More Things to Celebrate

We sure have been enjoying this spring weather March has brought our way.  Two Sundays past, we spent a good part of the afternoon playing at the park again.  Ezri worked hard at learning to cartwheel and by the end of the afternoon, she had it figured out!  Mommy even turned a couple to help her see how to do it right.

 Alora wanted to learn as well, so the two of them turned cartwheels for quite some time together.

 Then it was off to the monkey bars to show off.

Meanwhile, on the swings, little sister and brother were happy as could be swinging back and forth.

 So, after a while the older two made their way over as well.

Our week was filled with the usual.  We had 4H Monday night.  School went on as usual and there were lots of afternoons spent playing outside.  We enjoyed an evening out together on Tuesday for the monthly Beer & Hymns event at a local restaurant, where we all had a great time together with church friends while we sang.

The girls continue to work to earn money.  So far they have given over $9 collectively to the ministry project their class is supporting and they are so proud (Daddy and Mommy are too!).  This past week, they set to work picking up sticks all around our yard and Mr. Barney's, all without being asked, to earn money.  

Ezri has also taken an interest in cooking and this week learned to make French Toast for dinner one night and Mac & Cheese one day for lunch.  Elam has been learning a lot of signs and it seem this week he picked up something new each day.  He now can communicate that he wants to eat, have milk, have more, that he sees a dog, that he knows Mommy and is all done.  

Friday, after school and such, we set to work making Tierney's birthday cake for her party on Sunday. Though it is a week early, her birthday falls right after Easter, so we opted to celebrate with grandparents a week early.  Tierney was  a big helper to me while we mixed and baked.

 Of course, the reward in that goes without saying...

 This year, Tierney wanted a rainbow cake frosted like "Lumpy" an elephant.  Mommy did her best on Saturday morning and the results turned out pretty good!

There was an unfortunate incident with the cake Saturday afternoon while Mommy was outside working and Daddy was busy upstairs working.  Alora chose to taste the frosting in a few spots on the cake for some reason and left Mommy with the chore of trying to repair the damage.  It gave me the choice to be angry and lash out or turn it into a learning experience.  As I had just been reading about the need for Godly parents to teach and discipline our children with God in mind always, I took a different approach though I really wanted to yell.  Alora and I talked about how what she did was sin, but that Mommy and Daddy sin too, we all do, but that's why Jesus died on the cross.  I asked Alora to choose the consequence and she discovered how much she did not want to give up and really had to think.  

With the consistent spring-like days I decided it was time to get the trampoline out, much to the girls' joy.  Friday afternoon, we set to work and got it together with a little help from Daddy when it came to assembling the ring for the net.  They were so excited to get on and start jumping they could hardly contain themselves.

Sunday, after church, we celebrated Tierney's birthday with Great Grandma, Grandpa & Grandma, Opa & Oma.   Tierney requested soup for lunch, so we had potato and chicken noodle soups with salad and fruit - yum!  While lunch settled, the kids played with their grandparents a bit in the sunny, warm living room.

Then it was time for gifts!

 The other kids were pretty into some of her gifts.

When it came time for cake, Tierney couldn't wait to show everyone.

Waiting for everyone to finish singing "Happy Birthday" seemed quite a chore to her.

Finally, time to blow out the candles!

 A special hug from Daddy

 And FINALLY it was time to eat the cake!

 Once our guests went home, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon together.  Everyone found an activity to do quietly and played happily for a couple of hours.

 Daddy and Ezri were into a playset with gears that Tierney got for her birthday.

 Then Ezri wanted to finish a project she had gotten from her birthday.

 Alora set to work sewing, a new skill she is developing thanks to a gift from her birthday.

Tierney was happy to play with her food and dishes while Elam napped.  We had a wonderful day together and are excited to be celebrating Tierney as she will be turning 4 very soon.

It's Maple Syrup Season!

It was life as usual again this week, for the most part.  The kids have been enjoying the sunshine (Mommy too)!  It's given us hope for the cold of winter to be going away.  When possible, we've been outside to play, though windy days have hindered that some.  The time change a couple of weeks back still has the girls struggling to go to sleep at night, so we've been keeping them up a bit later and slowly trying to dial that back to their regular bedtime and pushing them to burn energy outside as much as possible.

Tierney is inclined to stay in more than go out, but she plays so well alone that sometimes I let her have that time.  She seems to need quiet alone time more than the others, but this Mommy fully understands that.  She really loves to play with her magnetic blocks.  Every day they come out and it amazes me what she can create!

