Sydney's Track and Field

Last year Sydney got the flu for Track and Field and only could do a couple of events. This year she was feeling fine. Each kid gets a card that gets marked with a ribbon color, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green according to how they performed. The first event was my least favorite...the shoe kick. Really??? To me they could've come up with something more than a shoe kick. The funny part was it was the one event Sydney and her friends practiced the most. They loved it!

Next was jumping rope.

Softball throw

Long jump

50 yard dash

Distance run

Tug-a-war

Mother's Day

Mother's day is always fun because the kids and Arlie have fun spoiling me. My morning started with coffee in bed (I finally convinced the kids I don't need a huge breakfast and i don't enjoy eating in bed ;) ) and with gifts. My favorite gifts are always the fun homemade things they make me or things that they write that describe me.

I had to teach my toddlers at church so I asked Arlie and the kids to help me for Mother's day. They did and it was fabulous. It was so nice having them in there and it made it so much easier with all the additional help. After that we went to Osaka and had Sushi and Hibachi. We had a "dream roll" which was just that...Dreamy. Note to self: The dream roll is 2 on my sushi delicious list.

The thing I love to do the most is be outside and go hiking. Unfortunately when we got out of Osaka....it was rainy :( YUCK. We decided to go to a movie. We had a groupon to go to the New Hope Cinema. They were playing the movie Hop and we thought the kids would love it. They did...I thought it was really dumb. Typically I can handle kids movies, but this one wasn't one I'd want to watch again. Thankfully I loved watching the kids watch it. I love watching their expressions and the joy they get out of silly moments in the movie. That part made me very happy.

Fortunately after the movie the rain had stopped. We went and found a cool spot in Maple Grove that had a Frisbee golf course and walked around there for awhile. Definitely my favorite part of the day. I made the kids pose for some pictures, we got a little muddy, and found a great place to come back to. The kids played at the playgroup. Arlie and I hung out and admired a tree that we decided we wanted in our yard...however, we have yet to figure out what it is. Dad? ;) After putting the kids in bed, we watched a chick flick. It was a lovely day. Nothing like being spoiled and adored all day! I love my family! I could do pretty much anything and if it was with them, I'd enjoy it (even Monopoly and Swimming ; )).

Summer grilling..oh yes!

Nothing smells more like summer than sunscreen, spring rain, fresh cut grass and GRILLING! I love to grill. I know that technically you can grill when it's winter and cold outside, but we never do. The best part is it becomes a treat when we can grill then. We got propane and fired up the grill. I went to turn on the other side of the grill and saw a lovely HUGE mouse nest. It definately put a bit of a damper on my excitement for grilling. Thankfully Arlie took it out and now grilling is lovely again!

Life is always better on the other side

The guardian of the fish

Blaine Junk Carnival

Every year our neighborhood has a HUGE garage sale weekend. There are over 250 sales. Along with the garage sales there are food vendors, other vendors, biffy's set up around the neighborhood, jumping castles for kids, Mascots walking around and tons and tons of people. There are cars lined up and down the streets, people pulling wagons, strollers and carts. People traveling by foot, bike, golf cart, and 4 wheelers. It's absolute craziness. It's a super fun time to people watch. My favorite are the scopers. They drive around and look for specific things like furniture or small motor things like our broken down snow blower that doesn't work ;) They drive in a big truck and slow down at every sale to see if they have what they want. If they do, they sometimes pull over...sometimes just stop and jump out. Ask how much you want, whip out the money, load it up and are off to grab the next thing. I think they are extremely entertaining! It's always the first Saturday in May if you ever want to experience the Junk Carnival first hand. It's pretty phenomenal.

The pictures aren't very good because I didn't want to bring a big camera out and have people wonder why I'm taking random pictures of them. I brought out my little junky point and shoot and held it at my waist and took them like a spy :) What can I say? I'm sneaky :)

The Science Museum Field Trip

One thing I love about working from home and having my own schedule is being able to chaperon the kids' field trips (when my name is drawn). When Jordan was in 2nd grade I wasn't able to go on any of his trips which bummed him out greatly. So this year, when my name got drawn, I knew I'd better take advantage of it. I was assigned 5 kids. I was pretty nervous because the Science Museum is rather large and one of my greatest fears is losing a kid. The kids were awesome. I had Jordan and his friend Brandon and then 3 girls: Emma, Emma and Kaitlyn. I was trying to decide how to go about letting them see the exhibits. I realized that they are old enough and mature enough to just tell them, stay in one section and then find me when they want to leave. It was perfect. They felt like they had freedom. I wasn't stressed out trying to keep a kid at an exhibit they were bored with and we all had a blast. Best of all, I didn't lose any kids :) I saw many other chaperons that looked very stressed while trying to keep every kid at arms length! We went to the Omni theater movie about Mummies. It was pretty good. My favorite part was the gasps from the kids when it first started and they finally got to see how LARGE the screen really was! My absolute favorite part of the day was when Jordan came home with "thank you" notes from the kids. I just have to share them, as they are written, because they are so fabulous!.

"Dear Mrs. Norwood, Thank you very much for chaperoning me and the group. I enjoyed visiting the water current exhibit at the science museum and seeing Mummies at the Omni Theater. Personaly, I thought the real Mummy was creepy, I'm glad they don't mummifie people anymore. Sincerely, Emma."

"Dear Mrs. Norwood, Thank you for chaperoning me. I really enjoyed the tugboat, water current, human body, and the Omni Theater. I like the way you let me explore the exhibit and let me see the real mummy. Sincerely, Kaitlin"

"Dear Mrs. Norwood, I had lots of fun in the human body and the tugboat exhibit. But he thing I liked about them was that movie and the boat game. I wish we could go to the King Tut exhibit. Thanks for helping us. Sincerely, Jordan"

"Dear Mrs. Norwood, Thank you for chaperoning. You did an irresistible job! My favorite part was when we went to the Omni Theater. I liked how you let us visit the exhibits. Thank you very much! Your the best! Sincerely Emma."

"Dear Mrs. Norwood, I appreciate you going out of your way to come and chaperone. Thank you for letting us explore the dinosaur exhibit, the tugboat and the water current. I just want to say that you were the best chaperon ever, and i liked the real mummy exhibit. Sincerely, Brandon."

Aren't they so CUTE! Love it :)