Beginning of the Month Randoms

Jack had friends over to work on his 6th Grade Science Fair Project.  The premise involved using different solutions to see which ones were the most effective in cleaning copper pennies.

I was more than a bit excited to whip out some rubber gloves and chemistry equipment to aid in their experimentation.

One of Jack's friends shared in my excitement, obviously.

Proper technique:

Jack was in charge of adding his special vice, a cold Coca-Cola.

Adding to scientific petri dishes that I secured from the biology department on campus:

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Early-season fishing has commenced:

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Sophia's dance recital was a success!  I love being able to see the kids doing things that they love and that includes dance for Sophia.  She participated in ballet, hip hop and tap this year and just wrapped up her first season as an assistance dance teacher.

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Sam's Junior Prom:

Down at the park before the dance:

Some beautiful sunshine:

She picked out the dress six months ago and I think that it was a beautiful color for her!

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Jimmy did a research project on a famous person and chose Thomas Edison.  Afterwards, we worked together on a poster to present to his class.  

A blast from the past: Sam's poster was Johnny Appleseed; Sophia's was Helen Keller and Jack's poster was George Washington.

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More Springtime sunshine = painting outside.

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Easter - 2025

On the night before Easter, Jimmy, fresh from his shower, set to work setting out a plate of veggies for the Easter Bunny and making sure that each of the kids' baskets were placed on a table to (hopefully) be filled by morning.

When the kids awoke, they found a letter with directions instructing them to begin their outside easter egg hunt first.  

Ready and anxious to begin:

A little chilly but given the later date of this year's holiday (April 20th), it was not as cold as it has been in the past:

The grass is starting to show a little bit of green.

And boots were definitely recommended.

After gathering all of their respectively-colored eggs (green for Sam, pink for Sophia, yellow for Jack and blue for Jimmy), they headed inside to reveal details for the scavenger hunt.

Back inside to open their eggs.  Some of the eggs contained words that needed to be put together to collectively reveal the location of Clue #1.  

Solving Clue #1, led the kids to Clue #2.  

And this continued on for a total of 24 clues ...

Eventually, they found that their baskets -- no longer on the table where Jimmy had left them the night before -- were hidden in the back of my van in the driveway.

In the end, it was a LONG scavenger hunt but well worth the drawn-out suspense.  As the kids get older, I am always looking for ways to keep the holidays exciting and this definitely worked!

Easter Egg Coloring - 2025

We decided to color eggs the day before Easter this year.  We had a limited window of time to do so because Sam was scheduled to work and we wanted to help at the annual Easter Egg Hunt down at our subdivision park.  (Jimmy was still planning to do the hunt but the older kids were scheduled to simply assist).

Jack did the honors of helping to set up the colors while I set out four dozen hard-boiled eggs: 1 dozen for each one of the kids.

This is a yet another tradition that I hope we continue as long as possible; even when Sam heads off to college next year.

The creative juices were flowing the whole time.

Sophia is very intentional with her designs and opted for some rubber gloves to protect her hands (and beautiful nails) from the dye.

Sam was dressed and ready to head to her job at the local winery once she finished with her eggs.

The obligatory group shot:

So many colors!

Sophia continued working on her intricate designs ...

... and Sam finished in just enough time to make it to work down the road for her shift!

St. Patrick's Day - 2025

The day before St. Patrick's Day, the boys announced that, yet again, they were planning to set up a leprechaun trap in attempts to capture one of those pesky guys.  They brainstormed, gathered supplies and did everything ON THEIR OWN.  

As I watched them from a distance, I realized that I needed to (quickly) plan for the escape.  I spent a bit of time in my office, made a quick trip to the store, and then pulled everything together after they headed to bed.

The trap, set up to lure the leprechauns with the promise of gold coins inside, was originally propped up:

With no success, but instead, there was a note left behind and coveted rainbow-colored, fruit-flavored jellybeans left behind for their efforts.

