Two park pictures...

We recently celebrated 8 years! For his birthday we picked up 8 other boys after school and headed to the university rec center. Quite the chaos. I must always remember, the fewer the choices, the better! They had fun though! (Did not get too many pictures). I think bowling was probably the highlight. (So nice having them all old enough that they can handle the ball by themselves.)

5 of the boys spent the night.  Never again.  They had fun but there were 2 of them feeding off each other and they were up way too late and up way too early.

Here was my leprechaun from St. Patty's Day!

We are suppose to hit 70 tomorrow!

The other night one of the boys came into our room at 5:15am. He knelt beside the bed and asked me if we were going to Australia the next day. After I told him no, he went straight back to bed. I assumed he had had some vivid dream about an upcoming trip. however he did not remember getting out of bed. Just amazes me how hard kids can sleep.

Gearing up for another quiet weekend. Boys should be playing outside most of the weekend, which means I can finish up getting the house in order ~ I am throwing out and moving things around.

Now I feel like I have lots of pictures but not the energy to upload them all!

Last week was spring break. We stayed pretty close to home, except one night. The younger 2 boys and I got a hotel room. We ended up taking one of Jacob's friends with us and our 15 year old neighbor Zane. I was concerned setting out because the pool was really small but they had a water slide. However, the kids had a blast. There were 2 other local families there and everyone played and played and played.

This is our neighbor Zane, with Jacob.  Zane brought his GoPro, so everyone had a lot of fun playing with it.

My toothless wonder.  His 2 front teeth took forever to come out and now the adult teeth are taking forever to come in).  He loved the hot tub.

Joseph finally and forever lost the life jacket!  He did awesome and even ventured down the slide without his googles, which is huge!  All of the boys have a hard time swimming without them.

Thankful to God that we survived without major injury.  It was outings like the hotel that always remind me that God can take much better care of my boys than I can.  Joseph had 3 mishaps that could have easily resulted in an ER visit.  Once he was walking up the slide stairs and slipped.  He hit his ribs pretty hard on the stairs.  A second time he was coming down the slide and got turned around and slammed pretty hard, head first into the side.  (Zane saw it happen and was freaking out because of how hard he hit).  Then Joseph was in the hot tub and they have a small built in seat for younger kids.  He went to sit down in it and missed.  He flipped backward out of the hot tub and down 2 steps.  Fortunately I was in the hot tub and did not grasp the fullness of what happened.  Thankfully he walked away from them all!

(On a side note, Benjamin had gone to work with JR while we were at the hotel.  JR had told Benjamin to go back to the truck and get something.  Fortunately, Benjamin disobeyed and dawdled.  Had Benjamin been prompt in doing what he was told, he would have been crushed by about 30 pounds of ice falling 20 feet off of a roof.  It scared JR when he heard it slide but when he realized Benjamin was not there, utter relief and a sense of God's in control.)

After we left the hotel, we ran home for an hour and then headed out to a park to meet some other friends.  Boys took their bikes.  Always neat every year to see how they have gotten older and things that were difficult last year are a piece of cake this year!

Notice the 'no snow' even in the foothills in the background.  All of the snow is gone, except the highest elevations.  I don't think we have had any snowfall for the month of March.

While at the park, Jbird had a really close call too.  He was climbing on some equipment about 8 feet up and fell really hard.  He ended up with a nasty bruise, but again, God's hand was in that moment.

I was recently talking with one of Joseph's speech therapists.  She had just recently tested him again.  He is scoring in the 7th% for kids his age.  However, his errors from a year ago were at 48, 6 months ago his errors were 22 and this most recent test his errors were 12.  The kid is doing awesome.  She said all of his errors are predictable, which is very unusual for apraxic kids.  So thankful!  Most all of his errors are related to 'ch' and 'sh'.  Makes it very easy to work with him.  This next Tuesday we register him for kindergarten.  Hard to believe!

You can tell from my lack of posts that it has been pretty humdrum around here. (Which I am not complaining.)

We are in the middle of spring break. I am heading out today with the younger 2. We are getting a hotel room for the night so the boys can play. Benjamin is working with Jose the next 2 days!

Our weather has been amazing. We were close to 70 a few days ago. Needless to say, unless we get some really wet weather in the next 2 months, we will be seeing lots of forest fires this summer. I am about ready to put away the snow gear but I know as soon as I do, the snow will come.

Next week is the last week of basketball for Benjamin. I think he has really enjoyed it. So the organized activities will die down but all the outdoor things should pick up. The boys have already been out bike riding, throwing the football and baseball. We have been on a few walks (Joseph loves to dribble the basketball while we walk.) I am back at the gym consistently, as is JR. The 9k race I did late April of last year is now being held in early June. The boys have told me they want to participate in the 1 mile family run/walk. Hopefully we can start 'training'.

Monday is Jacob's birthday. He has requested for his birthday breakfast chocolate chip waffles with whip cream and cherries, along with sausage and orange juice! That kid will be flying high at school. He wants to take some cupcakes in for his class treat ~ gonna try my hand at some camo cupcakes this year. Then on Friday the 20th, we are picking up 7 of his friends after school and heading to the SUB at the university. We will do some bowling, shuffleboard, play station and pool, along with pizza. Then head back to the house for cake. The 3 boys that are able to, will spend the night. Should be a full night!

Now that the weather is warming up I promise to take some pictures and post them in the next couple of days!