March Madness with the Harris Family

It's been a long time since I've been able to update my blog. Now, I'm just trying to give a condensed version of our life for the past month. As a side note, while I've been preparing the pictures for this post, Gehrig has been reading a Human Anatomy book to the rest of the children and examining everybody's veins, bones, teeth, etc. telling them all about the things he is learning. It's great to see learning taking place without my bossy influence! :)

The first set of pictures are from our trip to the Draper Library for March Marble Madness (a K12 activity to help the children learn some math through games with marbles). On our way to the activity, we stopped at Applebees for lunch (redeeming coupons the boys had earned from K12). It was so nice to have all four of them acting appropriately in public! A rare occasion (hopefully getting less rare as they grow older and I learn better parenting skills). Emma & Isaiah had a "ball" playing with a ball behind the scenes.

March brought great winds--maybe too great for kite flying, but we tried it anyway. It was fun to have Lou flying with the boys. The little ones missed out this time b/c they were taking naps.

We had so much fun watching Lou during his tournament games. His team won the stake tournament and went on to the regional tournament. They won for the 3rd year in a row (even with the ward boundary change that took away some of our key players--but added other key players)! Isaiah couldn't wait for the game to end so that he could have his time on the court. He was the last one out of the gym that day--being eventually kicked out! :)

Our poor house. . .Gehrig threw or kicked or something (I wasn't there to witness it) an empty laundry basket into our wall and put a great big hole in the wall. I put cardboard over it for over a month while waiting for Lou to help fix it. My friend MaryLynn loaned her kind brother-in-law the other day to help fix it while he was fixing a hole in her wall. He was so cute to let the boys help him fix it. Now we just need to prime it and repaint. At least the hole is patched up!

One day I heard hysterical laughing outside from Gehrig & Damian. I went out to see what was so funny and found Emma working in the dirt with the big boys and Isaiah wearing her Snow White dress. Sometimes the big brothers think it's funny when Isaiah joins Emma in her play, but often they are disturbed by it and try to get the "girl" things off of him!Another fun puzzle we did together as a family.

Too precious! I love the angelic sleeping face. Lou brought his sleeping "pose" to my attention.

Puzzlemania!!

We found a family hobby this week! Puzzles! Lou, the boys and I have been putting puzzles together like crazy! It's been so much fun. We started with Mt. Vernon. Then Lou called me from DI to see if we'd like another puzzle. The next was the Amish quilts. Very fun! The third one, I forgot to take a picture of (a crazy zoo scene with the animals acting like the people and vice versa) and now we're working on a Disney Panorama puzzle (750 pieces). We've been listening to the greatest books on tape while we puzzle away (The Great Brain Series by John D. Fitzgerald). The stories remind me so much of Uncle Tim and dad growing up! I think Dad would get a kick out of reading them. Anyway. . .such fun memories we're building as we work together on a project and listen to good books! Anybody want to trade puzzles? :)

That was Gehrig & Damian putting the last piece in!