Mid-Week Randoms

We celebrated Earth Day this year with the girls making posters for the Grand Opening of the new Recycling Center in Laingsburg.  The schools were encouraging anyone that wanted to design a poster to make one and submit it for a chance to win a gift card to the Dairy Den in town.  

Jimmy worked on a special side project of his own while Sophia worked on her Earth Day poster:

Samantha designed one quickly and hers was used as decoration on the wall at the event:

But, Sophia's ended up winning 1st Place for the Elementary School and she received a $25.00 gift card for ice cream!

The winners were on display, so we went to the Grand Opening event ...

... and Sophia was formally presented with her award:

We have now been doing SO MUCH recycling there!

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When the kids were younger, they used to take baths in our master bathroom ALL THE TIME.  Now, everyone showers exclusively, but Jimmy still enjoys a nice bath -- especially if it involves a lot of bubbles!

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We were invited to a Cinco De Mayo party so I made cupcakes, of course!  They were a huge hit!

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Jack and Sophia had a Spring Music Concert at school so they dressed nicely for the event.  Oh, how we have missed the normalcy of things like this!

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Nicer weather means that we work on schoolwork outside as much as we can!

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Jack's Biography Project this year was on George Washington.  He worked on the report at school (I was amazed by his typing skills!) and then worked on his poster at home.  Once he was finished, I drove him to school one morning with the poster so that he could present it to the class.

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Crazy Hair Day at school!

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Spring Band Concert with our trumpet player!

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Sophia's last Daddy-Daughter Dance!  After missing the dance for the last 2 years because of COVID, the dance was finally scheduled and Sophia was so excited about it!

The blue dress was a beautiful color for her!

She's growing up so fast!

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Potter Park Zoo with James

With COVID numbers (finally) stabilizing, the school district has opened up the opportunity to have field trips again.  It is a tradition that the kindergarten class goes to the local zoo -- Potter Park Zoo -- as their 'end of the year field trip' and I was excited to be able to meet the bus there and walk around with Jimmy.  We packed a lunch to eat under the pavilion and then I surprised him by letting him leave early (instead of returning back to school) to ride back home with me.

Our first stop was to see the bald eagle.  This was one of Jimmy's favorite animals there and we managed to stop back by on our way out for one more visit:

There is an exhibit there with Farm Animals and even though we see a lot of those on a regular basis, it is still fun to stop and see them:

This huge turtle statue has been part of the zoo for as long as I can remember and I am pretty sure that I have pictures of each of the kids on it from our visits there over the years.

We stood in line for a bit to see the red pandas (there were even a couple of babies there) and while we were waiting, James asked to have his picture taken in this cut out:

The lion and tiger exhibit was fun to see (and hear!).

So majestic!

Jimmy jokingly referred to the lions as Simba and Nala -- from one of my all-time favorite Disney movies.

We went inside a building to see the monkeys and we really enjoyed watching them.  

Sophia's favorite animal is a penguin so we made sure to take a picture and send it to her:

The birds were beautiful!  Even though the weather was still a bit chilly (see the gloves?), we still had a great time!

A scenic waterfall ...

Another iconic statue that we always manage to get a picture taken at:

Our last stop: the wolves.  I chuckled because our school district is the Wolfpack so it was appropriate that we made a visit here before exiting through the Gift Shop and onto lunch ...

Easter 2022

Ahhhh ... Easter Eve.  There is still a sense of anticipation in the air with the kids but without the hustle and bustle that Christmas brings with it.  Jimmy was excited to fix a big plate of snacks for the Easter Bunny and we included something different this year -- some actual rabbit food that we had in the garage.

The next morning, the radishes were eaten and most of the food had disappeared.

There was a note from Peter Cottontail himself, thanking the kids for the thoughtful snack ("no one leaves me rabbit food!") and letting them know that their egg hunt would be INSIDE this year due to the cold temps outside.  

Baskets all set out and waiting for the kids to wake up and discover them!

Annnnddd ... they're up, bright and early but with a little bit of sleepiness still showing on their faces.

The girls read the letter out loud and shared what color eggs were theirs to find:

Sophia was assigned her traditional PINK eggs and some of them were a stretch for her.

Jimmy's egg color was BLUE:

Jack's eggs were YELLOW and he found himself off to a great start and then started to stall out on the last few!

Oooh, that Easter Bunny made sure that Sam's GREEN eggs were hard to find.  She often needed a chair to reach hers.

No area of the main floor was off limits. 

Counting his eggs to make sure that he had all of them:

Candy and money!

Finally, it was time to see what the Easter Bunny had left for everyone.  I feel like sunglasses are a traditional (and important) Easter Basket item:

A new hat for Spring and Summer!  This hat has an American Flag on it, but it is made up of lines of fish.  Jack now has a favorite fishing cap.

For our budding artist!

Sam is really into "plants" right now, so these PJs were perfect for her:

Later, we had family over for dinner, dessert and a few games.  The weather was damp and drizzly but we enjoyed spending time together and showing off the Easter goodies to everyone!

Easter Egg Hunt at the Park - 2022

The day before Easter, we headed down to the park to join in the annual Easter Egg Hunt with neighbors. Samantha decided that she didn't want to participate this year, but offered to help scatter the eggs around (including the valuable golden eggs!) an hour or so prior to the event.   

I had high hopes that it would be much warmer this year because it was a later date than usual (April 17th, to be exact), but one look at the weather app, told me that we would be out of luck.  We bundled in sweatshirts, gloves and warm socks and made the best of it.  

The boys each had their first flag football game later that day, so they were sporting their respective team jerseys:

All lined up and ready to go!

And ... they're off!

Jack ran to the far edge of the park to score those eggs while others were busy picking up eggs near the starting line.  Smart thinking!

There are ALWAYS eggs hidden near and inside the pirate ship, so Sophia started there first.

I love this picture.  It makes it look like James is the only one out hunting for eggs, but he clearly had lots of other competition based on the starting line up.  The others were just preoccupied in other areas of the park.  Ha!

Obligatory picture for Mom by the lake ... freezing their tails off in mid-April: