Spring Break Day Three (B)

After our long hike, we had lunch and then stopped by the beach to let the kiddos wet their toes and play in the sand.  They had a ball and spent at least 2 plus hours playing in the sand.  We had the entire beach to ourselves most of the time.  It was too cold to go swimming.  

This ought to make the perfect platform for a sand castle.

Do it just like so.

Three amigos.

Which gives the rest of us time to chat.

And relax.

And then nap....she now is in the sand at the right of the pic. :)

Meanwhile, kids were reveling that they could actually get dirty

Dad even had fun in the sand.

And he spent some time with me on a porch swing watching the kiddies play.

Ending the day with drum roll......more smores!

Out of order here, but thought this was funny.  Two dads snapping photos of their littles.

Spring Break Day Three (A)

Day three we headed for a trail.  It was close to 4 miles.  The weather was perfect, and overall everyone did great.  The terrain was a little rugged, but we managed.  The moms had to be pack mules for awhile with the littles, but we both were happy to help out because we both wanted to burn off all those extra calories we had been consuming each night at supper.  The views were good in some spots and depressing in others.  There is A LOT of destruction in the forests EVERYWHERE.  I'm not sure if it is due to drought, forest fires, or some forest rehab project, but it was sad to me.

Love the butt crack! For the record, my butt pockets were stuffed with a camera and phone, so the booty looks a little bigger than normal ;)

Lookout point and half way point too.  Are we sweating yet?

Funny turtle perched on a log randomly sitting in middle of lake.

Some of the views were pretty.

A lot were not.  So sad!

Of course, my sunglasses kept sliding down my nose when my hands were tied up behind my back.

Aw!

Still a little young to do a rugged trail without a parent's hand.

So proud of my littles for doing a good job!

Spring Break Day Two

Day two we took an hour and a half drive to a diamond mine.  Supposedly, many people had found real diamonds in the soil out there.  There were over a hundred and fifty found last year.  It wasn't exactly what we were expecting, but now we can say we hunted for diamonds even if it was outside in a dirt field and not in a cave.  The kids liked it for a short while, then just decided to play around.

Every day we packed a lunch.  Didn't seem so bad splurging on a house when we didn't have to pay to go out and eat.  Cooked at home each night too.

Learning about diamond hunting.

Here it is folks!  Your diamonds await you.  Yeah, right!

They only worked like this for a microsecond.

Amanda and David.  I think Amanda enjoyed this the most out of all of us.

An old mine.

Just what they needed after a long day of diamond hunting and a big highlight of their trip.

Each night always ended with smores.

Spring Break 2013 Day One

This year we asked another couple to join us for Spring Break in Lake Ouachita, Arkansas.  They were good friends of ours from college, and they also have two children around our children's ages.  We wanted to go camping, but because the weather was super iffy we decided to rent a house instead.  This way we knew that if the weather turned out bad, we were covered.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. 

Our house was beautiful and very reasonably priced!

Plenty of room for 2 families!

We had to flip a coin for the master bath and bedroom because it was so awesome!

Kitchen had plenty of storage for our food and was well equipped.

Fire pit, hot tub, and a great view off the back decks.

There was even a super cool slide off the top deck!

The kids loved the bunk bed.

The kids hit it off right away.

Bren didn't want to do anything without little Derek.  Smores each night were a MUST!

Stinker

When it comes to potty training, Bren was my ultimate hard case.  K trained in two weeks with number ones and in a couple months with number twos.  She was completely self sufficient with the bathroom including wiping by age 4.  Bren took well over a year and we are still learning how to wipe twos.  Today we still struggle with what I call drip and crumble accidents.  These are the accidents that happen because she is too busy playing and tries to ignore the urges to go.  When I ask her to go to the bathroom I will often hear this response,

"But I went yesterday, " or "I don't have to go today."

Last night was the ultimate corker response.

Me:  Did you get one out?
Bren:  Yes.
Me: Do you have some more?
Bren:  Yes, but I will save it for tomorrow.

Geeze!  Will I ever get this girl fully trained?  I'm tired of wiping butts and having a shortage of panties because of constant drip and crumble panties.  Sigh!  Two of my not so favorite things to do are train kids how to use the bathroom and brush their teeth.  Maybe she'll get them both by 5? 

Easter Pageant 2013

Last night was our Easter Pageant at school.  Bren did a little 5 minute performance that was a simplified version of the crucifixion with her classmates.  She was an angry towns person who had one very short line.  She had done perfectly in rehearsals, but almost forgot to say her line during the performance and then rushed through it.  Oh well!  You get what you get with preschool.  I organized and directed the music in the entire performance for the little guys and the big guys whose performance was much longer.  It turned out pretty good overall.  About the only hiccups we had involved the sound.  There was a long delay getting our song started.  The gentleman running the sound finally got the speakers running several measures into the song.  I  didn't know this and thought the song was at the beginning.  The beginning of the song had two measures of rest. I  urged the kids not to sing thinking it was the measures of rest, then we realized the song was not at the beginning and had to just dive in the middle and start singing mid verse.  Oh well!

One more more concert to go before the end of the year.  This one I created from scratch.  I created the script and chose songs from here and there to reinforce the message of the performance.  Already excited to see how it will turn out.

Here are a few pics and a the video clip from Bren's performance.

Easiest costume eva! Pillowcase on the head!

I think Kadyn was a little jealous it was Bren's performance.

3 year olds

PK4, Bren is 2nd to right in the back.  Hard to see.

1st-5th graders singing one of their songs

Jeff didn't get to come to the Christmas pageant, so this was his first time to see my classrooms and bulletin boards.

A music bulletin board.  Hard to see, but it says "Souper Composers."  It has composer pictures glued inside the bowls and spoons and napkins on placemats.

I just couldn't take this down from last semester.  It's my favorite and fits any season.

My new Kindergarten Spring bulletin board in the hallway. Found the handprint flower idea on pinterest

Jeff goofing off with my tools to teach pitch movement...aka pipe cleaners

Lastly, Bren got to show off her work on her preschool bulletin board her teacher put together for the class.  They had dino week this week and she LOVED it.  Her dino is made from her handprint.