Monday, April 30, 2007

Catching up

Last week started out cold and rainy. The kids were a bit antsy at first but then settled in to our rainy-day activities. On Tuesday all three kids took a bath together after breakfast (not our usual routine), Jacob and Hannah painted and we made homemade bread together. The kids helped knead the dough and enjoyed checking the bread and watching it rise. We made two loaves of honey wheat bread. Hannah wouldn't sit still for a picture...she's always on the move!
It warmed up on Friday for our trip to Lee Martinez Farm with Jacob's preschool. Hannah and Jacob fed the sheep and goats. Hannah threw the food at the animals. She was too scared to let them eat out of her hands. Luke enjoyed watching the animals. We saw a calf, two baby goats and lambs. It was fun for Jacob to have his friends at the farm. He had a great time visiting the animals with Tyler. But I was a bit overwhelmed with such a big group. It will be nice to go back to the farm sometime with just our family. Here is a picture of a bunch of Jacob's classmates climbing on the tractor at the farm. Jacob stood at the base of the tractor and watched.Jacob and TylerJacob had his orientation for kindergarten Friday afternoon and loved it. As I was hanging laundry Saturday morning, he said to me "I can't wait to go to kindergarten!!" It turns out that one of his preschool classmates will be in his class as well as Gung (our next door neighbor). He was nervous as we headed into the school when I dropped him off -- he gripped my hand tightly and stayed very close to my side. But as soon as he saw Kaspar -- he loosened up and forgot about being scared. When I picked him up from his orientation, Jacob and Hannah played at the school playground for a while. A scrapbooking friend recommended this and I think I may take him up to the school playground to play a few times this summer before school starts.

Friday evening we had a church picnic at City Park. The kids love to play at City Park! Christy - the student outreach director - sent us pictures she took from the picnic. Thanks Christy! (Will add these as soon as I get access to Pat's computer)

Saturday was cleaning day, laundry day, and we started working on our garden. Pat did an awesome and very thorough job of rototilling our garden plot. I took the kids down later in the morning to lay out a path to walk through the garden. I used scrap pieces of wood - left over from Pat's various building projects - to make the path. The kids had fun digging in the dirt. Pat finished the bunk beds - just a ladder and safety rail need to be completed. And I also went back to the garden after the kids were all tucked in bed and planted carrots! It was a very productive day!
Sunday we rested and enjoyed one another. It was a warm day so we decided to do some water activities with the kids. We filled up water balloons for the kids to play with - that lasted about 5 minutes -- are these worth it or not? It took Pat and I A LOT longer to get them ready then it did for the kids to pop them all. Jacob and Pat tried tossing them to one another. But it was much more fun to throw them at each other and get really wet!Luke had a ball watching them!
Later in the day I filled up the pool for the first time this year. It was in the low 80s and the kids were anxious to have more fun in the water. The water balloons weren't enough! Just as I was filling up the pool, a "micro burst" (Pat explained that this is what atmospheric scientists call a storm that comes out of no where and is quite powerful in terms of wind) hit. The kids were actually already in the pool and the water was almost filled up. They were so eager to swim they waited out the storm and then splashed around a little bit before deciding they were unbearably cold.

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