Wade had mulch delivered Friday. Then it rained yesterday morning. Finally today was gorgeous and there were no major plans. Wade recruited all the kids and the mulch pile was gone in no time.
Toadfrogs
I woke up this morning to pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Alex made it last night and had it waiting for me when I woke up this morning. Things worked out even better when the weather meant Ben’s soccer was cancelled and we could have a leisurely morning.
Ben had a friend over for a playdate and they were so cute together. They played wonderfully and required minimal oversight.
After Ben’s friend had gone home and Kaitlyn’s soccer game was over, we went to Dairy Queen. For months, Ben had been telling me he was going to take me to DQ for my birthday. He had won a gift card during bingo at Gram’s house and had saved it to treat me to ice cream. He asked me several times if there would be enough on it for the entire family. I assured him we would make sure everyone got ice cream. I was impressed when most people tried something new. Alex tried a cherry dipped cone. Ben saw a picture of a banana split and fell in love. Wade agreed to split it with him.
My pick for dinner was Cheesecake Factory. We had a wonderful dinner and then fabulous desserts. Then we went back home for presents. Kaitlyn made me the sweetest bag with an IOU for a lunch date, a handmade bracelet, and an adorable stuffed puppy. Teague gave me two boxes of my favorite chocolates. I was so impressed that all of my kids made such an effort this year.
One of the few practices still meeting this week is Kaitlyn’s soccer. She got ready early and Teague joined her outside for a little pre-practice.
With all of our spring cleaning, we have found quite a few items in places they shouldn’t be. While cleaning Ben’s room, we found a Lego Duplo fish. I asked Ben to take it downstairs and put it in the duplo basket. I then promptly forgot all about it – until today when I was walking through the kitchen. Teague’s bike helmet was sitting on the kitchen counter and something silver caught my eye. I backed up and looked closer. I pulled it out and realized the Duplo fish and not been placed one room further in the lego basket, but had instead been hidden in the bike helmet. Story of my life…
One of Kaitlyn’s requests this week was a sleepover. Thankfully we found a night that worked for everyone and last night her friend came over after soccer practice and we got back from our hike. They made brownies (a raddish recipe), played a favorite game, and watched a movie. Then this morning, I woke up to the girls already watching a movie. Kaitlyn made waffles for everyone and then they built a fort to watch another movie.
I had warned my kids that we were doing some serious Spring Cleaning this week. We spent most of the day sorting and cleaning – mostly Ben’s and Kaitlyn’s rooms. Everyone was worn out by dinner so we decided a change of scenery was in order.
Teague had mountain biking and I was pretty sure there were some hiking trails at the same location so we went with high hopes. Everything worked out perfectly. The hike we chose took exactly 1.5 hours, which was exactly the amount of time that Teague was with his group.
Kaitlyn was a little grumpy initially, but quickly found a pretty white rock. She picked up every single one she found until her jacket pockets couldn’t hold any more. Then Ben decided to be a sweet brother and started picking up the white rocks for her and putting them in his pockets. He picked up so many that his pants were falling down.
The weather is supposed to be fantastic this week so we decided to start the week with hiking. The top vote was for Purgatory so we headed there first. I couldn’t believe how many people were out today. It was almost impossible to find parking, but we had a great hike!
Today was busy! Alex and Wade were ringing bells at church so we all got there on the early side. Then Alex shocked us all and joined the littles for the Children’s message. (The picture of random objects shows what Ben brings to church to entertain himself. I’m always amused by what he packs in his bag, but he is always content and mostly quiet.)
I was reading downstairs when I got a text from Wade telling him to come with my camera. Evidently he had promised to play with Ben and the game of choice was pirates.
Then Wade flew out to Seattle for a few days and the rest of us began spring cleaning. We started with the toys downstairs. The kids decided they were ready to put most of the duplos in the attic so we bagged up the sets, which meant building them first. Even Alex got in on the fun.
