Spring Break

For those of you in the know, you will realize spring break was a week ago. Yep, I'm just now getting the pictures posted and half of them are blurry, too. This is a high quality blog I've got going here.

I had imagined myself with loads of free time during spring break so I decided to use all this wonderful down time and work on some things with the kids. My free time quickly evaporated.

Ethan and Libby had swim lessons every morning for 45 minutes. The babies and I played in the kiddie pool while the big kids learned to float on their backs and to put their faces in the water. They were in heaven and I was only out 30 bucks. The YMCA has awesome swim lessons during spring break for $15 per kid. It is worth every penny.
I also decided that I would have time to convince Sam to sleep in his own bed and not in mine. This went better then expected. The first night was rough, he was awake for two hours. I stayed by his bed and patted him and sang to him when he started to fuss. We were both exhausted but we eventually came to an understanding. It is as follows:
I, Sam, will go to sleep and nap in my own bed. In exchange I am not expected to sleep through the night.

It's not a perfect solution but one we can both live with. He still needs a little help to get to sleep, but it is usually in the five minute range. I can handle that.

With the rest of my free time (I seem to think I have a lot of free time, even when reality insists I don't) I started potty training Grace. This went about as well as can be expected. The second day she didn't have an accident the entire time we were at home and then the third, fourth, and fifth day she never managed to go in the potty. I really have no idea how long it will take to potty train her. She is at the point that she will use the potty if she is running around naked at home. The minute I put pants on her, though, all bets are off. If she is potty trained by the time she turns two I will be in heaven.

Ethan decided to read with his free time. I was amazed that he picked up this book. I figured it was still way above his reading level. I was wrong. He spent most of spring break swimming and reading.

This was Michael's project. I wanted to get some divided piggy banks for the kids but balked at paying $16 each for something that wasn't that sturdy. I even googled how to make your own divided banks but I couldn't find anything. My first idea was to use baby food containers but I was afraid Grace would pry off the lids and mix up their money. While discussing this with Michael I happened to look on the counter at an empty spice jar. TADA! That was the solution I was looking for. They could separate their savings, tithing and spending. Grace couldn't easily open it. It was fairly cheap and if it got broken it could easily and cheaply be fixed and it was big enough that it wouldn't get lost easily. Also if you are crafty (which I am not) you could decorate the heck out of it.
We just got a piece of scrap hardwood, drilled two holes in the bottom of the plastic jars and screwed them to the board. Michael did have to unscrew a couple jars and rescrew them because the flip caps on the bottles didn't all open the same way. He's just that way. I hope our creation will cut down on the amount of money that goes through my washing machine.
All in all we had a good spring break. It was very hard to get back in the swing of lessons once it was over. Here's looking forward to the summer.