Catherine

Bored during Stake Conference?

Use magnetic tangrams to create family pictures on the back of the chair in front of you:

Catherine (with blue hair), me & Elise

I'm Activity Days leader right now, which mean Catherine ends up participating in a lot of our activities. She has a blast and is often the envy of her other not-quite-eight-year-old friends who can't join in the fun yet. She'll be legitimately in there in February. Crazy. 

Several of our girls (and Catherine) after our Recognition Night

One Friday afternoon we dropped Aaron and Elise off at Kaia School (two hours of fun preschool activities) and headed to the mall to find new church shoes for Seth (we wear the same size now!!!). We walked past the piercing place and I jokingly asked Catherine if she wanted her ears pierced. She always gives me an emphatic, "NO!!!" This time she stopped. And thought. And examined the earrings. She wasn't ready to fully commit, so we did a bit of walking around while she considered. With some (a lot) of persuasion from Seth, she finally decided to go for it. 

I loved that they pierced both ears at once. I watched her eyes get a bit teary when they pierced, but she didn't cry or jerk. I was very impressed. 

Look at those beautiful blue flowers!

As a side note, it might be advertised as "free", but getting the earrings and nonsense put me back about $75. Ridiculous. 

Catherine is still my most willing helper, especially if it involves cooking. 

(she insisted I take this picture)

She's definitely still our sassy, independent, standoffish little cat-girl, but we wouldn't change any part of our Catherine. 

Saga of the Seedlings

I was inspired by my amazing friend Terry to try to start my plants from seed this year. She came over and spent a morning teaching me how to make seed pots from newspaper. I bought a little greenhouse from Aldi, planted some seeds, put up the greenhouse in our bedroom where it got afternoon sun, and waited. Finally, they sprouted!

And then Elise pulled it over. Thankfully Catherine managed to catch it before it fell totally over, but I still lost several plants.

Pathetic survivors

We replanted and moved the greenhouse outside (it had warmed up a bit). Of course, it would be that night that a crazy windstorm hit. I came out the next morning and found this:

There was one survivor: a butternut squash plant.

Everything else was a loss.

But I replanted again, because there was still time!

I also got the paving stones down in our garden so my kids will stop stepping on my plants:

Just for fun, the wind took out the greenhouse one more time. I didn't mess around this time: that's a full bucket of water and a 30 lb. bag of paving gravel on the bottom. It hasn't moved since. 

And, just to top it off, we had a straight week of rain. Literally. It killed off my spinach (rotted the roots) and drowned the poor butternut squash plant that had survived all the greenhouse disasters. But the tomatoes look great, and, honestly, as long as the tomatoes survive the garden is worth the effort. I've learned a lot this year and will (hopefully) do a much better job next time. 

April Activities

First, we celebrated Timmy's birthday:

It was very exciting. 

Then there's this girl, who has decided she loves dolls and frequently carries one around:

Relaxing with Moana

This is new territory for me: Catherine didn't do dolls. Ever. 

Then there was the time I walked into the church parking lot after an activity and found a huge batch of youth surrounding a tree. They were excitedly cheering on some ridiculous youth who was attempting to climb it. And then I looked more carefully and realized it was my husband in the tree:

Apparently there was a shoe caught in a branch. Jon used his super tree climbing skills to save Lydia's shoe AND impress all the youth. 

It finally got warm enough for a trip to the water by the goose pond.

There were many wet babies on the drive home:

It also got warm (?) enough for a backyard bonfire.

The kids were ecstatic. 

Timmy refused to join us. He retreated to his cool, dark basement.

Elise was completely sure that she needed the huge, sharp stick.

We let her have it because sometimes it's just easier. 

Actually, most of the time it's just easier to let Elise have her way. 

And, just in case you're wondering what homeschooling with little ones looks like, it looks like this:

This is me trying to help Aaron with his reading while Elise flops around on my lap.

I'm also yelling at Seth to do his math. 

Homeschooling is not for the weak. 

Nadara

For months our kids had (allegedly) been saving their money for a snake. When our friends offered to sell us their snake (the one we had babysat over the summer while they were on vacation), the kids jumped at it. 

