I'm still wading back into April every now and then to keep getting posts done. Summer hasn't been as time awarding as I had hoped, but I still feel good about my schedule. And I never get any complaints from my readers. ;)
Today, we'll take you back in time to Easter. It was at the end of April, which is my favorite time to have it. The weather is usually a bit nicer and it is far away from St. Patrick's day. (I don't like my holidays too smooshed together.) June asks almost every year if she can help hide eggs and I tell her no because I don't want her to see where I hide things, but this year, I let her. She hid all of Ivory's eggs and maybe Robyn's? It made hiding things so much faster. It was great.
Once everything was hidden, these five got their buckets and they are ready to go.
This year, there was only five seconds between people leaving the house. Pearl doesn't really need a head start anymore.
Last one out the door as usual, but there is still plenty to find.
We used the Warner's yard again. I like having both sides of the street to hunt and they are so kind to let us use their lawn. It does mean kids go skipping across the street often, but luckily, we aren't a high traffic area.
Daisy's bucket looks full already. How are you going to get more eggs in there?
Remember how June hid Ivory's eggs. Well she put plenty of them in hard to reach places. I'm much nicer when hiding eggs, but it was good that Ivory had to work for hers. (Actually, I'm probably not nicer, I'm just lazier. After all, to hide an egg high in a tree, you have to climb the tree.)
Robyn's bucket also looks full. Is she winking at me, or is it just sunny?
June is still looking. I can't remember what color each person had, but I love looking for eggs by color. It means everyone gets the same amount and less fighting. Yay!
This year I had numbered categories. You could pick up one of each number. For instance, the body spray was number 2. You could only pick up one #2, but if you found another, you could exchange it. There were also chocolate bunnies, loofah sponges, and some other treats.
And the camo eggs of course. This is what a stash looked like when all recovered.
Inside, the girls were looking through their treasures. June didn't have all her camo eggs and I was having trouble finding them even though I hid them all AND had a map of where they were. But does one camo egg matter?
Well, it does when it happens to be the one holding the fiver. June finally found it with my help. Man, those things disappear into the underbrush once you place them. But she didn't mind waiting for it.
There you have it. Easter egg hunt. Sweet, simple, and lucrative.
Week 3! So far so good keeping up with Summer!! We had another fun week of playing, running, and trying to keep up. I think we still need to work on bedtimes. We have had some cranky kids and some argumentative days. But the good outweighs the bad, and luckily I get to choose what goes in these post, so I can pick the positive. (You are welcome kids when you read this later.)
First thing in the week, I took Robyn to the orthodontist. Why, you might think? She got her braces off almost three years ago. This is true, but the dog found and chewed up her retainer. Funny, they told us three years ago that pets like to eat retainers, but it wasn't pertinent until now. And we learned the hard way. Luckily, our orthodontist is the bomb and gave us another at half price. While there, I finally took a picture of the unscramble board. It is all Disney movies, and I thought you might enjoy a puzzle this morning. (Unless you are reading this at night, in which case, adjust the phrase to fit whatever current time you are experiencing.)
Next up is our treat. The request was something lime flavored, so we tried out a bundt cake. It just so happened that on this particular day, June needed to make a treat for something else. So we were sharing the kitchen. It was a bit crowded. In fact, Robyn seems to have split into two. This Panorama Ivory took is pretty funny.
Luckily, we have just enough counter space, we all fit in there at once.
June, Pearl, and Robyn were working on Muddy Buddies. So delicious!
Daisy and I were making the cake. (Ivory was photographing.)
Since it was a lime cake, it took a lot of lime juice. Daisy was a hero squeezing a ton of limes. It takes quite a bit of squeezing to get the amount you need.
Cake is done. Looks tasty. Ivory was taking her documenting job seriously. We don't usually have this many pictures.
And here is the finished product. The glaze was a tad thin, but it was so limey and delicious. We had mixed reviews from the crowd, but that is okay. Summer is for experimenting.
Oddly, we ended up learning a lot more about glaze later in the week. I wanted to make sugar cookies for my art. Camie had made these amazing cookies at Halloween time, and I had no idea how she did it. So I asked her to come over and teach me. It just involved the right consistency of powdered sugar to milk. It needs to be nice and thick but still able to ooze a little. The art theme this week was extinct so I got some dinosaur cookie cutters. We had a lot of fun.
The kids begged to try too. I had made extra circles so other people could try it out.
Naturally, I had Camie make some too. She was already there teaching, so she needed to participate.
I think this style of decorating might be a little advanced for the youngest girls. It is still a little tricky and getting the right size of piping out of the bag can be hard. Check out some of our projects. The dinos are mine and Camie's. I actually didn't even see some of these. The kids would decorate and eat them instantly. Thanks Robyn for capturing before devouring.
My dino feet turned out cute.
And I'm especially proud of this little guy who is just a skeleton. He seems to fit the bill for extinct.
This amazing Mandala was done by Camie. So much detail. So cool!
I like Ivory's Pokeball. Creative with the colors we had available.
It was certainly a silly night but we learned a lot.
The weekend brought another parade. We divided up the family for different events and I took Daisy and June to watch Ivory do Color Guard. (Oh, and we took Nova.)
This is my favorite picture. Daisy is just chilling reading the paper.
This parade was fun. It was just a little further north and I guess that makes all the difference horse wise. Whereas, our last parade had a handful of horses, this one had lots. I also learned that Nova does not like horses.
It is hard to take a selfie with Nova. This was my best effort.
I like these huge flags they have. There is this program called Follow the Flag, where they take this huge flag to different places. They had it at Hope of America. (Sorry I haven't blogged about that yet.)
Ivory was farther back in the parade. When she arrived, I noticed something was wrong. Where is her flag?
Turns out that it broke. Someone on the sidelines was fixing it and she got it back later in the parade, but when she passed us, no flag.
But Ivory still did a great job. She still looked nice and professional walking along.
Our movie this week was Secret Garden. We watched the Hallmark version that I grew up with. I like it better than some. It is certainly the one I remember the best. I like that is has the same boy who starred in the Neverending Story.
Let's end the week out with our art show. Remember, the theme was Extinct.
We had a little joke in our family because when Pearl first heard the phrase Woolly Mammoth, she couldn't repeat it. She called it a Holy Mammoth. This inspired Daisy for her art.
Robyn worked on her piece all week. But it was totally worth it. Can you tell who this man of Iron is??
Ivory did a painting. I really loved the colors. I helped her title it, "The Last Supper" Get it?
Pearl did some cute drawings. I really like her cute dinosaurs. Dinos with Binos and her spikey extinct one.
And my cookies of course. I feel like this is something my Dad would write to title a piece.
Here is another by Daisy. Her Brachiosaurus looks so forlorn.
June did this awesome piece using a wood burning pen. She wanted it to feel more fossilized. I think it turned out fantastic.
She also did this cool Geo-Mammoth.
Don't forget Camie's beautiful art. Her dinosaur reminds me of the Lochness monster.
And finally one more from Daisy. Her animals sure look melancholy.
We had Nate judge this time around. He didn't like it very much. He said it was too much pressure. But I think he did a fantastic job. Trust me, it is hard work being the judge. Here are the winners.
It was totally random that June won in two categories. But I liked that Nate didn't know who did what. Makes it more genuine. There you have week three.
