Iris the Gymnast

Iris's Christmas present from her Mommy & Daddy was gymnastics classes.  So all Semester, 2 days a week (except during kidney stone season) she's been taking gymnastics at a local college.  This culminated in her performing in a gymnastics show last Sunday afternoon.  Even though she was VERY(and I mean VERY) nervous about performing, she did an EXCELLENT job.  However, you won't see pics of her performance due to our poor seating and the fact that I took video the whole time.  BUT, without further ado...here are some pics from her classes!

I was really proud of how well she listened to her teacher.  I was really kind of taken aback by her dedication.  It was weird to see her not joking around and playing, but always being ready for the next task.  It was just really neat watching her work so hard!

But she says she's switching to rock climbing now ;)

Resurrection Weekend @ Grandad & Grandmom's

I FORGOT MY CAMERA!!  The "few" (it only seems like "few" to ME, I'm sure) pictures I have, I took on my sister's camera.

We got to Grandad & Grandmom's house Friday evening.  Our heat had been out for a month, and that was not a problem, because we had been just using space heaters.  With Stephen working at home and me homeschooling, generally someone was at home running a heater most of the time.  We made efficient use of the space heaters by relocating all residents of our home, including the pets, into one room in the basement for the month of March.

Well, this posed a dilemma all of a sudden.  The night time temps were supposed to be quite cold while we were gone.  Would the pets survive. 

Janet is NOT an animal person.  But she and Dad graciously allowed us to bring our pets to their home for the weekend. 

Sherry picks the kids up so Stephen and I could pack all of our STUFF and PETS into our car.  We arrived at my dad's with 2 ferrets, 4 hermit crabs, 1 beta, an ant farm and a stink bug.  Stephen and I pull into the driveway and all of a sudden we're thinking....do we tell Janet about the ants and stinkbug?  Not trying to be dishonest, but will she get the heebyjeebies and be nervous??  This lady takes disliking insects to a whole new level! 

So we just gingerly carry them in and place them by Dad's woodstove...we figured she didn't walk back into that area much.  We were wrong.  :)  Oh well....she didn't seem to heebyjeebyish!

Dyan got there late Friday night, so the kids had the pleasure of waking up to see her Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon we had an egg hunt.  Janet plans a really cool one every year.

The hunters in my annual jump-over-the-creek-to-get-to-the-eggs picture...
2013

 2012

 2011

Hunting...

The hiders...

Once they were down to the last few eggs, Stephen, in his characteristic manner, led an organized search&rescue  formation...

Janet also planned a greeting picture that said "Happy Easter, Bobby!" for my step-brother.  Then she simply changed the "y" in Bobby to an "i" and made it "Happy Easter, Bobbi!" for my mother-in-law.  :)

I like this picture of Grandad and Iris.  Whatever was playing on the telly...while it lulled Grandad to sleep, it obviously mildly terrified Iris!

We all went to church with Dad and Janet.  Dad, Janet, Dyan and I played a good bit of the worship music celebrating Christ's Resurrection.  It was really neat!


Here are the kiddos in their Easter outfits once we got back to the house...

Stephen and I...

He is Risen!!

Homeschool Egg Hunt

I knew we wouldn't be able to go to our church egg hunt this year, so I planned an allergen friendly ;) egg hunt for the homeschoolers in our church family.  It was so fun!  If I was faster and better with a camera...there were just so many sweet opps for pics!!

Before we left, I gave the kids their baskets...I may have gone a little over the top this year....

Lucy with her bunny...she had fallen in love with it at Hobby Lobby one day...

Iris with her bunny (which I would have NEVER picked out for her, being a baby blue puppet!) but she had also seen it and gone smitten  a while back.

Clyde and his bunny.  This boy ADORES his stuffed bunnies like you wouldn't believe...he has treasured all his bunnies he's gotten every year.  He loves this one's "soft, cuddly ears."

Then we went to the hunt!  I SO wish we had gotten a group picture!!  There were at LEAST nine families represented there!!  I was thrilled with the turn out and all the kids seemed thrilled as well.  The older kids graciously hid the eggs and the younger hunted :)

Then came examining the treasures.

We had girl egg fillers and boy egg fillers this year and that made it even more fun, instead of the weird stuff I've always used before, we got to do arrowheads, adhesive mustaches, bacon bandaids, venus fly trap seeds, etc for the boys, and embroidery floss, puzzle erasers, fuzzy stickers, slap bracelets, squinkies, etc for the girls.

There was a lot of excited trading among both girls...

and boys....

A Large Part of Us Is Missing

The kids and I all got haircuts...some more dramatic than others...

Clyde got his shorn back down.   He didn't want to, but we were mean and made him.  I think it's adorable and it's been a WHILE.

I got mine cut.  Not good at taking pictures of myself...Stephen kept saying, "Don't take it straight on."

And for the grand finale....


Lucy got the MOST length cut and seemed quite happy about it.  And though Iris cried driving to the salon, walking to it, while it was being cut, and while it was drying, BOTH girls now love their new dos.

My Sweet Geeks

One day, my husband came up from his office and announced that there was going to be a local 3D printer fair.  My kids squealed in delight.  I looked at them like they were nuts.  Why was this so exciting?  Anyway, it was.  So we all went and I took pics of the all the wonderfulness.

This is mostly what I saw there....3 little brunettes scrunching together peering into the inner workings of various 3D printers.

Iris is manipulating some gears that a printer made.

Clyde is holding a ball...withing a ball....within a ball....within a ball...within a ball...

Apparently when you blow air at this ball, the inner balls will roll.

Lucy adored the designing software.  She spent quite a while here dreaming and designing what she would print, if she only had a printer.

Clyde holding a Yoda head...

Clyde and Iris worked little printed puzzles FOREVER.

Here they are learning how 3D printing helps playground designers see how the parts will work together before spending the big bucks making the pieces from more expensive materials.

Apparently, Lucy found this 3D printed cathedral (Notre Dame?) to be astonishing.

Iris thought the chains were impressive.  I didn't have my flash on while she was twirling this one, so you can't see the links very well. 

I have a feeling will be attending any of these we find out about, so if you plan on coming to one...
expect to see us there!