Monday

Monday was hard this week getting everyone up. We have 37 more days of school and are more than ready for summer to get here.

Joel was hard to wake up. We've been driving him to school lately since his bus gets here so early. So instead of getting on the bus at 6:50 he's waking up at 6:40. Then Brent drives him at 7:30 and sometimes they beat his bus getting to school. He's much happier and even gets off the bus in the afternoon all smiles. 

But yesterday he was grumpy and complaining and started ranting about how parents and teachers lied to him.

"You all say I can be anything I want to be when I grow up!" 

"WELL I CANT!!! "

"I can't fly!!! I can't walk through walls!" 

"Lies all lies!!!"

My artist

My mom has an art degree.  Sarah has an art degree.  Mary has an industrial design degree. 

I have a math degree. 

So clearly my brain thinks completely different.  HA! I take after my dad and his science degrees I guess. 

But I've always been surrounded by artists.  In fact Sarah just sent a group family text saying she's in some art show soon. 

I love art and greatly appreciate it and am constantly amazed at the art work Joel does. 

He came home with this last week. 

Every day he gets home from school I love looking through his folder and I always flip over the worksheets because his doodles in class are amazing.  I'm planning on making a book at the end of the year of all his worksheets/doodles.  His teacher lets him doodle after he's finished his work and its fun to see the way his brain works.  There was a month he was constantly drawing zombies!

This week Joel was sick with a high fever for several days. Just when I would think it was over he would start running 102 temp.  Thankfully he was back at school today and feeling better but he was devastated he had to miss Thursday because Thursday is art class. 

So we had our own.  Joel and Norah spent hours at the table drawing.  We looked up some art classes online and they had a great time.

 He loves art and is just so happy when hes sitting and creating.  Colin lives and breathes basketball but Joel and sports could take it or leave it.  Art is his thing and he is so creative.  I'm always finding stuff he creates.  He will come home and go in the office and take a magazine and cut and paste and make different things. 

I'm trying to find a close art class that Joel can take but for now we will keep doing online classes.

Little miss also loves drawing and painting but has her own supplies because she breaks crayons and leaves tops off markers.  This is her face when Joel wouldn't let her use one of his fine tipped markers because she isn't very careful with those. 

A day underground

Friday we left the farm and headed to Luray to take the kids to the caverns.  The last time we went Joel was 2 and I was pregnant with Norah.  Joel didn't remember it and Norah claims that she peaked out of my tummy and then went back in my tummy so theres that!  Colin remembered a lot but with his memory I'm not surprised.  All the kids loved it and the caverns are really amazing to see.  Pictures cant do it justice. 

 

 I loved watching Joel look around in awe.

The weather was beautiful so we did all the outside exhibits. This garden maze was fun and a lot harder than the corn mazes we have done. 

We found our way out and were thanked once by an older couple who claimed they just listened to our kids yell dead end or "its this way" to find their way out. 

Norah has a rock collection and lately has been breaking rocks open to look for diamonds or to turn the rock into fairy dust.  She loved being able to mine for rocks and Joel loved it too. 

I was amazed at the rocks they found.  You buy a bag of dirt and then sift it in the water.  The kids then realized they could reach into the bottom and grab dirt and sift it again. We spent a long time looking for rocks.

It was going to rain all day Saturday so we decided to drive home instead of head back to the farm.  On the way home we texted Ant Ant to see if she could meet us for dinner.  Brent loves the short pump arbys and is like a kid at Christmas there.  Colin was not impressed so Brent bought a milkshake to try to sway Colins opinion.  Ha!  Its a nicer Arbys than most. We never eat at Arbys but its fun seeing how excited Brent gets when we go there. 

This sweet boy gave Ant Ant his biggest and most prized rock he found. 

And Norah told Ant Ant secrets of how much she wants a real horse.  A fun dinner with Ant Ant! 

We all slept late this morning and have been enjoying  lazy rainy Saturday.  I've loved having the boys home this week and Norah will be so sad to see them go.  We've had a busy week with park days with friends, picnics on the beach and our trip to the farm.   Its going to be hard to head back to school on Monday.

Farm

A few weeks ago, according to the real estate agent, someone was wanting to put a full price offer on the farm. My first thought was don't sell before spring break because last year it rained the whole week so we couldn't go and we had promised the kids spring break at the farm this year. 

The offer never came (which is good and bad) but we enjoyed some beautiful weather at the farm. 

There was a warm breeze and the kids played outside all day. 

We spent hours down by the creek and then walked back up and the kids played tag in the front fields until the sun went down.

It was one of those days where it made me really sad to see the farm go. 

 

 

Easter

Our neighborhood had an Easter egg hunt where eggs were hidden in everyone's yards.  I wasn't sure how it would work but the boys loved the whole hunt aspect because all the egg hunts they've gone to has just been eggs thrown into a big field. This one took strategy and speed and they had a lot of fun.  There were over 300 eggs hidden and I'm pretty sure some of us will still be finding some as the year goes on. 

Norah was a little afraid of the Easter Bunny which was really just one of the teenagers dressed up. 

They had one backyard for the little kids and we thought that would be best for Norah until the Easter Bunny came in the backyard and then Norah realized these eggs were empty.  They were handing out bags of animal crackers and goldfish instead to the little kids.  Norah knew eggs were supposed to have candy in them so she and Brent went off to find eggs with candy. 

The kids had a lot of fun.  The boys took off and really wanted to find the golden and silver egg. Those were traded in for a huge chocolate bunny (about the size of norah) and a $5 bill.  Our family didn't find a special egg but it was a fun egg hunt. 

We love our neighborhood. 

Then on Easter morning we went to an early service and then went to Holly and Ryans house for an indoor egg hunt because it was raining.  It worked out pretty well and the kids spent the time driving to mom and dads eating all their Easter candy.  I realized later in the day we didn't feed them breakfast - the Easter bunny did with all the candy in their baskets and then their early lunch was more candy.  Then we ate an early Easter dinner with family and then they all crashed on the way home that night. 

Joel was SO excited to see Becca again. Makes me sad they aren't in the same class this year.  We were the ones who moved but I loved being able to talk to  Heather about their days. 

Easter weekend we also celebrated Grandmas birthday too!  A great weekend and it was a great start to spring break!