Our Daniel Bug!

We celebrated Daniel's "half-birthday" recently ~ a strange tradition we have at our house (which our kids look almost as forward to as their birthdays)! We shoot for blocking off about five hours and taking them out for a special time with just mom and dad . . . doing anything they'd like (within reason!). Daniel's half-birthdays always seem to involve Arby's curly fries! This year he also wanted to go hang out at Chuck-E-Cheese's and stop by the library for more books (he's starting to burn through books as fast as Emily does). We also squeezed in some travel Yahtzee and a few hands of cards (a game called "31" that was a favorite of the Grandpa he was named after). It was fun to have some special time with just one of our kids, he's an awfully neat 7 1/2 year old!

Crazy sloppy spring snow!

Last friday we got lots of big, fat, sloppy snow! It was a winter wonderland for most of the day. The next day our Colorado sunshine turned the backyard into a pond (at least for a little while!)

Mountain Lab School

Mountain Lab School was a fun adventure for all of us (Emily, Levi and myself). The challenge course, the games, the campfire and the survival skills training were highlights for both of the kids. In spite of the forecast (that threatened rain and thunderstorms the entire time) we had beautiful weather, learned some new things and made some great memories. Can't beat that! Kevin and the younger kids held down the fort at home just fine, Daniel even beat dad at ping-pong! (he was so proud of himself, he called me in the mountains to tell me about it)

Little things

We haven't had an action packed weekend, but it's been a fairly fun one. We went to a small scale car show yesterday (close by) and even saw Elvis!! The kids really enjoyed it, Emily actually spent more time looking at the cars than the boys did! (the boys looked around too, but Emily took the judging aspect VERY seriously) Levi took the free lunch seriously! Somehow the kids didn't get all the pieces together correctly ~ that a car is not valuable simply because it's old (since they asked me if my van was a collector's item yet!!), we saw some awfully pampered cars yesterday (not at all like my quite old and very well loved, but not at all pampered, mini van!)

Last night we had dinner at my dad's house and the kids had fun trying to beat Grandpa at a game called Spud. After dinner we played Quirkle and Emily and Grandma Karen teamed up to beat the rest of us! We're thankful for our neighbors today. They rescued our dog and kept him safe (he decided to run away right as we were leaving for church). Emily also got to play with some other girls in the neighborhood this afternoon (girls she's seen before but never played with--a very fun thing for her).

It's been beautiful outside today and we just returned from a longer than usual family bike ride. We ended up at the local high school track, where the kids practiced jumping hurdles (a first for all of them)--they were actually really good! We made an executive decision to leave 'on a high note', before they got tired and started missing them! They're gearing up for the local kids' triathlon in May and then summer track and field season soon thereafter. Anna and Samuel are even going to do track and field this year! Anna squeaks in just under the age cut off by a mere 8 days!, so she'll probably be the youngest one there (but if you know Anna, that won't bother her at all!)

Tomorrow, Emily and Levi (and mom!) are headed up to a camp in the mountains for a few days to attend a Mountain Lab School that I've been organizing for homeschoolers. They're excited! We'll be doing hands on studies in nature, weather, forestry, animal tracking and survival skills, etc., learning about CO history and doing some fun things like ropes courses and campfires too. More on that when we return! For now, we're getting ready to enjoy the first sweet corn of the season and do our (third week of) family Bible study. It's the little things =).

Conversations with kids . . .

I was working on phonics with Anna (3 1/2) this morning and she said "mom, remember when I was two years old and you were one year old and I knew how to read and you didn't?!"
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When Taylor and Kelsey were in town they got the kids hooked on "the yellow car game". We were in the car a few days ago and the kids wanted to call them and tell them that we'd seen a yellow car. Samuel asked if we had their 'password' (phone number!)-- no more Webkinz for him!
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We recently re-read Eric Liddell's biography (think Chariots of Fire and you'll have the right guy), I read the line that said "he had no choice, he had to compete . . . besides, he was enjoying running". Daniel, upon hearing that, said "yeah mom, like I do, but you make me have too much education to do it at all!"
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We were meeting a friend at Pizza Hut. When I told the kids where we were going, the boys cheered and said "I want to go to Pizza Hut" . . . Anna chimed in "I want to go on the pizza hunt too!"
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I was pulling a nail out of the wall when Sam told me "mom, I think if you do that it might make the house wreck"
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The three younger kids got to hang out at Chuck E Cheese with us one night recently(while Levi and Emily were both attending birthday parties). Samuel loves their nifty machine that puts your face on a little plastic picture card. The machine had a hiccup and printed out a blank spot where his face was supposed to be. We explained that maybe it was out of order, but he got it to work the next time (and a few more times after that!) When we picked Emily back up later that evening, Sam showed her the different cards he'd gotten. When he got to that one, he said "oh, on that one my face was out of order!"
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Samuel was enjoying his breakfast one day and said "mom, you know how they show fat people eating Cheerios and then they become more 'straight'. . . maybe you should be eating them!"
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Resurrection Sunday . . . and more egg hunts!

We enjoyed nice weather on Easter. It was cold in the morning as we had a special breakfast, opened Easter baskets and headed to church . . . but it warmed up considerably by the afternoon.

The little church in Castle Rock that we've been enjoying for the past few months (Covenant Church of Castle Rock) had an egg hunt for the kids after the service. The kids loved it and it was a taste for us of maybe, possibly (hopefully!) feeling like we might belong at a church again. We've really felt torn and displaced since we moved to Castle Rock almost 2 years ago (and "homeless", from the church perspective--a tough place to be when you KNOW the great value of being part of a church family). There are many things we still love and miss about our old church (ODF, in Denver), as well as our sweet little church in Boulder (Mesa, which Kevin helped pastor intermittently . . . it officially closed in Dec). We don't know what the future holds for us long term, but for now we are enjoying getting to know how we might get more connected with this small, vibrant, growing body closer to (our new) home.

Back at home (on Easter) we had a potluck and the kids enjoyed yet another egg hunt in our backyard with their cousins! The adults had fun finding creative 'nooks and crannies' in the backyard for hiding things . . . maybe a little too much fun! Unless we counted wrong, there might still be two eggs hiding out there somewhere!

Easter evening, we snuggled with the kids on the couch and watched what has become one of our favorite movies. "The Witness" is an animated kids movie that tells the Easter story from the (fictional) perspective of Barabbas (who was released instead of Jesus)--it recounts the birth, life, miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus as Barabbas searches for the truth about who He really was. Creatively done and definitely a family favorite!

Fun Egg Activities