Weekly Update

 Another busy week!  Matt finished planting the rest of the Christmas trees in the field...the last 100 trees.  Now they are all in the ground and ready to grow nice and beautiful!

I have a couple more days of work until tax day!  The hours are getting longer and the days are much busier, but I love it!  I am looking forward to Wednesday when I plan on doing nothing but catching up on some rest.  I am so very grateful for Matt and the kids and my mom helping me fill in the gaps with chores and dinner and homework help.

This was my fifth year of helping plan the Crater carnival.  The big day was this past Saturday.  It was a bit more stressful with the other items I am involved with at this time, but we had a great committee working on the carnival!  The kids had a blast playing games and eating junk food and winning prizes.  Levi played Surprise Door over and over again and got sprayed with water almost every time....but he kept coming back!

Erika had her big field trip with her fourth grade class to BizTown.  I was working on the day they went so Matt went with her as a chaperone.  They both said it was an amazing experience!!  There is a small community set up in this huge warehouse and the kids run the town.  Erika has spent the last month or so learning about banking, checking vs. savings accounts, budgeting, etc.  She got to apply for different jobs and then they 4th grade teachers looked over everyone's applications and assigned everyone a job in the town.   She was the meteorologist and Matt said she did a great job!  She was on air a few times throughout the day....they had tv screens in each little shop in the town....and she had other parts of her job she was responsible for.  She got paid for her BizTown work and was able to spend her earnings in the shop.  Such a great experience for her!

 

Our church participates in a service project called Loads of Love where we collect money for a couple weeks and then hand out quarters and laundry soap to people in our community who are doing their laundry at a local laundry mat.  While Matt, Laurel and Levi stayed home tending to the weeds/grass around the new trees, Erika and my mom and I went to the laundry mat to serve.  Erika did a great job helping!  She was a little hesitant at first about approaching strangers and asking them if they wanted some quarters, but she said she would love to do it again!  I was glad she was able to serve right alongside me and her grandma.

 Laurel got to go to a friend's birthday party at the pool and had a blast!  She spent the majority of the time playing on the water log float.  Such a sweet spunky girl!  

 Levi is quite the helper in our family.  He does whatever is asked of him, especially outside chores.  He is getting very fast and strong and runs to whatever task is assigned him.  He helped Matt twice this past week cut away grass around the tree seedlings and didn't complain about it.