The Week in Pictures

We watched the last of Series 2. Fabulous! We'll miss it until we get another fix next year. Except Megan wants the DVDs for Series 1 and 2 for her birthday...

I worked more than usual this week, taking on a Wednesday shift as well as a Friday night one. Thanks to Russell (and Megan) who held down the fort while I was gone.

So Russell lost his. Again.

By working in the community garden at Friends. We got some gardening (well, weeding!) done in ours as well.

There's a new cupcake store in town: J. Rae's. We decided to be mischievous and picked some up on Friday, to see if they were any good. They were. (Expensive, though.)

It's summer reading program time! Both Megan and Caitlyn are volunteering, and we signed everyone up. To read, of course, but mostly to get the coupons at the end. :-D

As part of our being mischievous, we spent $20 on a slip-n-slide. Best $20 I've spent this year.

And Russell and I (finally) got out to see this. Great stupid fun, chock full of one-liners.

Oh, and we shouldn't forget the last day of school!

Here's to summer!

And.... It's Summer!

We had our last days of school yesterday. Fun was had, friends were said goodbye to (at least for the summer), and pictures were taken.

She loved her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Davis.

Caitlyn, obviously, has a LOT of friends.

Next stop: laziness! (Well, at least for the next couple of days.)

In 12 Minutes or Less

Kristen's asked me for help doing her FHE lesson. I told her I'd help her at 3; so I've got 11 minutes to tell y'all about our week.

So here goes:

Stuff happened, like it always does.

School's ending on Wednesday.

I dyed my hair red. Megan dyed hers brown. We swapped.

Caitlyn had a band concert.

Megan and I went and saw an author (Geraldine Brooks).

I worked.

Russell read Game of Thrones, book 2.

He also did stuff at the community garden he's in charge of at Friends.

We put up a swing in the trees across the street; Alison and Kristen have to be reminded that even though it is their swing, it's on public land, so it's okay if others swing on it.

I spring cleaned the kitchen.

Caitlyn and Megan went on a walk to raise funds and awareness for Angleman's syndrome.

They also went to see The Avengers with Porter (who is too much like a brother to be a date), so they can babysit for us when we go next weekend.

We watched Sherlock. Love that show.

It was warm-ish, so kids got on swimsuits and played in the sprinkler. We need a Slip-n-slide. (Can you even buy those anymore?)

And church today -- aside from squirrley kids in Primary who would not. stop. talking -- was good.

And that's the size of it. Next stop: summer!

Caitlyn's Band Concert

The last one for the year.

They played the 1812 Overture theme:


And Party in the USA:


My favorite thing is how Caitlyn bops along to the songs. Very cute.

Mom's a Weasley

So far the reactions are thus:
Russell: "I love it! (How much did it cost?)"
Megan: "I love it!"
Caitlyn: "Mom, it looks nice."
Kristen: "Mom you look weird."
Alison: *crying hysterically and refusing to be consoled* "You're not my mother!"

It seems to be a big hit on Facebook, though.

May Day - Cinco de Mayo Smashup

So, May Day rolled around this year, and it turned out that we had TONS of stuff going on that day. We did manage to get the girls their baskets,

Oooh, chocolate bunnies!

but everything else had to wait.

Like, days.

We did, eventually, get around to dying eggs. This year, since I didn't want to deal with hard-boiled eggs no one would eat, I took the time to blow out every. single. egg. Only 18, but still. By the end, I was a bit light-headed.

Somewhere in there, we had our little Cinco de Mayo celebration:

Watermelon water: tastes like Kool-Aid

 And eventually, long after the fact, we did put chocolate in eggs and have Russell hide them.  We did consider doing away with the whole egg-hunt thing, but there was such an outcry, we did find time to do it.

Giving instructions. I think he REALLY likes this part.

Russell color-coordinated the eggs when he could.

Alison was the first one done this year, which led to the realization that her eggs need to get hid better. But there was less crying than in past years, and everything got found (hooray! No melted chocolate in eggs three months from now.)

Ah, traditions.

On Books and TV

So, we're still in not-quite-summer mode, but for some reason we haven't let that get to us. We have, for the most part, abandoned any pretense of getting kids to bed on time (at least on the weekend), and of doing anything reasonably responsible. What we did do, was watch too much TV/movies, and read a lot.

Russell finally delved into Game of Thrones. It took him a little bit, but then he was lost in it. Like I had to remind him that he needed to do stuff lost. I can understand that. The only problem is that getting lost in Game of Thrones means you're out for a week, even for Russell. And the other problem is that he's now started book 2....

As for TV, we've started up again with Battlestar Galatica. We're about halfway through season 2 (we lost interest after watching season one and the first half last summer-ish), and while it's not fun, it is interesting. Oh, and we watched the first episode of season 2 of Sherlock with Megan and Caitlyn. We did decide that doing that on a school night is probably not preferable. But it was still a good episode.

