They did it!

The older kids (along with one of their cousins) competed in a kids' triathlon this morning. They all had a great time and did really well. None of them placed in the top 3, but Levi and Daniel each came in 4th in their age groups!

From the mouths of munchkins . . . .

We went to Dairy Queen last night after Emily's dance performance, I was attempting to simplify the ordering process and this was my conversation with Anna:

(mom) "Anna, do you want to have a dipped ice cream cone or a fruity drink that's like a slurpee?"
(Anna) "an ice cream cone and a drink like a slurpee"
(mom) "no honey, you can't have both, you need to choose one or the other"
(Anna) "other"














(she chose the ice cream cone!)
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(Sam) "mom, why does everybody have a different blankie?"
(mom) "I don't know honey, maybe so you can tell whose is whose"
(Sam) "I think it's because God gave everybody a different blankie, He made each of us our own special blankie for our birthday!"

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We recently bought Fruit Loops as a treat and Levi was trying to explain to me why I should let him have some for breakfast before going to enrichment ("school") on Monday ~ we usually only use them as a dessert.

(Levi) "I think Fruit Loops would be a great breakfast"
(mom) "No, they're full of sugar and not the best choice right before school"
(Levi) "well, I would think you'd want me to be really wide awake for school, wouldn't you?"
(mom) "maybe, but once the sugar wears off you'll be tired and hungry and you won't be able to think straight"
(Levi) "that's okay, I don't need to think at school"

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(Dad) "Sam, you're a little smartie pants!"
(Samuel) "Daaaayyyd!, that's not appwopwiate"! (reminding him of our "no name calling" rule)

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The very busy month of May!

How we are already well into the month of May is beyond me . . . but we are enjoying the culmination of several things. We wrapped up our Mother/Daughter, Father/Son discipleship class (at a local church) a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun, but it's nice to have another week night free again. Emily and Levi both enjoyed participating in drama productions at their enrichment program over the past few weeks. AWANAs has just finished for the year as well. The older kids were all very excited to earn book awards (for completing the activities and memorizing all of the verses in the books they were working in). We had a really fun Mother's Day. "Waitress Emily" ordered me back to bed as soon as she woke up, donned her apron, grabbed her notebook and took my order for breakfast in bed. After mine was delivered, she went on to take orders from the rest of the family and served all of us breakfast on mom and dad's bed! -- what a girl! Daniel, not wanting to be outdone, waited on me hand and foot asking every few minutes if there was anything he could get for me! We visited a new church and the kids made some sweet little Mother's Day crafts. Our usual tradition of planting our vegetable garden got bumped until nicer weather. We opted instead for a family attempt at cleaning the garage followed by ice cream floats, games and a movie night. The garage was a great success, except that Daniel took a few minutes to ride his bike afterward and donated a good portion of his epidermis to the cul-de-sac out front! After many, many tears and a pit-crew style nursing effort, we got him cleaned up and bandaged ~ and then he beat all of us at Rummikub (twice!) . He's thankful that he still has a week to recover before the kids triathlon next weekend (the older 3 kids are all participating in it). Emily has her spring worship dance performance tonight and Anna turns three in a few more weeks. She has asked me every single day for the past 3 weeks if it's her birthday yet! We have field day next Monday and we are wrapping up school for the year right before Anna's birthday ~ hurray! We decided we couldn't quite manage baseball and t-ball this summer, but the kids are looking forward to lots of playdates with friends, participating in a local track and field program, Vacation Bible School, dance camp (okay, the boys aren't looking quite as forward to it as Emily is!),camping, swimming, riding bikes, making snow cones, playing tennis at the park and most of all not having to do any math! (although Daniel will probably find some sneaky way to finish off his 4th grade math and catch up with Emily before September!)