Open House, MCC, and Palm Sunday

The past few days have been full, and very fun! This past Thursday was Open House for Audrey and Isaac's elementary school. We started off in Isaac's classroom where he got a chance to show us how much he's learned in reading and math through various stations set up around the room. He also proudly showed off some artwork to Dad (I say Dad because I'd already seen them since I am the room-mom that does art/craft projects with the kids every Friday morning). Isaac and his horse painting. Isaac with his teacher!

After that we headed down the hall to Audrey's room which was FULL of stuff to see! They are studying life cycle in insects, so Audrey's teacher has silk worms in a box, painted butterflies in a netted cage, some other kind of insect in a cocoon, as well as an art farm, ladybugs, a tarantula named Harriet, and a praying mantis with an egg sack. Finally, Audrey wanted to show us her mealworm. Each student was given a mealworm over a month ago and has observed and journaled about it while caring for it and watching it turn into a pupa. Lucky for us, she got to take it home for spring break so that we can watch it eventually turn into a beetle. Ironically, instructions were sent home on how to "care" for your mealworm, observing the life cycle, and eventually to "dispose" of the mealworm once it turns into a beetle as these are considered "pests". Hmmmm. Audrey showing Dad how she navigates her school laptop.

Since Friday was the last day of school before Spring Break, each of the kids' classes had a spring party. We made sugar cookies in the shape of flowers, bunnies, and butterflies for the event, but died the dough purple! They turned out nicely. Violet hard at work!

Friday night we headed out to the West Coast Mennonite Relief Sale (aka MCC Sale)! As most of you know, our family looks forward to this weekend ALL YEAR LONG! We love visiting with friends, eating great German food, and mostly, raising money to help people around the world whose lives have been upended by natural (and man-made) disasters. I was very excited this year to see a booth selling borscht (a soup with meat, potatoes, cabbage, and dill)! I'm still holding out hope for the Russian pancakes to come back some day! Even after zwiebach, German sausage, and salad, Audrey and I warmed our tummies with a big bowl of yumminess! We went to the Ten Thousand Villages tent (handcrafts from around the world) and let the kids each pick out a little something. Audrey picked a ring. Isaac picked a stuffed lizard and snake. Violet picked a stuffed monkey. We let the kids jump in the bounce house for a while! We went to the "country store" and bought 2 homemade pies and some pomegranate jelly! Then we sat inside the gym to watch the antique auction (and get a break from the cold wind), chatting with friends and eating raisin fritters and more zwiebach! As you can see, Violet, Charlotte, and Mya enjoy eating their zwiebach! We left well after dark, but early enough to get a good nights' sleep so that we could get up the next morning and do it all over again! Randy was the first to rise on Saturday morning so that he could be at the track, ready to run the 10K Run for Relief at 7 a.m. He ran his fastest time ever for that distance, 46:04! Good job Randy! We got there a little later to join Randy for pancake breakfast with more German sausage! We enjoyed the next few hours visiting with friends, letting the kids play some fun games, watching the quilt auction for a while, and, of course, eating some lunch before we headed home! Is this fun or what? Lizard-head!


Our full weekend ended with the kids singing in church for Palm Sunday. Isaac sang out loud and strong, and didn't hit anyone with his palm branch this year...hooray! And Violet sang too, while standing and waving her palm branch (as opposed to kneeling down and making faces like she did at Christmas)...hooray again!