Lake Elmo Elementary kindergarten classes had their annual Spring Sing concert last Thursday. 3 of the K classes took the stage in the morning, and the other two went in the afternoon. The songs were all either patriotic or had to do with spring. The kids were very cute. Maggie's class is the one with the flower hats and she's on the far right.

After the concert, all the kids and families went out into the courtyard for cookies and lemonade, then hit the playground!

The girls of course headed straight for the bars and Maya was not to be left out.

Climbing the giant "spider web".

Again, Maya was not to be left out.

Here's a quick snippet of the concert. The boy behind Mags is Arsh - the class clown as you will see.

The girls both LOVE doing the monkey bars which makes perfect sense, seeing as they are both part monkey. : )

Clean - or not

Our front room...the bain of my existence. It is always a mess! This last week was doubly bad because of the "fort" daddy helped the girls build and then never put away.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.......now that's more like it!

Egg carton flowers

On Wednesdays, when the Z's come over, I like to have a craft ready to go. It takes up time, and the Z girlies like to be crafty. Last week we made egg carton flowers. I got this idea from one of the blogs I read, but I can't remember which one now. I think they turned out super cute.

First, cut up an empty egg carton into the individual egg cups, then cut each egg cup so that it has 4 petals.

Paint the flowers. We used glitter paint for some extra sparkle!

Then glue a pom pom into the center of each flower and glue them on a piece of paper along with a stem (we used sparkly pipe cleaners).

Lastly, cut out some leaves and add them to the flowers wherever you like!

Voila! Aren't they cute?

Easter!

Easter, as usual, was a Cove event. On Saturday we held the annual Cove Easter Egg Hunt. The crowd was a little slim this year as a lot of people had plans out of the house, but it was still a blast.

The kids are, seriously, the worst egg finders ever. They couldn't find the eggs right under their noses.

But, with help, all of them were found and all the kids were thrilled with their loot.

Even Chase got in on the action this year, although he was plenty satisfied walking around aimlessly with his prized green egg.

Mags is definitely a candy lover (like her mother) and went through her eggs multiple times inspecting the contents.

We also colored eggs on Saturday. Thankfully all the dye stayed in the cups and there were no major mishaps...and the eggs turned out great.

Look what the Easter bunny brought!!! New swimsuits... as shown above on our lovely models. ; ) The Easter bunny also brought bubbles, a small bunny painting project, chocolate marshmallow bunny and a few jelly beans and chocolate eggs. The Easter bunny hid the baskets well too. It took Maggie at least 30 minutes to find hers.

I made a small ham, and our neighbors Tom and Wendy ended up providing us with a multitude of side dishes from their earlier dinner. Easy peasy for me! The weather was sunny and warm and we spent the day, after church, playing and relaxing in the sun. It was a very nice day.

Hair

Maggie: "I'm a crazy girl, I'm a crazy girl, I'm a crazy girl.... (on and on and on and on and on.....) Me: Mags, can you please stop with all the repeating. It's driving me nuts and I'm gonna start pulling my hair out! Daddy: Mags, keep going...mom would look funny without any hair. Me: (to Maggie ) Ok, would you like a mommy without any hair? Maya: You mean like grandpa? : )

Hello Spring

Hello spring. Nice to see you. Good bye snow...see you next year. Last week the last of the snow piles melted away and we finally had a clear view of our matted down grass and vole damage. Well, it's a better view than snow anyway! The only snow left was a little pile in the middle of the cul de sac where it had been piled up by the plows over the course of the winter. This is a picture of our next door neighbors house. Rajeev and Nisha and Abhi live here. Recently they informed us that they are going to try to sell their house. We think they're crazy, and we definitely don't want them to move. Who know what riff raff might move in. Anyway, Rajeev HATES the snow and cold weather. I mean HATES it. With a passion. Anyway, Aaron had the brilliant idea to put the rest of the snow in the cul de sac in his driveway as a joke. Hee-hee! As you can see it wasn't a ton of snow....just enough so that Rajeev would have to get out and shovel it to get his car in the garage. : )

Our across the street neighbor Mike and his son Patrick got in on the action too.

They started out by bringing our wagon down to the pile and filling it and bringing it back to dump, but soon found out that by filling Rajeev's garbage can it went much faster.

The finished pile.

He's such a good sport...and an easy target!

Nothing but love...

My other girls

My "other girls" did fabulously at their meet yesterday. This crew took 3rd as a team with several individual 1st places in there and MANY personal bests! Awesome. This group took 4th place as a team. They didn't have their best meet, but this is only their first year competing and they are improving so much! Plus...aren't they cute!!! I love all these girls! They are ALL my "other girls"!