Warm weather beckoned us outside last week! It was absolutely beautiful without all the humidity. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. We took advantage of the warm weather to take the art easel outside and do a little creating.

The boys’ all shared one side of the easel.

Josiah in a messless outfit…wash and wear!

He took this painting thing very seriously.

Ta Da! They titled it, “Spiderman’s Clubhouse.”

The artist getting her inspiration.

Concentrating on each brushstroke.

Working AND posing for pictures….yes, folks, she’s that good!

And Zoe’s creation. I forgot to ask her the title.

Beautiful weather took my nesting outside where I watched the kids and Mark clean the van. To be fair, I cleaned the stroller, inside windows, and made bread…but I did mostly watch. They worked hard. Josiah worked some but he mostly liked playing in the “bub bub.”

About three weeks ago a friend who works at a school helped out with a cinnamon roll fundraiser. I love school cinnamon rolls…don’t know why but I do. Anyway, we ordered a dozen and then she came over with at least 10 pounds of dough all ready for cinnamon rolls. I didn’t have time to make any that day, so I split it between a friend and me and then froze it. I’ve never worked with frozen dough before so this was a big trial run.

This week, we pulled it out and defrosted it and made cinnamon rolls. Now, I could’ve made the healthy low sugar ones with honey…but I didn’t. Celebrating the fact that I have not gained over 50 pounds this pregnancy (not even close), I decided we’d make the good ol’ not good for you ones. I had help too!

Tracy, I thought you’d enjoy seeing what we came up with! They were actually quite large and I should have split the dough to make them smaller…but this was trial and error for me.

The end results were just as yummy and there are now 1 1/2 dozen sitting in the freezer waiting to be thawed, iced and eaten sometime this month, I’m sure.

For Dr. Seuss’s birthday celebration on Monday, we made oobleck (courtesy of Steve Spangler). We also read Bartholmew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss to go along with our homemade stuff. The kids so enjoyed it. Mark did too!

First, we play with the pans and stick them on our head.

Note to self: do not mix food coloring and oobleck wtih your hand…you get a food colored hand…in this case, green!

Oooo…oobleck

I’m telling ya’ll…this is a boys activity if ever there was one…lots of messy fun!

Taking advantage of the beautiful spring like weather this weekend, we embarked on our annual leaf raking adventure. The kids all had to help but we only had two rakes, so Mark pulled out a broom for Liam…he swept our yard! Anyway, after some raking, I suggested Mark call a friend and ask to borrow their leaf blower. He called. And within about 20 minutes, he was able to get the leaves up to rake in to large piles. Unfortunately, his transportation method broke and there are three piles of leaves in the yard that still need to be moved…but at least they’re (mostly) out of the yard.

Josiah got to sweep the yard some.

But then decided his “bu bu” was a better read.

Taking a break from raking to have a little sword fight.

Taking a break from raking to have a leaf fight (there were a lot of breaks).

“Fighting” the leaves from the leaf blower.

Liam has a “sword.”

Sweeping the leaves some more.

And finally, enjoying hard work by jumping in the pile!

The kids decided they would camp out in the hallway. No reason…just because. They got all the pillows out of every nook and crannny and piled them up with blankets. And what day was this??? Why Monday of course…Destruction Day!