One perk of volunteering is seeing all of my kids stuff at school - here is Hadley at 100 years old. I love her eyelashes, necklace, and white curls. Apparently I'm volunteering enough w/ the Science Fair and 1-2 days/week of writing, a little boy asked if I worked there and a staff member commented I'm at school all of the time.
I'm always curious of what I'll find when I open the kids lunchboxes at night. This day, nearly all of Hadley's lunch was still there - she'd eaten the brownie and the popcorn, stinker. And I'm pretty sure Finley has started throwing everything away so I can't check up on him.
Hadley has a 'thing' for food, specifically candy. She would seriously live on candy - any kind, she just loves candy. Occasionally I find wrappers in her room - stuffed in the corner of her closet, under her desk, behind her dresser, I don't really get it because it's not something we argue about. If she asks (and hasn't had any candy that day), I will usually let her have a piece. But for whatever reason, she has found a reason to hide the wrappers. Needless to say, I was totally grossed out when I pulled moldy cheese curds out from under her bed!
We had company, Patrick's cousin Jimmy and son Vinny spent the night w/ us. They were headed to northern MN and we were a halfway stop from Chicago. The kids loved having Vinny to play with, he's a sweet boy and loves hockey. They made a stop in Madison to check out UW and he got a great new hoodie, we think Vinny looks good in Badger Red!
Last fall, I turned Finley's soccer room into a baseball room. Since Patrick's family lives in Chicago and are die-hard Cubs fans, I bought a Wrigley Field canvas to hang above his bed. The picture was taken from a Cubs vs White Sox game a few years ago.
Jimmy is a cameraman for the White Sox and found himself in the picture! He is down in/near the left dugout...
...that's Jimmy in the middle of the blue circle wearing a white hat and headset!
Finley has a totally fun teacher, in class they'd prepared Leprechaun traps, which meant we needed to make traps at home too. Both kids worked for two nights on their traps.
The finished traps had fake gold and tricky signs (Finley shared that leprechauns will do the opposite of what you say, so if you write Do Not Enter, they most certainly will 😉)
No leprechauns were caught, but there was a leprechaun hat left behind in each trap, so they were close. The leprechauns messed up the living room, spilled Lucky Charms and left behind gold coins...which Finley said we'll keep to put inside next year's traps!
Dressed in green for school, St Patrick's Day was their last day of school before spring break.
Spring break officially kicked off w/ Finley attending the monthly Cookies & Canvas art class...
...and Hadley went to her very first school-friend birthday party. She was SO excited to be invited! She picked out a dress and wanted her hair in a side-pony.
The birthday party was at an art studio, so she was painting too.
On Sunday, we headed to Wisconsin Dells for two days at the Kalahari Resort. We stopped for lunch at Buffalo Phils, where your food is delivered by a train.
We checked in and immediately hit the indoor waterpark.
I intentionally booked our stay for Sunday-Tuesday in hopes the resort would be quieter than over a weekend - it most definitely was, there were no lines and plenty of places to sit. The best part - it was very easy to keep an eye on the kids.
The kids loved crossing the lily pads, they did it over and over until their hands hurt from the ropes.
The kids were pretty comparable in their willingness to try bigger waterslides. Both tend to be more cautious, which I'm totally OK with.
Right before the park closed, they decided to try "surfing", I thought they were crazy and would chicken out when it was their turn. They opted for boogie-boarding and did GREAT! One lifeguard helps kids get on, the other gives directions while they're on it.
To get off, they have to "spill" and the wave pushes them to the top. I thought this would be the deal-breaker for both kids, but they popped up and went again.
Hadley's turn.
And the biggest kid tried to show off too.
Surfin' Finley!
Surfin' Hadley!
After showers, we went searching for snacks and found a gorilla.
The kids fell asleep in two seconds and the next morning they were ready for more.
