Spring Break +

Ready to ride the lightrail to see Daddy at work!

I was in heaven this past week having ALL of my kids home!  I LOVE spring break, and without wishing time to go faster than it already is, I cannot wait for summer break, simply to have Summer home every day!  Spring break just flew by - it felt like only a few days!  We kept busy with:

• Dental appointments and chores (Monday)
• Colton's 5 year pictures (Tuesday)
• Baking and selling bars all over the neighborhood to help those with less (see below) (Tuesday)
• Seeing Grandma K for Culvers and Chuckee Cheese (Wednesday)
• Visiting daddy at work and riding the lightrail (Thursday)
• Gymnastics for S and L (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)
• Playdate with good friends (Friday)
• going to several parks
• rearranging Summer and Colton's rooms at their request ;)
• playing outside
• planning for Colton's birthday
• and tons of reading their Bibles and devotional books, leading to awesome conversations daily (I love having TIME for these extended conversations!)! 

I really didn't take many pictures, but here are a few...

Sisters on the lightrail

Mommy and Colton on the lightrail

As soon as Daddy was spotted, he was enveloped in hugs!

lunch in Daddy's cafeteria

Skyways!

After lunch, Daddy hopped on the lightrail a few stops and we took a family field trip to see the Twins stadium

Peeking through to see the Twins Stadium

In the big glove!

A little background on the next few pictures...Summer has a page in her Awana Sparks packet with a verse about taking care of the poor.  In it, Sparkies are to do something to help the poor.  After discussing the need at Summer's school for kids who need food or shoes, we decided to earn money to give the school counselor so she could give gifts/gift cards to families who could most use it.  We brainstormed three ideas on how the kids could earn money:

1. Do extra chores around the house (like folding the laundry and picking up sticks in the yard)
2. Bake and sell bars around the neighborhood
3. Sell toys they no longer use on a local online garage sale site

The kids did all three over spring break, and raised almost $150!

The kids (with very little help but lots of supervision ;) ) baked three pans of bars.  They took turns doing each of the jobs.

The kids loved licking the chocolate spoon after frosting their bars!

We cut each 9x13 pan into 8 massive bars (24 total bars) and individually wrapped them and sold them for $5/piece.  Here Summer is holding one of the bins of bars and Colton is holding their money jar (into which they had already donated their chore money and some of their money from their piggy banks).

The kids ran all over the neighborhood for TWO HOURS (selling all but two bars) and told the neighbors that we were raising $ to help kids at Southview who didn't have much money for essentials, and asked if they would like to buy a bar and/or donate any loose change.  They had great success and never came away empty handed from even one house (given that they were home).

Summer and Colton took turns trading who held the $ and who held the bars, and often let Larkyn ring the doorbell (pictured Summer lifting Larkyn to ring the bell!)

 On Wednesday, Grandma K came!  While Larkyn napped, she took the big kids on a special outing to Chuck-e-cheese!

We enjoyed many park days and being outside, but this one was a highlight for sure!  We met up with Auntie Kristin and Teddy for a picnic and park play!

This swing was awesome!  Summer could pump Larkyn in the baby swing because they were attached!

Here are a few bonus pictures that were on my phone as I wrap up March and head into April...

Lighting McQueen watching the "lightning"

The kids cheer everytime they hear lighting (a tactic passed down to me from my weather loving dad to change fear of storms into excitement) and the get so excited!  Older kid excitement transfers to younger kid excitement and soon nobody is scared of the huge thunder crashes!  This night we ate dinner by candlelight to watch the storm/lightning outside.  Fun memory!

Heading to have lunch with Summer at Southview

Mommy has been doing lots of deep cleaning/sorting etc in the house...including under the basement stairs (ew!).  The kids got SO into it (too many Boxcar Children books?!?) and loved cleaning out and finding treasures...such as an old bed poster topper (who knows which owner that came from!) and an old silver engraved bracelet (pretty cool!).  Don't mind that Larkyn is in her underwear...she was in a dress-up dress but it got in her way ;)  Anyway, another fun memory.

Crazy clothes night at Awana.  Daddy won (in my book!)

This picture shows a characteristic of Colton I want to remember.  After being told to bring a small number of his toys/socks upstairs to his room, he spent like 20 minutes attaching them all to Blade, his helicopter, so he could bring them up in one trip!

Glad to catch these cuddles in a picture!

So sweet...Colton putting his arm around Larkyn at the zoo.  He is such a sweetheart!

Saturday morning cuddles with my Loo!  No matter what I am doing or how busy I am, it is REALLY hard for me to resist a request coming from this little one, "Mommy, can we cuddle?"  This baby of the family keeps my on my toes for sure, but she can also melt my heart!

 Well, that about wraps up March!  I honestly feel like we just started March!  We are now heading into CRAZY birthday week for Colton, with a kids party, a family party, and our own celebration all in a matter of less than a week. Lots of planning, lots of fun, and lots of crazy excitement from my almost 5 year old!  I'll return to blogging when the crazy is over...and let you know how it all went down!  Until then!