Our spring break this year came the week before Easter, as usual, but since Easter was so late this year many other schools in our region had already had their breaks. The week was pretty rainy, as was all of April, and so we were not able to spend a lot of it outside. Emily, in fact, went to Pennsylvania and North Carolina with a school friend of hers for her entire spring break.

On the Tuesday of our break we went up to the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton. We had never been there before but had heard several good reports on it and so decided to give it a try. Jason took the day off of work and we all headed up to enjoy the day together.

The whole museum (which is small compared to some others we have visited) is geared toward kids and giving them a hands on experience with science. You could explore everything from space to recycling to a tidal pool. This was definitely a winner in our books. Here’s a link to their website! http://www.boonshoftmuseum.org/

Discovering Water

Discovering Dinosaurs

Discovering a Tidal Pool

Discovering Electricity

Masamo was particularly facinated with this robot.

Discovering --> Silliness?

Ella playing the "harmonica" in jail

Discovering Animals

Ella's Essay

Ella's school ran a contest recently and it challenged the kids to write an essay about flight. The rules were pretty vague and they only gave some broad suggestions as to what was required. Ella's teacher made their whole class enter the essay contest and so Ella entered. Much to our delight Ella came in 9th out of the 299 essays that were submitted!!! She received a glow in the dark Crayola craft kit as a prize. I'm so proud of Ella! Here is the essay that she submitted.....


As soon as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, I woke up. I looked around the darkening cave, other bats were waking up. Some stretched their wings while others immediately took off. I glided through the darkness squeaking every now and then, to locate a tree (I live in an orchard, just so you know).I found a tree, a peach tree, and searched for a ripe peach. My fellow bats and I searched every nook and cranny in the orchard, but found nothing. “We will have to leave!” my dad said. ”Oh great,” I said. Everyone has always feared leaving, and definitely not on an empty stomach. But it was time to take to the sky anyway. “I will stay with the other females to look after the babies.” my mom said. As we took off into the night I thought “I like flying, it’s just about the best thing I know about, besides myself.”We flew for hours, far from the orchard many of us were frightened. We were flying on and on and on. My wings ached because of the hours of flight. It was almost light, we had been flying all night! We stopped to sleep in a large leafy tree. I hoped we were unnoticed. The next night I glided off with tired wings. With my aching wings, we press on. I thought of all the wonders of flying. Then, “Squeak!” my dad said. “Squeak! Squeak!” an echo-y voice answered we all dove towards the thing it bounced off of. It was a peach tree! As we all dove I separated and grabbed a peach. “Mmmmm!” I said. I flew all around and found and ate some delicious food. We all ate apples, pears, peaches, and even something called a mango. As we flew back I thought “Flying is fun, even if it’s playing, but when it gets serious it is still fun.” As we flew into the horizon, I said “I love flying, and I think the sunrise is beautiful.” I flew towards the sunrise thinking “Flying is good to know how to do, most animals can’t. I love flying!”

Emily's Wisdom Teeth

Emily had to get her wisdom teeth out recently. We were told by her dentist after her recent check up that they needed to be removed and we were referred to an oral surgeon. The day came for the procedure and I took Emily in to get her teeth removed.

We had been told that tooth #1 & #32 were to be removed. We were not sure what this meant but found out when we saw her panoramic mouth x-ray that she only had two wisdom teeth, both of which were on her right side. The oral surgeon comforted Emily by telling her that she was lucky because she only had two wisdom teeth and that they were both on the same side and so the pain would be localized and a whole lot less.

Despite the after pains of the surgery, a puffy cheek and a yellow bruise for a few days, Emily did a wonderful job. I took video of her on the way home from the oral surgeon. We had discussed beforehand that if she was acting silly or goofy that I had her permission to video tape her so that she could watch herself later. I promised her I would not post it online but she told me that she did not mind and actually encouraged me to do so. That being said, the link below is to the video directly, it's not a public link. You can't search the internet and find this video, you have to use the direct link. Just so you know, the video is about 11 minutes long. Enjoy

Link to Emily's post wisdom teeth surgery video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzVacxeawmE

Miscellaneous Videos

Here's a post of miscellaneous videos, the first three are ones that Emily had on her phone.

This video is sideways so you'll have to turn your head! In it you'll see Masamo "fist pumping" to a song while falling asleep in his car seat!