I think that they boys were just as pleased with the 'reward' left behind.

It was too much of a challenge to get a collective picture of the kids before school, so we settled on one afterwards.  Being big Michigan State fans in our household comes in handy when looking for green shirts.  Ha!

Sophia's 14th Birthday

This year, Sophia opted to celebrate her birthday in a simple fashion: just at home with us, in lieu of a bigger celebration with friends.  I questioned her constantly, sure that she would change her mind, but she held firm on her decision.  Regardless, I made sure to still make it as special as possible.

I settled on an aqua theme and set to work decorating a corner of the dining room.

I made a cake to match the decor:

And even wrapped the presents in similar-colored bags, wrapping paper and tissue paper:

We had cinnamon rolls (early) on the morning of her birthday and sang happy birthday for the first time while she smiled.

That evening, we gathered for a quick picture and then she was excited to open her gifts.

Her most favorite gift of all was a special album that Sam has spent quite some time working on for her.

Inside, there were thoughtful messages, small gift cards to various places that Sam knew Sophia would love to go and pictures of them over the years.

It was a definite labor of love (and money) for Sam and I know that it will be treasured for a long time.

Singing 'happy birthday' again!

One last surprise!  The cake that I made was a 'money cake.'  Hidden inside was a string of money (totaling $50) that she kept pulling from the center of the cake!  

Valentine's Day - 2025

Now that the three older kids are out of elementary school, I just have one kiddo left to work on valentines for his classmates.  It's hard knowing that the end of an era is close so I made sure to schedule a block of time for us to work on these together.

James chose to give his friends sour patch kids and I printed a tag to go on each one.

He took the initiative and signed his name to each one and applied a sticky 'dot' to the back to apply them to the outside of the bags.

But the best part was the design of his box to collect valentines in.  He wanted a dinosaur and, working with supplies that we already had available in my craft closet, we cut/glued and assembled quite the masterpiece.  

Miraculously, it made it to school unscathed AND back home again.  He loves it so much that it is now residing in his bedroom on display on the top of his dresser.  His smile in the picture above is one that I hope to remember forever.

Jimmy's Magical Birthday with Friends

A week and a half after Jimmy' actual birthday, we made plans to celebrate in the most MAGICAL way -- with a hired magician to perform a magic show at our house.

At first, I planned to have the show in our living room, but the day before with Steve's suggestion, we chose to set up in the garage.  It gave us the chance to have the magician set up privately while the kids stayed inside the house and ate lunch.  The garage can be heated with our wood-burning stove (it used to belong to my grandparents) and I made some minor adjustments to the backdrop to make it all work.

Sophia helped the birthday boy fill all of the favor bags for his friends:

The favor bags were set up inside with some peanut butter blossom cookies for later.

I served chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, strawberries and apples inside and added a few small details here and there.  

The cupcake tower was a small labor of love.  I used large-sized playing cards and hot-glued them together to create a sturdy enough tower to hold the homemade cupcakes.  I always like to offer both cupcakes and cake.  In doing so, the cupcakes were vanilla and the cake was chocolate.  This was later moved out to the garage for the posse of boys to devour.

The audience of boys was set up in the garage and Jeff included all of them at one point or another so that it was a collaborative effort.  Even Jack was called up to participate.

The birthday boy was definitely involved:

Making magic happen!

Opening gifts from his friends:

Ainsley came over for the show; after all, she is Jimmy's birthday twin.  He was born on Ainsley's 7th birthday.  

The group of boys that joined us for the event:

The birthday boy and his cake.  

You should have seen his face when I showed him the finished product!  I purposely kept it a surprise and while he saw little bits and pieces while I was working on it, I don't think that he imagined how it would all come together.

As I was slicing it and handing out ice cream cups to the kids, I chuckled at how much they loved it too.  The bunny got split up among them -- one took the ears, another took a paw, etc.  It was perfect!