After three hours of swimming, they were ready to dry off and try out the amusement park/arcade. We spent a lot of time next to rulers, the kids wanted to be measured at each ride (they're weird like that). There were a few things Hadley was too shorty for and both were too shorty to drive the Go Karts, Finley cannot wait to be 55 inches tall!
Hadley was stuck riding w/ me, I do not drive as fast as Patrick, but I'm positive it's a much safer ride!
She was also stuck on the kid's rope course, she REALLY wanted to do the big one, give it a year sister!
This picture is for Grandpa, he cannot stand when Hadley's hair hangs in her face! I'm actually not sure how she could stand this either, it's unusually bad here.
Finley went on the big ropes course that is literally up in the ceiling of the park. He did well, but I could tell from the ground how nervous he was. Patrick said he wanted to quit once, but his only option would be to drop and he wasn't willing to do that either.
Hadley climbed the fancy rockwall.
Mini golf!
There were A LOT of arcade games, they were on a mission to earn as many tickets as possible...
...$150 worth of ticket-earnings 😆
We ate a lot of yummy junk food.
A little more swimming before dinner, Hadley was excited to wear a bikini (last year she refused any swimming suit that showed her belly), this seemed like a good idea, then she got nervous and insisted she wear her cover-up or life jacket. But she looks so darn cute!
We ate a really late (9:00 pm) dinner in jammies at a WI Brew Pub, we found the Eau Claire wall.
And a fun dessert, making s'mores at our table.
Before we checked out, each kid got to choose one final thing to do - Hadley chose hair-braiding.
She was so happy w/ her colorful braids, nearly a week later they're still hanging in there. I dread telling her we need to take them out soon. But they made it to school today, she really wanted to show them off to her friends.
Finley had been eyeing up the Zoltar fortune-telling creepy things since we'd walked in (they had them everywhere in the resort). We were literally in the car when he reminded me I promised him he could get his fortune read....back into the resort and the first one we found was a fortune telling chimp. The chimp promised Finley good things ahead and a future full of money, he was happy w/ that.
Two days in the Dells makes for a really quiet ride home.
The rest of spring break was wide open for the kids/I to fill w/ whatever we wanted and we had no problems finding things to do.
After much-needed haircuts, we crossed the street for a spontaneous lunch at our old college hang out.
I took a crew to the roller skating rink, they each invited a friend to come with us.
After a winter of ice skating, the kids both chose to wear roller blades and did really well. It was very quiet at the rink, so they were able to easily cruise the oval. Hadley skated and skated and skated. When the others took a break for pizza, she would swing by for a bite and keep going.
She has been begging to go again and I just booked her birthday party at the rink.
Both kids first tried ice skating last winter. They have come a long way in confidence and both want to participate in Intro to Hockey this summer through our Parks & Rec Department.
Finley found a YouTube channel that gives directions to draw characters/animals using numbers/letters. He is hooked and has been a drawing machine.
Finley is preparing to take his First Communion at church, he attended two classes to learn about/how/why we take communion.
They baked their own bread for their big night.
We also spent a craft-filled morning at church participating in Lenten Happenings.
We celebrated Spencer's 9th Birthday! Well, technically only Finley did, Hadley & Nolan were too little to participate in the Ninja Warrior course, but we came by for cake at the end...
...which was totally OK, he had an AWESOME cake!
While the big kids ninja-ed for two hours, I took the Littlest to the roller skating rink...it was my third day in a row watching Hadley skate in circles!
This rink was very busy (it was a Saturday), the rental blades were a little loose, and Hadley tried to keep up w/ Nolan. I sat and covered my eyes as she darted around, caused a few near-collisions and wiped out a few times.
Hadley & Tenley had a fun afternoon playing together.
And this morning I was pretty excited to drop the kids off to school. We had a filled staycation, I'm exhausted, and got nothing done, but I really enjoyed the time w/ Finley & Hadley. As always, I hate how big they're getting, but we're able to do some pretty fun things together now. Absolutely passed out after a fun week!
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