Beginning of April

We took a Saturday morning to go strawberry and vegetable picking at our favorite patch. Rett loved picking me some flowers too :)

James would run off down the row of strawberries and find perfect ones, so he created his own gathering basket out of his shirt.

Picking a few onions:

Baymax and the goats chewing on sticks:

As a writing assignment, James had to write about what he did over spring break and illustrate it. Of course he wrote about sledding! It seriously was the highlight of his year so far!

The boys were invited to a space themed birthday party for a boy in Rett's primary class. They got to collect "space rocks" which were easter eggs covered in aluminum foil and they all got to take turns launching rockets that they made at home. (The mom sent home bottles with the invitations and the kids made their own versions). It was fun watching everyone's take off! I ended up finishing the boys rockets late the night before, so they were really basic and as a result were pretty light and actually went really high!

Waiting for the launch:

Baymax started puppy obedience class! He is doing really well (as long as we remember to practice with him!), and he is known as the "mellow puppy" in the class.

I was out late practicing my flute with a few people from church and someone asked me what the boys were doing. I told them that hopefully they would be in bed, but more likely they would be in my bed when I got home. Sure enough, this is what I found.

James has really been enjoying soccer this year! He hasn't played since he started school, so he has taken off 4 seasons. This time he is doing a much better job of listening to his coach and he doesn't cry or pitch a fit about putting on his uniform and going to games or practices. Sometimes he gets a little wild during the game, playing with the person next to him, but those games can be at 7:30 or later so I can't really have high expectations for focus :)

Visiting with the animals one morning:

I was sitting on the bed in James' room (trying to hide to get some work done) and Rett found me and decided that we were going to read stories. I told him "Ok", and this is the stack he brought for me to read!

My mom broke her motorcycle helmet and had to buy a new one, so she gave the broken one to James. She knew that he would treasure it, broken or not!

A friend posted that she got some naked neck chickens (or turkins) at our local feed store and when I commented that I needed to get some, she offered to pick some up for me and bring them to parent pick up! (She lives right next to the feed store). I mean, you can't say no to that right?? So now we have four turkins to add to the chicken count.

As I was walking back to the car from dropping James off at school, I noticed this crazy cool frog. He was so camouflaged, it was amazing!!

James got to play goalie for a little bit this game. It was harder for him to pay attention, but he did make at least one good save!

We tried out a new splash pad for the first time. James loved it and was hard to pull away when it was time to go. Rett didn't want any part of it, so he played with cars on the picnic table with me.

James' school had "Donuts with Dudes" for the kindergarten and 1st grade to invite dads, grandpas, or male friends to come eat donuts with them. James invited Anthony's dad, but he ended up being caught in the worst traffic on the way to the school and couldn't make it at the last minute. So they had the school handyman Mr. Tom fill in and sit with James. The principal went out of her way to make sure that every student had someone to sit with them, she spent the night before calling school board members and other contacts she had in the community to make sure they had enough "dudes".

James said he knows Mr. Tom because "he can fix anything", and "one time Michael puked and Mr. Tom got gloves and cleaned it up". :)

Rett will have long pretend conversations on this toy phone and multiple times he has had pretend conversations with 911 that go something like this, "Hello, police officer. You need to get James from school and put him in jail. I want to play his toys. Bye".

Taking Baymax for a walk to look for rain puddles, while Rett carried his own doggie:

Finally found one!