Monday, April 30, 2007

Spring has sprung~


Spring has sprung, the Grass has riz, I wonder where the flowers iz? Oh, look! they're in my garden!


I've always said that flowers were my reward for enduring the long winter. When you don't see flowers until mid-late April, it makes winter seem very long, indeed.


Yesterday was VERY warm and daffodils popped open everywhere!






I had my play the last 2 weekends. This is a link to my photos of the play. I am one of the 'Bearers' (Pandora). We were the mortician & family. We were rather ghoulish, and I was trying to channel Morticia Addams in my role. I am excited for the next year--Amery has 'My Fair Lady' on their list, and Clear Lake is talking about 'Oklahoma.' Great! I can re-live being 15-16 when I'm 38~ :-)
the bearers
Alisha is busy running track--Last week she came in first in the 2 mile. Emily does Jr. High track and does the 100m and the shotput.

John went through his Order of the Arrow Ordeal this last weekend for Scouts. It was a tough weekend, but I think it was good for him.


Michael is on a Math team that will compete this coming weekend.


Sarah (and I) went to Shell Lake a couple of weeks ago with her Brownie troop for a Theatre Workshop. The girls did a vocal workshop, and a body movement workshop, and then they put on a production of 'Sheherazade,' with makeup & costumes. Some of the girls were on stage, and others were the stage crew. It was really a lot of fun, and they earned their 'Let's Pretend' Try-It badge.

Daniel likes to pretend he can read and carries a copy of one of our Narnia books around the house--he even will mark his place to return to it later after he's looked at it for a while. I asked him once what was happening in the story, and he said, "I don't know!"

It was great having Mom along with Kaisey and McKay come to visit us this last weekend. The kids had a lot of fun. We are so sad that they are leaving Wisconsin! :-(

I guess that is about that~
Patti


Friday, April 13, 2007

states



create your own visited states map

This is kind of a cool tool. It tracks the states you've visited. Dad, I'd love to see your map! I'd bet it is almost all filled up!

Patti

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Easter Break


No beating around the bush here, this was definitely Easter Break. We don't have any other Spring Break, just the Thursday, Friday and Monday around Easter. So--Thursday there was no school. Alisha had track practice in the Morning, but in the afternoon, we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota. The older kids have outgrown our old favorite of the Childrens' Museum, so this worked well for all of them. We even got a membership so we can go back several times during the next year-especially in the summer. They have an OmniTheater -Imax-style movies that totally surround you on a round screen. The movie we saw was about Jane Goodall and her work with chimps. It felt like we were IN the jungle. Emily, who has always been a little prone to motion sickness anyway, got a bit dizzy, but she survived.

Friday I had a dentist appointment in the morning, but I forgot about it until my Dentist office called and said that I was supposed to have been there 20 minutes previously! Yikes! At least I was already dressed, so I just jumped in the car and got there and I didn't have to reschedule. No cavities.
The way everyone is scheduled, I am in the Dentist office every month. John and Alisha are scheduled together, Emily and Michael are together, and Sarah and Daniel are together, and Richard and I are separate. With appointments every 6 months for everyone, we are there always. LOL.Its a good thing the dentist is close to home. On the dental front: John is getting his wisdom teeth in-straight. The dentist says he will probably be able to keep them. Richard's came in compacted, and I never got them at all, so we don't know where John's teeth came from, but fewer dental bills in the future are a good thing.

Alisha and Michael both went to the eye Dr. and got stronger prescriptions, so therefore, new glasses on both of them.

That day I made a quick, one day quilt/table topper.

Spring is coming-slowly- The snow melts, and then it comes back. This picture was from the first time the ice came off the ponds back in March. It came back last week, and today there is snow, but they are forecasting 60s for next week. Yay!

I now have a button for readers to subscribe to my blog so you can be notified when I update. Feel free to sign up! Its not hard at all!

On Saturday (4-7), we were going to have the Easter bunny come first thing in the morning, but, honestly, the house was such a mess that we just couldn't have that, so the Easter Bunny left a note for the kids saying that he had been by, saw the mess and left. We spent the morning cleaning house. It worked well. In the afternoon, we went to go do our paper route, and the Easter Bunny came while we were gone. The kids all got new books in their baskets along with all the candy.
Then, doing things backwards--we colored eggs. The Easter Bunny doesn't hide eggs at our house--we just color them and stick them back in the fridge. Besides the fact, it was 17 degrees outside, and the Easter Bunny didn't WANT to hide them outside!

On Sunday morning, we went to church. I was supposed to sing a solo, but my pianist went to go visit her mother. I was going to just record the accompaniment, (I'd have to do it at the church, because my piano is badly flat), but we had a young couple back at home visiting their parents, and she plays the piano and she graciously took the music, practiced it, and was able to accompany me. So, it all worked out. I sang a song called 'This is the Christ.' The words are by James E. Faust. It was really quite lovely. We are very grateful for this Easter season to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

On Monday, I had Emily's Girl Scout troop (7th grade) over. We earned the Pets Interest Project badge. The girls brought their dogs- we learned about dogs, we designed lost pet finder products, made Scooby Doo cookies, and took old towels to the Animal Shelter.
Then Alisha had track practice.
That night we celebrated her birthday. She won't be here on her actual birthday because she is going to the state FCCLA convention to compete with her Interpersonal Communication project. We played a rousing game of duck duck goose (Daniel's idea), opened presents, and had cake --I haven't uploaded those pictures yet.
I had play practice afterwards. Opening night is next week.

Guess that's all for today. Don't forget to sign up for updates!

Patti