Happy Birthday Mary Girl!

Happy 9th Birthday to our Mary!

It was a happy day.  Nanny and Papa in town, presents, and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.  It's hard to ask for more than that!

Mary's favorite food still is (and probably always will be) chocolate, HERSHEY'S chocolate to be exact.  She showed more excitement opening this Hershey bar than she did opening a Harry Potter Film Wizardry book.  Geez (though she hasn't put that book down since her birthday)

The request this year was a "fancy chocolate cake with chocolate covered strawberries".  She was happy with the end results.  I was reminded that we should make chocolate covered strawberries more often--delish!

This year is our 'go out to eat for your birthday' year.  Mary's birthday coincided with another reward the kids had been working toward so we felt the need to go big--Chuck E Cheese big.  The kids had a blast.  Mary even won 100 tickets on one game...excitement was in the air.

No Chuck E Cheese pictures of Andrew, but he was there, blowing his tokens as fast as the rest of them.

Happy birthday Mary.  I think she even blew them all out in one blow--take that asthma!

And, in honor of her 9th birthday, here are 9 things about Mary:

chocolate lover, piano player,

 book devourer (current favs are Books of Umber, Sisters Grimm and Harry Potter), 

Harry Potter obsessor,  Lego builder, talk talk talker, sleeper inner, Girl Scouter, Activity Days lover

We love you Mary!

Family Fun Day

 We attended the elementary school family fun day.  Give my kids some tickets to spend and cotton candy and we're good to go.  Each year I see a lot more potential for our school's family day--fortunately my kids think it's amazing.  I also see my life being more full than I prefer to do anything about it.  In the meantime, I'll just continue to be grateful for the volunteers who do a lot and hope that one of these days I'll be able to do more.

Happy cotton candy girls.  And yes, Annie's face was totally disgusting after this.  Her face always has a way of being totally disgusting.  Something I love about her.

 

Andrew dunked his principal.  That made his day!

Bounce house fun!

3rd Grade Fun

Mary had a few fun happenings at school this past month.

First there was her "Music Times Three" concert.  She misses a recess once every 6 days to attend a music class.  They performed the songs they've been working on this year.  She did a nice job.  (front row and orange dress).

She also got to attend Tolland Green Day.  3rd graders have spent all year learning Connecticut and specifically Tolland history.  It helps that our town was named in 1715--it's been here a while.  Each student was assigned to be a specific child from Tolland in the 1800s.  They dressed in traditional clothes and spent all day on the green touring the old jail museum, the Hicks museum, learning traditional dances, sketching houses, attending a one room school house, etc, etc.  Mary was Lily Crandall.  Her father owned the cider mill and Crandall Park where we always play and swim was named after her family.  She even helped dig the pond.  

Looking cute.  Her pioneer costume that Grandma sewed has come in handy.

Mary with our neighbor Sammy

The life of Andy

Andrew, aka Andy has been up to some fun lately.  I still call him Andrew but find myself occasionally calling him Andy or calling him Andy as I correspond with people from school.  Still doesn't feel totally normal.

He's been playing baseball this spring and loving it.  We've definitely seen skill improvement this year and a lot less dancing in the field.  Good times. :)

Matt and Andrew went camping a few weekends back and had super amounts of fun.  Get this boy outside and he's one happy kid.

Go Mary!

Mary's hard work has been paying off lately.  Two 'big news' things in the past week.

Saturday we attended a local art show where Mary had a piece of art on display.  Her art teacher at school selected it for the show.  Mary was quite the proud girl and super excited to see a ribbon hanging from it when we arrived (all the student art displayed had a ribbon).

The assignment was something about displaying your family and one of your favorite things.  The fam is depicted along with Hershey bars.  Don't be fooled, the "H's" have nothing to do with our family--it's all about the HERSHEY. :)

Then yesterday we got a call from the town celebration committee letting us know that Mary had won the Memorial Day writing contest for the 3rd and 4th grade age group.  She won a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble.  Her essay, which had to be about "why I love the American flag and how do I show it", will be posted in the online town newspaper and she will be recognized at the town Memorial Day parade (which of course is on a Sunday).  The lady was super understanding of why Mary wouldn't be at the parade and said that her gift card is in the mail.

Happy Day Mary!  We're all proud of you!!!

Letterboxing

Mary's Girl Scout troop learned about Letterboxing a few weeks back and Mary has gotten our family hooked.  I didn't even know what it was so I was very surprised that our town had about 50 letterboxes hidden all over.  Basically, you follow clues to find a 'letterbox' which is hidden in a public place, often a trail, cemetary, park, school, etc.  Inside the box, the creator has placed a stamp and a notepad.  You stamp their stamp in your notepad and leave a stamp of your own in their pad.

www.atlasquest.com is a great website to tell you the location for letterboxes as well as the clues to find them.

We've found 6 in town so far.  Here are a few shots on one of our excursions.

FUN!

Where the Green Grass Grows

I planted grass seed a few weeks back to put an end to our neverending trench work.  It was a long job that left me paranoid that none would grow.  Halleluia that it worked!

Before:

After:

 Before:

After:

 I am loving having grass and a yard again instead of dirt and rocks everywhere.  Now except for the large pile of rocks at the top of our hill in the back and the pile of gravel out front, we're done.  Sigh....