Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Party

What a fate pizzaun party! Zachary wanted a TMNT theme and we invited a few friends from school,  a few from eskis, and almost everyone came! 

The kids Pizza, decorated ninja stars, made slimey mutigen, did an obstacle course and played outside. Macie, grace, daphne, alice, jackson, owen, zeshawn, sean and alex all made it :)

Maitre

Zachey's School Birthday

How is my sweet buddy 5 years old? I remember his birth like it was yesterday....I cannot believe how quickly time flies!

This year for school we made some cute Mickey oreo treats! Was really pretty easy, dip in chocolate and attach other small oreos for ears. They turned out really cute! That morning we were rushing and of course the carefully packed container slid from my hands and half of them broke - but the kids didn't care ;)

I got to spend the morning with my little man as he went right to work at school. He showed me some sorting"work" that he really enjoys, and introduced me to some of his friends. He is quite independent Mr. Zachary.

Ms. Bailey made him a crown and rang the bell to get everyone situated around the circle.

For their birthday she lights a candle that represents the sun. Then the kids share a special picture and story of each year they have been on earth, picture and story for baby, 1st year, 2nd year and so on.

Then they walk around the sun and recite the days of the month once each picture...it is really cute!

After that the kids sing a special song about birthday and how they all love him. Then Zachey picks a feather and gets tickled once for every year - so cute to see him giggle. 

 I'm so glad I got to come! He was so happy to show off his school!

Honeycreek Mini vacation

This winter has gone on and on and on.....Josh and I decided that it would be fun to take the kids to a waterpark somewhere. We looked into just a hotel in Des Moines - but they were full. Luckily we found a small cabin at Lake Rathbun at Honeycreek Resort. They have a great indoor swimming area that is very age appropriate. Weeks later Grayson still talks about it :)

There are two pools, one very shallow with slide off a pirate ship, the other deeper with floating lily pads to jump across. They also have a large hot tub and water slide, as well as a small lazy river - all perfect for about Kenna's age!

Grayson was pretty fearless and went down the little slide all by himself! Zachey ended up loving the larger orange slide by the middle of the first day :)

 

We got to the water park around 1. Grayson did pretty well without a nap! We swam for a while then checked in and went to our little "cabin." It had an upstairs loft for the older two, kitchen, one bedroom and a fold out couch for Grayson. The kids oohed and ahhed and explored for quite some time - was fun to watch!

 

Grayson thought that having his own giant bed that folded out from a couch was pretty awesome! That night we went to dinner at the restaurant on site. The food was really good, and the kids were exhausted! The older ones played memory while I tried to get Grayson to go to sleep in our bed. Finally he fell asleep (so did I) and Josh took him out to the couch and the others fell asleep on their bunk beds.

We got up and made eggs bacon and toast, packed up and headed to the waterpark again! It is amazing how much easier things seem when your kids are pretty self sufficient! I had a few freak out moments where I lost sight of Grayson or Zachary for a minute...but other than that it was a wonderful relaxing trip!

Definitely got me excited to get them all in swimming lessons this summer!

I think the long drive home definitely shows you they were tired! All leaning the same way which I thought was funny and picture worthy! :)

Where is Daddy?

This morning I asked Zachary, "Where is Daddy?"

After he looked around for a while he said "I can't find him? I guess all the butterflies in the world picked up his car and took him away."

Where does he get this stuff?

Rare Moments

Grayson LOVES to do laundry, as in LOVES it. He gets great joy in rounding everyone's laundry up, putting it in the washer and pushing the buttons, also moving wet clothes to the dryer and helping me fold. I will never turn away help! He is such a wonderful helper loving to clean and organize - boy after his momma's heart!

I love these moments when the kids are just loving having a sibling. Kenna has stepped up and helps with bedtime stories, making breakfast/lumch, getting grayson ready....also a great helper!

Great Teacher

Kenna is so lucky this year to have such an amazing teacher. Mrs. Iliobachie is such a breath of fresh air. She is getting her masters and trying all of these new education techniques on the kids. She believes in experience based learning, and having it be very fun. I am amazed at what McKenna has been able to accomplish this year! She is almost 2 levels ahead in reading and continues to excel in math and writing as well.

This last weekend Melissa arranged a trip to the capitol as the kids are learning about government. This was on her own time. It was interesting even for me to really experience how gorgeous the Iowa state capitol is! We learned it took 15 years to complete, everything is done by hand and is so ornate.

Kenna is excited to be able to climb to the very top when she is in 4th grade :)

The kids also invited us to their school to share their research projects. Melissa is working on their presentation skills and each student took a topic to research and compare past and present. Some studies transportation to school, others heating of schools, construction of schools, etc. All of the topics were about schools past and present. McKenna chose to research teachers and what they had to know now versus then, how they dressed, rules about teaching...it was very interesting!