Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Sam Is Seven!

Dear Sam,

I can't believe it but seven years ago today you were born. We were expecting you but you still managed to take us by surprise :) It has been amazing to have a front row seat to your past seven years.
I love how caring, kind, and compassionate you are. I love how kids yell, "Sam!!!" when we walk onto the schoolyard. They are excited to see you and I love that. It tells me you are a good friend.
I love that you LOVE reading. I love being able to share books with you and I love seeing you open up new worlds. You are very curious and books teach you about so many things. (I don't love when I go to bed at 10:30 or 11 at night and you are still reading, however!)
 
And this year it's been really fun to watch you discover baseball. You just love it and it's all about the baseball around here. You've even made up a baseball diamond in the basement for the "Car Baseball" game you invented :)
You've also really discovered board games this year. You especially love the Baseball Monopoly Daddy made you for Christmas and Risk, all played according to your rules, of course!
And as always, I love how sweet, kind, and gentle you are with Rachel. Even though you are an introvert, you set that aside for her and she is always included in your games when you have friends over. You two rarely fight and I just love how much you love each other.
You aren't perfect Sam. You love playing iPad a little too much (!!!), and as Daddy puts it, a glacier could beat you getting ready in the mornings some days, but we wouldn't change a thing about you.
I hope you have the happiest seventh birthday and I can't wait to see the new things you will learn about, grow to love, and experience this year.

I love you Sam-Sam-Sam!
Mommy

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Ice, Death, And Resurrection: Our Easter Weekend

This past weekend was Easter and our weekend started off with a (slippery) bang as our area was encased in an ice storm. It meant that the kids had an extra day off school and no one's weekend started out as planned.
Tim, Janice, Tessa, and Willem came over to dye Easter Eggs with us and have a bit of a catch-up visit as they had just returned from holidays. The kids and I made the festive rice krispie squares above as a way to entertain ourselves on the ice day and they were the perfect treat to accompany egg dying.
On Friday evening, which was actually pretty treacherous as all the ice was falling off the trees, power lines, and stoplights, the kids and Dave came to work with me. Sam was happy to be "the boss's assistant," as he called it, and Rachel decorated pictures for my office. And Dave and I took some beautiful pictures of the sunset and the ice covered trees.
On Saturday, along with everyone else in our city, we ran about 10,000 errands. Seriously, it was over six hours of running errands, but the kids behaved beautifully and we got a lot done. And that evening Rachel and I tackled another Pinterest project and made an egg garland. It was quite easy to do and Rachel really enjoyed it.
Getting ready to string the eggs.
Our garland hanging in the dining room.
We got someone to take pictures of us after church on Sunday because we were all dressed up for Easter. It was a fun Sunday at church with an egg hunt for the kids, lots of great singing, and bell ringing. I LOVE celebrating Easter with my church family.
After church I took some pictures of stylish Rachel in her Easter finery.
It was a gorgeous afternoon so we headed outside as soon as possible after lunch. Rachel read and "relaxed," as she put it, I folded laundry and hung out sheets, Dave cleaned out the car, and Sam and Dave played baseball.
And we got the kids prepared to ride their bikes. I have a feeling this is the summer when both kids will learn to ride two wheelers. Heaven help us!
For our Easter dinner we had BBQd sausage (the first of the year - yay!), potato salad, and a delicious chickpea-feta salad. It was soooo good.
And that was our Good Friday-Easter weekend. I hope you all had good weekends too, no matter what the weather was doing in your part of the world.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

#tbt The Blog Friends Edition

For the past few Thursdays I've been reminiscing about our Southern Road Trip from last March. This week in March of 2015 will be remembered as one of my favourite weeks ever because it's the week I got to hang out with four of you! Yes, thanks to this little blog, I got to meet some amazing people, not only online but in real life!

First, we headed over to Georgia and met up with Erika, Matt, and the ever adorable Millie. We had a blast hanging out with them and checking out flowers in the rain, because, of course, Erika and I needed to enjoy flowers together :)
 
Then we got to spend some time with sweet Kelly and her precious daughter Clarice.
After that we drove back to South Carolina and Amy and I got to live the same lives for a day. We chased our crazies all over town and then enjoyed some time hanging out.
Finally, we made our way to North Carolina and Sherry and I got to hug in person. Rachel and her twin, Brody, got to meet and Evan graciously shared his birthday celebration with Sam. We loved exploring (and celebrating) with Sherry, Eddie, Evan, Brody, and sweet Mattox.
 
Like I said, this week is one of the more memorable ones in my life. And it was thanks to you, my blogging friends. I can't wait to meet the rest of you :)

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Scholarly Pursuits

Last week was March Break but we had the regular routine going on around here except Sam was out the door to Lego Camp every morning and Rachel was either sick at home (boo) or at dance camp. But this week we're back into routine with school and work and a short week. Whoo hoo!
However, I came across these pictures (from February mostly - gasp!) and realized I'd wanted to share them with you. These pictures of Rachel, with a bag of marshmallows, are from her (not so epic) 100 Days of School project. This was a super-easy project to do, once I'd talked her out of wanting to take "100 Funny Bunnys" to school. (And yes, I know "bunnys" is not the correct pluralization but "Funny Bunny" is her rabbit's name and thus I am sticking by my "Funny Bunnys.")
I don't know about your schools but every once in awhile we get a "theme day" thrown at us. I can handle the easy ones like Pajama Day or Backwards Day but this was "Dress as your favourite time period." Yeah.

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying my kids a vintage outfit that they will wear once and then grow out of. So I put my Desperate Mom Hat on and convinced Rachel that her favourite time period was "spring" and convinced Sam that his was "bedtime." The creators of this theme day may hate me but I feel like my sanity has a price.
We are very much looking forward to our four day weekend. And due to some craziness going on in our lives, and the school's schedule, we'll be having three or four day school weeks until the end of April, which doesn't give us a whole lot of time for more scholarly pursuits!