Week #14:Spring Break Action

This week...

...we had a blast during spring break. It went fast, but we lived. every. day. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Mattawa. We took a field trip to the feedlot where Aunt Shelly works. We saw the horses, cows, feed, and chickens.

We worked out in the yard clearing leaves and tree limbs. All of the kids worked hard without having to be told to get back to work. The treats at Grandma's are always popular.

We went for walks down to the farm, looking for rocks on our way.

Aunt Shelly taught the kids how to draw an easy, but cute, bat. She is doing a picture-a-day journal this year. She found a really neat tutorial drawing site that helps you draw with great results. Once we got home, we drew lost of things on our own from that site - minnie mouse, a minion, angry birds, Elsa (that one didn't turn out so great).

Aunt Shelly gathered the kids in her room. They wanted in on the treats she had stashed there, but I told them they had to answer trivia questions first. Aunt Shelly's good with trivia. So she asked different questions and we guessed at them to get out treat.

Lainey fell asleep on me as we listened.

Lainey was matching her hands to the ones on the grandkid wall.

Grandpa Zirker played a trick on me. He put a mcracker in one shoe and an almond in the other. When I went to put my shoes on to do yard work, I was met with these uncomfortable surprises in my shoes. I couldn't believe who would drop these things in my shoes, until I remembered that my dad and brother Corey play this trick on each other, slipping crazy things into their shoes the night before.

On Wednesday we went to the Benton City Fire Station. Jason was working in that area and was able to meet us there for the tour. Paul needed to visit the fire station in connection with the unit on fire safety. The kids had a good time.

Saturday night we had a barbeque with Jason's family. We grilled on the Traeger and then watched the men's session of conference together. That was definitely different. :) Then we went to a late showing of Captain America with his sisters Lara and Shawnee, Bill (Shawnee's husband), and Hannah (niece). It was fun to be out with them and the movie was good.

Lara, Lainey, Jason, Emma, Shawnee, Hannah, Paul

Paul and Ben worked a paying job as vinyl assistants over the break. Ben was getting frustrated that Paul wasn't letting him help. Paul is a pretty handy helper and gets excited to have his hands in on the action. Vinyl isn't always the easiest task to let little kids help with, but Jason was being very patient with them as they decal-ed this car for Adams County.

These are the kids' thank you pictures for the firemen and EMT's that helped us out at the fire station:

Week #13:Special Olympics Luncheon

This week...

...Jason got Traeger grill. Let me just say gift card and Costco. That about sums it up. He was like a kid on Christmas day as he opened that box. Paul was super excited to help where he could. I can't wait for him to start making dinner. Haha!

...Monday, Monday. 

...Emma performed in the fourth grade choir. Her cousin Ethan is also in the choir.

...we had a fear factor mutual night. They were very brave to try the different gross activities. I would not have been able to eat the baby food and the harry potter jelly beans were really taking a toll. We gave a little message about having faith vs. fear. Faith wins every time.

...Jason worked with Texas Roadhouse to organize a luncheon for Special Olympics. Texas Roadhouse is so cool when it comes to community service. They donate everything for the meal and open up before business hours to host the luncheon. Then they donate ALL of the proceeds to the organization for which we're raising funds. Their employees come in and volunteer their time to seat and serve at the luncheon. It's amazing! This time our focus was Special Olympics.

Jason parked his car out front along with one of the unmarked chargers that the gang team uses.

Here's the chalk art greeting that Texas Roadhouse had in the entry. I joked with them that no one would have thought that chalk art abilities was part of the job description.

The Benton County Gang Team came in to greet people at the door. We also had a Richland Officer and a Port of Benton Officer helping at the door as well.

Our friend Erik came with his mom Valery. He wore some of his medals from Special Olympics.

The Texas Roadhouse did not disappoint. Even thought it was a small luncheon, they got out there and danced several times. That's just what they do. Will Butts (pictured above) is the one that worked with Jason so much to put the luncheon together.

Here's my Lainey modeling the proper use of the napkin with the delicious food. Texas Roadhouse made these slider sandwiches this time. They were a huge hit...with me. ;)

Week #12: Measure Up!

This week...

...In the Barbie movie, The Magic of Pegasus...(Really? You ask. Yes, really. We watch a lot of Barbie around here.) Ahem! Back to what I was saying...In the movie, Barbie has to hunt down three things to make a wand of light to overcome the evil bad guy. The first one is a measure of courage. Lainey trying to see how tall she is with the tape measure made me think of that. Lainey's taking her measure. 

...we caught sight of these little blossoms beginning. What a great time of year! I love it when the buds and blossoms and leaves return. This is the tree in our backyard. Soon, they'll be popping out everywhere else.

