We've been flocked

We woke up to a flock of flamingoes all over our front yard. Yay! Fun, cool a great fundraiser for our church youth group: you can send a flock to another family for $20. Then they have to pay a removal fee. You can, however, buy insurance to block the flock. Then the sender will have to pay extra to make sure your yard is pink. As I was saying, this is all well and good... unless you get flocked the day before Easter. And then--all your neighbors think you decorated your yard for Easter. Ugh!

The boys are loving the birds; I even enjoyed them until four or five people drove up and told us how much they liked our Easter decorations. NO!!!! They're not Easter decorations. This flocking has been going on all month and will continue for many more weeks. And we get the pink on Easter. Sheesh. So here are the boys after two services, which is why Logan has lost the tie and is ready to lose the rest of his church clothes any minute. They looked really handsome when we left our house for the first service this morning. Where was my camera then?

p.s. Flamingoes in the tree as well:)

goodbye, paas. hello silk ties!

A good friend invited us to "tie-dye" eggs. I was thinking groovy sixties, but then she told me I needed to go shopping for 100% silk TIES. Oooohhhhhh, "tie"-dying. A quick trip to Soroptomists for all the silk ties they had(.75/tie), and a few minutes cutting them up was all it took for these gorgeous works of art. Not kidding. It was easy and fun for all our kids. The best was the big reveal--unwrapping them after they had boiled in the ties. The oooohs and ahhhhhs were precious, and I'm not sure who enjoyed it more: the moms or the kids. And, as is often the case in life, the ugliest ties made for the most stunning eggs. Happy Easter everyone!

handsome handsome

Upon Logan's insistence, we took the boys for haircuts. While I loved watching Logan's flowing locks blow in the wind as he ran like a gazelle, his hair was driving him crazy. And we are foolish enough to think that it will one day be warm here in the Pacific NW that we figured short is better.

The other day we got home from school, and I made the boys their usual afternoon snack. Routine calls for hand-washing and then homework while they eat their snack. But on this particular day, I was pleasantly surprised to walk in to the dining room to find both boys working assiduously on unassigned creative writing: comic strips. They both just wanted to write stories. Now, these tales included blood and death, of course, but I am thankful for baby steps. They were writing. And there was no hair in their eyes.

redhead hogs

Rest assured, my son will NEVER have a motorcycle.. at least not while he's under my roof. However, what are you going to say when Uncle Ed offers to take you for a ride?

bat caves

We got to go spelunking with some friends last week and had a blast. Who knew our forestlands (trails and mountains we hike on all the time) had this great bat cave? Just above Little Cranberry Lake.. a semi-steep climb to the top and voila... a deep, rather scary cave that goes quite a ways back. This picture is actually within the cave at a fork. I was trying to show just how deep the path went. But alas, I only have a little digital.

Michael, well into the cave at another division.
Daddy and Michael at the entrance. Logan didn't venture in as he spotted a spider hanging from the cave roof. I couldn't fault him; I almost stepped on a snake on our way up. Gross. Yuck. Damn. Shit.

fun in the sun

The one day we had sun, boys came out of the woodwork. This was the scene in our front yard when Brian naively put on his glove and asked if anyone wanted to have a catch. 7 boys. 7! Oh my. He has the patience of a saint. I was inside getting snacks ready and saying goodbye to our grocery budget. Oh well, fun was had by all, including the patient saint.

march in and out like a lion. no lambs to be found.

March was Read Across America month and both boys were charged with recording the number of minutes they read each and every day of the month: one ticket per 100 minutes. At the end of each week, there was a drawing, and the winning ticket holder got to pick a prize: Mr. Selting's huge penguin collection among them. This was Michael's pick. Logan also won and chose one of his principal's penguins.

Logan's Read Across America State Fair book report project. He had to read a book that takes place in a US state and then create a state fair exhibit that the entire student body would view as well as an evening "fair" for parents. Logan worked so hard on this and was very proud. He wrote to two of Oma's friends from Colorado and got a ton of things back from them. His book was Hard Gold: The Colorado Gold Rush by Avi. Background of his display is the Colorado flag.

spring break

Despite schizophrenic weather(snow,sun, rain, snow, hail) we had a super fun time at Gramma and Papa's: playing Harry Potter Clue, Farkle, chess,drums, bonfires that wouldn't really take because everything was so wet, Rango--Gramma closed her eyes for almost two thirds of the movie--and so much more. Visits with family were the highlight as always. And then, boom, spring break was over. Back to the grind.