Ben and Kaitlyn both returned to soccer today. Ben has the same coaches as last fall, but this time one of his school friends is on his team so I’m sure he’ll have even more fun. When practice time was over and it was time for the game, everyone realized one of the teams didn’t show up. The green team was the largest and split, but that left them a few players short to play. Ben and one other player agreed to be a green player just for the day. (I think Ben agreed just because he had his green pullover.)
Kaitlyn would normally have had at least one practice before her first game, but practice was rained out this week. She showed up for her first game today. She knew most of the girls on her team from her many years in soccer – some from last year and some from other years. Quite a few girls on last year’s team (including Kaitlyn) were moved up from D3 to D2. The girls played a good game, but they lost today. It was still fun to watch them play and I imagine they will only improve with a little practice.
Alex got the chicken egg this year at the Easter Egg Hunt. Inside was an IOU for a night of ice cream. He has asked if we can go several evenings, but it hasn’t worked out for several reasons. Tonight everything aligned we had nice weather and no activities.
Kaitlyn really wanted a sundae, but their’s are quite large and she has trouble finishing two scoops of ice cream. Teague finally agreed to split one with her. Ben was his normal adventurous self and got blueberry ice cream with gummy bears. (I don’t think he ever gets the same flavor twice.)
Tonight we tried a new recipe. Ben and Kaitlyn made the empanada dough and then the filling. Ben disappeared before the filling of the empanadas but Kaitlyn stuck around till the end. I didn’t actually eat them (that ground beef thing), but everyone else gobbled them up and there weren’t any left at the end of dinner.
Ben’s teacher emailed me a picture this morning telling me that Ben had been picked by the librarian for the reader spotlight.
I couldn’t zoom in enough to read all the details so I was so curious to get to school pickup and read all the little questions and answers.
The big news everywhere is the solar eclipse. Grafton was getting a deep partial (with a magnitude of 93.4%) but Wade and I decided to take the kids out of school and drive far enough north to see the total eclipse – at least that was the plan. Kaitlyn had a play this morning that she wanted to attend and Wade had a phone call he had to take. Alex and Ben stayed home from school. I picked up Teague and Kaitlyn after just a few hours. The plan was to leave by 10, which we managed. We did not count on the traffic. It was terrible!
Our goal destination was Burlington, VT (normally a 3.5 hour drive). We ended up in Haverhill, NH at an adorable park (after driving almost 4 hours). The kids loved playing and running as the eclipse progressed. What we saw was incredible, but not quite a total eclipse. We saw a deep partial (with a magnitude of 99%). Before we left the town, we visited the cutest covered bridge and stopped for ice cream. All in all it was a fun day and definitely an adventure.
Wade determined late Friday night that we needed a new dishwasher. Wade had replaced a part, we had a repairman, Wade ordered two more parts, and now we have to pick out a dishwasher. I did some online research and then we went to an appliance store. We found a dishwasher we thought we’d be happy with and thankfully it was in stock. We asked about installation and Wade decided to install it himself. When talking to the man we had realized he lived only a mile or so from our house. We asked about delivery and removal (more so we didn’t have to worry about disposal of the old dishwasher). The man offered to just drop the new one off on his way home from work and pick up our old one. Perfect! By the end of the evening I had a new dishwasher.
My kids are all still enamored with the skateboard. Wade and I were dishwasher shopping today and happened to see free one on the side of the road. We stopped and picked it up so the at least we would have two skateboards. The kids (all of them) are still spending quite a bit of time on it trying to learn to ride. I love watching them try to figure it out.
Ben came home and couldn’t wait to show me his artwork from the day. He was so proud of his iPhone 15.
What I want to know is how does he know about iPhone 15s? Nobody at this house even has an iPhone 13.
We woke up to snow today! Enough to cause a two hour delay to the school day. The craziest part is it continued to snow all day. There was never much accumulation on the ground but it was pretty coming down.
The Easter Bunny brought Alex several new dog toys for Pepper. The hope was to find some things she likes to chew to replace her sudden new love of my couch throw pillows. Two of the toys she won’t touch at alls. This elephant I have noticed her carrying around quite a bit. Today she was definitely snuggling with it.
