411 The Walters Bunch

T goes without training wheels! He loves his art kit. Wow. We have had so much happen this past week. The most exciting, for me anyways, is that last Friday we finished with school for this year! Yay, free time. I have missed that for the past 9 months! So as I sit to write this on our very first official day of summer break I realize three things. Number one is that the kids no longer have pre-assigned work to occupy their time with, two being the judge of who is right and who is wrong is just as time consuming as teaching school (and probably more frustrating) and number three I really can never have really truly FREE time. As I sit here and write this, all the kids, still living here, are separating the rabbit food from the dogfood. Sounds easy right, not to mention a little weird. I have no idea who is the culprit this time or their reasoning for thinking combining the two would be a good thing. I do know that 2#'s of rabbit food stirred into about 20# of dog food mak...

For a change of pace, we decided to tour the firehouse.  We see a lot of the police station, so much in fact the kids no longer think it's cool and just want daddy to hurry up when we go there. The kids enjoyed looking at the engines and seeing how the firefighters had to get dressed. Daddy showed up during our tour (since the firehouse we visited is in his beat) and showed the kids his car. The other kids thought the car was cool, my kids wanted to know if we could go home. I guess a police officer is only cool when it's not your daddy's job. Oh well, I was happy to see him. I help my father-in-law decorate a cute bunny cake. Grandpa and the grandkids. She means business! Little wild rabbit was soooo cute! We start our tour at the fire station. Our group and our two fire fighter escorts.

We just finished our egg hunt. We have had this planned for over  a month and several families were excited to participate. I made about 40 rabbit cupcakes and we were set to go. Unfortunately, the weather took a colder turn and instead of our nice mid 80 days, we had a cold windy day with a high of 46! Most of the families thought it was too cold for them and opted out last minute, but one of my close friends and I decided that our kids do own coats and know how to wear them so we went ahead as planned. I gave about 20 cupcakes to the police officers my husband works for because despite what the kids think we, in fact, cannot eat 40 cupcakes between us! We had a great time. It would have been more fun with a few more friends, but we still enjoyed the time together. The kids played basketball, had an egg hunt, and enjoyed the rock wall. They also indulged in a not healthy in anyway rabbit cupcake. Maybe we will try for an end of the year party with our friends. My cute rabb...

L made and decorated the cake herself.....from scratch! We  made cute soaps which were very hard to do.                                    Our middle daughter, who was born in late March, has always wanted to have a swim party, but never has because lets face it even in Texas is a little cold to swim outdoors in March. Every year her brother and sister seem to have a swim party because they share a birthday in September, which is almost too hot in Texas to swim in, and every year we hear her grip about how she wants a swim party.  This must be her year because not only did we honor her request NOT to be spring break traveling on her birthday,but thanks to our new gym that has an small indoor pool and water slide area, she also was able to have a swim party. Her cousins were able to come, along with her aunt and uncle, and swim for about an hour and a half. She loved ...

Ft. Davis hike to the top of the mountain. A helped L decorate L's cookie cake. The ride in the car, about 9 hours, was long, but the kids did really well. We listened to books on tape and watched a movie. God bless Red Box! When we first arrived at Fort Davis it had just snowed that morning and it was really cold! We froze that first night even with the heater on full blast! We were also about half a mile from the bathroom, which meant I had to take 3 kids in the middle of the night, while freezing, on a mile round trip hike to pee. What was neat though was that the "wild" javelinas were very domesticated and would wander right up to the campsite. They could even pop open the cooler with their snout. While staying at Ft Davis we went to the Mcdonald's observatory and took a guided tour of the telescopes. It was fun, but the kids were not as interested in it as the adults were. Ft Davis campsite McDonald's Observatory T was picked to move the...

Enjoying a great day sunny day at the zoo! What better way to say "hey kids, I love you" on Valentines Day than a trip to the Dallas zoo. Oh wait... that's right... I spend every waking second with my kids. I feed them, school them, take them on trips, buy them clothes, have birthday parties, and yet some how that is not enough. I still HAVE to get them something for Valentines Day.  I am probably the only woman, who is married, that HATES valentines day. If my husband came home with a gift on Valentines Day I would probably lose it. No scratch that, I would lose it and start yelling. He does not need to spend money on some frivolous holiday that someone else decided we should show our love on. He does wonderful nice things all year that are a nice surprise for me and mean even more to me than if he did something on the same day everyone else does. Anyways, back to the kids. I do get them a little something to celebrate. They get a small box of chocolates and heart s...

We had a great Christmas, but had what I refer to as sicktember. All month long one of us was ill. Why is it you can never all be sick at the same time so you can be over and done with it in a week? Instead, slowly one by one we each fell ill and I spent the better part of a month doling out medicine, taking kids to the doctor, and spraying my Lysol spray.  For those of you who are shocked I actually used chemicals to  sanitize instead of my all natural stuff, I felt it was needed because it felt like the all natural stuff wasn't being effective enough (otherwise we wouldn't all be sick and after a couple weeks desperation set in). We were literally house bound by someone being ill for the whole month. Thankfully, the only one of us who caught the flu bug was the one who was the least ill. He even slays dragons in his sleep.   We are down to our last 14 weeks of school. Yeah! I am as ready for summer as the kids! We have a few fun trips planned and I can not wait, e...