Of late...

Not much new around here.

We keep spending lots of time outside. 

We play with chalk a lot. We make a little cakewalk type game. We play Pandora on my phone and walk around the circle. Randomly, I'll push pause. Then we roll the dice. If you are standing on the number the dice lands on, you get to be the music player/pauser. 

Charlie isn't real good at this job yet, but we don't mind :)

If no one is on the rolled number, Annette gets to go run and jump on it. 

It's about as 'made up' of a game as there is.

Charlie's favorite job is to roll the dice. Into the street. On purpose. 

Stinker. 

Thankfully, our street is not busy... and filled with understanding neighbors.

We bought from the ice cream truck once, and now it's an almost daily occurrence.  Luckily, the popsicles I let mine get are only 1 or 2 dollars. When we hear the musical truck coming by, we run in the house, count some change out of our money jar, and pay the ice cream lady. They LOVE it.

Annette dances ALL the time. I thought she would like taking ballet. I would never have expected her to love it as much as she does. She wakes up every day asking if it is Wednesday yet, so she can go see Mrs. Wendy at ballet. Her recital is coming up in May. Hope she won't get nervous up on stage and just stand there for the 2 minute song. But, I bet she will. And I'll still think she's cute:)

This is her dancing with buddies after a neighborhood parade.

If you can't tell, she is rockin' a side ponytail. Thanks to my mom, that's all she asks for lately. 

And it didn't help when she saw several middle schoolers walking around with the same do.

She made sure to point it out to me that the big girls had side ponies too.

Oh my. 

I must admit though, I remember loving them, too. 

These boys are an accident waiting to happen.

More chalk at my mom's house. Lauren helped Annette spell Bubba :) Can you spot which ones are her handwriting? Not bad for a 3 year old.

We had a little drizzle on Friday. I took the kids to Target to get out of the house. I told them they could each get one thing. They both decided on umbrellas. Turns out, they really do like playing with them. Every day. Not a bad purchase after all.

On Saturday, I gave a final exam, finished class early, and met my fam at the Wonder Place for a fun Elmo themed birthday party.

This is one of the 23 student's I had the pleasure of teaching this past semester. She just moved to the US about 2 months ago to get her masters in teaching. She asked if she could take this picture to send to her family in China. Oh, how I enjoy my part time job. I get to meet so many wonderful people with such different backgrounds and talk about one of my passions... teaching children how to read. It's a blessing.

I love my guy's smile. 

After naps, we headed to another fun bday party. A carnival themed one!

Now, I'm trying to get laundry and house chores done while the kids are at Mother's Day Out. 

 Hope everyone has a good week!

On a side note, here is a verse that meant a lot to me this morning. In case anyone might need to hear a little bit of the Good Truth today ...

I Peter 1

 Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

 ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.