Well, Catherine did. Seth wasn't sure he wanted to pay for half the snake. But after some tears from Catherine, he gave in and they became the proud owners of Nadara the Ball Python:

Have you ever seen a more adorable picture of a girl and her snake?

Of course, it hasn't all been snuggles and smiles. Seth made the mistake of trying to pick Nadara up while his hands still smelled like rats. She thought he was food and chomped down on his finger. It was a good ten seconds before Jon flipped the light on and she let go. It bled quite a bit, but he survived and learned some valuable lessons. 

I get lots of comments about how crazy I must be to have a pet snake. Honestly, I don't have to walk it, or pick up poop every day, or deal with fur. Snakes are super easy pets! My only real problem is that family members are suddenly unable to come visit anymore. No way we're getting Grandpa Scott within several miles of a snake!

Cousin Visit

Daniel & Wendy and family came to visit us for a little over an entire week in April. Since their Spring Break happened to correspond perfectly with our co-op Spring Break, we were excited for a full week of fun with cousins.

Of course, April ended up being stupidly wet, cold and miserable. So instead of enjoying some hikes and rivers, we went mini-golfing and to the bounce houses. Thankfully the kids did a great job of entertaining themselves. Megan and Catherine were inseparable and could usually be found quietly creating some activity together. Seth still latched onto Jocelyn, although Jason is starting to be more and more fun to play with as well. Elise LOVED Jocelyn! After one particularly fun day, I looked over while cooking dinner and saw this:

Jocelyn obviously has the magic touch!

Mom & Dad Blood were also able to come visit for part of the time. We loved having everyone here to watch Conference together and enjoy Easter. It was supposed to be peak cherry blossom time in DC, so we made big plans to go see it together. Thanks to the chill, the blossoms kept getting pushed back. We decided to go anyway. 

Catherine's face says it all.

This was the first time I've wished I'd brought gloves and not sunscreen. It was cold and windy, all the "favorite" museums were packed (Natural History had a two hour long line outside), and the blossoms weren't quite ready. Also, we didn't even meet up with any of Jon's family members. It was kind of a disaster. 

Seth with Thomas Jefferson

Catherine with the (almost-peak) cherry blossoms

Thankfully we all survived and I think Daniel & Wendy's kids may eventually forgive us.

We spent a lot of time cooking food. Thankfully we had lots of adorable helpers to speed up (?) the process:

In order to fit everyone in, we had all three of our "big" kids sleeping on the floor in our room. I was nervous about how they would do with Jon waking up at 4:45 for seminary, but they slept right through it. 

Everyone piled in for scripture reading

Our kids were devastated when they left to go home. We really need some cousins living next door. 

Aaron

Aaron continues to surprise and amuse us with the things his Aaron-brain comes up with. We've had a few gems recently that I wanted to record.

-We try to encourage chivalry and have a family rule of ladies first. Both Seth and Aaron are highly offended by this practice. In response to a recent reminder of "ladies first," Aaron declared, "NO! MANS FIRST!"

-Aaron has a bit of a perfectionist/anxiety streak, especially when it comes to his writing. For a long time he wouldn't write or draw at all. One day he asked to draw in his journal and spent the next couple of hours drawing. That's how Aaron does things: nothing, then everything all at once.

I'm not pushing the writing at all, but Aaron loves to do workbooks while his siblings do their schoolwork. He has a math brain and blasted through his preschool workbook and has started the K workbook. His only hangup? The writing of the numbers. Anything round is hard for him (there was one assignment that asked him to draw peas on a plate and it was basically the apocalypse). Since most numbers have curves, he struggled with writing until he announced one day that he was going to write "Lego numbers." I was quite confused, having absolutely no idea what Lego numbers were. After some discussion he explained that Lego numbers are basically analog clock numbers: all lines, no curves. Math is going much better now that he can just write Lego 2s and Lego 8s.

-Aaron is still our champion eater. He was the only one brave enough to try a plum for the first time. Catherine, intrigued, asked him how it tasted.

Aaron: "Um, it tastes like strawberries...and plums."
Catherine: "So...it tastes like strawberries?"

Jon still cracks up every time he thinks about that conversation.

He does things his own way and in his own time, but we sure love our Aaron exactly the way he is.