I keep both a grocery list and a BJ’s (our local warehouse store) list ongoing in the kitchen at all times. Anyone can add to it and then when I’m going to one of the stores I just grab the list. Today I was going to BJ’s, but as I was running out the door Ben asked for sushi. (Our store just started carrying sushi a few weeks ago.)
Kaitlyn and Ben love to play outside (when they have used their iPad time). Their iPad time was up, they had eaten dinner, and had about 20 minutes until we needed to leave for swim lessons. They ended up creating a game with bikes and flags and even Alex joined in.
We had a wonderful slow Saturday today. (I know they are coming to an end. I am beginning to get all kinds of emails about spring sports.) The littles watched a few cartoons as soon as they woke up and waited for Teague to get up. He had promised to make Belgium sugar waffles for breakfast. Then the kids did their chores. I had to return the skis we rented for the season and Wade took Ben to a birthday party. The rest of the day the kids played and enjoyed being outside. I did a little prep work for Easter lunch and the littles were quite happy to lick the bowl.
Even with the crazy weather, these two wanted to be outside. They braved the spitting rain and played until the downpour started.
I was signing Ben up for some fall sports (doesn’t it seem crazy early to be doing that?) and they wouldn’t let me finish the registration without uploading a picture. I normally use the digital copy of school fall pictures for this kind of thing. When I went to the folder where I save school pictures, there were no pictures. I have a history of not receiving the emails with the digital pictures but I normally realize it, call the company, and then it gets straightened out. This time, I never thought about it once, and here it is March and I don’t have the pictures from October. I called the company and they were nice enough to email me the pictures.
Teague doesn’t have a picture because he was signed up for a retake and then decided not to turn in his form. Therefore – no picture this fall.
Alex showed up at some point during the day and informed me that he wanted to bake a cake. My obvious next question was, “Why?” Evidently one of his friends has a birthday on Monday and everyone is getting together at the Common on Monday to celebrate and Alex offered to bring the cake.
He finally decided on our current favorite chocolate cake – Death by Chocolate Cake.
Every year our church holds an Easter Breakfast and egg hunt. We weren’t able to attend last year due to our sports commitments, but this year Easter comes before Spring sports have even started. Our youth pastor normally does all of the planning and setting up for this event, but she recently had a death in the family. A few of us arrived early to setup and, other than the weather, things went great. There were crafts for the children while they waited for the adults to finish eating and the eggs to be hidden. Then the children were called by groups and could find 10 eggs each. There were enough eggs that the children could hunt eggs twice. We went home with lots of crafts and lots of candy. Everyone was happy!
Tonight was one of our adult only fundraisers for the PTG. We ate, laughed, drank, bid, and had a great evening with friends. There was a 90s band playing and the music was amazing. I came home with a gift basket from Apex (a local entertainment center) which the children were so excited to see the next morning.
Ben had his third class party at school today and the theme was kindness. The other room mother and I put together a grouping of activities to keep the kids entertained. We met up at the school just as the kids were finishing an all school assembly by a local speaker. Then the children returned to their class for their special snack. (We aren’t allowed to provide snacks for the classroom so each child has a “Party in a Bag” on special days.)
After snack, we started the party with a book about kindness. Then we split the children into two groups – one worked on kindness crowns and the other group played kindness bingo.
Kaitlyn has been begging to take piano lessons for months. I told her that we couldn’t add to her schedule during the fall. Then Christmas was crazy and somehow I didn’t quite get around to calling until a few weeks ago. Of course we ended up with a scheduling conflict today, but thankfully Wade was available to walk her to her lesson. She was walking on air!
Wade is trying to teach Alex the finer points of painting tricky surfaces.
Today’s craft in Sunday School was a resurrection garden. We pulled in the HS/MS class for help and all the kids did great. Although it’s a really cool craft, I’ll admit that I’m secretly very glad that Alex chose not to create his own and we only had to bring home three.
