This Week

The girls and I got to spend a wet evening watching their Uncle Josh coach his lacrosse team!  Matt and Levi stayed home because it was raining and the game started at Levi's usual bed time.  But, the girls and I enjoyed our time!  Well, they really liked the game for about two minutes and then they enjoyed running up and down the bleachers.  Thankfully, the bleachers were under cover.  Although I still don't know all the rules for lacrosse, I had fun watching it!  There was a lot more hitting each other with sticks then I thought was necessary, but I am sure that if part of the allure!

 

They liked the bleachers and wondered where the popcorn was.

The players were absolutely soaked!  My girls were freezing!

 

 

 The kids made a reading train the other night and took turns driving through different story scenarios.  One of Erika's classmates introduced her to the Magic Tree House book series (which are awesome!) and the main characters go to different time and places in history in their tree house.  That has sparked a whole new kind of imagination for the kids and they are now telling me where their "magic closet" takes them.  They huddle in Erika's closet, decide where they are going (usually some kind of princess castle) and then come out and have the adventure they dreamed up.  Makes a book-loving mama's heart happy to see her kids play like that!

 

At school, the kids are awarded "high fives" for exemplary behavior.  All grade levels are included in various high five contests and last week, Erika's name (and several others) was chosen out of the school wide contest with the winners allowed to wear a hat to school.  So, on Tuesday night, we got out all of her hat options and she chose which hat she wanted to wear.  She is not really a hat person, but because it was a special reward for her, she was pretty excited about the idea!  She chose her red Cabelas hat that her daddy bought for her on a work trip.  My cute little star student!

Biking and Baseball

This past week, we started working with Erika on riding a two wheeler instead of a bike with training wheels.  After only a few days of help, she is really good!  We run along side her to make sure she has her balance, but she does well keeping her body straight and righting herself if she starts leaning too much.

 

Laurel has Erika's old bike with training wheels, but she much prefers Levi's balance bike.  He is too short for it so at least someone gets to ride it!

Our big girl!

And, while the girls rode their bikes, Levi got in some baseball practice.

 

A perfect Sunday!

Fishing

We went on our first fishing trip of the year this weekend.  The past few years, we have waited until the warm summer months to go.  This year, however, we decided to actually use our fishing permit that we pay for!  Since the rain held off Saturday morning, we packed up the kids and the gear and went to our favorite spot.  Luckily, we had most of the spot to ourselves because we tend to spread out and be very loud while fishing. 

 

The day started off great!  The kids are always very excited to get to sit in their little chairs and hold their fishing poles. 

 

 This was Levi's first time that we deemed him mature enough to hang onto his fishing pole.  He loved it!  But he kept trying to cast even when his line was in the water.  There were some tangles that we had to get him out of!

 

 Probably the kids favorite part of fishing are the snacks we bring.  Donuts, this time.

 

 Laurel helping Daddy choose the PowerBait.

 

 

 And, like always, about halfway through the trip, the kids go off to play in the dirt while Daddy mans all 4 fishing poles in the water.

 

We had such a great time, though!  No fish were caught, but the kids lasted longer than last time and maybe one day we will actually catch one!

 

The One Who Got Away

After leaving our leprechaun trap out Thursday night, we woke up on Friday morning to see that he *had* been in our house, knocked the ladder over, and left his hat.  But, unfortunately, he did not get trapped.

 

 

Erika made a leprachaun mask at school and thought the leprechaun might come visit if the kids looked like him.

 

And, on Saturday morning, we found this:

 

 

Tricky Leprechaun

At Erika's school, the first and second graders made leprechaun traps in hopes of catching one tomorrow.  Erika decided she also wanted to make a trap and hope a leprechaun will get caught in it and have treats with him.  We'll see.....

 

They designed the trap themselves.  They wanted to cover a box so the leprechaun didn't think it was just a box of fruit snacks.  Then they added stickers of clovers and horseshoes to make him feel welcome.  A little ladder goes to a door so the leprechaun can get in, but not out.

The bait we used were pennies.  We had no gold so Erika decided pennies looked close enough to gold.

And, of course, a welcome sign so he is sure to come in!