Oops

Clara heard her teacher say she should have her name in her dance shoes.

Singin in the rain!!

Big Hitter

Dad decided one week in our nutty household was enough for a while, so he took off for Wisconsin to have a bit of R&R and time with Kathie. Check out his blog (link on the right!) if you want to see where he and Pete left things with the fort. (Still trying to decide what to call it-technically it's not a tree house, and I do like to be linguistically accurate. (Also- still trying to figure out correct parenthesis usage.)) 

So...on to other busy-ness. Tonight was Henry's first baseball game of the season. No practice- just jumping right into a game! They have nice green jerseys and socks this year and are sponsored by Lou Malnati's. Henry is number 7. He was so excited- since that's how old he is!!!

 We have to drive way out Willow, almost to the interstate for his games this year. But we'll still have practice at Meadowbrook, thank goodness.

 Here he is mugging for the camera, before all the boys decided to play sandbox in the dugout dirt. I guess it's technically not a dugout either, is it?

 Finally, I just love pictures of him running. He looks like such a big boy to me- all stretched out like that.

He got some good hits and some nice high-fives from the coaches. We were also blessed with nice weather for the game tonight. Don't ask me who won...I'm still not sure whether we're keeping score.

Forewoman Clara

Clara got serious about helping out today.

 She did lots of hammering...

 and a little posing...

 and lots of measuring.

My big girl is a big help!!  (Also- check out Dad's blog for some pictures of how the tree house looked at the end of day today.)

Treehouse Days 2 and 3

Friday and Saturday saw more progress on the tree house. Bampa came over and braved the chilly, damp weather.

Bart the Gnome oversaw the saw. Meantime, Pete was in bed with some sort of stomach bug.

Saturday morning we all fueled up with some blueberry buckwheat pancakes.

Then everybody got back in on the action. Here's Henry removing tags from the ends of boards.

Here's a peek of Dad up through the trapdoor...or is it through the soon-to-be secret hidey-hole?

Here's the view from the back of the tree house, looking across the yard.

Clara had drawn up some plans and handed them up through the floor to Grandpa.

The kids were very excited to get up amongst the birds.

Henry spent some time stacking and playing with scraps of wood. Clara brought her plans over to show him as well.

Here's how things were looking Saturday afternoon.

Pete was feeling mostly better. He did some sanding to make the rungs of the ladder safe and comfortable.

After working on Saturday, Dad and I went out to Lowes and Menards. Got more boards and ate a few gummy bears. That brings us up to Sunday!

Steamy!

When Henry showers he leaves notes behind on the mirror. This one says "I love you Mom Dad."

Wee House

Several months ago Clara was watching an episode of Curious George in which George built a tree house. Clara looked at me and said "I want to build a tree house!" I said "well, you'll have to talk to Grandpa Bill about that." She said "Can I call him?" So she did. I think Dad was probably fairly tickled just to get a phone call from her. It was maybe just a day later that he sent me an email with the subject line "for Clara." It included plans for a pretty serious tree house. 

Yesterday the project began! Pete and Dad rented a big auger from Home Depot and drilled these holes before Pete left for work. I guess the ground was fairly damp and threatened to suck the auger down and send Pete and Dad spinning around like rag dolls. Fortunately they were able to strong-arm the thing back out of the ground, just a little stiff and sore for the effort.

 After Pete had to go to work Dad finished the holes with a good old-fashioned post-hole digger. He said it made him think of his dad.

 Here's Dad's dirty knees with the frame of the house in the background. (The original plan for this house calls it The Wee House.) I had to wash Dad's pants for him later so he could get right back to work this morning. In the foreground you can see Huelke's wheelbarrow. Ed came over and lent a hand for a bit. I think he wanted to help out even more later in the afternoon, but Dad was physically done by that time. Peter Sr. came over to help out for a bit too.

 I enjoyed the blue hair on this guy. These bags weighed 60 lbs. each, Henry informed me.

 I took this picture for Pete. Because he is one.

 This morning Pete helped Dad mix up a bit more cement to get the last two posts secured. The kids went to check things out in their jammies.

 Pete had to go to work, but Henry only had a half day of school today, so he got out there and helped his Grandpa quite a bit. They got some of the frames built for the sides of the house, I believe.

Dad also blogged about the first day of work- you can link to his blog from the sidebar. The weather is supposed to be fairly chilly the next few days, but we're just hoping for the rain to stay away so they can get a bit more done before Dad has to go back home.

Dinner

Henry brought home a kids' cookbook from the school library on Friday and picked out a lasagna recipe. With a few tweaks for our non-microwave household he is the head chef tonight!

Hoppy Easter!

Here are scenes from our Easter day...

The kids were up early and ready to find eggs. The bunny led them on a scavenger hunt with corny clues this year. This picture makes it look like they had tons of loot, but it was quite the opposite. I realized that efforts towards moderation left the kids without even a single chocolate bunny! Chocolate eggs, chocolate carrots, chocolate bugs yes....but no bunnies!

You will notice that between the sun and strange expressions I had difficulty getting a good shot of the kids. There are some cute pictures of Vivian in her adorable sailor suit, though. She and the kids had fun racing around in Grandma and Bampa's back yard trying to find the eggs that Henry helped to hide. We made some attempts at a family picture too, but ended up with nothing perfect. Our weather was lovely, though, and we had a nice meal together after church. Clara is still napping, so the evening should be somewhat pleasant.

Necktie-Dyeing

A couple years ago Joyce sent us this little egg dyeing kit that she put together. It had little cut up bits of old silk ties and directions for how to use them to dye the eggs. I think the first year she sent it we had already dyed our eggs, and last year we were in Iowa City- so this was our first chance to give it a try.

The kids wrapped up each egg in a bit of silk and a piece of white cloth around that. Then we bundled them up with rubber bands.

 Here are the eggs in the pan. We only did a half dozen. We still wanted to do some with regular dye too.

 After we put the eggs on to boil we did a little side craft that involved paint and shaving cream.

 Here are the eggs in the pot. You can see that a lot of color did seep out of the fabric.

 After the shaving cream painting the kids took a break to play marbles.

 After cooling we unwrapped the eggs.

 I was shocked at how well they turned out! The print transferred really clearly.

 Here's our little selection!

Happy Easter to all! And a happy Passover too.