Ben and Kaitlyn were determined to try to catch a leprechaun. They spent the evening building a trap. Their grand idea was to play a movie to draw him in. They settled on Pirates of the Caribbean because it was all about gold. Then they used the stage Kaitlyn build a few months ago and box with a trap door (and air holes). When they woke up this morning there was no leprechaun but there were several treats left for them. They loved them! (Ben decided most of his needed to go to church too.)
Kaitlyn had her first gymnastics meet today. It was a “fun” meet where everyone got a medal, but the girls got to experience a meet with little pressure. There were paid judges so the girls got feedback but otherwise it was fun to attend and see. We also ran into an old friend!
Wade has spent the entire week traveling for work. He left very, very early Monday morning for Belgium and he got home this afternoon. I wash shocked he didn’t immediately crash, but he had dinner with us and then provided dessert with a variety of treats he brought home with him. We all took a sample of everything and everyone had a different favorite.
A month or so ago, I decided Ben’s brown shoes (from last year) needed to be replaced. I was shocked to find that he needed shoes almost 2 sizes bigger than the shoes he had been wearing, which he insisted still fit. The problem came when he realized I was going to through away his old shoes. He got quite upset and demanded to keep one of the shoes. I’m not sure where he keeps it, but every once in a while he will randomly appear with one new(er) shoe and his old favorite shoe.
Ben got to stay home with me today. He mentioned right before swim lessons last night that his ear hurt. I just brushed it off and forgot about it until he started acting agitated and grumpy as we watched a movie before bed. Then Ben proceeded not to sleep all night long. He was very vocal about his ear hurting until about 5 am.
When he woke up at 9, he seemed great. He said his ear didn’t hurt but felt a little stuffy. I had already decided to keep him home from school due to the lack of sleep. I feared an ear infection, but with four kids, we’ve only had one ear infection so I don’t know a lot about them. I called the doctor to see if they thought I should bring him in and they said yes. We had time for breakfast and Ben wanted to make donuts, so we did.
The doctor told me she was very surprised to see an actual infection. She had anticipated fluid or redness. We got medicine and spent the rest of the day doing fun things like the grocery and a very long nap for me.
I’m not sure if the time change hit Ben extra hard or if he just really loved his back rub, but we were ready for church early this morning. I sat down on the couch to read, Ben crawled in my lap, pulled up his shirt, and asked for a back rub. It was only a few minutes before I realized he was asleep.
This lazy Saturday morning didn’t even start with cartoons. When I got downstairs Ben was entertaining himself by jumping backwards off the arm of the couch. As soon as the cartoons were done and chores started, the littles decided building a fort sounded like a much better idea than just plumping the couch cushions.
Ben has been asking to buy his teacher flowers for weeks. The other day I finally remembered to grab a bouquet when I ran in to get a few items. I had them waiting when Ben got home from school. He took one look and his first question was, “They are going in a vase, right?”
The next morning I got them in a vase and agreed to drive him to school. He wanted me to carry the vase till we got inside the school. Then he told me, “I got this mom” and off he went down the hall.
Tonight we had a dinner and game night at the elementary school to raise money for the 6th graders trip to Nature’s Classroom. I went to the school early afternoon to help set up and work the cashbox behind the bake sale. Wade showed up with all the kids (after Alex plainly told me he would not attend earlier in the week) for the second seating and I did take a short break to sit with them. The littles immediately checked out the prize table and couldn’t wait for Bingo to start. Ben seemed to have the worst luck and couldn’t fill a single square in on his card. Amazingly, Alex got a Bingo and immediately gave it to Ben. Before too long Kaitlyn won and got her desired prize (which one of the principals had hidden behind the table to keep safe.) The kids had a great night and it was fun to see some friends and raise some money for the sixth graders!
Ben’s school has a night dedicated to specials – art, PE, music, computer, etc. The students and their parents come for an evening and visit each speciality and the activity they have planned. It was loud and hot and hectic, but the kids had a great time and I couldn’t believe the number of people I ran into.
