Of rain and submarines

No Pictures today, except the ones in your head...

Today is a rainy day with a few sun patches and HAIL!  SO exciting right.  We spent the morning at Bible study and then ran errands.  But the point of this is that now the kids are in the truck.  I was upstairs reading during rest time (which happens here everyday sometime after lunch).  The big hand on the clock struck the 8 which meant rest time was over.  I heard lots of noise and playing with legos then silence.  That is not a regular occurance here and I always have that nagging fear that someone has stolen my children when it happens.  So I went searching, I called and searched the house.  No one there.  Went outside, still saw no one. Happened to look at the truck and saw 3 very excited faces inside it.  With the keys!  After some debate about what they were doing and if it was permissable...I found out they were in a submarine, I believe called the Neptune.  Having more battles with thier legos.  This time underwater.  I have taken the keys and given instructions on touching nothing in the front seat (after many warnings about crashes and death that could happen.....but was then convinced that maybe the steering wheel itself was ok).  It is raining, but NO our yard is not covered in water...there is just a big black sub floating in it. 

Easter Egg Race

Here are a few photos of the neighborhood Easter Egg Race. I don't use the word "hunt" on purpose as they literally throw the eggs on the ground and the kids pick them up. Pretty ridiculous really, but we do get to see our neighbors. :)
We did more hunting at our house, and Chad is such a good "hider" that it was quite a long hunt.

The neighborhood race was one of the coldest days in Portland probably since December. Don't know that we would have gone except I was helping with it. The sun DID come out for about 10 min during the actual racing part though.

Magnolia Tree or Tulip tree?

Don't know which one it is called but is very pretty in the spring and does a little flower in the fall too. This is through our bathroom (upstairs) window. I was showering and that is where the "mist" or "fog" border comes from. When I saw it I thought I should post it, inspired by the rest of the family blogs of beautiful flowers and trees.

favorite pastime

Everyone had coughs and was tired. Boys lazily played legos for hours. Here are some of their lego creations. They are always very proud of them when I take pictures of their space-ships. They are having a little "war battle" here.

Elijah ended up falling asleep on the floor in that blanket while his brothers kept playing...he had said he was tired but I guess I thought he was faking it a little. I guessed wrong. :)

Family

Boys had a good time getting out some of our baby toys to play with Megan and Joel.

Its crazy trying to get all the family together at once! But they were (mostly...missing Ian) all there this weekend. Had a good game of Checkers

Played with cousins

Too bad most got the flu after that. We didn't but I was VERY sick with some Sinus and Chest thing and ended up on antibiotics the next week. You do what you can, the best you can....and pray. :)

Relaxing dat at the beach

We actually DID have a sunny (partially) day at the beach in Feb.! Josiah made a plastic bag kite, and then Levi did really well at flying it.

We played soccer

Chad found a fire (still not out from the day before). He kindled it up and the boys picked up beach sticks. Chad and I read books for about 2 hours while the boys played in the sand. We even had a lady draw pictures of the boys while we played..she was practicing. A full but relaxing day with no expectations, how nice!

BIG Puddle!

I am getting really good at putting putting events that happened months ago on the blog!
We went to Manzanita (Oregon Coast) in February. In one of the parking lots the boys found an amazingly BIG puddle.....so they played soccer in the middle of it. The puddle was deep too, so the boots got full of water.
Impromptu fun!

Engineers in the Making?

A friend and I trade a couple school days a month. She does something on Geography/History and I do something Science like.
Here we learned about bones. It was convenient that Chad had just done a school presentation ( to Jr High classes in Hillsboro) on Engineering and bone fractures.
So here Cameron and Josiah worked on how to put a bone back together. Josiah also decided to draw a diagram. T= tape, S=stick, and B=bone. Like father like son! They worked well together and it was really fun to watch.