Fun times

Finn and his favorite 5th grader, Erik.  We attended Erik's first communion service at church over the weekend.  

Finn and the Basswood Bulldog at the school carnival

Finn and his buddy Max on a beautiful sunny day

Aiden went on a field trip to the Old Cahill school and learned about school, manners, and life in the pioneer days

He wasn't too crazy about the clothing, but enjoyed the trip!

Mimi treated us to dinner at our favorite taco place

Liam and his buddy Kaden at the library on Twins Day (the boys wore their hockey jerseys)

The ice rink is gone for the summer!  All of the boards are packed away on that trailer and are now stored at a facility nearby.

Twins day at school and the school carnival

We have enjoyed some fun events lately including the school carnival.  Luke, Liam, and Aiden's school has a spring carnival fundraiser each year and boys love it.  Luke and Liam went out on their own this year and each walked around with various friends.  Aiden went around with a buddy and his dad while Finn found his favorite 5th grader, Erik.  This year I helped with the ring toss which ended up being a super busy job.

The hockey rink is officially gone for the season.  John packed up the boards over the weekend and the boys and I helped him load them all on the trailer so he could haul it off to storage.  We will pull them back out in late November, most likely.  Good to have the backyard back again!

We have had a few days of gorgeous sunshine mixed in with lots of days with rain.  We are excited to have baseball starting this week if the rain will subside a bit.  Luke, Liam, and Aiden are all playing baseball with several buddies from school.  It should be a fun season of baseball for us!

Easter 2017

Finn loved hunting for Easter Eggs

He practiced hiding the eggs and hunting for the eggs

Take one...not the best

And Take two...We may try again on another Sunday with the same clothing!

New Easter Egg dying method

Luke is getting ready to dye some eggs

It was fun!

And quite messy....

Aiden has on his gloves to protect from his egg allergy.   We all wore glove this year so our hands won't be pink and purple even though Finn still had pink and purple arms!

Our eggs

Happy Easter!!

Checking out our Easter baskets



We had a very nice Easter in Minnesota.  While Spring in MN is not my favorite time of year, we were fortunate to have a couple of sunny days.  Its still not quite spring here, but the grass is very slowly starting to turn green and grow.  Hopefully by May, we will have some consistently warmer weather and less rain.

The boys were very excited to hunt Easter eggs this year and we enjoyed a nice Easter morning breakfast followed by church and a day outside with friends playing baseball and then roasting s'mores.  I found a method to dye eggs on Pinterest that used shaving cream and food coloring.  From the pictures, it appeared to work much better than the traditional vinegar and dye methods we have tried in the past.  It was also a bit more interactive and fun so we tried it.  The boys LOVED the shaving cream idea and could have played with that for hours.  The method itself, was pretty messy and I wouldn't say our eggs turned out anywhere near as nice as the ones on Pinterest.  I don't typically do Pinterest things because they never quite turn out as nice, but I guess the bonus is that the boys enjoyed it.  

Highlights from our Week

Sorting his cereal at breakfast!

Palm Sunday 2017.  Finn is on the front row in a yellow and navy stripe shirt.

Aiden has stood next to the same cute red headed girl every year.  Her name is Josie and she lived in our old neighborhood.

Finn at his buddy Cole's 5th (red shirt, #13) birthday!  We have mentioned before that Finn is quite tall for his age.  This is a picture of  Finn with several boys who are 5 years old and heading to kindergarten next year!

Aiden caught a fish with his best friend, Anders, and his Dad

We were a bit sad to start back to school this week after a fun Spring Break, but we are beginning to get back into the routine.  Luke, Liam, and Aiden are playing on some fun spring hockey teams and we had our first games.  The games are full ice with penalties, referees, and they keep score.  They are also playing with several of their best friends because a couple of parents put the teams together.

We had some gorgeous weather over the weekend and enjoyed lost of time outdoors.  Aiden was invited to go fishing with his buddy and our neighbor, Anders.  Finn enjoyed a birthday party for a buddy, Cole.  He met Cole at the hockey rink because he has an older brother that was on a team with Luke and Liam so Finn and Cole spent many hours over the winter running around the rink.  And lastly, we celebrated Palm Sunday at church and all four boys sang in the church service.

Happy Easter!

Spring Break 2017

Finn at the baseball game

Aunt Ann and the boys getting ready for the game

Singing the national anthem

Serious conversations with Aunt Ann and Aiden

Running the bases with the boys after the game

This guy, Sean, is on Zach's team and he's from Minnesota!  Another obvious fact about him...he's 6 foot 11 inches tall!!  

Getting Cousin Zach to give some autographs

The boys with another team mate, Evan White

Driving to the game!

Tailgating before the game

Cousin Seth with the boys

Dinner after the game

Group picture with Zach after the game

Mall of America with our buddies

Finn riding the cars

Checking out dinosaurs at the Science Museum

News broadcasters, Liam and friend Adam

Lots of boys in the elevator (Luke is on the far left, but not in the picture)

We had a wonderful Spring Break even though Mom might need a break after the "break."  We stayed busy while school was out with lots of fun things around the Twin Cities area followed by a short trip to see our cousin Zach play baseball.

On Monday, we took a trip to the Mall of America with our best friends, Jack and Charlie, along with a good friend of mine and her two boys.  We were at the Mall of America amusement park from around 1:00 pm until 7:30 pm.  It was a lot of fun and a bit crazy trying to keep up with 8 boys!!

On Tuesday, we took a trip to the Science Museum and spent the day learning about dinosaurs, weather, the physics behind sports, and lots of other good things.  We went with another group of friends and had 8 boys again to keep up with.  This was Finn's first trip to the Science Museum and he loved it.

On Wednesday, we went swimming with several more friends at the community center indoor pool.  The waterslide, climbing wall, and rope swing were open so the boys burned off a lot of energy during our several hours at the pool.

On Thursday, we rested a bit and packed for our big trip on Friday.  We left at 6:00 am Friday morning and drove all the way to Cincinnati, Ohio and stayed with John's sister, Jennifer and family.  On Saturday morning, we drove to Lexington and enjoyed some tailgating with other UK families.  Jennifer's oldest son, Zach, is a left handed pitcher and a junior at the University of Kentucky and we were able to watch him pitch against Vanderbilt on Saturday afternoon.  Despite the cool and damp weather, we had a great time.  It was so fun to watch Zach and to visit with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Ann, Uncle Jason, cousin Seth, Uncle Russ, and ACE!

The boys loved watching the baseball game, cheering on Zach to a victory, and getting a few autographs from many of the UK players after the game.  Although the ride home was long and tedious due to some weather and traffic issues, we all enjoyed the weekend and only wished it could have lasted a bit longer.