Spring Break Begins

Spring break has finally arrived.  It came late this year and it seems like we have been waiting forever  for spring break (and Spring...which we are still waiting for).  In any case Merrick's last day was Thursday and Carrigan  and I finished up Friday morning.  Since Merrick was already off, he came to school with us.  We had hedgehog day and my co-teacher, Lora, brought in her hedgehog for the kids.  We also did a hedgehog craft and read a hedgehog book.  Merrick picked a good day for a visit.

After school we really got the party started by spending the afternoon at the bounce house with our Brown cousins.  Carrigan had been begging to go to the bounce house with cousins for months and we were finally able to make it happen.

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Spring break is just getting started and we have some big plans.  Jeremy will be off work Thursday and Friday to play with us and in the meantime I am going to be laying flooring in the bathroom.  Should be fun times.

Toothless Joe

This week has been busy, not interestingly busy, just busy.  I have been helping on Merrick's school yearbook and that has taken up any spare minutes I have.  I considered skipping today's blog because I didn't feel like I had anything important to say, but in looking over my posts from the last few weeks I realized I had never had time to write about something really important, our Toothless Joe.

I remember that when Merrick was a baby he was really late in getting his teeth.  Once they did start coming it seems like they all came at once.  Apparently that is our plan for losing our baby teeth as well (at least the all at once part).  It seems like for the last several months Merrick always has a loose tooth.  Once it finally falls out, another is loose.

A couple of weeks ago one of his top, front teeth became loose.  Eventually that tooth came out and it wasn't two days later before he was telling me the other one was loose.  This time it was ready to come out really quickly and I think Merrick was ready to be done with the loose tooth thing.  I was in the kitchen when he came in with a piece of floss tied around a nerf bullet.  He asked me to tie the other end to his tooth.  Obviously I could see right away were we were going with this and I didn't think it would work but I also didn't think it would hurt anything so I agreed.

After many, many attempts that tooth still wasn't out and he gave up and asked me to take off the floss.  Unfortunately that was easier said than done.  The floss was wedged and was only coming out with the tooth.

Our second idea was to tie the floss around a door handle...(I am sure you can figure out the rest).  That worked.  Now we have a boy with a very wholly mouth!

Family Fun Night (Weekend)

This weekend started out on a high note with Family Fun Night at Merrick's school.  This is a carnival like event that they have every year.  Usually the kids end up with a million little trinkets and things to take home, but this year at each of the booths the kids collected stamps on a card that they then exchanged for a new book.  It was a wonderful idea.

The games were a little different this year as well.  They had the standard cake walk, fishing game, bowling, and bean bag toss, but that had some fun new additions, like catapult target practice.  They also had Jeopardy, book mark making and finger knitting.  It was a fun time had by all and a great way to start the weekend.

Yesterday we decided to keep the family fun time going with trip to OMSI.  We had planned to go see the new Lego exhibit but unfortunately so did the rest of Portland and there was an hour and a half wait.  We decided to forgo that idea for the time being (with plans to go back in the very near future so stay tuned).  Instead we just did the regular OMSI exhibits, but got into some that we never really have before.  We learned about shipping at the Port of Portland, built an earthquake proof (but not Carrigan proof) building, built boats and a town to survive a tsunami, and learned about static electricity.  Oh and it turns out Carrigan is pretty fearless around an albino corn snake.

 It was a fun-filled weekend, the kind that makes you ready for the next one.

Highlights

This week had some differing highlights for the various members of our family.

The highlight for me was that on Friday, after weeks of work, we put up a display of the preschool kids' artwork at the public library.  Not only is this great publicity for the business, but so fun for the kids to be able to see their projects, that they worked hard on, up on display for everyone to see.  I am so proud of them and I am really proud of how the display turned out.

Merrick's highlight was going to an ice skating birthday party yesterday.  He was a little unsure on the ice in the beginning, but after a lesson, started to get the hang of it.  His report is that he fell 10 times, but still had fun.  He definitely takes after his dad in that he enjoys those types of balance sports and is not deterred by a few falls.

Carrigan's highlight also came last night when, after asking countless times, we finally agreed to take her to McDonald's for a happy meal.  I really don't do McDonald's but she softened me with talk about hopes of going one day to get happy meals with a new baby brother or sister.  I guess I decided that while I can't give her a new baby sister or brother anytime soon, I could at least get her a happy meal.

As for Jeremy, he reports he had no highlights.  Work has been really stressful lately, but that is a story for another day.  Maybe next week will be his week...