Spring in Michigan

Spring is in FULL bloom here in Michigan. Our family is loving it! It is so refreshing to see a fresh, new beginning in nature after a long and harsh winter. Spring to me is all about new growth, life, vitality and new beginnings. I love that it stays light outside for longer and it's so wonderful to see new growth on the bare trees and buds on spring flowers. We see more people out and about and everyone seems happier and less stressed out. I think the new energy is contagious!

Spring is an excellent time to clean up inside the house and get rid of things you don't need anymore. I've started doing that the last few weeks. It's not always a fun job, but it needs to be done. I actually feel quite happy when I declutter and reorganize things! It's so rejuvenating!

This last weekend, our family spend the majority of our Saturday cleaning up our yard, putting up our gazebo and deck furniture, cleaning the cars (inside and out), and organizing our outdoor shed. The only thing we didn't get to was weeding our garden and fixing the shingles on our roof. We'll have to do that next weekend. We rewarded ourselves in the evening with a barbeque with all the works, and then we had a family movie party in the evening. It always feels good to get so much done on the weekend.

We drove home slowly from church on Sunday as we enjoyed looking at all the spring blossoms and flowers. We stopped and took a few pictures of the kids with the blossoms since they were already dressed up. Hope you are enjoying the beautiful spring weather as much as we are!

Alex's Fieldtrip

I was sick at the beginning of last week. I think I caught a little bug that Alex brought home from school the week before. He had to miss school the Thursday before. Joshua took a sick day from work on Tuesday to help me with Logan so I was could sleep and relax all day. I needed to get better because I had such a busy week, which is usually pretty normal around here, but most especially now since there are only a few more weeks until the end of the school year and the kids have so many activities from now until then. Alex had a field trip on Wednesday, Jessica had a Mother-Daughter night at "Activity Days" on Wednesday night, all the kids were out of school on Thursday, and Logan had several activities on Friday. I was still sluggish for the rest of the week, but I felt much better than Monday night and Tuesday. I most especially wanted to get better by Wednesday since I volunteered to chaperone the fieldtrip for Alex's 1st grade class to "Oakwoods Nature Center". Although I didn't feel quite right on Wednesday morning, I decided to go anyway.

I'm glad I did. Alex loved having me there. He held my hand the entire time we were on the mile-long nature walk and as we toured the nature center. He wanted to sit next to me during the 45-minute nature presentation and during our picnic. He also sat next to me on the bus as we went to and from the fieldtrip. I brought jolly ranchers for us to eat on the bus and he also loved playing thumb wars, arm wrestling and other silly games I thought of as we rode to and from the fieldtrip.

I picked up Logan from a friend's house (thank you, Megan!) and came home and crashed! I took a 2 hour nap before everyone got home from school. I took the kids to McDonalds because I wasn't up to making dinner that night; then ran off with Jessica to her Mother/Daughter night at the church. I'm just praying now that noone else in the house gets sick. It was pretty miserable!

But I had a great time with Alex on his fieldtrip! He is such a great kid!

Mottos to live by

One of my favorite mottos to live by:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can...

Here are some of my other favorites ---

1. Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

2. We are highly evolved spiritual beings having an earthly experience.

3. In every idea a multitude of new ideas is lying dormant. (Emmanual Swedenborg)

4. The earliest you can start any project is now. (Lucy Mallan)

5. The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside us while we live.

6. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

7. It's not how hard you can hit, but get hit and keep moving forward. (Rocky Balboa)

8. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

9. To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. (William James)

10. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. (Barry LePatner)

11. That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. (Henry David Thoreau)

12. Live in the moment, not the past or the future.

13. You are either growing or regressing, there is no middle. Which one are you?

14. Be yourself, because the people who don't mind are the ones who matter and the people who do mind are the ones who don't matter.

15. He who always walks in darkness, shall never find a path.

16. A successful man is a man who has tried and failed a thousand times.

17. He who does not stand for something, will fall for anything.

18. Finish what you start.

19. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

20. You can't change other people. You can only change yourself.

21. Your focus determines your reality.

22. Be careful of your THOUGHTS, for your thoughts become your words. Be careful of your WORDS, for your words become your actions. Be careful of your ACTIONS, for your actions become your habits. Be careful of your HABITS, for your habits become your character. Be careful of your CHARACTER, for your character becomes your destiny.

23. Figure it out!

24. If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart.

25. It isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are! (Douglas Malloch)

26. Don't waste time worrying about what you can't change.

27. You get out what you put in.

28. Every cloud has a silver lining.

29. Everything has a flip side.

30. Belief in limits, creates limited people.


What is your favorite motto to live by? One that inspires you. I'd love to hear it!

An Outing to the Ford Museum

It's been a while since I've been to the Ford Museum in Dearborn, so when I found out that every month the museum has a special "children's outing day" where the museum provides games, activities, storytelling, giveaways and more for kids, Logan and I decided to spend the day there. We were glad to have some friends come with us. I found a coupon for 25% off an adult admission, plus children 4 and under get in free, so it was a bargain.

We saw lots of fun things, did lots of fun things, and had a great time. Some of the museum highlights are --- the chair that Lincoln was assassinated in (in Ford's Theater in Washington DC), the Rosa Parks bus, and the presidential limousine that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in. So many unusual and different items and collections, along with lots of cars, planes, trains, and other old-fashioned household items, toys, clothing, agricultural, and industrial collective items.

Greenfield Village (an outdoor village next to the Ford museum) has a "children's day outing" planned next month. Logan and I plan to go. We love Greenfield Village. I took all the kids last summer (see link here), but because Logan is still young enough to get in for free, I figure it's smart to go now while it's cheap.

