Tradition

One tradition our family has is to snap a family photo every Easter Sunday. When we first started this, we'd get the 35mm camera balanced on a stack of books just right, situate everyone in the right place, push the timer button and dash into place. Usually at least one person ended up pulling a face like this:

But we love the results, so we continue taking our family picture each year. Here are a few from Easters gone by...

2004

2007

2009

Happy Easter!

Another Staple... Another Birthday

Last August, while the kids were playing outside, Nathan got hit in the head and had to have 2 staples put in his head to hold the wound together. Sunday morning at about 3:30am, Nathan fell out of his bed and hit his head on the changing table... yet another trip to the ER and one staple was put in his head. Our poor little Frankenstein's monster.

Rio turned 6 years old yesterday. She had a great birthday! She & Harrison went to school for a while, then came home for lunch and then we went to The Magic House for the afternoon. We love it there anyway, but now it has a brand new expansion open so there were lots of new things to see and do. After Micah went to an afternoon class we went to McDonald's to play and eat. We came home and the birthday girl blew out her candles and opened a few presents. Thank you to all who sent cards or called to wish her a happy birthday.

File Folder Games

The File Folder Game. A simple activity game made from laminated paper cutouts and Velcro all tucked neatly into an ordinary file folder. These games keep kids occupied and teach simple lessons from the story of Noah's Ark to learning shapes.

My friend has these and shared them with my kids a few weeks ago. They loved them so I made some and we played with them today during General Conference. I think the ripping sound the Velcro makes is too noisy for church, but the places to use these games are endless. Instead of using a traditional manila folder, I used plastic ones so I didn't have to laminate them. Also, instead of making little pockets to hold all the cutouts, I just stapled a Ziploc sandwich baggie to each folder to store all the pieces.

Now I will incorporate the "Chain of Love" my sister-in-law started. The first 5 people to comment on this blog get something (one of these file folder games) from me. It doesn't matter where you live - near or far - within a month you will get something homemade from me. The catch? Post this message on your blog and do the same thing for 5 more people! Can't you just feel the love?

White & Nerdy

We love Harrison and Rio's teachers and know they are getting a top notch education. Everyone is so nice and respectful to us, and our kids have great friends at school. If you went to an assembly at their elementary school you'd be able to pick out Harrison and Rio quite easily because they are in a minority group - only about 5% of of the kids there are white. So when we saw

this video

we couldn't help but wonder if this would be in our kids' future.

All in good humor.

My Friend

Kendra's family moved into the house directly across the street from mine when I was only 3 or 4 years old. As little girls we'd have tea parties with our Cabbage Patch Kids, sleep-overs in the back yard, and pretend weddings with the neighbor boys. I remember, as teenagers, staying out late on countless summer nights talking and laughing together.

Here are a few of the reasons I love Kendra:

She's genuine in all she does.

She's beautiful.

Her smile and laugh are infectious. Sometimes I call her if I'm down because I always hang up the phone smiling.

"What's Up Doc?"

She's a wonderful wife and mother to her 2 sweet children. An example to all women of how we should live our lives.

And she's my dear friend.

Happy Birthday Kendra!

Happy Vernal Equinox

The first day of spring was the kids' last day of spring break. I took them to the St. Louis Zoo for the afternoon. After figuring out how to get there while avoiding the mess on Rt.64/40 (thanks Chris and Claire), we had a great time. The St. Louis Zoo is the best zoo I've ever visited... and it's free! It was a beautiful day to visit the zoo, see all the animals, and enjoy a picnic lunch together.

Projects

When I learned that Micah would be home for 2 weeks I started thinking about all the things that needed to be done around the house. I made a "honey-do" list and stuck it to the fridge. I'm pleased to say that a couple of the things actually got done. This project, however, was his idea. Micah made a cat scratching post for Junie and she loves it. Having him home has spoiled me (we watched seasons 2 and 3 of "24" in less than 2 weeks!) and I'm sad he has to go back tomorrow. Luckily, the days until classes are done are counted, not computed.