Spring Break 2014

Spring break is awesome! We love sleeping in and seeing friends and staying in pjs! Poor Stephen had to eat breakfast solo each day on his way in to work...no alarms for the Sleeping Beauties all week long!

Stephen was even able to take one day off during spring break to see Dallen play baseball. BYU flew in for a game in Arlington—about 45 minutes from where we live. Naturally we were there in plenty of time to see the whole warm up and batting practice ritual!! Also the day was really nice and the girls had a fabulous time trying to chase down foul balls. Ella was especially intent on getting a ball so that she could trade it in for a free soda. (Stephen ended up convincing a few faster boys to pass her a ball because they outran her every time although she was right on their tails every time!)

Kids Camp
Spring break can be a bit tricky for a mom. It provides the lovely benefit of sleeping in, but there are endless hours to fill to stave off boredom. I very enthusiastically signed the kids up for the second annual ‘Kids Camp” at our friends' home. Their kids (age 13 and age 10) put together a three-day spring break kids camp at their house to earn money for summer camps. It only cost me $5 dollars per day/per kid and they LOVED it! Stephen questioned the need for the expense, but I can say with full conviction that it was quite likely the best $45 I have ever spent. Each day had a theme: pirate day (see the newspaper hats), water day, and Olympic day. The girls each came home with a gold medal. Ella won fastest sprinter, even beating out older boys. She was pretty proud.

Cooking 101
The other thing that consumed us over spring break was Ella’s cooking lessons. Before the break, I had her make a list of things that she wanted to learn to make. Each weeknight, she learned a new skill so that by Sunday, she planned and made the entire meal—two kinds of meatballs with mashed potatoes, garlic bread and chocolate cake for dessert. My only requirement was that she had to do everything solo. I supervised the entire adventure, but never touched a thing. I even made her do the cleanup. It was a lot more time consuming this way, but I think it was very valuable experience. She needs more work with cooking measurements, but they are just getting into fractions at school and I think plenty of practice this summer will really help. I will make a cook out of her yet! We shall dub her CinderELLA!

At the end of spring break week, we hosted our annual “Girls-only Spring Into Easter Party.” This year’s party was pretty awesome! 14 girls, 10 rolls of duct tape, 6 glue guns, 4 crafts (yarn balls, egg maracas, edible bird’s nests, creature eggs), 3 hours, 2 outdoor activities (trampoline and liquid chalk paint), and only 1 teary-eyed incident (the culprit: the glue gun). The girls filled a basket with extra duct-tape egg maracas to give to our primary music leader. I try not to consider the number of hours it took to plan, execute and then clean up the party. Let’s just say that it was worth it.

A Macy Day
Ever since the Callaghans moved to Lantana, Ella’s time with Macy has become more and more precious. Luckily, we arranged a whole day to spend with her over spring break. On top of attending our spring fling party, the girls enjoyed a day at the park, a trip to Sonic, a movie and lots of secret-telling and giggling. I am so happy that we still live close enough to maintain the bond between these two sweet forever friends.

Daddy Daughter Campout
It was a last minute decision, but Stephen realized that with a Saturday without soccer games, he could get off work early on Friday afternoon and enjoy an evening camping. He called a friend on his way home who agreed to join him. They had a fabulous time together—coming home with that special layer of dirt, campfire smell and sticky marshmallow fingers. I enjoyed a night off with just baby Olena. (I love camping!)

Somewhere Over The Rainbow
I love that we caught a beautiful full rainbow on our rainy day this month. The kids argued for quite some time over what is at the end of the rainbow. The result: TBD. They really wanted to hop in the car and follow it to find out for certain.