While the older girls are outside in the afternoon, Elam is either napping or occasionally refusing a nap and getting into trouble with a grin on his face.

One afternoon, Ezri and Alora asked if they could have plastic bags to go out and pick up trash from our yard and Mr. Barney's.  Of course I said yes!  I was amazed by all of the actual trash they came back with.  

At church, the kids have had a new curriculum since the start of the year.  Every 6 weeks or so, they meet a new character and learn about a ministry they can support.  Last time they gave money toward a water project in Africa.  This time they are giving to a community food pantry ministry in Alaska.  The last time, we didn't really know about it until the end and gave the girls some money to put in the box.  This time around we decided to start teaching them about money.  They have been earning commission for the past two weeks now, for extra jobs like doing dishes, folding and putting away laundry and also for other big jobs they want to take on that normally a parent would do.  This week they stripped and re-made their beds!  They have really enjoyed seeing the marks on their earning charts and getting that money at the end of the week.  Each week they have opted to save half and give half.  So far the big girls have given $6.25 of their own money between them in two weeks!

In addition to earning money for jobs around home, Ezri decided she would like to look for cans to turn them in for money which she would donate for church.  So far they have accumulated $4.20 in cans to put toward the project and are very anxious to go out for walks now so they can look for more cans.  Daddy and Mommy are quite proud of them and their generous hearts!  Mommy appreciates the help with tasks at home too!

 This past Friday was our MOPS day.  Ezri has been a big help at MOPS for a couple of years now, and Alora has been stepping into that role as well.  Thank goodness for them this past week.  We had four new moms join us as well as most of our regulars.  With a couple of childcare helpers having stepped out before Christmas, we are down to Opa and Oma running the room and it was not enough this week!  Praise God for new moms being reached, but we've found ourselves really needing the childcare help again. 

 Daddy even got recruited to help on Friday in our panic and willingly stepped away from a full morning of work to help watch and play with little ones so Mommy could run the meeting.  What a great guy he is!  The girls enjoyed having him there for sure.

 Saturday was a day filled with time outside.  It was near 50 degrees.  As the afternoon rolled around, neighborhood friends started filtering our way.  Soon there were requests to go to the park flooding in, so we went across the street where the girls played for over 2 hours with their friends.  Tierney and Elam spent most of that time in the swings, happy as could be to just be swinging.

Saturday evening, the kids and I headed to my Uncle Don's farm to watch pure Maple Syrup being made.  We had followed Uncle Don a couple of years back through the process, but being a bit older and having enjoyed it so much, the big girls were excited to go again and the little two were along for the ride.  This time we just watched the boiling process, not the tapping and collecting.  But it was still a lot of fun! 

Once we got to the "Sugar Shack", the first thing we did was try sap.  Yep, we actually drank some raw sap!  Its basically sugar water, but it was pretty big deal for the kids.

 Having tasted the sap, Uncle Don gave the kids each a small cup with finished Maple Syrup to taste.  They all LOVED it!

 

Especially baby brother!

We checked out the stove where all of the boiling happens

 And watched Uncle Don add more wood to the fire every 7 minutes.  He had a timer going and let the girls help him reset the timer each time it went off, which they enjoyed!

 Uncle Don picked each of the girls up to see the sap boiling inside and told us all sorts of interesting things. Ezri asked about a filtering set up he had in the shack, so he told them about how the filters worked and that one of them was over 50 years old, having been used by my grandfather years ago when he made Maple Syrup.  The girls were very amused to learn my grandfather's name was Lloyd, to the point of giggles! They have recently become fans of the Lego Ninjago TV series and one of the characters is named Lloyd, but I guess I've never told them my grandfather's name because when Uncle Don mentioned it they were very amused to know there was a real person with that name.

 Ezri decided to count all of the finished bottles of syrup.  She came up with 174, all different sizes!  Uncle Don told us he had bottled 25 gallons already this year, his biggest yield ever, with probably 5 or so more gallons left once he finished collecting and boiling.  Every 45 gallons of raw sap produces only 2 gallons of finished Maple Syrup!

 After over an hour of asking questions, tasting more syrup and watching, the kids started getting a little crazy and it got time for us to head home for baths and bedtime. 

Perhaps it was the combination of the Maple Syrup tasting and the time being 7:30, or the new place or just plain silliness, but I left the farm with two antsy, giggly girls chatting about my Grandpa Lloyd, a wiggly baby and a little girl whose head was full of chicken feathers!

We sure did have a lot of fun, though.