We made it through our week of celebrations! We enjoyed all of the extra good food, family, and friend time and even survived the big sleepover. Pics from the week:
Easter morning photos before any of the boys were ready. These two have gotten so close. Julia loves taking care of her and teaching her. The night before Easter I heard them chatting away upstairs, Julia quizzing Allie on the true meaning of Easter. Easter morning before they got up, Julia had already read the Easter story to Allie from her Bible. She is constantly teaching her things and giving her rewards for good behavior. :) Today she taught her that worms wiggle and snakes bite. There is always a test at the end to check for understanding. :)
Julia wanted to be a photographer too.
The best of the kid pics. I have several others in which there is always one who is not meeting the simple task of looking and smiling. Julia began grumpy because she wanted to hold Allie and Gray *always* gets to hold Allie in the picture. (Disregard the pics above we had taken 10 minutes prior where she is holding Allie.) Then she recovered and Gray thought it would be fun to pretend to be sad. Somewhere in there Joshua threw on a big frown just for laughs too. I find this type of thing particularly "amusing" when we are supposed to be leaving for church and still have to run by the grocery store on the way.
We didn't get any of Matt. He was just ready to go.
Out of order, but last weekend kicked off the lacrosse games. I had to work but then my last class canceled so I rushed over to see the game. It was so much fun having 6 other families we know there! The boys enjoyed their first game and came home ready to practice more and improve for next game. I still cringe every time a kid gets whacked with a stick. Once Gray got hit on one side and then the other side and then went down. But the kids don't seem to mind it. Glad they are enjoying this sport and happy it's another one where they have been able to play on the same team.
Monday was Matt's birthday. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of him. Probably b/c he worked the night before and the night of, so we hardly saw him. But we had a nice dinner and dessert and gave him gifts and cards. I loved each kid's card to him. Julia was so excited about her mystery card and thought I must have given Matt extra clues when she heard that he guessed who it was from.
Joshua had a hard time figuring out what to make but then came up with this idea...
Julia helped Allie make her card that morning before school. She was going to have Allie do it all but then she got into helping her and decided to add her name too. :)
Gray spent close to an hour making his card. He drew out 39 candles and 39 oreos for the cake.
Julia had her mile run Wednesday. I had to work and missed her record time of 8:17! I was so impressed. She ran 10:10 in the fall, so she improved a ton. I suggested that she might be interested in doing more running in the future but she shot that idea down, as her throat hurts when she runs. :)
Here she is afterward with our neighbor Eli in the back. They have 5th graders help count the 2nd grader laps. He ran out quickly so as to be the first one to choose Julia. :)
Also Wednesday, some of the moms put together a shower for Gray's teacher, who is getting married over spring break. I had to miss b/c of work also, but looked like so much fun!
Friday was Gray's birthday. I took the morning off of teaching so I could make his requested breakfast and not be too rushed. He opened a couple of presents too and loved this book of my Granddaddy's about baseball greats. He read it on the way to school that morning.
A little later, Allie and I joined Julia's class for a field trip to Duke Gardens. I found out last minute that they prefer younger siblings not to come, so I put Allie in the sling so as to be least disruptive. We were both ready to be done with that by the end, but she did great and it was a beautiful day. Julia and her friend Karen were so cute holding hands around the garden.
Friday afternoon, some of Gray's friends rode the bus home with him and the rest trickled in over the next hour. Then they piled in the truck to head to the park for sports.
This new gaga ball pit was just installed the day before. What great timing! They had a lot of fun but boy were we tired of hearing them yell at each other. This group (for the most part) plays very similarly to Gray-- everything is a big deal, worth arguing over, and highly emotional. Whew. Glad they had fun but man we needed some chill pills.
We later had pizza, apple pie with ice cream, and a movie.
I had to capture this moment particularly for Julia, who is perfectly comfortable in the midst of a pile of boys. After the movie, we sent them to the garage where they could play awhile and then sleep. Thank goodness for the loft Matt and his dad built out there. The weather was perfect for them to sleep there and we could mostly shut out the noise so the rest of us could rest too. The boys thought it was really cool to have their own space and it was a total win-win.
Saturday, we had our own Easter egg hunt in the yard. Joshua was with a friend, but the others enjoyed it. They didn't mind that they had to go into their old candy baskets to get stuff to put in them. Plus I added some cereal, though a certain little one wasn't not very excited to find the cereal eggs once she tasted the candy!
Fun week, but I'm thankful for less eventful days for the rest of Spring Break. Today we just enjoyed being outside playing and gardening. Hoping the weather keeps up like this! Have a good week!
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