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile

A Dymaxion House

Inside the Rosa Parks Bus

Spring Carnival

Last Friday night, our elementary school had a spring carnival. We ate dinner, played carnival games, won prizes and we even won a raffle that gave us a sandwich party platter from one of our families' favorite restaurants - "Jimmy John's". The kids had a marvelous time! We even convinced Spencer to come. He was anxious to see some of his old teachers. He also wanted to see if the school had changed very much. He said it looked the same...

When we got home, we popped some popcorn and had a movie party. We watched the old Christopher Reeves "Superman". The kids had never seen it, so Joshua and I showed it to them. They enjoyed it except Alex and Logan fell asleep half-way through. Alex was very upset when he woke up in the morning and realized he had missed half the movie. He said he wants to see it again sometime, but not so late at night when he's too tired.

On Saturday, we picked up our Jimmy John's party platter and ate a very yummy lunch! The rest of the day we ran the kids around to parties and playdates. It was a fun family weekend!

Jessica's Learning Fair

Thursday night was the 4th and 5th grade Learning Fair at school this year. 5th graders have "mini-society" businesses where they sell goods that they made (See Spencer's mini-society business last year -- His Business and Pet Rocks). The 4th graders presented a "Living Museum" in the gym where each student represents a different person from history that they've studied and researched. They make a 'bottle person', a poster, a 1-2 minute personal history speech, a button (that people can push when they wanted to listen to a speech; students got very creative!), and a costume. On the night of the presentation, each historical figure had their own station in the gym and family members walk around to look at each 'historical figure' and listen to their speech. Jessica looked great and did a good job!

Here is pictures of Jessica as Sacagawea ---

Alex's Learning Fair Night

Tonight was the "2008 Learning Fair" at the kid's elementary school for grades K-2nd. It's a night held annually at the school where each class displays their work in their classroom and around the building. Each class also gives some sort of presentation to their families. This year, the Learning Fair is going to be split up into 2 different nights -- one night is K-2nd, and another night this week is grades 3rd-5th. On Thursday, Jessica will be dressed up as Sacagawea (the biography figure she chose) in a "live museum" where parents and families can meet different historical and contemporary figures. More on that later this week.....

Tonight though, Alex's first grade class had an animal rhymes presentation in the gym. He was a shark and spent a lot of time this week memorizing his part --

"With my keen sense of smell,
I hunt in the sea.
From my razor sharp teeth,
Other fish flee."

He did a great job! I took a picture of him on stage during his perfomance, along with another fellow shark --

Future Kindergartener

Introducing a member of the class of 2021....
Logan Taylor Dyal!

Logan went with me to the 2008-2009 kindergarten registration today. He was so excited! I don't think he quite understood that it was just 'registration' and not the first day of school. As soon as we arrived at the school, he expected to go to Alex's former kindergarten room and see who he thought would be his new teacher, Ms. Dubay - Alex's teacher from last year. Instead, we went to the gym for a presentation by the principal and he slowly started to realize that he wasn't going to school yet.

While the principal talked about the kindergarten curriculum, school policies and answered questions with the parents, the kindergarten teachers took the children on a tour of the school, read them a story and showed them how to make a frog puppet. They also got a chance to go on a bus ride and each was given a Walker-Winter Elementary School t-shirt and a backpack full of supplies.

The children were divided into 3 groups, one for each kindergarten teacher. Logan went with Jessica's former kindergarten teacher, Mr. Ingram. She was in his class almost 5 years ago and I later talked to him about the time that Jessica had me bring newborn baby Logan for show-and-tell to his classroom. I remember how eager she was to show off her new baby brother to her class. Mr. Ingram and I laughed about it and he told me it was the first and only time one of his students brought a real baby for show-and-tell. He couldn't believe that Logan was almost 5 and already coming into kindergarten this fall. (That makes 2 of us!!) We hope Mr. Ingram is Logan's kindergarten teacher next year.

Below is a picture of Logan sporting his new t-shirt. As soon as we got home after registering, he tore off his shirt and put on his new one and has been wearing it proudly all day long.

One Fine April Day

Today was one of the first beautiful, warm spring days in Michigan this year. It was gorgeous outside and the warm 68 degree sun was beckoning to me!! Although I was reluctant at first since I hate falling behind in my chores, I enthusiastically decided to drop my daily responsibilities after walking outside and feeling the warm sun radiate throughout my body. I've been more than ready to have a day like this again, so Logan and I packed a picnic lunch, jumped on my bike and took off to the park. We spent about 3 hours riding and playing, and we have the sun-kissed (or burned) noses to prove it!

After dinner, Josh discovered Logan asleep on the family room couch. He was exhausted after our long day in the sun! He's very similar to me that way; the sun quickly drains me of energy too, especially if I'm not use to it. I guess we'll have to readjust ourselves to playing in the outdoor sun again. It's been a long winter!!

I'm glad I remembered my camera for our outting today. I took some cute pics ---

Getting ready to leave

Eating lunch

Rolling down a hill at the park

Logan learned to pump his legs and swing all by himself.
He was very proud of how high he could get.

A Cousin's Birthday

A couple weekends ago, the kids and I went down to Columbus for my niece's third birthday. My sister Kim threw her a party at McDonald's; in the evening we had a family party at their house. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that weekend ----

Logan and Allison
(Kim made her a 'Littlest Pet Shop' birthday cake)

Allison is 3!

Jessica and Allison -- the 2 girl cousins
(... along with 10 boy cousins!!)

Ethan is ready to party!

Jessica loves Ethan

Jacob and Logan -- the 4-year-old cousins

Carter and Alex -- good buddies!!

We love Uncle Tyler!

Tyler and Kim

Cousins!

Kisses for Ethan