Honeycreek

One of the field trips that every fourth grade student in Monroe County gets to go on is a trip to a one room schoolhouse from the early 1900's called Honeycreek. Since Jon and Sammy are in a K-6th grade class, they didn't go in fourth grade since that was not the year they were studying Indiana history. The kids dress up in old-fashioned clothing and spend the day at the schoolhouse experiencing what it was like back in the "old days". My kids love to dress up, and I love to make costumes for them. So of course, when I heard that their class would be going to Honoeycreek I started working on their outfits. They turned out great!

Happy Easter!

Totally adorable, right?
I just love this picture!
I love the happy, smiling eggs.

This year, Easter was not as "grand" as it has been in the past. I didn't go all out. With the kids getting older, and life getting busier, and Easter coming much sooner this year, I just didn't take the time to do everything I have done in the past.

We did color eggs, though.
Which is sort of new for us.

For the past several years, I have been making egg-shaped sugar cookies that we've frosted and decorated instead of dying hard-boiled eggs. They turn out really cute, and they taste sooooo good. But this year I decided to let the kids participate in the fun tradition of dying Easter eggs. The kit I bought came with cute face stickers to add once the eggs had been colored. They turned out so silly looking!

Another would you rather...

Would you rather...
walk through all doorways as if you were in the heat of an intense limbo competition
OR
be compelled to make a hula-hoop motion whenever in the presence of police officers?

A day well spent

Take a look at us! I love that Jen and I were able to scrapbook together all day today. I was able to get so much accomplished (not actually completing more than two pages) but typing up a lot of journaling, which anyone who scrapbooks knows - takes a lot of time and energy to do!

While Jen and I had a great time, the sad part of the day was that our wonderful friend, Tracey, could not join us. Holed away in Japan, she is unable to share in our scrapbooking excursions until this summer - we hope - when she returns for a visit. But we will certainly carry on in her absence.

Miss you, Tracey.

What's so funny?

This week I discovered something...
Any rational adult will be instantly reduced to a babbling lunatic when confronted with a cute little baby.

Think about it. There is just something about a baby that makes you do silly things, talk in a silly voice, make silly faces. In a way it's sort of a challenge to get a baby to smile or coo or laugh. I find myself doing it at church during meetings sometimes. I do it when I am around friends' babies. And my adorable niece, Kate, was no different!


Singing to her, playing peek-a-boo, babbling about nothing (but in an excellent baby voice), dancing around, tickling her and rocking her. Anything to get a reaction from her. It was so much fun. And what a reward it was when she DID smile at me. It was so great - like I had just won first place in some unspoken contest.

The real winner of the week, however, was Sammy.
She absolutely loved having Kate around. She was fascinated by her. She wanted to play with her, touch her, hold her, feed her, share toys with her, and just be near her all the time. It was very sweet to watch, but probably a little overwhelming for Kate (and April) at times. But on the last day of their visit, Sammy was entertaining Kate by tickling her and Kate started to laugh. And not just a little laugh, but the kind of laugh that made her tiny body shake. It was so cute to watch. Sammy would tickle her and she would laugh. Then Kate would watch and wait for Sammy to do it again. Incredible!

So, of course I took a little video footage of this interaction.
Check it out below.

Baby Giggles

Gobble, gobble, gobble

These are the things that thrill us.
Turkeys in our backyard.
This time it was Mike who rushed to get the camera and snap a photo.
Take a look at how HUGE they are!

I wouldn't want to get to close to one if they got angry.

Another question to ponder

Today's random question fits so well with my last post that I just had to share it.

Would you rather...
have an alarm clock that wakes you up by shaking your bed violently OR by slowly making your bed ice cold?

Make sure to give your answer AND the reason behind it when you comment.
(Again, my answer is in the comments.)

Why didn't I think of that?!?

I actually read about this product back before the holidays, but other than thinking it was kind of a cute idea, I didn't put much more thought into it. After sleeping through my alarm repeatedly several days in a row - leading to scrambled and rushed mornings before school - it was again brought to mind. So I felt I really had to share it!

"Clocky" is an alarm clock that runs away and hides to get you out of bed. You only get one opportunity to get up. If you dare to hit the snooze button, Clocky will roll right off onto the floor and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide. This could get really annoying if you consider that it is beefing the entire time. You'll actually have to get out of bed to turn off the alarm. What an ingenious idea!

I wonder how many people who own a Clocky have spent their mornings crawling all over the floor trying to find this mischievous alarm clock. And what happens when it rolls right under something and can't be reached? It may wake you up, but if you refuse to learn your lesson and continue to abuse the snooze button it may not get you to work or school on time...

Still, I have to give the inventor credit for coming up with a very unique solution to a fairly widespread problem.

Although I love it, I believe that the alarm clock I have right now has actually trained me to sleep in later and later each day. The coolest (and most utilized) feature of my alarm clock is the consecutive-hit extended snooze button. Here is how it works. When the alarm goes off, I hit the snooze button once for an extra 10 minutes of sleep. I hit the button twice for an additional 20 minutes of rest. Three taps of the snooze button earns me 30 minutes of continued slumber. Can you see the pattern? I honestly do not know if there is a limit to the number of consecutive times I can hit the snooze button. I have done 4 hits and not heard another peep from the alarm for 40 minutes! It is amazing! It is wonderful! It is also dangerous...

So, I think that I just might have to invest in "Clocky" for myself. Its price tag is currently $50.00 though, so I might have to wait for the next "gift giving holiday" (ahem - Mother's Day or my birthday come to mind).