May Days

May is always a busy month as school is winding down and outdoor activities are increased. May, for us, has been continued focus on Papa Norm's arm healing and getting his therapy and exercise in. I'm happy to report that he is doing very well! Although we have been sticking pretty close to home we have had lots of visits from family and plenty of activity around the place. Mother's Day was one of those days. I had a wonderful day full of the three C's, good food, lots of laughs and lovely gifts.

Aunt Suzie make fruit pizza with Chris' help. It was yummy and beautiful as usual.

 

Jon nearly always brings me a bouquet of flowers from his yard. He also does a great arrangement and I always look forward to seeing what will be in each bouquet.

 



 

Mike, Suzie, and Jon just happened to sit together when we ate. This is what you might call a rare picture.

 

A few minutes to wind up the afternoon with T-ball!

 

 

 

Papa's first outing (except for doctor and therapy appointments) was to Science Night Open House at Claire and Chloe's school. Before having a fundraiser taco dinner the girls had to show us the latest skills on the play equipment. They have really gained strength in the past few weeks.

 

Claire and Paula play a little tether ball as do Chris and Mike.....

Their classroom was full of exciting things. Here is Chloe's model flower.

 

Claire and a friend check on their live plants from a unit that Mike worked on in the classroom. It was fun to see the difference in how the plants grew. The students selected the type of seed they wanted to plant so there were all different looking seedlings. 

 

Chloe and friends checking out their plants.....

 

Claire's model flower.....

 

 

Chloe demonstrating a paper whistle that makes a screeching sound when blown properly...

 

Chloe getting ready to take home her plant....

 

The three C's posing one last time for Grandma.... thank you kids!

 

Chris riding his "new to him" two wheeler bike. Wow can he ride for a 4 year old!

We have had some phone conversations over the past few weeks as we were home so much. One in particular will stick with me for a long time. Claire, as you may remember, is quite a story teller. If you have forgotten, click here and see a story that we happen to catch on camera when she was three years old. She is so descriptive and detailed in her information. The story/incident that she passed along to us recently was concerning a "deal" she made with Chloe. Apparently Chloe is the champion earth worm finder/catcher and Claire doesn't have quite as much luck in that area. Claire needed, she felt, an earth worm to put in one of her plants and Chloe had the only existing earthworm at the moment. Claire worked a deal with her to trade a roly-poly bug, a white ribbon, and a small container in order to get the earthworm for her plant. Claire's lengthy description of the story ended with how happy they both were with the deal that was made. It doesn't sound as cute here, as I write it, maybe it is one of those moments that you had to be there, but I wanted to make sure it gets in the book that we make from the blogs at the end of each year. Hopefully when the three C's grow up and look back at their blog books it will give them some great and happy memories.

Easter and Beyond

Our Easter celebration this year was quiet and low key. The weather wasn't the best but it held out enough that the three C's were able to have a quick egg hunt. Our humor for the day was when they arrived Chloe looked bleary eyed and flushed. She said she had a bad headache and it was from the music at church...."It was just too loud." That sure gave us a good laugh. As it turned out she had a bit of a fever but a little magic medication gave her a second shot at the day.

The three silly C's in their Easter finery along with their respective stuffed bunnies.



 

Some bird nest cookies that I had fun making...

 



 

 

An egg hunt before it rains.... hurry, hurry!!!

 



 



An enjoyable day with lots of laughs and fun and I'm so happy we didn't know what was ahead in the next couple of days....

 

Our current issue involves Papa Norm. He took a bad fall in our garage and fractured his left arm up very high right under the shoulder ball/bone. Unfortunately that was Papa's best working arm since his right arm has been impaired since 1996. After a couple of days in the hospital, all is well, but he has some healing to do for the next 6-8 weeks. He is somewhat helpless and must be assisted in walking, eating, dressing, bathing, and on and on. The three C's have been coming to cheer him up and that does the trick for sure. Uncle Superman and Lisa,  Mike, and Suzie, have also been in and out also helping with things that I'm not keeping up with. I'm thanking God each day for our great family and for support from friends as well. You never know what a day will bring and as the wall hanging  in our dining room says, "Normal day let me be aware of what a treasure you are!" This too shall pass and for now we are doing just fine.

