Tired Monday

The girls were tuckered out this morning, still tired from Easter. They went down easily for an early nap with a promise that they could go right outside afterwards for a snack. They were so excited to get out there, they put their boots on the wrong feet and then they kept jumping up and running around and Ava's bowl of apple ended up on the ground, twice. We got out the chalk so they could draw on the driveway, they played at the playfort and then went for a walk to the big swing. They are very nervous about bugs and bees, and are always on the lookout. Ava was picking flowers today and a bug touched her hand which sent her into hysterics for a minute, but she wasn't bitten, just scared.

A sunny Easter

18 cousins

It was a beautiful Easter day for our celebration at Cathy and Bob's house. After a delicious meal of ham and many side dishes and desserts, the kids hunted eggs.

Ava found lots of them

Rielee reaching into the tree to get one, she already found her basket, Harper, Bridget and Jillian are in the background.

Luke and Lexi made it down to the last 3 in the raw egg toss, until this happened and they were out. Luke later went on to win the egg rolling game.

The kids all had fun playing outside, Ava and Harper really liked playing with Jillian's little dog Sophie but were nervous when Mocha the big dog came around.

Chicks

Friday Ava and Harper came up to spend the night with us. The first thing Harper noticed was that we were out of food for the birds so we made a trip to the feed store. We knew the baby chicks were in and wanted to show them to the girls, too. They weren't afraid to touch them but got a little nervous when Papa was trying to catch one to hold. Papa also had to give them a "tour" of the feed store and the only thing they were interested in were the animal heads on the wall, those really got their attention!

They will be excited when Rielee gets her chickens, which might happen very soon since our chicken coop moved over to their place today.

Getting along

Rielee and Parker sat like this for the longest time this morning. Parker was playing his Sims game and Rielee found it interesting to watch him. Although they sometimes bicker, they have spent a lot of time this week playing together, mostly playing UNO and basketball. We all played a lot of UNO this week, many marathon games.
Today I supervised while they cleaned their rooms and then Parker and I headed into town while Rielee went to Cathy's to play with Jillian. When we got back, they played more UNO, Rielee took an hour long bath and Parker played Sims. Papa said he and Rielee played a couple games of Tumblin' Monkeys, too.

Aquatic center

We thought it would be fun to take the kids to the N. Clackamas Aquatic Center on this rainy Spring break day. First we stopped at Shari's to have a sit down lunch. That was something, Papa entertained the kids with a story about how his Dad spanked him for kicking a football through a window (he had tried to outrun his Dad first), and also by teaching them marching songs. Parker ordered a french dip but didn't want the dip, Rielee had pancakes, bacon, grapes and a strawberry milkshake, and to our surprise, ate it all.

Unfortunately, the aquatic center was very full. But we managed to crowd our way into the wave pool and that was awesome. It would have been even more fun if we could have rented a tube, but they were out by the time we got there.

Both Rielee and Parker went off the diving board a bunch of times. Rielee kept saying she was going to do a somersault but it ended up looking like she was running through the air. She just couldn't figure it out. She really wanted to go down one of the water slides but Parker didn't want to wait in the long line, so I took her. Fun for her, I found that I still hate water slides.

On the way home we stopped in LaCenter to get something to drink, I stayed in the car and what a surprise--the kids came out with junk food and Papa got coffee and Zingers, he said it was okay because they were on vacation.

Movie day

We just had Rielee today since Parker and Gabe went snowboarding. We decided to make it a movie day and rented Chipwrecked for our morning movie, we liked it but it would have been more enjoyable on a larger screen. In the afternoon we went to see Lorax, which Rielee really liked, but I found kind of slow in the middle (I fell asleep 3 times), the beginning and end were good though. After the movie we went to Winco and Rielee was quite a little helper with the bulk items and bagging the groceries for me. Several people commented on the great job she was doing. Then we made a stop at Petco for fish for the pond. She picked out 1 large goldfish and 4 smaller ones of various colors. It stopped raining when we got home so we quickly cleaned out the pond and refilled it so we could add the fish in the morning.

Basketball, painting, board games

A sunny Spring break Monday was a day of mostly basketball, with a little outdoor painting and board games, too. Parker, Auna and Rielee have been playing basketball at our hoop since they can lower it and slam dunk and it bends, Parker says, like the ones in the NBA. He got to sit in front row seats at last night's Blazers game so he was full of stories about that.
We played "horse" most of the day and ended with a very funny game of basketball, Rielee and I vs. Parker and Auna. Rielee kept telling me to "huddle up" for pep talks, she was frustrated that we weren't winning.
Rielee wanted to paint today so we set her easel up outside. She loves to paint but gets frustrated when she tries to paint animals and they don't look quite right. Actually, I think she enjoys getting all the paint ready and mixing the colors more than the actual painting. We had about 30 minutes of prep time for 15 minutes of painting.