A new instrument

Look what Peter was high bidder on for the Goodwill auction...

A xylophone. Oh brother! I guess it is better than the trumpet he also bid on.

Community Garden Delivery

Have you ever bought a Groupon? Have you ever had a Groupon almost expire and then have to use it pronto?  Well, we were in that boat last week. I had signed up to have a community garden box delivered, and the groupon was expiring.

After dark on Wednesday night, a knock at the door came, and the friendly man handed us a box filled with all sorts of good stuff fresh from the soil.
We had ourselves some fresh carrots, beets, kale, turnips, salad greens.  I'm thankful for my cook friendly husband. He wasn't intimidated. We had fresh beets for dinner tonight and they were so good! I have never had beets. I remember my parents eating them, but I'm sure they were canned. These were warm and sweet and delicious. 
We chopped the fresh carrots up the other night when we had some extra kids at our house. Fresh carrots taste so much better than bagged baby carrots.  And, I found a kale recipe.  We made all the kids taste it, even the extra kids.  As Hayden put it, it tastes like broccoli with 10 spoons of butter on it. Alrighty!
Yay for fresh veggies!

In your Easter bonnet

Beautiful young lady.

All that sass.

Always the joker.  Check out the "i fell out of my bed' mark on his face.

Granny bought the girls their Easter outfits (and bonnets).  She is always good at picking out just the right thing. 

Thanks Granny.

 We enjoyed a great meal together after church.

The Spence crew!

Every year Easter means more to me than the year before. I am thankful for a risen Lord. And, I am thankful to have been raised in a house of believers. Hopefully, I am passing on this most awesome gift to my children.

He is risen Indeed!

Twas the day before Easter...

... and we woke up in Houston.  Peter headed to Montgomery Saturday morning to help his mom get some things done.  We got ready to go to an egg hunt at Hosanna.  Our kids were each in a different age group and there were not that many kids altogether. To say the least, they came home with quite a load of candy.

 

It was a great egg hunt and a good start to the day.  It is so nice at my parents house because the kids can run in and out and ride bikes and not need someone to stand in the street to run interference for traffic. They love it and so do I.  Campbell mastered the 2 wheel bike this weekend. She loves it! She was close over spring break, but this past weekend, she totally got it. Now, how do we get Conleigh to be willing to try?

 That night after everyone was in bed, I got to work on a craft I've completely procrastinated on getting done.  The story of my crafty life. I buy all the supplies and then don't do the project. I had taken all of these supplies to Houston back during spring break and didn't do it, so I packed it up and took it there again. 

Here are the supplies:

Styrofoam cone.  I've had this in a cabinet.  I painted it long ago for another project that 

never came to be.

Styrofoam eggs from the Dollar Tree. I had 3 dozen and used all but a couple.

I also used some moss from Dollar Tree and my rarely used glue gun.

Here is my cute Easter egg tree.

 

It is so cute. I think I was the most impressed at the lunch table on Easter, but I really like it. I found it on another blog, but I do not know where.

On Easter morning, the kids woke up at 6:30 because Alex fell out of bed and hit his face on the bedside table. Plus, he fell right onto Conleigh who was sleeping on the floor beside him. They didn't even think about looking to see if the bunny came to the grandparents house. I had made each of them a little photo album of some pictures from Disney. They were happy with that. While Alex and I were looking at his, I nonchalantly wondered out loud about the Easter bunny. He looked out the window and saw an egg.  Instantly he was telling his sisters, and they all took off outside to collect the loot.

Good stuff. More Easter pictures tomorrow.

Lottery vs. Cake Walk

Well, we didn't win the lottery but we won the cake walk at the school carnival!!

Campbell did it one time and won.  Here is her pick.  What five year old wouldn't choose this cake?  It was really pretty.  This picture is after it had taken a ride on the golf cart and fell through the box on the bottom that held the cake that I won on my one time through the cake walk!  I didn't catch a picture of my butterfinger cake but I can report that it was delicious.

Poor Conleigh. She must have done the cake walk 20 times and she didn't win. Close to tears, I told her it was all luck and she responded, "No, it's not!!"  Really?  Learn something new everyday (smile).  Conleigh did turn in one of the cutest cake contributions for the carnival. Check this out:

This is a sunflower peep cake with chocolate chips in the middle.  She spied this cake in a magazine that Granny bought a while back called "food fun".  I'm so proud of her for working on this cake. I helped her frost the cake, but otherwise she did it all.