I also got to see The Tower of Books Challenge. Ben has been bringing home a sheet of paper that tells him what types of books to read (a book that rhymes, a nonfiction book, a Dr. Suess book, etc). Every time we finish a sheet there is a new one. Ben’s class has the second most sheets turned in for the school!
Ben had his yearly eye appointment today and afterwards we went to pick out new glasses. We walked by the blue dog and it seemed only right to take Ben’s picture. I have years worth of Teague’s picture (see here) in the same spot.
The sunglasses are to help with the bright sunlight. His eyes are dilated and he was having trouble seeing.
I love winter Saturday mornings. We rarely have anywhere to be and have very slow mornings. Alex sleeps late. The littles get up first and start the morning with a cartoon each. Teague appears at some point during these and usually chooses to watch a cartoon too. Then at least one child usually wants to cook something for breakfast – waffles pancakes, muffins, crepes, etc. After breakfast, we finally get around to starting our weekly chores. I am not looking forward to spring sports and the hectic mornings that go with them.
As long as I have known Wade, I have known about his fascination with rolling ball sculptures. He loves to find them in random malls, hospitals, and sometimes restaurants. Visiting Boston Children’s Hospital has always been a treat because of the huge sculptures they have (until the last year when they took it out)!
Today a box arrived at the house addressed to Wade. He looked a little confused and then got the most excited look on his face. Evidently he paid into a Kickstarter campaign three years ago and they finally delivered – a desktop rolling ball sculpture.
These three were pretty cute tonight all cuddled up in the big chair:
I sometimes place my camera on the floor besides my desk until I get the pictures off my memory card. Normally I don’t put the camera beside my desk until late at night when I am working on my computer and all the kids are in bed. Today I was working on pictures while the kids were in school and then didn’t think to pick the camera back up. At some point, Ben came to talk to me at my desk and had a run-in with my camera.
I have a protective lens for all of my lenses. Thank goodness that is what cracked and not the actual lens.
Alex brought me the perfect snack after everyone else was in bed tonight.
Ben absolutely loves the sword Kaitlyn brought him from Disney. It has been played with by every person in this house. Tonight I decided to introduce him to the movie behind “Jack Sparrow.” Kaitlyn assured me that she wouldn’t be bothered by the graphics (I did warn her about the skeletons). The littles loved the movie. They watched, danced, and fought swords. It was adorable.
The littles were awake and sitting in the living room just waiting when I came downstairs at 7 am. They quickly decided to build a fort and bring their stuffed animals to visit.
We continued with a lazy morning until lunchtime. Then I got everyone out the door and to the post office in time for our passport appointment. We finally decided to bite the bullet in terms of paperwork and get the kids their passports. For the most part everyone was pretty well behaved and things moved pretty quickly. Alex is the one that held us up. His picture had to be taken over and over and over to meet the requirements. Poor Alex and his issues with low light and flashes. They finally got a good one!
Then we headed back to the house for some time with Granny and Pop.
Ben spent the morning with two of his best friends from preschool. He joined them for a morning of cupcakes and cartwheels at a local dance/gymnastics studio and had a great time.
I can’t believe we now have two teenagers in the house! Teague turns 13 today. It’s probably the first child birthday where I barely saw the birthday child. Teague had his friends spend the night last night and those boys didn’t stop until almost 6 am this morning. (I know this because they were also very loud.) Traditionally, sleepovers happen on our third floor. Then the rest of the family lives on the other two floors. I woke up this morning, a little grumpy with little sleep, stumbled downstairs and found two boys asleep on my living room couches. I managed to keep everyone quiet until they woke up around 10, but it was not fun.
The boys left around 1 pm. I took Ben, Teague, and Alex out for a sushi lunch. Then Teague got home and went back to bed. I didn’t see him again till we woke him up for dinner, cake, and presents. I don’t think I have ever taken so few pictures on a birthday before!