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Wednesday, February 22, 2017

April 2016

 April was a busy and exhausting month.  It was the beginning of some hard times for our family.  But I digress.  At the beginning of the month, Brian and I travelled down to Bowling Green for his State Odyssey of the Mind competition.  It was fun to see the things they added and tweaked, and fun to watch.  I always love having one on one time with my kids and I had a great few days with just Brian and I.
 Here they were assembling their props to get ready to go on stage.
 The judges afterwards checking everything out.
 They didn't place and so didn't advance on, but that was okay too.  Brian still had a great time!
 Amber's hair had grown really long and we were finally able to do a crown braid in it!  She wanted to see what it looked like so I took a picture.
 Right next to the schools, there is a HUGE farm that has several hundred acres to it.  When the weather is nice, they let their chicken roam free in the yard of the house.  One afternoon as I was going to pick up Evan from school, there was a chicken crossing the road!!!  :)
 Just days before we were supposed to travel to Florida for Spring Break, Evan had something strange happen.  He was walking across the kitchen to refill his glass of water and suddenly his leg gave out from under him. He couldn't use it at all.  It was on the side that had been giving him problems from the moyamoya.  A call to his drs and they wanted him seen at the hospital, immediately!!  When we got there, they rushed him back to the "urgent" part of the ER where they bombarded us with drs and questions.  After some fast blood work, and a CT to make sure that he hadn't had a full blown stroke and was hemorrhaging, they took him to a less urgent part where we waited.  Since the episode lasted about 30 minutes and he still had some weakness, they admitted him.  4-5 days later, they determined it was a TIA (transient ischemic attack - or mini stroke), and he was released from the hospital but we had to cancel our trip.
 There was lots of monitoring and he had imaging done.  By 24 hours later, he was pretty much feeling back to normal, but he had to stay a few more days.
 So he took advantage of things and ordered his favorite meals of donuts and chocolate milk.
 We went to the playroom where he played his favorite things, like slaughtering me at super heroes. :)
 And he did lots of crafts and painting.
 A week later we had some follow up visits and that called for an ice cream cone. :)
 By this point, my hair had gotten quite long and I was ready to get it cut and to donate it.  But I had to make sure I curled it one last time for Barth, since he likes it curly!
 We took advantage of a warm spring day to head over to the zoo before our pass expired.  I love it in April when the flowers are in bloom.  We took the wagon for Evan and Katelynn since Evan would get so tired to easily.
 I always love the beautiful tulips that they have!
 The Cincinnati Zoo is always just so gorgeous this time of year!
 Checking out the Sumatran Rhino before he was shipped back into the wild.
 The cougars were active and close by.
 The sun was a bit bright but the flowers were so gorgeous.
 We enjoyed our day at the zoo since we couldn't go on our spring break trip.
 During that spring break week, I also went and got my hair cut.  I donated 11 inches.  This was right before I got it cut.
 This was after.  So short!
 I do love a sleeping baby!!
Since we weren't able to go to Florida, we did a few things around home. One of the days we went over to Big Bone Lick state park here by our house and had a picnic dinner and played at the house.  Everyone had a good time enjoying the sunshine.
Nothing like a little king of the mountain on the monkey bars.  :)
Oops!  It looks like his eyes were closed on this one!
Weston and Brian enjoyed walking around together a little bit as well as a bit of football!
My monkey bar girl enjoyed being upside down!
I tried getting a good picture of Katelynn, but she was in a kind of whiny mood that day.  Poor thing.
She did have fun playing with Weston.  He is such a nice bother to play with her when she is crabby.
How many Yorke's can you get on a teeny little monkey bar thing?  Apparently 4!  :)
Ta da!!
Me too!
Wearing Daddy's glasses on the car ride home.  Love it!
I treasured the days with both of these guys at home in the afternoon.  At nap time, they would always run from me.  This day Evan had been hiding Katelynn so I couldn't find her and then burst into laughter when I pretended that she was no where to be found. 
Brian also made the middle school select band.  He was last chair trumpet in the 7th grade band. 
Waiting for the concert to start.
The place was packed but we had good seats because we got there early.
Brian did an outstanding job at his concert!
These two are the very best of friends.  I am so thankful for that.  I couldn't ask for better boys.
At the end of the month, Amber cut and donated her hair too. She cut 10 inches off!  This was right afterwards.  Of course, Katelynn wanted to be in the picture with Amber.  These girls sure do love each other.  :)
Amber and her ponytail to donate.  Great job Amber!!

