Happy Easter!

Our visit from the Easter bunny had to wait until after we went to church.  This was the first year that church started at 9:00 and you just never know how long it will take the kids to find their baskets.  I really was not wanting to get up at 6:00 just to do an egg hunt and baskets!  So I put in a special request to the Easter bunny and he did come and leave a note explaining that while we were at church he would hide clues. So we get all dressed up and head to church.

The Easter bunny made good on his promise and as soon as we got home there was another note on the door with our first clue.  The clues take the kids all over the house.  Wherever there's a clue there's also 4 eggs with a little treat inside.  The last clue leads them to their baskets.

The first clue was:  "It's 8:15, we can't be late.  Heading off to school, is where I wait."  Which led them to Zach's backpack:

The 6th clue was:  "This box is mostly filled with things that rarely bring you glee.  Like bills and junk and other stuff, you'd rather never see."  The next clue was hidden in the mailbox:

Zach loved reading the clues.  This one was the final one and it said:  "You'll find in your closet a basket, now GO!  It's been hiding in there the whole time, didn't you know?"

They each had to check their own closets and since I could only follow one kid I choose Zach and got his picture finding his basket. 

That sneaky bunny!  It was a little bit of a wait but they finally got their Easter baskets.

Zach didn't want to be part of the group picture.

One final picture...   Every year since Zach was born I've been wanting to get a picture of all of them in their bunny ears.  Every year I forget.  I wasn't forgetting this year though.

Finally!

Dyeing Eggs

I took Zach to our church at 11:00 to do his first batch of dyeing eggs.  He got to pick what kit he wanted and he chose a sponge dyeing one.  I kind of liked it because his eggs came out looking like tie dye, sort of like the shirt I put him in. 

It was kind of messy though and his hands ended up just as colorful as his eggs!  I didn't worry about his shirt since it was already in the hand-me down pile (sorry Ryan and Alex).

I don't have any pictures of it but there was a bunny visiting the church too.  Not the Easter bunny, an actual bunny, that they let loose in the room and the children played with.  It was someones pet that they brought to share with the kids.  Zach thought it was funny when it peed on the floor!

After decorating the eggs we ate pizza, the kids played for a little while longer, then we left with our dozen decorated eggs and 4 extra slices of pizza.

In the afternoon it was time for our family to dye eggs.  I didn't buy the cool sponge ones like Zach used, just the normal tablet dyes that you dissolve in water and vinegar and dunk the egg in.  I also only boiled 36 eggs this year (2 18-ct).  Last year I got my eggs from BJ's and we had a ton of them.  So with 36 eggs that meant each of us could decorate 6.  Doesn't seem like a lot does it?  I guess that's why I shopped at BJ's last year.  Oh well, 6 was enough this time.

We have lots of colorful eggs now in the refrigerator (my 36 plus the 12 Zach got from church) so next week we'll be set for egg salad sandwiches and deviled eggs!



My Working Girl

Lauren was working hard trying to bring in the customers this past Sunday.  You go Lauren!

This picture was taken by her coworker but I did get to see her in action when I took Kristin to get a haircut.  Paul and I saw her again about an hour later but she was closer to where she works that time.  She'll do the sign thing or pass out fliers for a few hours before she's scheduled to work in the store.  It's just another way to get more hours and since it's easy she does it.     

A Beautiful Day for Soccer

Today Lauren was all over the field.  She started in midfield then moved to defense and then in the second half she played forward. 

Here's the team right before the second half when they do their little cheer.  Lauren's smiling face is straight ahead in the center.

I had to take Zach with me to the game because my normal babysitter, Kristin, is away on a trip with her school.  What a pain in the butt he was!  Now I remember why I usually don't take him with me.  Pop Pop came to watch Lauren's game and he ended up walking around with him and entertaining him.  Thank you Pop Pop!  Hopefully next time you can make it to one of her games Zach won't be with me and you can watch in peace.  Here's Zach on the bleachers on the other side of the field. 

Lauren doing a header in the second half:

She was a forward here and headed to the goal.

She only played forward for about 18 minutes in the second half before she was taken out and some of the bench players went in.  I know she was wanting to score but it didn't happen this game.  Now if she had stayed in longer I'm sure it would have.  The game ended with a win, 3-0.

Egg Hunts

Zach had two different egg hunts today.  The first was after church.  Eggs were scattered on the lawn and they could each get 10 eggs.

I never realized until today what a nice group of kids we have at church.  There for awhile there were hardly any. 

The second egg hunt was in the afternoon, our neighborhood one.  It had been postponed twice due to rain.  When it was time for the 5-6-year-olds to do the egg hunt Zach was right there with the rest of the boys. 

They could pick up as many eggs as they wanted and Zach filled his bucket with them. 

It's amazing how much faster this age group is than the 0-2 age group!  There were only 3 kids in that group and they took forever!  There were a ton of kids in Zach's age group and the eggs were scooped up within minutes.  Afterwards the kids were to put their eggs into a bin.  All of the eggs were empty except for a few that had a penny in them.  All you had to do was shake them to see if you were a winner and guess what?  Zach won!

The basket was his prize (there were 4 prizes for this age group) and all the stuff in his blue bucket was what he got after he turned his empty eggs in.  He got little toys, candy and even a coloring book with crayons.  Wow!

I went to put Zach's basket in the car and when I came back Paul was wearing bunny ears! Okay?!?... 

They were having an adults only egg hunt so I quickly dissed Zach and jumped in and got my bunny ears too!  Unfortunately neither one of us won.  The prizes were either wine or beer!  I guess there's always next year but at least one person in the family won something.  Go Zach!

