Spring Minnesota Trip

April 17-22

We took a spring Minnesota trip this year! Our main purpose for the trip was to celebrate with my dad at his retirement party, but we stayed through Easter Sunday. We left bright and early at 4:30am on Wednesday, the 17th, and landed at Mark and Jean's that night. We stayed there for Wednesday and Thursday night and then stayed at my parents for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Dad's party was on Thursday evening (see separate post). We spent at least part of the day with Mark and Jean before it was time to get ready for the party. It was a beautiful spring Minnesota day outside so we spent some time enjoying the sunshine. 

 Carefully, that is, since the girls' hair was already curled for the party. ;)

Chicken Update

4-17

Well, this picture should be rotated, but I wanted to show just how big the chickens and ducks are getting! We've had them for a month now and they are growing nicely! Gosh, those chicks went through an ugly teenager phase but now they look pretty normal. They are quite spunky though and know exactly when you're going to refill their food. They aren't dumb! The garage pen has worked out quite well. Matt's office had done some major paper shredding so Matt brought home I think five big bags of shredded paper that we're using as bedding. It's pretty nice, actually. Cleaning the cages isn't more than putting all the animals on one side of the pen, shoveling out the old, gross paper, and replacing it with fresh paper. The ducks are far more messy than the chickens, even as they've gotten bigger. And the ducks will cock their heads and look at you with one beady little red eye when you come near their pen. They are still skittish and don't like to be picked up. The chickens really don't care too much, especially since they think that whenever a human is near, their food will be replenished! It's quite an adventure!

Crafting With Friends

4-13

We were missing Winter so we invited her to come over and play one afternoon. The girls wanted to make a craft, so I combined the craft with their snack and had them make little bird houses out of graham crackers, frosting, green colored coconut, robin eggs, and peeps. Fun, easy, and edible!

Charlie was invited to his friend Rin's house to play one afternoon. They also had a great time making some tie-tyed, marbled-looking eggs for Easter. She is a sweet friend of Charlie's. 

 This swinging picture was taken on Sunday morning during children's church (or maybe at the tail end of Sunday school). Our friends Justin and Janel teach the preschool class which is 3 (and potty trained) through 5 (non-kindergarten). In a church the size of ours, you'd think that there would be more kids in Sunday school, but the entire preschool class can fit on this little glider. Yep, my girls are 50% of the class. Janel's son Sam is the one in the orange jacket and the other little guy is named Josh. That's it! It's kind-of nice that they get some sweet quality time with their teachers. This Sunday school class could maybe more accurately be called a small group! :) Anyway, they are cute little friends. Apparently it was pretty bright outside! Ha!

Friday Funday

4-12

The kids and I took advantage of no school on Fridays and drove to Fairplay to check out their rec center. We were the only ones in the pool and swam for probably two hours. It is a nice facility! The pools isn't huge, but it's warm water and has a zero depth entry, a few water features (like a splash pad would have), a slide, a basketball hoop, and a few lanes for swimming laps. And it was pretty cheap to swim! We had a blast. 

National Handwriting Award

4-10

Alanna won a national handwriting contest! She won a medal for herself and this big etched diamond for her teacher (Principal Karen Sartori is holding it in the first picture.). She was a state level winner of the Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest!!! Alanna's handwriting submission was then passed on to the next level (but she didn't win the national title). Pretty impressive, Alanna Faye! Way to go, girl! 

Two other girls were brought up for special mention or something. They won medals but their teachers didn't win the giant gemstone like Alanna's teacher Mr. De Herrera did. Alanna's teacher aide, Regina Perkins, was standing on stage with her since Mr. D was gone that day. I put a copy of the handwriting submission in Alanna's first grade folder of papers. It's pretty neat! Literally. ;)

The Daddy Daughter Dance

4-6

Matt, Alanna, and Molly were all counting down the days until the annual Daddy Daughter Dance!!

When the kids and I were out at Costco a month or two before the dance, we found some cute dresses. I was showing the girls different dresses but they decided they wanted to match this year! New dresses, new shoes for Alanna, fancy curled hair, a pink tinted lip gloss... we pulled out all the stops for the dance. Matt even coordinated with the girls by wearing a purple tie! :)

 Hilarious. Hattie wanted to be right in the middle of it all. Next year, she can go! (Our own house rule is that the girls need to be four years old before they go with to the dance. It's not an actual dance rule - any dad/daughter can go no matter their age.)

 Arms full of beautiful girlies!

 "Me, too!" - Hattie

 If this picture had sound, it would be the girls giggling and their excited chatter. 

 Thanks for getting us all ready to go, Mom! 

 Due to bad lighting at the dance (and the over-1100 people), Matt didn't take a lot of pictures. He did take a picture of the girls after they were bedazzled. There are snacks and water at the dance, a photo booth, a formal photo station, a place to buy extra raffle tickets, a bedazzling station, and dancing of course. It truly is a huge event in the community! Matt and the girls ended up staying quite a while at the dance (like 6:30-8:45) so they didn't go out for a treat afterward. But the girls said they got to have two cookies at the dance! They had so much fun together. Next year, THREE girls will go with dad!

Daddy Daughter Dance Prep

4-5

Young Life's annual Daddy Daughter Dance is a pretty big event in the community as well as in our own home. The girls were so excited to get dressed up and go to the dance with Dad! This year's theme was mermaids and the ocean. It's an enormous task to do all the decorating, but the lead decorator always does an excellent job of planning for the space. Since I'm not at the actual dance, I'm including some pictures of Harrison school while it's in the middle of the decorating process. 

Lights are strung on the railings, the drape cloth is hung from the ceiling from one side of the space to another, and there's usually a giant centerpiece in the middle of the room. This year it was four or five giant jellyfish. (Can you see the blue thing in the middle of the picture? That's a jellyfish.)

 Snack and drink table

 The main entrance. We hang black plastic on the walls (ugh - time consuming!) to make the space feel less like a school and more like a fancy ballroom. It's SO worth doing! And those scales on the walls were hand cut out of plastic table cloths and hung on both sides of the entrance. 

 Aaaaannd here's my friend Chelly who is the mastermind behind the decorating. She has a huge gift in knowing how to even tackle such a job. And she's delightful. Double win. 

 My boss, Loren, and I