Hello Spring!

Spring is here! The weather this past week has been beautiful! Our gift for surviving another cold winter. :-)

A couple weeks ago was the highlight of 3rd grade..... The Invention Convention!  The students have to use one or more of the 5 simple machines from the approved list. Porter used a pulley to make a "Pet Piñata."  

He also had his music concert that was for the 4th and 3rd graders. The theme was "On the Day You Were Born", which I found out at the concert is a children's book. Who knew?! All the children were asked to bring a photo of them on the day they were born, so that was the backdrop. Very cute. Thanks to Nana and Papa coming up to see Porter stand still and not sing! LOL Music concerts are definitely not his jam! He's in the front row wearing a gray polo. 

A couple weekends ago found us having dinner with our priest, Fr. Ray. It was so much fun. We bought this through the school auction. There were 10 couples and we ended up renting a party bus to pick each couple up at their house and then Fr. Ray at the church. Pretty sure this was the first time he'd been picked up at church by a party bus! Haha! He's an amazing man and was such a good sport all evening. Even had a couple swigs of the communal Fireball bottle that we were passing around on the bus on our way home. 

Didn't feel the best the next morning! 

The ladies with Fr. Ray. 

Some of the guys. I didn't take a single pic. These are just from a friend to sent out via text. I know someone took some party bus pics, wish I had those. 

Tired and cute kitty!

Porter is trying soccer out for the first time this spring. He's really enjoying it! Wish he would of joined this team a few years ago. No baseball for him this spring. 

He got his first try at goalie last weekend. So fun!

I swear each year there is always a "big" project. This year would be our landscaping. We are taking up all the rock and replacing with mulch. Putting down new stone boarders and moving lots of plants, small shrubs around. We started last weekend and have the rock all removed. Mike is selling it on Craig's List, so we've been piling next to the house where the grass is dead from all the lumber sitting there from our deck project last year! This is a small pile. It's been a lot of work! But hope it will be worth it in the end. 

Our good friends got a puppy last weekend! We had to go visit a couple days later. Soooooo cute! We all now have puppy fever, except for Rex. Ha!

Stella is doing track this year. She only has 4 meets and 2 of them are over. She tried the discus for the first time at her 2nd meet. She'd only practiced one time prior to the meet, but did ok. You can see her throwing the black disc in the photo. 

Here she is giving it her all in the 200M. She's choosing to do sprint races vs. long distance. 

A Starbucks stop before our early morning Menards trip today. I found 2 SB gift cards in my junk drawer when I cleaned it out a few days ago! Her cousin, Grace, has her loving SB. But Stella gets it maybe every 3/4 months. 

And to end on a high note! This would be Mike vacuuming our yard! Yes, you read the right. With the overhaul of landscaping we had 3 trees removed on Fri. They ground down all the stumps so were were left with a ton of tree bits. We hauled wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load away and then vacuumed up the remainder to not kill the grass. Such a pain and lots of work, but luckily the weather was wonderful this weekend. 

Random Week

Bouncing back from celebrating Easter has proven to be a bit difficult for me. 

We had Easter Monday off from school, for some reason I kept thinking the kids had school. Stella did have track practice that afternoon and I helped with the long distance group. P came and had one of his besties (Tommy) to play with. It worked out well. I plan to help with practice a couple of times a week, so either P will be coming with us, or gaining some independence at home. Which makes me so thankful that we have the neighbors we do, I know we all feel that way. It really does "Take a Village."

 

After track they were dying to use the GC Nana and Papa gave them for Easter at DQ!

Tuesday found me headed to KC with a great group of friends to celebrate my dear friend Molly's 40th bday! She the kindest person you will ever met. Her hubby got a hotel room for us girls , next to an Outlet mall for her bday! So fun!

Backing up a bit. The Sat before Easter 2 police officers were killed in a head on collision with a driver headed the wrong way down the interstate. It's been a big news story here and absolutely heart wrenching. The first funeral was at Luthern Church of Hope, across the street from our church/school. Our student body lined the street to pay their respects. Mike texted me this pic from footage that was on the news. 

I felt like I was consumed with what was going on back home, but was nice to focus on Molly! Our group that traveled to KC! I look like a total dork. 

We got back early TH afternoon. Our kids were out early due to the 2nd police officer who was killed having his visitation at our church that evening. The funeral was at our church on Fri, school was cancelled. I don't really know how to describe the impact this had on our community/church/school. Every Teacher, parisoner,friend I've ran into  the past couple of days we all feel the same sadness, but in that a sense of community. It's been a hard week for central Iowa. 

Since the kids were off school on Fri, I wanted to take them to the processional of the second officer. It was so amazing, full of sadness.......but also full of pride. Our law enforcement does not normally receive the respect they earn. The turn out of police officers for this funeral will be nothing I will forget. 

It was very cold and windy, but we were proud to stand along the procession with our hands on our hearts. These pics do zero justice, I bet there were close to 300 police cars. 

Ok. What a Debbie Downer post! This should be its own post, but I'm lazy. On a whim we hosted Stella's 11th bday party! 5 days ago I was talking to Stella and kinda mentioned maybe we were done with bday parties. Well, as you can imagine that went over like wet balloon. So I quickly sent out an evite and as kids were being dropped off yesterday I was typing up and printing clues to our totally last minute entertainment "the Amazing Race" course. 

Opening gifts is always a highlight!

First leg of The Amazing Race. Find your partners shoes and you have to put them on your partner and tie them without any help. Funny to see that some teams sailed through challenges, whiles some struggles. At each "Pit Stop" there was always a new team in 1st place. 

The Amazing Race was SO MUCH fun! I'm planning on doing it for one of P's party. We don't even watch the show, but when I Googled "tween birthday party" that was the top hit. The big downer was the last challenge: lead you blindfolded partner to a glow bracelet  hanging on a tree. First one back to the mat wins. Looooooong story short, Stella was the blindfolded one. Her partner was watching another team, TOTALLY NOT paying attention to S and Stella SLAMMED into a tree (they were full on speed sprinting) It was awfu! It definitely was not the other girls fault, and as bad as this sounds, if someone was going to be hurt badly on my watch, I'd rather it be my kid. She bounced back pretty quick (still very sore today) in time enjoy her "cake". 

Great group of girls! 2 sets of twins in this pic! And a distance relative. 

Winding down the night to a movie. Another sleepover bday party in the books! 

And finally tonight is super low key after getting home from church. Chilling with the cutest (biggest) kitty!