...we played at the park.We met with one of Paul's friends from school. I sat and talked with Amity and the kids played with Caleb. Caleb showed Paul how to make these paper claws and they've been doing nothing else since.

The park got too cold for me. So we came home and brought the neighbor kids with us.

 

...Jason painted my bookshelf for our bedroom. He created a nice paint booth in the garage and set to work. I can't wait to use it.

Week #11:In Time Out

This week...

...I went to Time Out For Women with my sisters. My Sisters-in-Law were also there with their groups so it made for a fun weekend. When I was texting about Time Out, my phone auto corrected and I almost sent a message I was going to be in a time out. Haha! Not quite! The presenters were great. Shelly and I even snuck into the Time Out For Girls side to hear Hank Smith. He is so funny! I really enjoyed Laurel Christensen Day and Emily Freeman.

Me with Cherice, Shelly, Julie Marie, and Julie's sister Susan

The caramel apples at The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - Yum! This is our traditional candy stop. This year we tried the toffee and reeses pieces apples. Very good!

We stayed at the Davenport Hotel. It was very fancy. The theme was African safari. There were huge elephant heads in the lobby and tiny elephant heads around the gold trim at the ceiling. They had a bronzed, life-size rhino in the entry and a tiger resting in the restaurant area.

 

 
We had a doorbell!

And real towels in the bathroom for drying our hands. 

Here's our selfie in the granite walls of one of the downtown buildings. We liked walking to and from the convention center.

Shelly and I when we snuck over to Time Out For Girls.

Breakfast at the hotel. My biscuits and gravy was a sad disappointment. Next time I'll get the crepe.

Our group before leaving the hotel.

We ate at Luigi's for lunch again. We liked it so much we decided it was worth going back.

I found me a pair of Born shoes. It's been so long. I've been making do. I didn't know how much I missed a good shoe until I slipped my foot back into one of these.

...Jason took the kids to soccer on Saturday morning. I signed them up for soccer with Family Friendly Soccer out of Richland. I sent Jason to the store for shorts for Emma and Claire and he came away with "gear" for each one. Haha! (Which I'm very grateful that he did because they needed it.) So even though I was gone for the weekend at Time Out, my fabulous husband took these rascals to their first practice/scrimmage all by himself. They had so much fun. He took pictures and texted them to me. Tears came to my eyes as I looked at their happy faces. I was so grateful in that moment for the support and love of my husband and my five beautiful children. (He even took our five kids, plus our little friend Danica, to the Lego movie on Friday. Way to go! I tell him to lay low with all the kids when I go to Time Out, but he's ambitious. He's not afraid to get out with all of them.)

They had to try everything on Friday night. Aren't they great?!

Jason texted this photo to me on Saturday morning. They were ready to go!

This is Lainey's photo bomb picture. Boo-yah!

On the Field-

Here's Lainey hanging with her dad. She got some new soccer clothes as well, she was just in bed when they took the picture together. This is what he texted me about his night without me: "Lainey crawled in bed with me last night. She beat me up pretty good (knees, slapped, kicked, etc)." Poor guy!

...Jason worked on the bookshelf for our room. It is really coming along. It's almost ready to paint. I am so excited to put it in my room and finally be able to unpack some books.

...we took Lainey out to Tony Roma's. Jason won a gift card to Tony Roma's at his awards banquet. I've never been there before so we went out to lunch while all the other kids were in school. She liked her dessert of pudding and gummy worms.

...I discovered where Emma's missing pants had got themselves to. She went and stayed with a cousin at her Aunt Shawnee's house. She left with three pair of pants and only came back with one. It was bizarre to say the least. I asked her if she'd checked her bag several times and she assured me that she had. We texted Aunt Shawnee. No, they live in a small apartment and there aren't that many places for pants to hide. We called Grandma Erickson because they'd gone over there. No, the pants didn't get left behind there. We called the cousin to check if the pants had got tangled up in her stuff. No, no extra pants to be found. Hhmmph! Where could they be? 
   As I was cleaning clothes off the bedroom floors to start a load of wash, I made my way into Emma's room. I noticed her backpack and picked it up. It felt heavy for being supposedly empty. I opened the middle pocket and discovered the two missing pairs of pants. Sigh. What a silly girl I have. Apparently, the middle pocket doesn't count as part of the backpack.

...my sister found a mouse in her room. It was moving so slowly that she was able to push it into a box with a dust pan and get rid of it.

We thought it was fitting to find this already written on the side of the box - DESTROY! 

...we took the YM and YW to the planetarium for mutual. We had plenty of spots so the Activity Day girls got to go too. Emma liked that. It's so fun to learn more about the stars and how to find them in the night sky.

This is a look at the size of the planets in comparison to each other and the gigantic sun at the top.