Thursday, May 16, 2013

March 2013

Besides hunting for alligators, here are some of the other things we did in March:

Worked in the yard.  Henry got some bluebonnet seeds from his class at church, and was so excited to plant them in our front yard.  I love his “I’m a serious gardener” face.
2013 03 15_0136

Built Lego houses.  Lizza spent days on this house.  It has lots of secret rooms and fun tiny details. 
2013 03 30_0045

Tristan then worked some magic on Lego Digital Design on the computer, and created instructions for the house that Lizza had just built, so now after someone breaks it she can build it again just the same. 
201303 15_0139

We also played games.  Some of us in princess dresses. 
2013 03 14_0147

And speaking of princess dresses, Cynthia went through a big dress-up stage.  Rachel was usually involved.
2013 03 06_25412013 03 14_01442013 03 30_00542013 03 30_0056

On St. Patrick’s Day we had our annual treasure hunt for a pot of gold (butterscotch candies).  Only this year was the best because I didn’t have to do one thing – Tristan and Oliver wrote all the clues and the younger four did the search.  And Tristan and Ollie were just as excited about making up clever clues and watching the little kids figure them out as the little ones were about finding them.  I love having helpers.
2013 03 17_0134

Here’s Cynthia helping me make a spinach smoothie.  She hears the blender going and comes running. 
2013 03 20_00702013 03 20_0069

Playing in the backyard.  Our grass is pretty awful and we have nothing fun to do out there, but once in awhile they’ll remember that it’s fun to go out and goof around on strider bikes and hunt for roly-polies and practice gymnastics.                                                                           
2013 03 20_00732013 03 20_00712013 03 20_00782013 03 20_00832013 03 20_00902013 03 20_00942013 03 20_0113

Cindy and Henry reading Angelina books together. 
2013 03 25_0060

Cindy working on a little set-up.  She definitely takes after Lizza with her set-ups. 
2013 03 25_0066

Easter!  The kids all got to dye some eggs, and this year we even got a tiny bit fancy and put oil in the dye mixture, and it made the eggs all swirly.  Cindy wanted to be looking at her eggs in her picture.                           
2013 03 31_0003_edited-12013 03 31_0002_edited-12013 03 31_00002013 03 31_0011_edited-12013 03 31_00012013 03 31_0006_edited-1

Ready for our little Easter treat hunt.  We didn’t have enough Easter baskets for everyone, so instead of having some of them use their Easter baskets and the rest use Halloween buckets (I’ve done that), the kids all decorated Easter bags.  Then they set off to find their color-coordinated treats – I can never find plastic easter eggs anymore, so instead I print off a ton of little pictures of easter eggs, in 6 different colors.  Then each person is assigned a color, and they get to collect all the treats with that color of egg taped on to it.  That way there is no bickering about how many treats everyone is getting, and also we (Daniel) can hide Tristan and Oliver’s colors in super hard places and I can put Cindy’s color on the floor in the middle of the room.

2013 03 31_0013

Henry and Cindy stopped mid-hunt to admire all the treats they had found so far:2013 03 31_00212013 03 31_00272013 03 31_00302013 03 31_00312013 03 31_0033

And then to top off an already fun Easter day, Cynthia got to try on some new summer jammies from the hand-me-down box in the garage.  She was doing all sorts of Hulk smashes and awesome poses in them before settling in for her favorite part of the day – when she gets to choose out a book and climb up on my bed and read with me.                                                                                 
2013 03 31_00402013 03 31_0043

That’s it for March.