Mystery Reader - Dragons Love Tacos

Time for Mystery Reader in Lincoln's class!!!  Dragons Love Tacos was the book choice, and there were lots of fun things to go along with it.  The story is super cute and there were lots of giggles during the reading.

Our first craft was making paper "tacos" . . . of course!  Lots of cut up paper and tissue paper filled up the folded paper plates.  They looked great!! 

Next up was making our fire-breathing dragon mouths!  Because if the dragon eats a spicy taco . . . well, it gets hot!!!  We glued red and yellow tissue strips inside a cup that had a hole cut in the bottom and a straw sticking in.  When the kids blew in the straw, it fluttered the tissue paper.  They loved it!! 

And for snack time . . . we hit up the Jack In The Box drive thru on the way to school and brought 22 tacos to share with the class.  Biggest hit ever!!  Mom, Lincoln and Beau had never had one before, and Lincoln liked it.  Mom and Beau didn't try one, but maybe we should!! 

We went to dinner with friends on this Friday night, then came home to get all cleaned up.  Someone had a long day preparing for and helping craft at Mystery Reader.  Crashed on the floor after the bath!!

Such a fun book and lots of great crafts . . . and a winning snack!  Wonder if we can reuse this one when Beau is in 1st grade?!?!

Celebrating Lincoln's 7th Birthday!

March is such a celebratory month, but we have one more to go!  Lincoln's birthday was last but certainly not least.  We had dinner with Nana and Pops and friends at Carmine's the night before the his birthday.  And a cake of course!!!  His selection was the opposite of Beau's . . . vanilla with vanilla!! 

After pizza and cake, most of the group went to check out the Pearce HS baseball game.  The boys had fun, and these three had a funny picture! 

School came early the next day . . . you don't even get to stay home on your big day!!  Linc got a little special treatment before the day was over.  Cutie!! 

Ms. McPherson asked him about his 7 favorite things (#2 is the best!!!), and he was too sweet.  Love his sweet voice.  All of his answers were great!

Mom brought cookies to share with the class, and we headed outside to the picnic tables to enjoy our treat.  And then the skies opened up big time, and we had to make run for the door before we got soaked!!!  (There is a trend going of super bad storms on Wednesdays in March.  Not fun.) 

We finished celebrating with dinner at the club and opening presents with the birthday boy.  Lincoln loved each moment of his birthday celebrations.  He has a heart of gold and is so appreciative and aware of kindness and love.  A day in the life of Lincoln would be pure joy!  It's been so much fun watching him enjoy his birthday and grow so much this year.  His upsets are pretty few and far between, but he can let himself get down.  Luckily, he's pretty quick to get over the issue and get back to his jovial self.  Ready to get back to real life after "birthday month", and it's getting busy!!

Easter Sunday 2016

Happy Easter!!  We got up early and got all ready for Easter Sunday at church . . . and then we forgot to take any pictures before church.  So the pictures are all of untucked shirts and a little disheveled!!  The boys did some egg hunting at Nana and Pops house, and they loved finding eggs with candy and coins. 

We had brunch at the club, and it was delish!  Family pic after brunch! 

All of the boys after brunch . . . good looking guys! 

We found our favorite girls after brunch too . . . it was a surprise that the Kuhlman boys and the Sadler girls were matching in their light blue gingham!!   

Duck update . . . one didn't make it out of the pool overnight.  We disposed of that one, but the mom totally noticed while she was counting her group.  We made a bread trail away from the pool and out of the gate in the hopes that they would exit and make their way down to the pond.  Several appearances by the dad duck and his brothers indicated that they were extremely mad about the missing duckling.  They all quacked at each other loudly and even turned their quacking to the humans.  Can they just please go already!!!!!

10 Little Ducklings

We had some unexpected house guests move in on Saturday (3-26-16).  A mommy duck and her 10 little ducklings had hatched in our backyard and were taking a dip in the pool when we got home after an afternoon of kids sports.  She was serious about protecting her brood from curious humans trying to get close to see them.  She squawked and honked at us to back up! 

We stared at the ducks for hours!!  We went to dinner then came back home to watch the ducks some more!  Way past bedtime, we were watching as she was trying to get them all out of the pool to go to bed.  A few of the smaller ones just couldn't hop up on to the side, so we rigged a pool noodle as a ramp so the little ones could get out.  It was riveting watching them all day, and yet we also were wondering how they were going to make their exit soon. 

Oh, and Beau had a soccer game earlier that day.  It was pretty warm (see Vance chugging in the background!), and the boys had fun!  Still rocking the extra extra large uniform (even though it is actually a small - maybe the company gave us adult small??)!

Stay tuned for an update on ducks and our backyard hotel!

Ice Cream Date at Braum's

Braum's date with these two cuties after dinner!!!  Somehow the kid behind the counter got confused, and we got giant waffle cones.  The kids were in heaven!!!  Ice cream was the best way to end the evening after dinner.  We got to chat about our day at school, plan our weekend, talk about our friends and playing, and just enjoy time together with a sweet treat. 

Super Hail Storm

Wednesday, March 23 began quietly but ended with a lot of banging!  A super threatening thunderstorm rolled in around 10:00, and it was mighty!  The kids hadn't fallen asleep yet, and they wanted to come down to see what all of the noise was about.  We were discussing how thunder is just thunder and can't hurt you . . . all good, right?  Then the fastest hail began furiously falling from the sky.  We tried to look out of the windows but it was bouncing up so crazy hard, we got a little scared the windows might break.  We all retreated to Dad's office to get a little farther from the bouncing hail.  The picture isn't the best, but the damage was lasting.  Almost every home in our neighborhood got a new roof (free!) because the storm cause so much damage.  Seriously, even 9 months later roofs are still being fixed because of the backlog.  Any cars left outside were damaged; plants and trees were affected too.  Lots of fences sustained plenty of pock-marks from the slamming hail.  Lots of people filed an insurance claim for a new fence.  Lots of people thought, "Sweet!  New fence for free!"  Lots of people were given the suggestion to rent a power washer and apply a new coat of stain to said fences.  (More on the idea of a new fence later.)  We were happy when the storm passed and all was quiet again.  Such an exciting late night, but everyone needed to get settled quietly for bed.