Ethan

 

Here's Ethan, almost 10 years old now.  He is such a sweet, tender hearted boy.  He loves school and is making new friends.  He is a Lego Maniac!  I love his creativity!  He also draws so well, and is amazing with origami.  I'm very excited that he is beginning to really enjoy reading now.  Spelling is a strong point for him, his teacher has even placed him in an advanced spelling group.  

Baseball is definitely his strong suit, I am one proud Momma in the stands!  He is definitely all boy, holes in the knees of most of his jeans, not the fashion statement kind either, the honest to goodness, rough play made ones!  Ethan has a very definite sense of style that seems to be all his own, and I like!  He's a pretty cool guy!

Grace

 

 

 

This young lady is hard to capture, I try, but fail, I should have had her hold a book, maybe!  She is growing into a wonderful young lady, she is now 152 months old, well, about 12 1/2 is more appropriate, but she is still my baby!  I am so proud of her, she is so good at school, straight A's, working so hard to stay on top of everything. 

She has a beautiful singing voice and is a member of the Kansas Youth Chorale.  Grace is such a huge help to me, I really don't know what I would do without her.  I love that she lets me in still and just talks and talks, about everything; books, friends, school, I know the older she gets, the fewer these times could become, I treasure them.



 Next month she will be starting track, she's not really ever been that interested in a particular sport (mostly books) long-term, maybe track will capture her interest.  She is so strong of mind and confident, and has such good taste in friends, books and music, so strong in her faith, I really can hardly wait to see what she becomes.  Well, that's not true, I CAN wait, these kids grow up so fast!

And The Winner Is...

Oddly, from all the suggestions I got, it ended up being a completely even split, with only one of my new haircut pictures getting one more vote than the rest.  It was #3, so, I actually am going to work into that one, but I need to loose the bangs and ease Rob into it a little, so I went with #1.  It looks pretty much like the picture, so I'm happy!  Here it is, the new haircut...

Circus!

Tonight we went to the Arab Shrine Circus.  

We have never been before, so this was a big deal for us.

 I'm pretty sure Rob and I enjoyed it as much as the kids did!  

It was WONDERFUL!  

We are BIG into spending money on experiences, so we did go all out for this one!  Elephant and camel rides were a MUST, and well worth it too, it was so great to see the kid's faces having such a good time! 

Faith's new found love of horses made it impossible to leave without a pony ride!  The Shetland Pony in the show captured her attention from the moment it came trotting out.

We went an hour early, actually, that was when the doors opened, it was great to get there early, there wasn't quite the crowd yet, and we visited pretty much everything going on before the circus even started.  I HIGHLY recommend that!  Lines can be such a hard thing to understand for little ones!

Air brush tattoos!  Grace and Ethan thought this was coolest thing that they had ever seen!

Grace got a lion's head.

Ethan got a viper.












Faith got a lion's head like her big sister.

Face painting!  I have to admit that it took some restraint on my part to not have my face painted too!

Zachary, the leopard!

Faith, the beautiful butterfly!

One of my favorite moments of the evening was when, in the dark, while changing acts, the acrobats were swinging, getting warmed up, and Zach said, "Look, Mommy, chimps!".  The family behind us and in front of us laughed out loud! 

Faith and Zach LOVED "Mater" from Cars!  The motorcycle way above the ring was the boy's favorite of the night.  We were all in awe of the elephant that could stand on a ball!  There is so much to see at the circus, we could have gone two or three times, just to take it all in!  I'm so glad we could do this with the kids!  It was such a wonderful time of smiles, laughing and memory-making experiences last a long time!

Washing faces before bed was such a sad time, but like the good kids they are, all of them sugar crashed into their beds, and not 10 minutes after, all were fast asleep!  

A Challenge

Here's a fun challenge that I just saw, just in time, I might add!  It's a pinning challenge, go HERE to read all about it.  I hope I win!

Spring Decorating

 

I'm definitely getting a little "Spring Fever"!

The house is getting all dressed up!

This is one of my favorite spots.

The eggs are paper mache, I left them brown,

 because I liked the natural look of them.  

The holder is actually a candle holder that held votives, 

a few of them broke, I love how it turned out!

so I had to find a new use!

This is the wreath that I made for Christmas with a poinsettia, 

but I only pinned it on,

 that was I could use it any time of the year, 

just by swapping out the flowers. 

More decorating to come!

Daddy's Home

Rob is working a lot of overtime, A LOT, tonight, after working a 13 hour day, Zach and Faith, tackled him!  One on the front, one on the back.  He's going back in at 3 AM for another 13 hour day now, but Daddy made the most of his hour with them, total quality time, and they went to bed happy campers.