Meet Tommy!

I'm THAT Mommy - the one who waits until her husband is out of town and then brings a pet into the family! Kellen has been interested in having a pet for a while, and he's been asking for a fish. His preschool class recently adopted a pair of hermit crabs and he is so proud of them! He was the pet helper in his class last week and he always gives me an update on how the crabs are doing when he gets home from school. So while Geof is away, I've been finding things to occupy our evenings and heading to the pet store seemed like the perfect Monday night activity. So welcome Tommy, our red male betta fish.

Kellen and Addie picked out his bowl, gravel and plant and waited very patiently until his water was ready today so we could put him in his new home. Addie likes to run by and say "I love you, Tommy." They think it's pretty funny that he just eats two tiny food pellets a day, and I think Addie wants to find opportunity to scoop him up with her net... I think the net will have to live in a special hiding place. Ellary likes to watch him swim around. She shrieks and jumps when he moves. :)

The clerk at the pet store laughed as we were heading out with our cart full of fish paraphernalia - Addie called out, "MOM? Can we get a dog?" And in the car on the way home Kellen announced that he wants to give haircuts at the pet store when he grows up. I told him he might want to rethink dog grooming as it would be a very smelly, hairy job. But not to worry, there are to be no dogs in our future.

Mission Accomplished...

...in just one week! We finished painting the living room tonight, almost exactly 1 week after bringing home paint last Saturday night. You can accomplish a lot when you work the children hard:

In reality, they have been begging me to paint all week and I told them they had to wait until we got to one particular wall and then they could help with the second coat. I'm not sure the painting lived up to all they expected it would be, but everyone likes our new green living room!

Egg Hunt

This afternoon our LIFE Class helped host an Easter event for a huge crowd of children who live in the neighborhood behind our church. Our class has been involved for several years, and like always, today's party seemed like a big hit! The children played games, were presented with the gospel message through the "Resurrection Eggs," went on an Easter egg hunt, and enjoyed Chick-fil-a snacks and door prizes. We had around 80 children come for the event, and it was a great opportunity to share with them about Jesus and for our own children to learn about reaching out to share God's love.

The children hear the Easter message in small groups

It was hard to resist peeking into those goodie bags!

So many cute faces at the hunt!

More fun with EB

So I have a TON of stuff to do this morning:
- laundry
- finish painting l.r.
- 2 dinners to prepare
- washing dishes
- getting my scrapbook stuff in order
- finishing the flowers in the front bed before the rain tomorrow
- a shower!
And what did I do with my morning that has reduced it to a little over one hour left to get all this done before the big kids come home? I played with Ellary, easter eggs and the camera. :) I am determined to learn how to use this new lens! I'm loving the effect of a very wide open aperture, but the manual focus is killing me! I think I need new glasses... Anyway, Ellary liked the Easter eggs.

My morning distraction. :)

Cutie

The weather's been great, so we've been outside a lot. Just wanted to post a picture of this little cutie-patutie. She likes riding in the wagon. :)

A Valuable Lesson

Kellen has been very interested in numbers and money lately, and Geof and I have started teaching him more about money and its value. We have given him the opportunity to earn quarters, and when Geof was setting up his envelope the other night I could tell the kids were getting confused about all the different money terms there are - cents, coins, pennies, quarters, dollars, change, etc. When you stop to think about it, it's actually pretty complicated to sort it all out for a preschooler. Anyway, today I sat them on the floor and dumped out the change jar and started sorting so I could teach them what the different coins are and their values. I was very deliberately counting out piles of 100 pennies, 20 nickles, 10 dimes, 4 quarters and a 1 dollar bill. I was talking to them about what each coin was called and what it was worth while I counted, but Kellen kept trying to interrupt me. I kept telling him to stop and wouldn't let him interrupt me because I didn't want to lose track of my counting, and I told him to wait until I was done. He was hopping all over the place and seemed frantic, so I finally stopped counting and looked up at him. "What is it Kellen?" He said, "Mom? WHAT IS A BUCK?"

Busy!

We've had a busy 24+ hours! Last night we went to our friends' house for the evening. The kids played and the adults got to talk and catch up in relative peace and quiet. It was blowing sheets of rain this morning, so Kellen's second soccer practice was rained out, so we all just played this morning. Kellen built a train and Addie read books with Geof and learned to play dominoes with me. Ellary was the designated "scrumbler," and it was her job to come destroy the domino board after each game (she often did her job a bit too early).

The Spooky Old Tree is a favorite of Addie's - a real nail-biter!
Kellen thinks he's such a big guy now that he's 5 and almost ready for kindergarden - but he still wears his foot-jams! He's not so big!

At 1:30 I took Addie and friend Cailey to a birthday party for another of Addie's friends (Happy 4th Birthday Sarah!). The girls were all princesses (though Addie wasn't participating in the dress-up part - she took off her princess dress as soon as we got there) and had a very lovely tea party (which Addie participated in very much!). Addie enjoyed pouring herself cup after cup of tiny tea from an adorable tiny teapot. And of course there was cake, so that made her afternoon.

The birthday girl in her elegant princess gown (she's sitting!)
Addie pours some tea.
Please Addie, can you pose like a princess on the royal throne?

Addie did wear her crown for most of the party - she wore it the wrong way, but I was happy she wore it!
Princesses gather around a beautiful 'tea party' cake.

See her little fingers taking some tea? :)

We went straight from there back to Cailey's house, where our Sunday school class date night was underway. So lots more friends to visit with for the evening! Geof and I stayed there for most of the evening, sneaking out for a little while to buy paint and supplies for our living room project. All three of our kids came home exhausted tonight and fell right into bed. Too bad tonight of all nights we roll the clocks forward and lose that hour of sleep. Which I guess means I should get to sleep. :)