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Sunday mornings are so long these days.  I’m not sure what to do with them yet.  We’ve got the 1:00 church schedule.

After church we have dinner with Zach’s parents and then the kids play for a bit.

I made my first fruit leather.  I used the neighbor’s apricots and the kids loved it.  I bribed them to do everything with fruit leather.  It was amazingly effective for everyone except Ila who refused to try it and had to be bribed with Swedish Fish.
Isaac still tries to build things out of everything.  He was making some sort of tank out of a wagon and stroller.  I think Charlotte was making a gas station. Ila went through a period of wanting to wear this shirt everyday because she misses her Grandma Bunny and the shirt has bunnies on it.  She was sad whenever it was in the wash.  One day she wouldn’t even get dressed until we called Grandma Bunny and asked her what her favorite color is so that Ila could wear that color. Isaac competed in the knowledge bowl again this year.  The topic was History and they studied before school for an hour 2-3 times a week for months.  Isaac’s team did awesome and blew every other team out of the water.  All the Foothill teams did great.  The don’t rank the teams beyond identifying the top 10 teams.  All three Foothill teams made it into the top 10. This was Isaac’s team:

We started prepping for this year’s garden.  Last year was our first garden and we made a lot of mistakes, but we still had a good harvest and learned a lot.  (the view’s not half bad either).

Zach planted strawberries and installed a specialized watering system.
He also built watering system for what will be our rain gutter herb garden. . . 

as well as our hanging planters.  

This is Ila looking lovely on Sunday:

Nicole has such beautiful eyes, but it’s often hard to get a picture of her looking at the camera. 

For Sunday dinner, Grandpa made pancakes with Oreos in them:
The kids have been enjoying the return of the neighbor’s trampoline: Thomas and his best buddy: It’s been so nice out that we’ve been spending lots of time outside.

Nicole’s hair is starting to grow back.  It’s now long enough that she doesn’t always wear something to cover it.

I made the kids green pancakes for St. Patrick’s day.

Isaac’s pancake is covered with green colored sugar.

They all wore their “corn shirts” for St. Patrick’s day:

Nicole changed her clothes.  I don’t remember why.  She typically changes her clothes several times a day.
Thomas saw an opportunity for a drink: Our hanging pots presented another opportunity for a drink:

You can’t really see it, so I zoomed in for the next picture, but Thomas is teaching himself to write his own name.  He hasn’t gotten passed the M, but that’s not bad for a kid who’s just barely 3.
More trampoline fun with the neighbors.
Zach taught Isaac’s class about the Battle of Fredericksburg.  The class is split into two groups.  Half of them are Union and the other half is Confederate.  Each table is one of the 5 bloodiest battles of the Civil War and each kid is assigned to be a historical figure from the battle.

Isaac is JEB Stuart and he’s a Confederate.

Zach’s mother’s birthday was on March 20th.  I took the kids to Target to pick out gifts and they actually did pretty well, considering that all their past gifts were chosen from the toy section:

Nicole told her Grandma that we gave her this watering can “because she married Mickey.”  Other gifts included a flower pot, a “flower rocket,” a hairbrush, a mirror, a doormat, a birdseed bell, and some hand towels. This is the before picture of our raspberry patch. Zach and his dad put down a weed barrier and some special dirt:

Zach planted 6 raspberry plants.  He planted blueberries and currents in the front.

Meanwhile, Nicole apparently had some oranges: Isaac took his Nerf gun apart to modify it.  It ended up taking him all evening and most of the next day.