April

We recently got our floors downstairs redone. The carpet in the front room had been stained since we moved in, and the laminate in the kitchen/family room was starting to get some holes in it, so it was time to replace them. And as long as we were doing 2/3 of the downstairs, we figured we might as well do it all (except the laundry room and bathroom) and make it look nice. The guy who gave us an estimate on price told me it'd be 2-3 days. The installer laughed when I told him that's what I had been told. It took 9 days. Which wouldn't have been so bad if that's what I had been expecting, but it did throw a few plans for a loop.

 It was sure nice to be done and have our floors look beautiful and our house back to ourselves. And in moving everything downstairs I actually got a lot of decluttering and cleaning done, which was a bonus.

 Annie, Ryan, and Megan have been taking swim lessons for a bit over a month. The session just ended and Ryan and Annie have made great progress. Annie can swim freestyle across the pool, and is starting to get side breathing down. Ryan can swim well as long as he remembers to keep his eyes down--when he tries to look forward his feet drop and he stops making any progress. But he can swim across the pool short ways really well, and could swim the long way if he were a little less nervous when it got to the deep end.

  Megan is super comfortable in the water, and I think if her teacher would push her a little, she would be swimming. She can float on her back pretty much all on her own. And when she's swimming with me I can let her go near the edge and she'll kick with her face in until she reaches the side.

We got to go see Annie's egg drop project. Her egg survived. She had the egg in a butter container which was taped to her umbrella.

 Here's her class with their egg drop projects.

 Speaking of school, Annie finished her Reading Fair Project. She did it on Junie B. Jones and the Stupid, Smelly Bus. She did a good job.

March Catch Up

We went camping at Parker Canyon Lake the last weekend of Spring Break.  Friday morning, Colette and the kids went to reserve a spot for us.  The Allen family came for Friday but did not stay the night.  The kids spent a good part of Friday by the lake learning to skip rocks and playing in the water.


 

 
Rachel and Maryanne were brave enough to get in the water.  They said it was really cold.

I arrived at dinner time and we had a lovely meal of tin foil dinners.  We roasted marshmallows and Starbursts for a treat.  The Allens left Friday evening before it was dark and we had a long cold night in our tent.

 

Saturday morning we huddled around the fire and sipped hot cocoa.

Later that morning we went for a walk around the lake.



 

The kids discovered the perfect climbing rock.


We decided to take some family pictures while we were on the rock.





All in all, it was a nice campout.  Next time we'll bring more blankets.

Here are some other random pictures from March.

Megan and Colette have complimentary outfits.




Ryan went to Kindergarten preview.  He is SO excited to go to Kindergarten.


Colette and Rachel were driving home from some activity and the sunset was spectacular.  Rachel tried to take pictures from the inside of the 4runner.



You can't beat Arizona sunsets.

Ryan is 5!

Ryan turned 5 last month. We kicked things off with Lucky Charms for breakfast, and family presents in the morning. Ryan mostly got new clothes (which he really needed).

 But he also got a special surprise (that he knew was coming).

 A new bike!

He's been riding a two wheeler for over a year, but it was a small one, so he would pedal so fast, but with the small tires, he couldn't keep up with us no matter how hard he tried.

He was a little cautious at first on the new bike, but after a few trials, he was as fast as ever.

Later that day he had friends over for his birthday party. 

 He had been talking about watching Phineas and Ferb: The Movie all week, but changed his mind that morning to Moana.

The movie took up all the time we had planned, and more, so we paused it part way through in case people had to leave when the party was supposed to end, and had cake and presents, before going back to finish the last 15 minutes of the movie.

 Cars, rescue bots and other fun stuff were all big hits.

Ryan is a typical 5-year-old boy. He loves going fast, or anything that goes fast, like airplanes, motorcycles, or cars. He is a great big brother and often helps Megan learn how to play a game, or do something she's having a hard time with, or calm down when she's throwing a 2-year-old fit. He does sometimes provoke a fit, however, instead. Ryan and Annie are not the full time enemies they once were. They play well together for large stretches of time sometimes. And other times not so much. Ryan is starting to read, but prefers sight words to words he has to sound out. He just doesn't have the patience for that. Though he is starting to want to sound out words for fun sometimes. More than words, though, he loves numbers, counting, adding, etc. He also very much loves to figure out how things work. He is in heaven when someone is working with tools to take apart or put something together. He'll sit nearby and is just captivated, asking questions and talking their ear off. He's got "the knack."