Spring Break...
So we sent Erika off to Texas on Friday, I had one show on Friday and 2 on Saturday and then I promised the rest of my kids that our Spring Break would officially start on Monday!

Monday morning I got up early and wrote down a whole bunch of low budget ideas on construction paper and then we put them on the wall. Things like: go to the park, go to the library, ping-pong pinball, coin toss, you get the idea. I think that there are about 40 pieces of paper up there and they are determined to do all of them. On Monday I had to take Joseph to get his 2 month shots and he was not a happy boy but only cried for a minute and then slept the rest of the day until he had to get new casts that afternoon (poor guy). I went to Walmart and purchased quite a few art supplies for my girls and then went home to find them cleaning and helping their grandma. They played Moon Sand and clay for quite a while and then they wanted to do something different. By the time I got home from the casting I was so tired and could not move and right then Eric showed up and took all of the kids to the park! They were so happy.:) As I stayed at home I got the idea to go to Fountain Hills and show the kids the fountain. We picked up a pizza on the way out and headed to F.H. We got there about 5:45 so we ate pizza and then at 6:00 the fountain went off and they all loved it! Jacob loved the 2 playgrounds and ran constantly back and forth. There was a disk swing (related to the tire swing) there and all 3 of my girls LOVED it. Mandy loved to push everyone as high as she could and then hop on. We all had a really good time. When we came home they picked a game from the wall and we played it and had such a good time. Then we made another one after that and we all laughed until it hurt. It felt so good to spend so much time with my kids and just have time to laugh and relax!

Tuesday morning came and I had to drop the kids off at Grandma's again so I could pick up the braces for Joseph. On our way home we all went to Michael's to get some more craft supplies. Not the best outing ever. Anna wanted to buy everything and Joseph was tired and cranky so we were all exhausted when we got home. The kids went straight to the fort to paint their new flower pots and bird houses and they had such a good time. They came in only long enough to have lunch then right back out. I went to get a hair cut and when I came back they wanted to play in the sprinkler and I could not think of a good reason to not let them so that's what they did! That lasted a while and when they were dry they came in and got dressed and we went to the library. We had such a good outing, no yelling and no one getting in trouble! We are going to do some serious reading here in the next few days. Emma wanted to play the computers so I went around and picked out some books for her. I got books that she could easily finish in one sitting so she can turn in some book lists for school but she did not want those kind of books. She wanted " real" books so she asked the librarian about real books about states and they went and found some and she did not put them down the rest of the day! Who knew? Mandy has already read 3 out of the 4 books that she checked out so we may have to make another trip later in the week! After the library we dropped Mandy off at Trevor's house and the rest of us went to Sam's for dinner. I love eating there because it only costs us $8.00 for all of us. After Sam's we finally went to the airport and picked up Erika!!!! We are so glad that she is home again. She had such a good time and said that she could have stood a few more days...maybe next time. All in all we are having a wonderful spring break and I love spending time with my kids. Hopefully we will get all of our activities done but even if we don't hopefully we are making some memories that will last a long time.