The rest of the Random Recap...

This spring, Brandon opted to do the project fair at school & picked pyramids as his subject. He did a good job researching & even designing his poster board into the shape of a pyramid (totally his idea)! All the kids got to display their projects one evening for everyone to view. 

For Easter we headed up to the cities & stayed with Allison & Natalie.  The kids always love seeing their cousin Allison. They were pretty excited on "Easter Eve"!

 Easter morning was a bit interesting as apparently we forgot to let the Easter bunny know we'd be in the cities... Melanie was quick to conclude that the Easter bunny must have been confused when he didn't find the baskets at our house but left the stuff for there baskets back at our house anyway.  But luckily, the bunny had eggs of candy to hide for an egg hunt...

 It was a nice morning for an egg hunt...

 ... & Allison even needed some help from her little cousins to find a few of her eggs!

 Happy Easter!! 

The kids were anxious to get home to see if the bunny had left their stuff...

... that silly bunny had left it in their chairs at the table!

Trout fishing opened in April... Mike is always eager to get out & the kids enjoy taking turns going with him.

 Brandon & Mike had a good opening day (above)
& he & Melanie did well the next outing too (below).

And this year with our crazy early spring meant the morel mushroom season was also early creating quite the dilemma for Mike... trout fishing or mushroom hunting... what to do?

 Today, morel hunting won out!

Melanie hit another milestone this month... she was super excited to lose her first tooth!!!  And not too long after, she lost the second one!

Our cute little Trout Fishing Girl!

And the up & coming morel hunter! 

 

We have been talking for years about getting an ATV... so we finally stopped talking about it... we are now the owners of a fun new toy!

So far it seems to be a hit with the whole family...

With the early spring, the morels seemed early.  But after some rainy weather, there seemed to be a second season... and some pretty big mushrooms as a result!  Mike had quite the banner mushroom year!

Totally Random Recap... yes, because it has been THAT long!

It's only been 3+ months since my last update, which was already a month or so late in covering Christmas.  So it really is a pretty random & basic update of the past few months & turns out, it has been so long that it will be a 2-part update!

Mike celebrated #43 in January!  We had his folks over for dinner & I made some of his favorites... stuffed mushrooms, prime rib & twice baked potatoes.  Poor Brandon had the stomach flu so he missed the festivities!

The kids were excited for Pajama Day at school... made for an easier morning getting ready for school!  School just seems a lot more fun nowadays... I don't ever remember having pajama day!

Brandon & Mike have had lots of fun with the scouts this year.  It is a good group of boys & Mike always finds ways to make it fun & interesting!

Both kids had fun Valentine parties. 

In Brandon's class, they got to design a Valentine holder & Brandon won a prize for his Valentine-Bot! 

Brandon did basketball through the Y this winter. He had a lot of fun playing & it is always fun that a few school friends are there every week too!  Plus the boy just LOVES to run!

We had such a bizarre winter... fairly mild & snowless.  Brandon had wanted to do a sledding party like last year... but old Man winter apparently wasn't up for it!  So by Feb, I decided we needed to get it done (since his bday was in Dec)... so we threw a science party instead! 

They launched little rockets using 35mm film canisters, water & alca-seltzer tabs.  They had a blast! (no pun intended!)

 Then they blew up balloons using baking soda & vinegar in a water bottle & did some experiments with those balloons & regular balloons just blown up with air.  They also made oobleck (quicksand) & lava lamps.  We didn't even get to 1/2 the experiments we had planned but they seemed to have a great time!

The party crew!

 

I found something on the internet about making a volcano cake... what a pain, but it turned out good in the end.  Brandon was pleased... but I'm hoping this is the last cake I make!

The kids thought it was pretty cool when the dry ice was added & the volcano "smoked"!

 Melanie got a little scrapbook station set up in the guestroom & had a ball working on her scrapbook... she was borderline addicted with it for a few weeks!

March was so warm & nice that we were able to get our bonfire ring set up & broken in!  Not too many winters in MN that there would be no snow on the ground & temps decent enough to hang around by the fire with only light jackets on! 

 Me & my snuggle buddy!

Next up... April... spring break, Easter, trout fishing & mushroom hunting... stay tuned!