A Delightful Day

First thing Thursday morning we knew what we had to do when we found this on our door:

I know, normally this is bad news, but not around here.  It means that we have generous, kind, thoughtful and sneaky neighbors.  It means that I had delighted children Thursday morning. You see, this kind of "egged" is the best.  It means that our yard (or porch) had been littered with Easter Eggs full of candy!!

After that excitement (and candy for breakfast, of course), it was time to get into the school day.

We started with the microscope.  We have a lot of prepared slides, but we needed something more exciting and new.  So, I gave the kids the blank slides and told them to go find some things that they wanted to look at.  I'll share the list, but don't read if you are easily grossed out.

Eraser, bacteria from a tongue (name with held to protect the innocent), dried up Mac & Cheese (found under Liam's chair, of course), hair, ear wax, scraped off scalp skin (aka dandruff), paper, candle wax, dirt from a plant, crayon, dust, boogers (in rich supply around here), banana peel, apple peel, rice, onion skin and a fly's wing.

After that we had more fun with the Easter eggs by hiding them around the house.  Lauren is quite the clever little hider (I found out), we better watch out or that girl.

We have spent a little bit of time each day this week preparing for General Conference .  We have been teaching the kids the importance of being spiritually ready for the messages that Heavenly Father will send to us through the people who will be addressing us.  I also wanted to make it fun, so I came up with a few ideas.  Things are always better received when there is a game involved.  So, we played a game with these and got into a lengthy discussion about the apostles and how they are servants of the Lord.  We also challenged the kids to come to conference with a struggle or problem that they are currently having.  We assured them that through prayer, they would receive inspiration on how to overcome the problem.   There is always something for everyone at General Conference.  The Lord will bless us if we ask him. He wants us to be better and we are looking forward to a spiritual feast this weekend.

Later that evening we watched an Old Testament video.  

The day ended peacefully with a fight over who was going to get to take the Friend

to their room for quiet reading time.  (Should I be happy that they were fighting over the Friend?)

Ahhhhh, such is our life.

KKS

Eyes In Order

KKS

Family Photo

Please don't show this to Mom, as it is her Mother's Day gift:)

KKS

I Am Not A Photographer....

....but I can pretend, and I do.

KKS

Audrey Today

Harrison says "Mom, she is such. a. dorable."

I have to agree!!

KKS

Nature Alphabet

Inspired by my favorite big sister, Stephanie.  We didn't get all the letters, but we'll work on it more over the next little while until we get all 26!

KKS

Spring!!

Everyone is feeling better today.  In other words, no pukies!!

Even though there is still quite a bit of coughing going on, everyone was anxious to get outdoors today because the birds were chirping, the sky was blue and the temperature was 62.  So, out we went.  I thought of a cool project to do with the kids after being inspired by this website. I had to alter it a little bit, but we made it work.  I wanted to document it before we get too far into it.  Otherwise, I'll forget.

We went out into the yard to choose a new plant or tree to "adopt" or follow through the next few weeks.  We will take daily photo's to document growth and progress.  We wrote down the names (we still have to find out a couple of them....Betsey???) and the scientific names, the G.P.S. coordinates, the environment,   the weather and soil type.  I chose the yard because I know that it is somewhere we go every day, and the kids can do it on their own.  Some of the kids actually dug down through the snow, then through a blanket of leaves to find thriving new plants beneath.  I explained to the kids that we should put the leaves back, as it provides a blanket for the cold nights.  I took them out individually to choose their plant so we could have a good discussion about all of Heavenly Father's beautiful creations.  One on one often provides a conduit to feeling the the Holy Ghost.  I love nature, it is so spiritual.  I had neat experiences with each child.

Lauren's tree:

Lundi's plant:

Caleb's plant:

Harrison's plant:

KKS