Catch Up

OK, we haven't posted in almost a month, so I'm gonna sorta do a post that will hopefully catch up on most things. Then in the future, I'll post more often. I mean it. So here's the news in reverse order, from newest to oldest.

Hannah Stories
Nathan keeps a locked chest in his room with his weapons in it. Yesterday, Hannah came running downstairs ecstatically waving the combination lock in the air. "I cracked Nathan's combination!" she said gleefully. "Next day, I'm gonna crack it again!"
Apparently, she decided not to wait that long, because she broke in 3 more times that day, with 3 different combinations. It seems that if you turn the numbers enough,, you can randomly come up with the right 3-digit combination. My baby sister is a genius. (She's insanely proud of herself too.)

"Why did the Easter bunny bring us all this floss?" Hannah asked from behind me. I turned around to see what she was talking about and found her with a strand of Easter grass in her hand, trying to floss her teeth!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!
Thursday was Mommy's 38th birthday. (Hopefully I don't get in trouble for mentioning her age. Grown-ups are funny like that.) Daddy made her breakfast in bed, and we celebrated the next day with a birthday dinner and cheesecake.

Cabining in PA
We stayed at a rustic cabin at Promised Land State Park in PA for 3 nights. It drizzled most of the time, so we mostly hung out in the cabin round the woodstove. We played Monopoly, Hearts, and other board games, solved crosswords, colored pictures, played Mab Libs, told stories, read out loud, scared Nathan when he was in the bathroom, and ate. The biggest problem with sticking around the cabin was that we tended to want to snack all day. We did get in a few walks around the park, and they were beautiful. It was a lovely, relaxing vacation.

Kittens
Two weeks ago, four new little kittens were born! All of them are black. Unfortunately, one of them appears to have been the runt of the litter, From the start, he wasn't nursing and was weaker than all the rest. Nothing we did could induce him to nurse. He died around 36 hours after birth. We had a little funeral and buried him in the cemetery the boys built. Nathan wrote this poem about it:

The Kitten

The kitty was born weak and frail,

We thought for sure he'd not prevail,

-

We tried to restore its strength,

We went to such great length,

-

We hoped the kitty would live,

A chance is all we could give,

-

But the next day,

The kitty passed away,

-

We all hysterically cried,

But at least we had tried,

-

We buried the kitty without delay,

We'll remember him to the end of our day.

-

Visit from the Grandparents

Grandpa and Grandma Nisly came to stay with us for almost a week. Unfortunately, Daddy was away on a business trip for the first two days of their visit. However, we had a great time while they were here and were sorry when they had to leave.

Happy Birthday, Hannah!
While they were here, Hannah had her 4th birthday. She very much enjoyed being the center of attention, though by the time we celebrated in the evening, she was tired and grumpy. She threw a huge fit because Mommy had baked a chocolate cake even though Hannah insisted she wanted a white one. (She had chosen chocolate a few days earlier.) However, when the cake was served, she ate just as heartily as usual, so chocolate can't have been that bad.
I think one of Hannah's favorite presents is a water bottle with her name andrainbow swirlies on it. It also has a no-spill top so she can drink out of it. She has enjoyed taking that on every outing with her and having water of her very own.

~Megan~

Fun at Squantz

Wednesday here was hot and sunny, getting up to 89 degrees. Before Daddy left for work, we headed over to Squantz Pond for a little outing. We had a great time wading, playing in the sand, and having a water fight. Most of the older kids ended up soaked. :)

~Megan~

Easter

On Easter morning, Amanda, Nathan, Joshua, and I got up very early and hiked over to Sweetcake Mountain Preserve for our own sunrise service. We enjoyed the cool morning peace, sang a few songs, and took turns reading the Easter story aloud. It was very pleasant and beautiful.

Just before the sunrise

This isn't really what it looked like. We were having trouble capturing the real colors, so we turned on the sunset setting on my camera, which tends to put in colors that aren't there. Looks pretty anyway, doesn't it?

~~~

Later in the morning, we attended the regular Easter service at church. That afternoon, we hung out outside and hunted for Easter baskets. In the evening, Grandpa and Grandma came up for a delicious Easter dinner.

.

Nathan and Josh in the stream in their nice clothing, hunting for rocks

Benjamin on the swings

Hannah looked so cute running around outside in her gorgeous dress with her pretty hair, so I went a little shutter-happy taking pictures of her. The ones below are just a sample of some of my favorites.

~Megan~

Gloves!

The weather here today is beautiful, at almost 70 degrees and sunny. So I was a little surprised when Ben walked into the kitchen with his blue wool mittens on. "You don't need those, Ben," I said. "It's warm out."

"But I want to help Mommy in the garden," he answered.

I tried to explain to him that work gloves are different from winter mittens; that he needed a different kind of glove.

He obviously didn't quite get it, because a moment later he walked back into the kitchen, this time wearing his heavy snow mittens.

I think we need to find that boy a pair of work gloves!

~Megan~

Monadnock Youth Retreat

This past weekend, Amanda and I were at Monadnock Youth Retreat in New Hampshire with Katie and Christy. It was a ton of fun! We played laser tag, dodgeball, jousting, and bungee run. At gatherings, we played funny games, sang some great worship music, and listened to Greg Dyson, our speaker. We had some great discussions and laughed alot. It was a totally awesome weekend!

Christy

There were rubber chickens hidden all over the campus. If you found them and brought them to a gathering, you got points for your team. If you dressed them up, you might get extra points for creativity. We found 7 chickens. These are 3 of them: a mummy, a chicken getting eaten by Christy's jaguar, and a nun.

Amanda with a pirate chicken

Katie with the sword she made for the pirate chicken

Katie and I are jousting. The object of the game is to smack each other with the big log-things and knock the other person off their pedestal.

Katie and Amanda are doing the bungee run. They are strapped to a bungee cord and are competing to see who can run and get their beanbag the farthest before getting jerked backwards.

Amanda, Christy, and Katie waiting to play laser tag

~Megan~

Belated Christmas Photos

I was going through the pictures on my camera today and discovered some great ones from Christmas that I had forgotten about. So, without further ado, I give you our visit from Santa Claus and his trusty elf helper.

You know it's spring when...

-you can have a water fight and get completely soaked.

-you can leave the windows open at night and not freeze to death.

-Birdsong becomes normal again.

How do you know when it's spring?