A Birthday Party for Two

Sunday, Feb. 23, was the finale to a very busy week.  I spent all of the week before deep cleaning the house.  Not really because of Sunday's events, but it just happened that it all coincided together.  The house was a mess and dirty.  It'd been quite a while since I'd washed curtains or dusted walls.  So, I spent the whole week cleaning-and taking care of sick kids!  IC came down with tonsilitis on Tuesday and we had a dr. visit with resulting antibiotics.  On Friday, our day off from school, I took E bunny to the dr. for pinkeye and a just-beginning ear infection, which resulted in TWO antibiotics for her.

So, Sunday, we all managed to make it to church, and IC was acolyte, plus his music group sang.

After dinner, I set up for the girls' birthday party.  A late one for Miss A and an early one for E bunny.  I decided to have them together since we had to wait until basketball was done for Miss A's party anyway.  The girls had a joint theme from the movie, "Frozen" and had a pretty good time together!

Proud Panther Night

Thursday, Feb. 20, was Proud Panther Night at school.  The kids each got to show off art and writing things they had done and then we got to watch magician Adam White perform.  He was really good and very funny.  It was a pretty good time!

Pioneers Pine Car Derby

Wednesday, Feb 19, was the Pine Car Derby at Pioneers Club.  It was a tiresome, but good evening.  Miss A and E bunny were in the same age group racing together.  Miss A placed 2nd in the race and 2nd in show! E bunny placed 3rd in the race-both girls were very happy with their trophies!

IC's age group started after the girls' were done.  IC placed 1st in race and 1st in show!

JJ participated in the adult/dad's race and won for the 2nd year in a row.

4-H Kickoff Night

Sunday, Feb 16, I took the kids to the 4-H Kickoff party at the fairgrounds in town.  The kids jumped on a inflatable, hit the target with nerf guns or bow and arrows, threw the football at an inflatable, got their faces painted, made butter, "fished", made a stamp picture or colored a banner and had hotdogs for supper.  They had a really good time!

New Arrivals

Since we had gotten our new chickens, JJ has been trying to hatch out eggs.  He hasn't had a lot of luck.  The chickens are pretty young and the weather's not been cooperative, so hopefully, that is the cause as to why the eggs haven't been fertile.

Out of frustration, and the thought of needing chickens to show for the county fair, JJ contacted the person we got the actual chickens from, and he sent us 17 newly hatched chickens in the mail.  They arrived at the post office yesterday and JJ went to pick them up at 7 am.

He set up a temporary brooder in the cave of the basement, since the new chicken house wasn't quite ready for them.  There are 2 different sizes of chickens.

Seven chicks without feathers.

Ten bigger chicks with most of their feathers.  All chicks were alive on arrival and LOUD!  I could hear them chirping upstairs! These bigger chicks will go shortly into the new chicken house.  JJ will work to hopefully finish the building enough today so they can be in there.

Poor Sasha, I don't think she knew what to think with these new arrivals!

The kids were thrilled with the new chicks and went to see them right after we got home!

Kindergarten Valentine Party

This past week, I only worked Monday and then I was off the rest of the week-which was AWESOME!  I worked on a ton of laundry, computer work, some cleaning, AND started working on the store room.  We are turning the tiny room into a bedroom for Miss A.  The biggest dilemma, is where to put the storage stuff.  We are still working on those details, but it's slowly coming together.

JJ has been working on numerous projects for the chickens, in between bouts of calving.  We are down to about 6 to go-yay!  This year, we've lost 4 calves and 1 heifer so far-a rough year for calving this year.

So, this week, IC had a den meeting on Monday-he stayed home from school, as he was not feeling good and since I worked, my mom stayed with him.  He recovered, though, and went to his den meeting that evening.  Tuesday, we made up a girl scout meeting that was snowed out last week and I handed out several cars for the powder puff derby coming up.  Wednesday and Thursday, I got to help in the girls' classrooms-that was nice, I hadn't gotten to do that for 2 1/2 months.

Friday, I helped with E bunny's class Valentine party.  Since I was with inexperienced moms, I had to contact them and set things up.  I did the games (of course, as always) and came up with throwing bean bags in the buckets, playing conversation heart tic-tac-toe, and making a heart with beads and pipe cleaners.  The kids seemed to have fun and I did have parents help me so that we could have 3 groups rotate activites at the same time.

Last Basketball Game

Sunday, the 9th was our last basketball game.  We played at home against Bruning, who played rather dirty this time.  We tried our best, but lost the battle.We came away with 1 win this year-better than last year's record.  The important part is that we played our hearts out at all of our games and didn't ever quit.  I am very proud of our team!

The Oldies vs. The Youngies

Saturday, the 8th, I led the art club meeting with a talk on doodling and art journaling.  The girls went with me, since I wanted them to come along to the next activity at 11 am.  Since it was the boys' last basketball practice, the coach's wife thought it would be fun for the parents to play the kids.  The boys AND the parents all had a blast!  JJ was the official, but he mostly called fouls on the adults! The boys managed to win, though the coach finagled the score just a tad.  Afterward, it was pizza and pop.  And yes, I did play some-we had enough parents we could substitute in and out-we spent most of the time, laughing at our feeble attempts at running plays!

Kindergarten Winter Olympics

Well, life got back to normal on Thursday and I was back to work at the elementary both Thursday and Friday.

Friday afternoon, I got to quit at 2 pm, so that I could go help with the Kindergarten Winter Olympics.  I remember IC's class doing this, but E bunny's class was a little bit more crazy this time!

Everyone got to take a turn at passing the torch.

The kids went through 10 stations and had a lot of fun!

At the end, they were all awarded a gold medal!