Megan, Caitlyn and I also watched the final episode of Castle. While it was good (yay!), it means that we now have to go without weekly Nathan Fillion fixes until season 5 comes back on. *sigh* Unless I convince people to give me the first two on disc for an early birthday present.

Megan actually got homework done in between going to banquets -- she lettered in band, student government, and academics this year -- and reading our new favorite book, Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore. It's so good, it leaves one with a post-good book high, and makes everything bad in comparison. It's wonderful reading a great book. It's bad for the one after that.

Alison's been working her way through the Percy Jackson series, on her own this time. So, as a "reward", we got the Lightning Thief movie and let her watch it. She was actually worried to start with -- we'd showed her pictures from the filming of Sea of Monsters, and she was upset that Hermes didn't look like anything he was "supposed" to, which made her slightly hysterical. That said, she REALLY liked the movie. "It was AWESOME" liked. So much so, that she watched it once with Megan on Friday, and once with Caitlyn on Saturday. I'm sure she'd watch it all day, every day, if we'd let her.

Caitlyn read something (she gave up on Heist Society, which is sad. *swoon* Hale...). Mostly she's been involved in getting a fundraiser for St. Jude's hospital off the ground. See, a friend of hers one day said, "Let's sell something to raise money for cancer." Other friends were saying, sure yeah but not coming up with anything until Caitlyn piped up and said, "You should sell mustaches that you can tape on your face." And an idea is born. She got involved as the spokesperson to pitch the idea to a teacher for sponsorship and to the principal ("Because you're not afraid of talking, Caitlyn."), and they spent Saturday putting glue dots on dyecut mustaches to sell this week. Friday's the day the kids get to wear them at school. They're hoping it goes well, though Caitlyn's a bit stressed it might "fail" (What is failure in this instance??), and the other kids involved might blame her. I told her not to worry; it's just a lark, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. And if they get mad at her for putting her in charge, well, that's their problem. She also told me to tell you that she's excited for the Once Upon a Time finale tonight (but she doesn't get to watch it until later this week...)

Kristen spends the morning before school watching Max and Ruby (I tell you, we're going to seed over here), and the afternoons watching iCarly. She and Russell are working their way through Sorcerer's Stone, which she really likes. So, even though she stays up late (watching Hercules and Cyberchase), she still insists on reading stories. I also got to go into Kindergarten this week (it's been a while), and her teacher had me listening to the kids read. Kristen's really pretty good, sounding out words, and tackling books. As long as I remember to keep her reading (hooray for library reading programs!) this summer, she'll be off and running next year.

As for me, I had a nice early Mother's Day yesterday. Alison and Kristen gave me breakfast in bed (Caitlyn was gone, and they forgot to wake up Megan), and all the presents and cards. Then I got to be lazy and finish Ilium (which I've been working through for weeks -- well only 2, but still), and then got up and spring cleaned (or is it summer cleaned?) the Living Room. I was craving steak, so we went out to Five Guys for dinner, which was better than I thought it would be, but probably over priced. I do wish we had an In-and-Out nearby...

Church today was... nice. The Primary kids were cute. The talks were talks. The Primary kids were REALLY squirrely during singing time, but we survived. And I got a nap. I guess it was a good Mother's Day. Only one more full week of school, then three days, and we're into SUMMER. Here's hoping it's not like last year...

It's Not Summer. Yet.

On Thursday:
Megan: "I want to watch a movie."
Me: "You have seminary in the morning. It's not summer yet."
Megan: "I'm a teenager! Live in the moment and all that, you know."

On Friday:
Kristen: "Mom, why did you buy chocolate popsicles? It's not summer yet."

And yet:
Kids are running around in their swimsuits after school, playing in the sprinkler. Kristen even came to dinner in her suit one night. It's staying light until past 8:30 ("It's not dark! It can't be bedtime yet!"). Children are forgetting assignments, and procrastinating homework until the last possible moment. And Russell finished up finals and went to graduation yesterday. It MUST be summer.

Our week was that weird combination of busy and unscheduled. May Day celebrations put off (we still haven't gone on an egg hunt, yet...) because of meetings (Russell) and a music concert (Kristen). We want to sleep in and be lazy -- and sometimes we even get to -- but they still have to get to school by 8 a.m. I did get work off on Wednesday, and spent it hanging at the zoo with the kindergarten, which was a lot of fun. Kristen was quite serious about checking the things off on our animal scavenger hunt. It was quite cute.

And we (finally!) put our garden in yesterday. Hopefully, things will grow and not die. It's been so warm, and we should have gotten it in weeks ago. I'm hoping July doesn't end up being a series of 100+ days again this year, or we've just wasted a whole bunch of money on the plants. *sigh* Life in Kansas is tricky sometimes.

Then again, perhaps life is tricky everywhere.

Kristen's Kindergarten Music Concert

The kindergarten/first grade music program was on Tuesday (May 1), which kind of wrecked havoc with our usual May Day Celebrations. On the other hand, a room full of kindergarteners and first graders singing is pretty darn cute. Here's the two Kristen wanted to share with you.