School's OUT!!

Amelia created a new quote for this week: April Flowers bring May Showers! It rained every single day this week! It was cold, dreary, overcast, blustery, and rainy. Did that stop the kids from playing on the tramp? No way! The older kids were outside in swimwear when it was 55 degrees outside, raining...with the sprinkler on under the tramp! Looked like they had a lovely time. Josie tried to join them a couple times but the cold was too much for her. She came back inside to huddle under her blanket. Evelyn toughed it out knowing a warm bath waited for her inside.

School this week was mostly fun assignments. I checked out most of the week since I hate stupid assignments. Amelia's science teacher emailed her a nice letter, Amelia earned an achievement award for the 4th quarter without meeting any of her teachers and plunging into her work with flying colors! Everett was still not feeling well on Monday so he missed completing a Rube Goldberg machine. Most of us spent the week dealing with severe allergies, headaches, and general blahs. I read a couple books from the Twisted Tales series, retellings of the Disney animated greats. Evelyn works very hard on her worksheets and participates in her daily zoom meetings. We had a nice visit from Ms Sharp this week, Phillip arrived at the door sliding down the hall on his belly like a penguin then rose to his knees with a really strange look on his face. We had quite the chat about door etiquette afterwards.

Amelia is going to visit her friend Chloe in Arizona this summer. Those two spent several hours talking over the phone to plan the visit. They have an entire list of activities: learn hairstyles, lemonade stand, pet bunnies (Chloe's new pets), make cell phone cases, and other art projects. The girls spent two hours picking out coordinating dresses as Chloe's birthday gift! Amelia was thrilled to finally spend her hard-earned money on a plane ticket and gifts for Chloe. She started making cute friendship bracelets out of complete boredom.

We shoveled/moved 8 more yards of wood bark into the side yard area. Quite honestly, the area needs another load or two of wood bark to level things out. The kids worked hard manning shovels, rakes, and wheel barrows. Everett once again out-worked all the kids. Josie's cute shovel scooping expressions kept the kids quite entertained. I am delighted that less mud and dirt are making their way into the house. Yesterday we had sun! Yay! I couple rows of seedlings popped their heads above the dirt in the new garden boxes. I hired a guy to hang the new ceiling fan. Justin was unsure how to exchange the ceiling box for a larger one capable of supporting the larger fixture. It looks so nice! A few weeks ago one of our newer (thrifted) chairs split into a few pieces! Yikes. I ordered some new smaller chairs to fit in around the table. We finally have room to seat us all in real seats! It's been years since I sat in a real chair, it's usually a stool or the flour bucket.

Friday we celebrated the end of school and Everett's birthday with a lunch at Subway with Justin. Good gracious the kids were embarrassing, fighting and/or hemming and hawing over condiment choices. Everett was delighted to finally get a restaurant choice all of his own. We visited Justin's office after lunch. He has a nice view of the parking lot! As always the kids poked into every niche of his office. Everett grabbed the calculator to figure out a math code he left Justin last year in his old office. The girls decorated the white board. Amelia tried on hats...Phillip literally farted around. I got to meet Justin's boss, Jennifer. Ironically, her maiden name is Lance!

Saturday the men worked on learned man skills. Justin had the boys help him change spark plugs and oil in the lawnmower. They changed the oil in the motorcycle! That right there is some good learning! The little girls helped me make pizza dough and then the pizzas for dinner. I had a girl on each side helping me measure and assemble ingredients into the mixer. I quite loved seeing their interested faces watching the yeast bubble, the flour change the consistency, etc. As a reward the girls made heart-shaped pizzas for their own dinner. I made a lovely cheese pizza and a pesto pizza. Justin and Amelia are not fond of tomato sauce. So far we've experimented with a garlic butter and cheese pizza and the pesto version. Both are delicious. My bread skills are finally developing as my family is interested in eating homemade bread. Amelia moved from the couch twice on Saturday. She got up to accompany me to the gas station AND to clean the living room space. It was tough going to move that much.