Happy Mother's Day!

Maddy and Carl and I went over to mom and dad's house this evening for an impromptu Mother's Day dinner. I was really nice! Mom and I cooked, while dad hung out at the table and the kids played outside and inside.

Here are some inside pictures. We put air in a second bouncey ball so they each had one to fly around the house.

Between going outside to play, and bouncing about, there was some much needed downtime right before dinner. I love how they both stayed on their balls to watch some Pokemon though.

And I so love this picture of Carl and Poppy relaxing after dinner.

Happy Mother's Day everyone from some crazy, bouncing kids.

Cooking with Maddy

Rhubarb season is in full swing. That means it's time for cooking.

Tonight Maddy picked a bunch from mom's house so that she could make some rhubarb cake.

I am pretty sure she had ulterior motives for wanting to make cake...

It turned out beautifully though and now we have a delicious looking breakfast for the morning.

And Scott brought over another bag full of rhubarb tonight. Wonder what she will cook up next?!

Beautiful weather and another post

It was absolutely lovely out tonight. So Maddy and I walked over to Blackhawk school to play for a while after dinner.

We had a great time... and then Maddy got a bath because that black shirt and those black pants were no longer black when we left the park. They were an odd shade of dusty grey. The messier you get just signifies how much fun it was though!

Practice, practice, practice

Maddy is working on her pitching arm.

She was actually getting pretty good by the end. She could stack the cans in a pyramid and knock them over in a couple throws.

We are going to have to get Soren and Carl involved too. Only six more players for a team, right?

Outside time

The rain has finally stopped for a bit this week and it wasn't terribly cold, so we were actually able to spend some time outside tonight!

Of course, the hose had to get turned on.

The car is beautifully clean now though! Thanks, Maddy!

Brought to you by Maddy

So yesterday we actually attempted to make a camera from the "Paper Camera" book that Maddy got in Rockford. She was so excited and telling me about all the things that she was going to take pictures of and that Ash and I would need to put our arms around each other and say, "Mario Kart 8" so she could take a picture.

Well, let's just say the paper camera ended up being a bit too complex and in the long run, was really not what Maddy was after. So what do you do?

Maddy got a cellphone... sort of.

She actually got one of our old cellphones that doesn't have any actual data so she can't make calls. It just makes a nice camera. So tonight's pictures are courtesy of Maddy who has learned to take her first selfies.

Maddy earns a day out

Maddy is getting better at reading, although she won't admit to it. She is at the point now where reading is still work, so if she has a choice, she prefers not to do it.

To counter that, we have come up with a reading challenge. If Maddy reads 10 books to Ash and I during the week, she gets to pick a place to go on Saturday. The location has to be agreed upon at the beginning of the week, so we don't get any crazy surprises. And she can only re-read the same book twice.

We came up with this plan kind of late in the week. Thursday to be exact, but the location was Monkey Joe's in Rockford, so she had her incentive. Maddy spent all of Friday plowing through books and she got her 10 books in by the end of the day. So Saturday morning we were off to Monkey Joe's, where Maddy bounced a lot!

Then we made a stop at the Half Price Bookstore, because who doesn't need books.

Maddy picked out some good ones. Her two favorites were a book on how to make paper pinhole cameras.

And a dinosaur book that had a pop-out stegosaurus to build.

We just found out that there is a bounce house place in Freeport now, so that is what we are challenging Maddy with this week! Here's to a week of reading!