 

The three C's a week ago on Sunday are shown below with Papa. I missed a great opportunity for pictures yesterday when Chris was pushing Chloe and Claire in Papa's wheelchair. What a hoot.... maybe I'll get some next time.

 



Enjoy your upcoming week!

Catching Up With Spring Activities!

The weeks have flown by since I last blogged.The concentrated times we have with the three C's seem to be shorter and less often since the twins are in school. That is as it should be, they are growing up and keep very busy with their homework, friends, and other activities. I still look forward to Thursdays when I work in Chloe and Claire's classroom. Below are a few pictures taken on one or more days.

Claire was chosen on this particular morning to greet the visitors to their classroom. She is so capable of doing that type of thing (as is Chloe who had apparently done it the previous day), she looks adults in the eye and is able to comfortably carry on a good conversation. Claire was chosen 1st Grader of the Week recently for displaying "Excellence" in her performance at school. She works very hard and is quite serious about her work. Chloe does very well also but tends to be much more of a free spirit. They compliment each other well! Love those girls!

 

Claire is working on a test, math I believe, and she made sure no one could see her paper. :)

 

The next two pictures show Chloe leading one of the  songs that they sing in order to learn sounds. This particular song was about "Bossy R's".  They are very catchy tunes and often stick in my head as I leave for the day. Who knows what I might sing as I drive home? My favorite seems to be "When Two Vowels Go A Walking." Check it out on YouTube if you want to learn more about vowels. :)

 

Claire and one of her friends doing some reading during their free time.



 

Since the girls are on Spring Break this week the three C's were able to come to our house for a visit! We had some good activities going on as you will see in the following pictures. They brought their scooters and they seemed to have their helmets on most of the time and would take a scooter ride and then do something else. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful! Chris brought one of his big truck toys. He had snails that he had found in Papa's garden riding in the truck for a while. Yuck, was all I could think but I kept it to myself for the most part.

 





 

They spent lots of time in the garden looking for Lady Bugs and snails. 

 

Scooter time!

 

 

 

 

They also found Lady Bugs other places in the yard and transported them to Papa's garden. Who knew such a simple activity could produce such fun?

 



 

Earlier in the week before the children came, Papa had been cleaning out the garage and ran across a rock collection that we had from my Dad (Norm Knepper). He had for many years collected rocks whenever they were on a trip or just near their homes. He did have some very nice pieces and so on Saturday morning the three C's decided to wash and clean up the rocks to see what they had. The three C's have all been interested in rocks since they were toddlers.

 

 

Chloe with one of her favorite rocks. As it turned out Uncle Superman came up for a while to visit and Chloe ended up giving it to him. I'm sure she will get it back at some point!

 



 

 

Rocks drying in the sun...

 

That evening Papa and the kids released some commercial Ladybugs that Papa had purchased. 

 

 

When Claire and Chloe return to school after break they both will begin to read "chapter books" as they call them. We found a set of books upstairs that had been Aunt Suzie's. The Little House on the Prairie series really seemed to excite the girls. Chloe takes a few minutes to sit in the sun and read. Their first grade reading skills are far superior to both mine and my kids at that level.

 



 

On Monday morning we took a trip a few blocks away to our local new skate park. What fun they had with their scooters! The local school children were not on break so we had the park to ourselves. There is also a play area with climbing and jumping features, but the majority of their time was spent scooting around the hills of the skate park area.

 

 Chloe....

 

Chris....

 

Claire.....

 





We had a wonderful day and a quick Taco Bell lunch and we were off for home.
Chris and I took a nap (it felt so good!!) and while we were sleeping the girls made this sweet little diorama. Papa said they worked together so well combining their creative ideas and using scissors, glue, tape, crayons, and standing it up by taping a pencil to the back. We thought it was extra cute but then we might be just a bit over the moon about anything they create!

 

Looking forward to spending more time with the three C's on Easter Sunday. It was fun talking to and hearing the kids tell all that they knew about Jesus and how he died for us but came alive again. Thank you God for the miracle of Easter!