Spring Break starts today!!!  It is suppose to be a beautiful week and looks like sun most of the weekend!  We have had a gloomy, cloudy winter!  So ready for some sun and shorts.  Yes, we tend to pull out the shorts when it hits 40 and sunny!!

What has happened the last month....a lot of the same stuff.  Living life!

Benjamin has finished all of his official 'DC fundraising' and I am so excited.  The trip is paid for, now he is working towards his spending money!  Details are coming together for his 8th grade graduation.  Hard to believe in a month or two they will start registering for high school classes!  I am ready for the responsibility, hopefully, that will come with high school.  Benjamin is one of the youngest in his class, so he will not be old enough to drive until after his sophomore year!  I have told him he better really enjoy this summer, because next year, he will be old enough to get a real job, so this will be the last truly free summer he has.

Jacob recently was asked to play in a 5-on-5 basketball tournament with some friends from school.  Just the opportunity I was hoping he would get.  The tournament was last weekend.  While they played good, they went 0-4.  Since it was a new team, they had only practiced for 4 hours, where some of the other teams had been playing together for 3 years.  Quite the humbling experience!  The first game they played (which was against the team that ended up winning the tournament) was 46-7, the half time score was 28-0!  Every game they did a little better and there is talk of continuing on and trying to find some more tournaments.  He really enjoys the coach too!  I was proud of him and how well he handled the losses.  He is by far the most competitive one I have.

Speaking of, a very interesting dynamic appeared recently.  The older two were doing Kids CrossFit classes.  The first month it consisted of the 2 of them and 2 of Jacob's friends.  The second month, Jacob's friends did not participate, so it was just Benjamin and Jacob.  They were on the fence about just the two of them in class, but continued throughout the month of February.  The last class of February, things got weird.  The two of them were doing a particular lift with a barbell.  Benjamin had great form and the weight was pretty light for him.  So the coach suggested he add on more weight.  As she was putting more weight on Benjamin's bar, Jacob piped in that he wanted more weight.  The coach told him no and it did not make Jacob happy to see his brother get ahead of him.  At that point, Benjamin's form took a nose dive.  The coach later commented to me that it was crazy to watch how Benjamin chose to miss his lifts because he did not want to deal with competitive nature of Jacob.  After class Jacob was really upset and I decided then that things were gonna stop.  The coaches are encouraging Benjamin to try an adult class...hoping he will go with me next week to an 11am class.  Jacob is taking a mandatory break.

Sweet little Joseph recently got braces.  In two days his teeth have already come together.  He is plugging away at his 10,000 page reading goal.  We are close to 7,500!  I am hoping by end of spring break we will be at 8,500!  We have until early May to finish!  Not hard to do if you are just consistent with 3 books a night!  He recently wanted to try bananas in his cereal, which was huge, and he liked it.  Now if he would learn to eat eggs again, it would make breakfasts much better.  His school is having a first annual science fair later in March.  I am glad he wanted to participate.  We are going to nail down his project next week.  I think it might be as simple as making putty or slime, but will be fun to watch him pull it all together.  Hopefully this will spur him on to desire more stuff like this. 

Several nights this past week, Bree has woken us up several times with what I describe as dry heaving.  It was only getting worse so took her to the vet.  How embarrassed I was when the vet told me it was a cough.  I guess I never heard a dog cough.  Anyway, some medication later and looks like things are getting better.  She is really ready for the snow to melt..then it won't be so muddy and we can get out and get more running in.

This past week I have not done any dishes.  I finally came up with a plan that seems to be working.  I got tired of the boys leaving plates at the table and on the counter.  They did not seem to understand the concept that even rinsing the dishes makes it easier to wash them later.  (We have never had a good working dishwasher so always did them by hand)  So, each boy took one day and they had to do all the dishes from that day.  Even the dishes I dirtied while they were at school.  Before they went to bed that night, every dish had to be clean, dried and put away and counters and table wiped down or they got another day of dish duty.  Basically a totally clean, to mom's standard, kitchen. They balked early on but the older two have finally learned what a clean kitchen looks like and rocks it.  Hoping to continue things for another week and then we might see if everyone can take care of their own dishes or the boys continue with the whole day. 

I have told them we are just warming up to lots of responsibilities this summer.  I am hoping to ramp up my work at home stuff and try to do 20 hours most weeks.  If I do that, they are taking more of the house responsibilities.  We have had many conversations about what things would look like if everyone just took care of their own stuff, immediately and were responsible with all areas of their lives.  I told them....imagine a house with no rules....because everyone was capable of managing all of their stuff and responsibilities.  Hopefully we can pull some of that off.

Things for JR are slowing down a bit, because the snow has tapered off.  He is itching to get out onto the trails and do some hiking and camping.

We are still casually watching the housing market.  Seen a few things that could work for us, but none that just really grabbed me, except that one house.  Every thing I am seeing on line says they have a pending offer.  A part of me wishes it would go back on market and they would lower the price a little.  God knows what He has for us....I just need patience!

A quiet weekend ahead.  Hopefully I can get some pictures next week and post before another month passes.