Other carnival highlights included the Hamster ball for Conleigh. Basically you get inside this huge ball and you roll with it down the field and back. Kids love it but I don't know why.

I didn't see Alex the whole time. He was with his friends ruling the school. His friend Hayden reported to his dad that it was the best day of his life because they got to go wherever they wanted in the school without adults telling them what to do.

Peter had scored some prime steaks at work this week, so we had the Schultz's over for dinner. It was a fun evening with good steak, salad, corn on the cob, keg beer and wine. Then of course, we got to have a cake taste test because we won two cakes at the carnival.  Campbell had a yellow cake and mine was chocolate. The vote was pretty split on the winner. It was fun to see the Barbie come out of the cake. We decided the baker had mauled a Barbie to make the cake.   No legs on the lady.  

Poor Barbie ended up thrown to the curb.  It was pretty hilarious though when Campbell marched in with a naked Ken doll that only had one leg.  

We waved goodbye to our friends after dinner and went to water the flowers in the pots on the front stairs.  This is what came next: 

Yes, that is a water hose in her pants and her brother feeling the bubble of water/air there. 

Quenching their thirst.

Playing with water in the cover of night.  Are we still on water restriction?

The end.  Soaked and happy kids.

good night.

Just the Facts please.

52.5 inches tall

61 pounds

11 pounds more than when you turned 8.

39th percentile for weight. You skinny little thing.

Above are the stats of our dear Conleigh Grace who celebrated birthday #9 earlier this month.

Dear Conleigh,

We love you so very much.  You are definitely a first born and like to give parental advice to your younger siblings.  You are very independent and march to your own drummer.  You like your alone time and are careful in your choices. Competitive sports do not interest you but you recently began a tumbling class and you seem to like it.  You have also been taking piano for over six months. Your interest seems to be waning, but I really hope you'll stick with it. You have such musical talent. 

You love to have mommy/Conleigh time. For your birthday, we went to see the

Circque de Soleil show, Quidam.  You are a fine arts girl through and through and loved the show.

You get along well with adults and tend to like to participate in those conversations.   You also still like to do art, painting mostly.

Your hair is so long now.  You are sensitive to mommy's mood and try to be a pleaser.

Third grade has been a challenge. You have no trouble understanding the assignments, but your interest in completing them is less than stellar.  Math comes easily to you. Punctuation and spelling take a little more work.  Grace and Katie are still your best friends.

I am very thankful to be your mom. I love to hug and kiss your sweet face. I like to roll your hair in my hand. I love to listen to you tell me about things that you have learned. You are a treasure beyond words.

Love,

Mom

Campin'

We enjoyed our eighth trip to the HEB Foundation camp this past weekend.

God is so present at this amazing camp. The setting is beautiful on the Frio river.

The children are independent enough now that we aren't having to hover over them. It is a really relaxing place. The food is good, the activities are available and the company is wonderful. We are thankful for such a wonderful church community.

Alex was in the Gaga pit all weekend. He was the winner quite often too.  His calves were sore from dodging the ball all weekend.

Nothing could be finer than to smolder your marshmallow for the ultimate s'more!

Conleigh was covered as far as not getting pinched for St. Patrick's Day.  Here she was using bacon on a homemade fishing stick and feeding the many small fishies.  I remember the very first year we went to camp. Conleigh was one, and she stayed in this same location the whole weekend throwing tiny rocks into the water.

It's not called the Frio for nothin'.  Brr. The girls couldn't convince themselves to get all the way in.  Alex jumped straight in and then straight out. I think the cold water knocked the breath out of him.

This is the part of the river that we drive our cars through to get to camp.  

 

 

 

Cold Fun!

Conleigh with her third grade friends, Alex and Meghan.

Campbell and her posse dancing during worship on Sunday morning.

A beautiful setting just calls for the kids to dance.

It was confirmed by other ladies in our cabin that I was the snorer of the group, and my beloved husband video taped me sleeping in the van on the way home with my mouth wide open snoring away.  Lovely.