March 2016


With the arrival of March came the Pinewood Derby!  Aaron's car was the Minecraft car that you see there. He drew the Steve on it all by himself.  He did an excellent job on his car I thought.
While his car did decent, it didn't ever win faster than second place.  That was okay, he still had a great time making it and racing it! 
 In March also came the time for the Odyssey of the Mind competition. The group that Brian was working with this year had a fun skit.  There wasn't much competition at this level, but the kids still did a great job.  Brian was, once again, the only boy on his team!
 Getting ready to go on~
 Kaylin, Lucy, and Amanda
 Brian was an alien.  He was nice and loud and did fantastic!
Afterward talking with the judges about what they did.
The judges go over how they built every piece and came up with their ideas.
Hooray!  They got first place and advanced on to State! 
 Tucking in the girls one night and they wanted to me take some pictures of them!
 They sure are sweet!!
 Another warm day meant another day to play outside.  The kids always come up with the strangest things to play.  :)  I like that they like to use their imaginations though!
 One advantage of being small is that you can still fit in your sister's jeep when she wants to drive you around the driveway! 
 Feeling good enough to ride his bike on the driveway for a bit.
 Katelynn was playing with her baby as I was putting together the new computer that we got that day.  She said she was doing her baby's hair! :)
 And, as usual, Momma came to visit us for her Spring Break!  I love that she would always come to see us on her break.  We didn't do anything super fun or out of the ordinary, but we still had a great time.
 The kids always loved it when Grandma would come to visit.  As usual, I was always too busy having fun to take lots of pictures.
While she was here she got to go with us to Weston's select band concert.  She loved it!  She loved music and thoroughly enjoyed hearing such a great band perform.
The kids after the concert. Being silly, as usual.
 Checking out the fish and ducks at the pond at NKU after the concert.
 One of the days that Grandma was here, we went to the zoo- just Grandma, Katelynn and I.  We had such a great time.  Grandma was happily taking pictures of everything.  I will miss that.  And I'll miss her here in a few weeks when she would have come for her visit.
She took Katelynn over to brush the goats.  She was always such a fun grandma to the kids.
 Katelynn riding the alligator before going into the manatee house while we were at the zoo.
 Momma would go with me to pick up the kids from school in the afternoons.  If the day was nice, we would stay after and let them play on the playground for a bit.  This particular day, Grandma was pushing Katelynn on the swing.
 This particular day Evan was able to do the cross bars all the way across.  For the first time in a long time.  I remember it so vividly because it gave me such hope that he was finally getting better.  Little did I know.....
 And finally, after loosing that other front top tooth at 3, Evan lost his other front tooth.  :)  Hooray!  He is getting so big!! 
 Out riding the bike for Grandma while she was here.
 One of the days after we picked up Evan from school Momma and I took the kids over to McDonalds for lunch and let them play on the outside playplace for a looooonnnngggg time!  We all had such fun.
I'm thinking that it must have been St Patrick's Day from all the green that everyone was wearing. Soon enough, it was time for grandma to head back home and for us to finish up our month here in Kentucky.
Brian headed off to Lexington for an overnight stay for his speech and debate state competition.  He didn't place, but he had a fantastic time!
Soon enough it was time for Easter and dying eggs!
 The kids are all big enough that only Katelynn needed help.  All those years ago when we were in the thick of little kids, I never thought that we would get to that point, but somehow it arrived.  Most of the kids are big and independent these days.
Just a random picture of Katelynn jumping on the trampoline downstairs.  I love that our playroom down there is big enough for slides and trampolines so that the kids can get some energy out on cold winter days. :)
And with the end of March came the beginning of Spring.  It came early this past year!  Must have been because of all that warm weather we had.
Our popcorn tree (aka our cherry tree) looked so pretty with the pink blossoms!