Spring!

Today was a really nice day...here are some of the things that I want to remember:

Mychael making a homemade kite and running around like crazy trying to get it to fly.

Jordan playing in her new place house, at one point yelling, "Pickles! Pickles for sale!"

Nathan dangling one of Jordan's Barbies out the second floor window (a naked one, of course) by its foot just to see how she'd react. Brothers.

All four kids spending over an hour making paper airplanes, one of Mychael's had "Diabetes Sucks" written on one of its wings.

Trapping and releasing a skink that was brought into our house by the cat.

The clear blue sky, mixed with a nice breeze and no humidity.

Jon coming in from painting the rocking chairs black with a paint mustache that looked like Hitler's. He didn't think it was as funny as I did.

Nathan running around telling everybody he'd pulled a big white hair out of his head, and saying, "Somebody get me a shoebox for this thing!" (To save it.) It was one of the cat's hairs.

Zach having excellent blood sugars after having run high during the night. (The site had gone bad.)

Jon laying in the driveway for Jordan to trace him. Jordan drawing me in a bikini and I have kankles.

skink in the house

Spring is in the air, complete with little critters beginning to emerge from hibernation, like the live skink (for those that don't know, it's a lizard-type thing that slithers like a snake) our cat brought into the house this morning. It was missing a few pieces of its tail, but was otherwise intact, and I did not want the cat to torture it to death like the mice she usually brings us. So, without the support of any males in my household, I caught and trapped the poor terrified little thing and set it loose outside, where it will hopefully apply any lessons it learned from today's ordeal and avoid being seen by the fluffy gray predator. Mychael had picked up the camera and was filming at one point, I thought his narration was hilarious! He said, "It would have been a lot easier to just let the cat in." I had picked it up at one point and was walking toward the door, but then it turned and faced me and I was sure it would run up my arm and end up in my shirt, in which case I would DIE, so I dropped it and came up with a plan that didn't involve me handling it. The video was taking a really long time to upload, so I don't have that right now, I'll try it again later, or on Facebook.

It actually reminded me of the incident a few years ago when we had a skink in our bedroom, and Jon thought that if we took the screen out of the window and made it like a ramp going up from the floor, the skink would figure out how to get out. We left to go get ice cream, and while we were gone there was a series of strangely connected phone calls, which resulted in three police cars and a complete search of our house! To someone driving by, it had appeared that our house had been broken into, so you can imagine how funny the police found our story of what was REALLY going on!

visit with my parents

We had a nice visit with my parents this weekend, squeezing in bowling, lunch, dinner at Jon's parents' house, the park, and lots of card playing. My dad has started teaching Mychael and Nathan to play Cribbage, and Zach loves to play War and Go Fish. Jordan is all over my mom, she just can't get enough! Anyway, here are some pictures...

pigtails

With the warmer weather we had last weekend, I had fun pulling out Jordan's Spring wardrobe and dressing her. Also, her hair has gotten so long that it nicely goes into pigtails (not so much pigtails anymore, I guess ponytails!). She doesn't mind posing for the camera one bit.

community garden

Our fellowship group (which happens to be Mennonite, for the most part) has decided to have a community garden at the home of one of the families that is involved. We thought it would be a great opportunity to be more involved in each other's lives, working the garden together and letting the kids play in the Swiss Family Robinson-like yard. They have a great tree house up in a magnolia tree, and plenty of room to run and use the imagination. The family parakeet was a huge hit with my own kids, who campaigned heavily for a bird of their own. Jon and Richard worked the rototiller (I think I spelled that right) last Saturday, but it was a lot or work with the soil being so saturated after the snow we had. We're in the process of deciding what we want to plant, it should be an interesting learning experience on many levels...

Zach's new smile

A couple of weeks ago, while we were at karate, I managed to pull out one of Zach's front tooth (no, it didn't get punched out!), I'd been working on it for a few weeks. I love his little grin now, and I wonder how different he's going to look when his permanent front teeth come in, it usually changes their appearance so much. He's getting so tall, but still has his "brick" body, like a football player, solid. But not a baby anymore, even though he's very much a snuggler. I carried him up the stairs to bed until recently (he's 49 pounds, now), not every time, but when he was really sleepy I would!

more with snow

The snow stuck around for a couple of days, so the kids had fun making a little snowman, and "picking icicles."

Our visit with Megan and Cole

My sister and her 19-month old son, Cole, visited us over the weekend, which happened to coincide with snow, a real treat!

more pics from visit with Megan

karate testing

The three boys had their testing yesterday for their next belt in karate, Nathan and Zach for yellow belt, Mychael skipped over yellow belt and went right to orange. Their sensei sent me an email later in the day saying how proud he was of how the kids did, and Jon and I are equally proud. They've worked hard to memorize the history facts they had to know, as well as the kicks, punches, and katas, as well. Jon's dad, and his brother and his family also came to watch, which Zach was thrilled to have his cousin Isaiah there. I love it when Zach has to contort his face to try and conceal a big smile coming on, and when he was presented his belt and certificate there was a lot of contorting!