In this video Emily was asking Masamo what a bunny says, his bunny face is mean looking though!

This video is of David about a year ago playing with a hula hoop at church.

This video is of one of the first times Masamo successfully rides his tricycle!

Masamo starts soccer

Masamo started playing soccer in March. He had asked to play after seeing David play last fall. Due to a lot of rain the practices and games have been hit and miss but we’ve enjoyed watching our little boy grow as a soccer player. Masamo started out with absolutely no concept of the game of soccer and could just barely run. In a month his concept has developed to the point that he knows that his team is to get the ball into the opposing team’s goal and to kick the ball away from his own team’s goal. I don’t think that’s too bad!

At his first few practices, Masamo needed some extra assistance from either Jason or I to help explain what his coach was asking of him and to encourage him to do it. By the end of his first two practices (they are only one hour each) he was complaining how tired he was and how hard soccer was to play. They would play a game called “Sharks and Minnows” and Masamo did not understand that it was the “shark’s” job to kick the ball away from the “minnows”. He was upset that someone else was kicking his ball away. David also suffered from this same trouble and also both did not like being called a shark when it was his time to play that position. David had to be called a “starfish” instead, and Masamo insisted on being called “Nemo”. However after those first practices there has been no complaining and a lot of enthusiasm on his part to play.

Masamo’s first game was freezing but the boys went out and played anyway. Masamo’s team (named the "Hot Wheels") won and in an email later that day the coach named Masamo “player of the game”, saying that “no one played with more heart than Masamo”. Although Masamo is not a fast runner he has a lot of endurance and is seen to be continually running the field after the ball. Because his foot does not find the ball that often, Masamo’s coach allows Masamo to do lot of throw-ins and goal or corner kicks. I must say that he’s got quite a foot!

Masamo has recently taken to making a face when he runs after the ball in a game. His face looks like a cross between a scowl and a face saying “GRRRRR”! I assume he’s just getting serious about the game, but I’m not sure yet. We’ll see if this amusing face continues.

Here's a video of Masamo playing in one of his soccer games.......

Birthdays!

David turned seven years old this year! He had a few different celebrations spread out over the two week period surrounding his birthday. Here they are in order of events...

Overnight sleepover with friends....

David decided to go with a camping theme for his overnight. We sent out an invitation and called it a Camp –IN! When you opened the tent invitation, the info for the party was inside!

We only invited a few boys, due to their age (and my sanity level). I was surprised to find out how rowdy boys are compared to girls! I am happy that Jason stayed home with me (instead of playing indoor soccer) and that both girls were at their own sleepovers, it made everything simpler. The boys spent time playing games, playing outside, and watching a movie and then sleeping in the tent we had set up in our living room. When the boys arrived we had several dozen balloons blown up and in the tent. I think going inside the tent and playing with all the balloons was the biggest hit of the evening!

Birthday lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory...

A few days later we headed over to our traditional birthday restaurant and had a birthday lunch with Jason’s family. David got to open some presents and we all enjoyed a delicious meal.

Multiple birthday celebration...

The last celebration came this past Sunday when we celebrated four spring birthdays! My brother in laws, Joe and Scott, also enjoyed their birthdays in March. Jason’s birthday was that Sunday April 3rd. We had the whole family over (minus out of town relatives, whom we missed). Here’s some pics and a video of us singing happy birthday to all four of the guys!

Land Time

We took a weekend off in mid March and went down to our camping ground. It was a little chilly but not too bad, the campfire in the evening made everything seem so cozy. We didn’t do anything too exciting, and that’s the point, we just went to relax and enjoy time together.

The kids did a bit of quad riding. We had a scare when David went off the edge of a hill by the pond.. My heart lept into my throat as I saw him go over the ledge. I screamed for Jason and my in-laws were on their feet in a nanosecond. Thankfully a log stopped David’s quad but he was thrown off the quad and barely scratched, the only injury was to the pocket of his sweatshirt. A few lessons were learned through this incident, not the least of which was that David was going WAY too fast on his quad and wasn’t watching where he was going. Rules have changed and hopefully we will not have a repeat performance.

The pond was a big draw during this weekend too. David was busy collecting snail shells while Masamo was busy throwing small rocks in the pond and Ella was looking for wildlife.

Because we had so much down time, Emily got a little bored AND silly. Here are the end results….