March adventures

 Here is Jeff conquering the tall monkey bars! I think this was only his second time on the high ones and I'm pretty sure the rainboots helped.

Aria participated in her very first piano competition! I didn't get to watch or record it but here she is prepping for it with her chinese friends....

And I also got to get her first grading sheet. So proud of her high scores and I was so happy that the judge gave such complimentary praise. She played Gavotte

The best thing about springtime is the GOBS of rain. And when I say rain I mean R.A.I.N. If only it smelled good. I miss that smell so much. Here it just gets smelly and moldy and everything is wet. all the time. But the rain is always warm so we always always get to PLAY!!

 There's nothing quite like puddle jumping. 1 point for my cool Mom award.

Nate and I asked for tickets to this wonderful musical for Christmas. It was fantastically beautiful. It was ethereal and the actors were amazing. The music was unbelievable. It was a small cast which accompanied themselves and sang and danced. The scene changes felt so organic. I loved it so much.

 Jefferson lost his first tooth. To say he's proud of it is a total understatement. He can do almost anything now that he's lost his tooth.

For Spring Break we went to visit our family in Washington and Oregon. Jeff and Isaac hit it off so well, I was shocked. Despite their age difference, their personalities are so similar that they did EVERYTHING together.
 Yeah, Count on the 12 year old to be the responsible one...

Nate and the kids spent forever putting up dominoes. I think they counted them, but who knows how accurate that number would be. Filmographer fail.

 We celebrated Nate's birthday. His Mom made him a blueberry pie. His favorite. He's just spoiled rotten.

Nate's favorite gift ever... you can just see the joy on his face.

 The clouds here got so pretty some days. It's so beautiful with their gorgeous big picture windows.

 For family night we made a giant church themed Bananagrams crossword. The kids really got into it and it was fun trying to use all of the letters.

 They have this amazing park in La Grande and the kids just loved having it all to themselves. It was fun to play like a kid again.

 It was so fun to see these horses grazing in the pasture below their house. We got to feed them apples and carrots and pet them. They were really gentle horses.

Here are Jeff and Isaac again. Oh how I adore them!

 It was also fun to explore the mountainside and chase the cats.

 aint he handsome?

And we loved playing gigantic kubb. We had such a great time this trip. It was nice to be there with them.

Playing with cousins is just lovely too. We had such a great trip.

 At the end of March Aria got to participate in the Name That Book competition. It was so fun. She got to be team captain. She's the one that's the second from the right.

 Once they picked what book it came from, Aria would hold up the picture of the cover.

 She really seemed to enjoy this most of all. She is definitely my reader.

 

Aria definitely enjoys acting. I can almost taste the fear she has for this spider. jk. love her.

We ended the month with a little trip to the past. They all picked real life heroes, and then dressed up as them. Aria chose Jesse Owens. I don't think she knew he was a man, but she sure had a lot of fun pretending to be him, making a costume for him and writing and learning about him. It was fun to see her in action.