Spring Break Fun

Spring Break proved to be a break from school, but not a break from anything else.  On Monday, the kids played with friends from Awana.  Our friends have a great backyard and the weather was perfect and no one wanted to leave.  We love having friends close to our house.  As if playing there for three hours wasn't enough, that afternoon we went to the "bug playground" near our house.  It's a little pocket playground in our neighborhood.  It's been a while since we've been and we got to see their growth.  They used to sit side by side on the ladybug, but now they're all too big to do that.

Tuesday we drove into Houston to visit the big Children's Museum.  The museum had a whole Extreme Spring Break thing going on, so we were there with several hundred of our closest Houstonians.  Fortunately, it's a big museum with lots to see so it didn't feel as crowded once we finally got inside.  We visited the news station which we had never done before.  Instead of giving the weather, Henry broke out in dance moves because he could see himself on the TV monitor.

Josiah giving the weather

Dance moves.

Meanwhile Josiah was printing up mayoral flyers to hand out to the people in the museum.  I literally had to stop him from passing them out (and to continue printing more).

The campaigner.

The opponent, with very similar ideas.

They had the hamster balls again.  All the kids got to do them this year.  When Caroline was inside her ball, she was trying to run and the handler guy was having to physically stop her from crashing into the waiting line.  If she was going to do it, she was going to do it at full speed.

They also had a special Ninja Warrior thing.  Sam Sann has been a competitor on American Ninja Warrior for 7 seasons and he's a local who runs a Ninja Warrior gym.  He had some of his students doing the demonstrations.  They were mostly teenage boys, but one of the boys started training when he was 6 (he's 12 now) which has put ideas into our boys' heads that they want to train, too.  Of course, being the Houston area, everything is really spread out and his gym is not exactly close to us.

We had a few moments of getting lost.  Outside they have a huge water area.  Henry was playing with the locks with another little boy.  They were doing it for quite some time, so I was with the other two kids watching Henry from behind.  I guess he finished playing, didn't see me, and started looking.  When I looked up and saw him gone, I knew he was the type of kid that would freak out.  So I left the other two on a bench and went looking.  I found him in less than a minute, but he was already in tears.  We had to have the Stay-Put-And-I'll-Come-Find-You talk.

The locks.

We were at the museum for four hours.  This was what the car looked like when we got home.

On Wednesday we drove in to Todd's work and ate lunch with him.

Thursday, we went to a local park and met up with some CC friends.  Some Awana friends ended up coming, too, so the boys had a really great time.  They were playing freeze tag for hours.  Caroline didn't have a friend there, so she hung out with me.  She stayed on the spinny seat for most of the time.  I'd give her a small push (because that seat can spin), but then I'd just look anywhere except at her to save my head from dizziness.

After the park we went to the doctor's office for Henry and Caroline's well-child checks.  Caroline passed her hearing and vision screening.  I told her that meant there was no excuse now when I asked her to pick up her toys and clothes.  I know you can hear me and I know you can see all the things on the floor.  Lately we've had a lot of, "I forgot" and "I didn't hear you." around here.

On Friday, I wanted a day at home.  We did a lot of yard work.  Apparently March is just the time to do yard work around here.  The new buds on the trees push the old leaves off.  We did end up going to one store to get a gift for a girl in Caroline's class.  While we were at the store, we walked down the pen/marker aisle.  Josiah got so excited, "I love all of these things!"  It was a proud mother moment.  I know son, me, too.  Me, too.  

The gift was for a birthday party Caroline was supposed to attend on Saturday.  However, our busy week seemed to have rendered her a bit on the cranky side and after one too many tantrums/talking back/hitting her brothers/yelling at her parents/screaming "It's not fair!" she didn't make it to the birthday party.  She actually went up to her room (not angrily) and took a two hour nap.

We cleaned the inside of the house on Saturday.  The kids repeatedly told us of their displeasure of cleaning during their spring break.  "Well, if you picked it up and put it away when you were done with it, we wouldn't have to clean up today."  I should have just recorded myself saying that statement and put it on loop for the day. 

Caroline was blessed to receive two boxes of dresses from Todd's cousin.  This girl loves dresses.  With each one she pulled out, she'd exclaim, "Oooooo, I can wear this to my wedding."  For church today, Caroline wore a white dress with black polka dots.  Henry mentioned something about her dress, and she replied that she was going to wear it to her wedding.

And, Caroline probably is not going to have a career as an aerospace design engineer.  She drew a picture of the interior of an airplane:

Those are watches falling out of the ceiling so you know what time it is.  "This is your captain speaking, No, we have not lost altitude, we just thought you would be interested in knowing the time."

For the next several weeks, we are going to start working on our CC Memory Master.  Every year for CC if you memorize everything, you get a certificate, t-shirt, and a special dinner.  I told the boys last year that I wanted both of them to try for it this year.  They are both capable of doing it.  Every now and then, Henry will cry that he doesn't think he can do it, but then always follows it with, "but I want the t-shirt..."  He can totally do it.