Most of March

It's always hard the first week back from vacation to get back into your normal life.  Getting everything put away and doing all the laundry usually keeps me pretty busy.  I still had Valentines stuff out that needed to be put away and I know my house was left in a mess from devoting all my attention to packing and getting ready to leave.  So, that's what occupied my first week back.  

On March 8th, we went out with some friends of ours to a Murder Mystery Dinner.  It was a 20's theme and  my friend Terri thought it would be fun to dress up, but I didn't have the time to round-up a costume.  A lot of people did and left me wishing that I had taken the time to find something.  It was a pretty fun night.  The dinner wasn't anything spectacular, but the company of course was fun.  At least one person at each table was asked to play a part and be involved in the story.  The rest of us had to go around to each participant and ask them questions to figure out who the murderer was, etc. 

Aaron and Terri with the "detective"

Mike was the "participant" at our table--turns out that he was the murderer.  We didn't get a picture of his wife, Kate.  The guys were all still pretty hungry after it was over, so we went to Red Robin for a second dinner for the guys and dessert for the girls.  

Mike playing the part of Eric.

We finished up basketball season, so I had to throw in a few more shots of their last games. Maggie always gets to start because she's the tallest.  It was fun, but we're all glad to have our evenings and Saturdays back.  

This was Lydia's award "ceremony" that lasted about 3 minutes.  Then, they got to play a game against the parents.  Luckily Garrett was able to come so I didn't have to play.  :)

Her team minus one little girl, (our friend that lives down the street from us.)  She was the first one in her family to catch this wicked flu going around and even had to go to the hospital from being weak and dehydrated.  It was bad--they all eventually got it, except the dad.  

On the 15th, the Young Women went on a snow camp out up at Mt. Hood.  It was a daddy daughter thing, so luckily, I didn't have to go.  Maggie had school that day (the other school district was out that day) so she didn't get to go up in the morning and build a snow cave.  She and Garrett went up right after school and slept in tents.  They said it was cold, but they slept fairly well.  Maggie's last game of the season was that morning at ten, so they woke up early and left before everyone else so she could get to her game.  

Doesn't sound fun to me, but the girls loved it.  We only had about 9 girls go I think, but they said it was worth it.  

 Later that afternoon, Maggie had her basketball "award ceremony" at McMenamins.  So, we had lunch there and Jim and Georgia came with.  

This is her team.

A couple of random pictures of Noah and Bella playing outside.  We've had some pretty nice days with no rain.  They love digging in the dirt and writing with chalk.  

 St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday this year.  Not everyone wanted to get in on the "green" picture.  I loved Garrett's outfit.  He was totally green.  

 Usually on Sundays, Garrett likes to have naps.  So, he started bringing Noah into our bed to nap with him. So, every Sunday the boys go upstairs and sleep.  Garrett snapped this picture of Noah sleeping on my pillow.  Noah loves having naps with daddy.  

 Our dinner.  This year, I did something that I found on another blog.  I taped a $5 bill to the bottom of a plate, mixed them up and then set the table with them, not knowing where it was going to be or who was going to sit there.  When dinner was over, I talked about how St. Patrick's day was about being lucky and told them to look under their plates to see which of them was "Lucky".  Turned out, Bella was our lucky girl. She was so excited to win $5!

 Noah was pretty happy to be drinking out of his green straw.  

 Bella was in charge of FHE that night and chose to teach a lesson on Noah's ark.  We got out our little people again and talked about the prophet Noah.  (Noah loved that.)

 Afterwards, we played charades--where people had to guess which animal we were.  The kids love that lesson.  

 For our treat, we had rainbow fruit pizzas--yum!

Maggie decided out of the blue that she wanted to get a perm.  I purposefully waited awhile before I agreed to make sure that she really wanted to.  So, after a week or two of her asking, I took her to my friend's house to get a perm.  It's not as curly as she was thinking, but I think she likes the waves.  It took her a day or two to get used to it.  

 On Saturday the 23rd, we headed out to Yamhill to help grandma and grandpa.  The kids loved riding on the wagon being pulled by the tractor.  It was a beautiful day, but still pretty chilly.  

Noah LOVES the tractor!  He has such a great time out working in the barn with dad and grandpa.  

 Garrett used up some birthday money, bonus money and other money he'd been saving and bought himself a remote controlled airplane.  It's something he's wanted for a long time. He thought it would be a fun hobby for he and his dad.  So, he brought it out to their house to try to fly it for the first time.  He made the mistake of walking to the church next door to fly it, but it ran into the fence and cement and broke a few pieces right off.  Then, they went out in the field to try and fly it.  It seems pretty hard to get it to fly right, plus it was a little breezy that day, so I'm sure that didn't help.  It got pretty banged up, but I think they had fun.  

 It got caught up in the tree...

 So, Maggie got it down for them.

 We stayed for dinner and then headed home to get the kiddoes in bed.  I had to teach YW the next day and Garrett had a talk in sacrament meeting, so we had to get home to finish working on those.  

The next week was spring break and Garrett had told Maggie that she could redecorate her room over spring break.  So that meant that I had to help her paint it.  Lucky me.  So, we got it taped and ready and then picked out some paint and...painted.  We had to finish it on Tuesday because we were going camping on Thursday and I needed to get ready for camping.  We picked a gray color because I thought you could decorate pretty easily with it.  Most colors match easily with grey.  We haven't gotten to decorating, so we have a few decisions to make still.  

 So, this is part of their room before we started.  

 One side painted

 Painting the other side...

 All the kids had to be in there of course. 

 It looks really dark in the pictures, but it's not that bad.  Now, we just need to figure out what colors we want to coordinate with the grey and then find some cute things to decorate with.  I also decided that I'm going to paint the laundry room while I've got all the painting stuff out.  I'm going to use the same grey, but add some white to it so it's a bit lighter.  I've also decided that I'm going to paint horizontal stripes.  I've gotten the lines measured and drawn, now, just need to paint.  I'm excited to see how it's going to turn out.  

The kids decided to have a picnic on one of the days I was painting.  Cute little Paige made them all lunches and supervised while I was busy.  Next blog will be about our camping trip and Easter!