Another Soccer Game

After taking almost a week off for her quad injury Lauren was cleared to play today. ( She had to sit the bench for this past Wednesday's game.)  She played the whole game in defense and did an awesome job at it.  Here's a few pics from today's game:

I had to add that last picture only because of the opponent's expression! 

They won 3-1.

First Soccer Game of the Season

Today was Lauren's 1st soccer game of her junior year.  She's moved positions this year and now she's playing defense and mid.  With all the seniors that left last year it left a big hole in their defense and because Lauren is fast her coach wanted her to play there.  She's played defense before for her travel team but it's been years since she's done that.  She's up for anything though.

Luckily I got a couple of pictures of her during the 15-20 minutes she played.  Once she got a sub she came off the field and ran straight over to the athletic trainer.  I had no idea what was wrong with her until afterwards but apparently she pulled her quad.  She was out the rest of the game and was told to rest it all weekend. 

The game ended with them winning 5-2.  After every game the teams always slap hands when it's over.  This team was so nice, they handed each one of our girls a gatorade. 

Here's something else I've never seen before either.  After they went through the line and slapped hands they all headed out to the middle of the field and formed a circle with the other team mixing in with ours.

It finally dawned on me then that the other team was a christian school and that they were praying.  How neat!  After being injured Lauren sure could use prayer!

Happy (Late) St. Patrick's Day!

I never got a chance to pose my kids with these silly wigs yesterday so I was determined to get a picture of them today, even if it was a day late.

It would have been cuter if they had been wearing green too.  

Enjoying the Nice Weather

We spent the morning playing over at the park with Ryan and Alex.  It was a beautiful day to be outside and the kids had a lot of fun.  Here's the one picture I have where they are all together.

From left to right:  Alex, Kristin, Zach, Ryan and Megan.  Lauren was still home sleeping, I don't think she even knew that we left!

Here's a few other pictures from our time spent at the park:

Once it got to be lunch time we went back to our house, ate and then the boys played awhile.  They're playing Mario Kart here.

The boys went back outside to hit a few baseballs before Ryan had to leave.  (Katie took Alex home earlier for a nap.)  What a fun day!

Little League

Zach had his first Little League practice tonight.  I can't believe he's old enough to start doing sports!  There are 10 kids on his team and 9 of them were at practice tonight.  They warmed up and then ran the bases. 

They listened to the coach give instructions (as much as 5 and 6-year-olds could).

There was some throwing practice...

Of course they also practiced hitting off the tee since it is t-ball.  I don't have any pictures of that though. 

Here's a little video of him throwing the ball against the fence.

A couple of times he got distracted and started playing tag with some of the other boys but other than that he did an awesome job.  Paul helped coach so there were 4 people helping with 9 kids.  That was probably a good thing too with the attention spans these kids have.  

Take Your Kids to Work...

No, it wasn't officially take your child to work day, my kids just didn't have school today so Kristin and Zach came with me.  Megan doesn't want anything to do with my M/W/F class (they're quite loud!) and Lauren wanted to catch up on her sleep so they stayed home. 

Kristin and Zach picked a good day to come since we were celebrating St. Patrick's day. Snack today was Irish soda bread which I normally am not fond of but this one was really good. (We also had it yesterday with my T/Th class!) Before snack though we took the kids on a walk to see if they could find a leprechaun but they didn't see any so we headed back to the room.  Would you believe that a leprechaun came in while we were gone and messed up our room?  He threw backpacks on the floor and knocked over chairs and even left footprints on the bathroom door.  Kristin got a big kick out of the kids reactions.  Most were super excited but a couple were more hesitant.  That silly leprechaun even turned our milk green!

Later the kids all turned into leprechauns.  Here's my cute little leprechaun:

We put Kristin to work, here she is gluing pages into the kids letter books.

Now she's vacuuming.  Yay Kristin!  I might bring you every day.

Now to hope that none of the kids picked up any bugs while they were there.  I'm always a little hesitant on taking them with me for that reason but I know Zach loves going.   

Concert Time

Kristin had her second concert of the year tonight.  Luckily for me it was just band performing and nothing else, no orchestra and no chorus.  Yay!  It's not that I don't like listening to the others, it's just so time consuming every time they switch from one group to the next and that makes the concerts last really long.  Tonight the only switch was after the 6th grade band finished and the 7th/8th grade band took their place. 

Kristin sat in her usual seat, second row right on the end.  I got a really good seat too so had she bothered to look out into the audience she would have easily seen me (or PopPop, he came too.)  Here's a few video clips from 2 of the 4 songs they performed.  This song is called The Water is Wide.

The third song they performed was called Around the World in 80 Measures.  This featured 19 different songs that we were supposed to identify.  Here's 2 different clips, the beginning of the song and the end of the song.  See how many countries you can identify.



The United States ones are easy, Stars and Stripes Forever and Yankee Doodle.  Other easily identifiable ones were:  The Mexican Hat Dance (Mexico), Can-Can (France), Waltzing Matilda (Australia) and O Canada (obviously Canada).  There were other songs from Japan, Israel, Germany and Korea just to name a few.  That was a cute piece and neat how the band director got the audience involved. 

Not once during the performance did Kristin look out into the audience.  Not even when she took her seat when they switched.  She didn't see us until the very end when the whole band stood up. 

Yet again another successful band concert.  She has one more to go during her middle school years and then she moves up to the high school band.  That should be interesting!