What's a phone book?!

Happy Birthday Luke

Happy Birthday Luke!  Mr. 6 years old on Thursday had a nice day.  His first gift came from our under-the-weather neighbors: a cool new bag.  He was super excited considering he had been carrying around his sister's Rapunzel "satchel" bag for weeks now.  Thanks Aunt Emily.

 

Don't breathe or you might get sick (at the neighbor's door for a happy birthday song).

The cake (Luke's request- a construction cake):

The kids were excited to have some surprise visitors over- cousins!  We didn't have to sing Happy Birthday by ourselves after all. 

Dad gave Luke a new chess set, the kind the school kids use in a little Cordula case with a roll-up board and big pieces (how nice and nerdy eh?)

 Thanks for the cool model airplane grandma and grandpa.

 

A scooter so he does not need to use Allie's pink version anymore.

An after church game with his sister- she was whipping him so Dad had to help out.  Allie almost took the boys out in the second round.

Luke's Birthday Cake Helpers

We practiced cracking eggs, mixing in the flour, adding the chocolate and combining all of the ingredients.  And then we licked the bowl while mom finished pouring the batter into the pan and putting it into the hot oven.  We are good helpers.

An Easter Weekend Tale

Oh the ups and downs of childhood.  The kids have been looking forward for days to our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.  It started at 1pm.  When we arrived at 1:04pm... it was already over!  Not a single egg left.  We had some very very disappointed children.  That was a bummer.
 
We went to play at the park to soothe their crushed hearts and then walked home.  That helped.

We ran into our next door neighbor on the way home and told him our sad tale.  He said we could hide eggs in his backyard.  So we made a quick scramble to get them ready and then the hunt was on again.  That really helped.

When we got home there was a message on the phone.  Luke won the coloring contest at a local grocery store.  And his prize?!  A NEW BIKE!  Now that certainly turned the day around!

"Call Me When I'm Ready!"

When nature calls, Wesley will come up to Joy or me and say "call me when I'm ready."  Translation: when he's done doing his thing, we'll come in and supervise.  The boy likes to take his time like any self respecting man.  Well, we wound up outside and finally noticed the eerie silence around our house.  We got to wondering where he was- usually he is difficult not to notice.  Joy remembered in a panic and went to check and well... 

He woke up a bit later and yelled "I'm ready are you coming?" and snapped back into his normal high decibel self.  We love our little boy (and our private blog).

Hooray!!!

I finally feel good again!  We all survived.  No one starved by my lack of cooking.  Even company (my sisters and mother came for a couple of days) were not terribly uncomfortable (I hope) by my lack of hospitality.  The weather has turned nice (well, except for the snow all day today) and we are looking forward to spring in all it's glory!  The kids are well, the Hunger Games was awesome (although I wasn't a huge fan of Peeta in the movie) Easter is coming this weekend, Luke's birthday is around the corner and summer is just a handful of weeks away.  So much to look forward to.  Still hoping to celebrate our anniversary (we have a pending double date with Carter and Jen) and we planted our grass!  More to come there.

Luke took this photo.  This is Wesley's friend Asher, Wesley, Rachel (who looks like a boy because she spilled something on her pink shirt while at our all-boy friend's house) and happy non-nauseated me!

I Get My Muscles From My Dad

 So you read the post below and tried to read Luke's shirt.  Joy bought it for him.  "I get my muscles from my dad"