My Passport

Last week I sent in all of my stuff to get my passport renewed. I get to go to the Bahamas this summer with Trent and my parents and my siblings and their spouses. (No kids!) Trent surprised me with tickets to go for Mother's Day! I got my passport back today so I'm ready to go.

Open House

It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over. My kids have 3 weeks left and it's summer time! It was open house at their school a few nights ago. It was fun to see their classrooms and all the things they do during the day. It brought back some fun memories for me. Abby is finishing up 3rd grade. This year she learned cursive writing...much to her dismay. most of the time while she was doing her cursive homework she told me how dumb it was. And that she was just going to print when she was older. (Although I didn't agree outloud, I was thinking that really they should spend that time on keyboard skills, etc, really who cares about cursive writing?) She also spent a lot of time doing multiplication and division. Her favorite subject is reading. She loves it and would read all the time if she could. Her least favorite subject I quote from Abby herself: "My worstest subject is grammar."
Brynn has learned a lot this year. She is reading and writing and loves everything about school. I can't believe she's almost through with kindergarten. It is such a fun year with all of the projects they do. Below is a picture of a rocketship she made to go with their transportation unit. They also got to go on a train for a field trip. She still gets excited about going to school!

Grandma Came to Visit

Trent's mom came to visit us this past week. The girls were so excited to have someone come to visit us. We had a fun time and some crazy experiences. Wanda came in Monday afternoon. Trent came home early from work that day because he wasn't feeling well. He hadn't felt well the previous day either. By Monday night he was having pain in his lower right abdomen. He decided he better go to the hospital. So he drove himself to the emergency room (his choice, I asked him if he wanted anyone to come with him) About midnight I get a call from Trent that they are going to do surgery to take his appendix out. Things went smoothly he was able to come home Wednesday. He is healing well, just a little sore still.
So with Trent in the hospital I had to use my extra helpers to plant our garden. Wanda helped us get it ready. The girls had fun planting the seeds. We started with beans and sugar peas. We will plant our tomatoes and peppers, etc. in a few weeks.
Here's my garden helper. She was eating a ginger snap and dirt.

One of our excursions took us up to Wisconsin to visit a Cheese Castle. On the internet it pictured this great castle. I thought it would be a great place to check out. The Cheese Castle turned out to be a hole in the wall place right off the freeway. We had fun anyway.
Saturday, we left Trent at home to recover some more and took the train into Chicago. We had a picnic in Millenium Park and had fun seeing the sights and walking the street. (Okay, so I heard a lot of complaining about being tired and my feet hurt and I'm hungry. I can remember doing the same when I was younger. But when we asked them what their favorite part of the week was, it was going to Chicago.)

While Wanda was here she broke one of her ribs when she put Shea into her crib. So here are my invalids. Thanks for coming to visit Grandma, who knows if she will ever want to come again!

Some April Actvities

We have been working in our yard. Trent found this rototiller at a garage sale last year, we are trying to clear out some of the weeds at the back of our property to make more room for our garden and some more grass. I think Trent had fun with this project.
Brynn has been back to playing babies with Leah and her friends. She loaded up her stroller with everything she might need for her baby. In case you can't tell she has her scooter, soccer ball, Webkinz, etc in her stroller.
Leah told me she was going to take a nap. I don't think she did any sleeping!

The Duck

Last week I went out our front door to walk the kids up to the bus stop. As I went outside a duck flies right in front of my face and startles me because it was so close. I look over and see a nest with some eggs in our flower bed. I was concerned the rest of the day because the duck didn't come back. The next morning it was back sitting on it's eggs. Now the kids check everyday to see if the duck is there. We can't wait to see the ducklings.