57 Worms

I'm working on adding some mulch around one of the trees in the back yard, and before I do that I'm clearing out the grass around it, so right now it's just a mound of dirt.  I noticed there was a worm in it, so I called Joshua over to look at it.  Then I noticed another, and then another.  So I put the mulch project on hold, and we started a new project: see how many worms we could find.  We ended up finding 57 worms!  Here's the handful of worms.

He was really excited to see that many worms.  "Dad, we have 57 worms!"  He was so happy.

After he was done marveling over them and examining them, we let them go.  This is the ball of worms as they began to disperse.  It looks like a small brain or something.  Kinda gross, but we had a lot of fun, and Joshua was enthralled by all the worms.

Meeting Lucy and Daniel

Earlier this month Matt and Abby had their first child, Lucy.  This was great news for them, and we're really happy that they will get to experience the joys of parenthood.  But it was also great news for me, because I got my first niece out of the deal! And then later in the month, Julie and Andrew made Benjamin a big brother with the addition of little baby Daniel to their family.  I've loved having Benjamin as my nephew, and I'm really excited to have another nephew and now a niece!  Tonight we went over to Mom and Ron's house for our first chance to meet both of them.  It was a baby-meeting extravaganza!  We are excited to have a bigger extended family, and our kids are very excited to expand the team of cousins, although initially it was a little difficult for them to understand.  After the other cousins were born, and we were telling them about them, they were intrigued, yet they didn't seem to understand what that meant.  It's like they knew that Benjamin was their cousin, and that's what he was, and that's what a cousin was.  It's almost like they were thinking, "We already have our cousin.  It's Benjamin.  How could there be another Benjamin?  He's already here."  But now that they've met their new cousins, they get it, and they're pretty happy.

What Season Is It?

Sometimes weird scenes occur in our house.  This is a good example.  The kids are on the stairs.  Hannah's in her swimsuit watching her game (which is what we call their Kindle Fires, even though they have more than games on them), Chicken Baby is accompanying her, Joshua is in his underwear watching his game, and Clara is looking on while wearing underwear, flip-flops, winter gloves, and a winter hat.  And there are backpacks strewn about.  I have no idea what's going on here.

Playing at the School Park

The weather was really nice tonight, so I walked with the kids while they rode to the park by the school, which is actually the school playground, but none of our kids are old enough to go there, so they just see it as a park.  We played there for awhile.  Clara told me she wanted to do the monkey bars.  I wasn't sure if she could, but I stayed close to her.  She had a few failures (you can see the stress and concern in here eyes), but pretty soon she made it across!  I was really proud of her.

The playground is not on a mat like a lot of them are, but instead is on a field of millions of pebbles.  This isn't good if you're wearing sandals or flip-flops, but otherwise it's fine.  And it has the added benefit of letting you make pebble angels, if you're so inclined.

The girls climbed on the dome thing.  I was impressed that Hannah went for it without being too scared.

There were some big kids playing basketball, and Joshua wanted to join them.  They were really kind and let him play with them for awhile, even letting him take some shots.  I was also proud to see him get in good defensive stance when playing defense against the big kid.  He had fun, and it was really nice of them to let him join them.  And it's really nice that we have this park so close to our house.  Joshua will enjoy using it next school year, I'm sure.

Floating Off to Sleep

Swimming season is nearly upon us, and Hannah is very excited about it.  So much so that she is wearing her floatie around the house, and even outside to play.  She was wearing it this evening, and when it was bedtime and time to change into her jammies, she wanted to put it back on as soon as she changed.  And then when it was time to go to sleep, she wanted to keep it on.  She chose to sleep in her chair tonight, so here she is at bedtime ready to go to sleep while wearing her floatie.  It's cute how much she likes it, and I think it's going to get a lot of use this summer, both in and out of the pool.

Hannah's Helmet Hair

After taking out Hannah's hairbands tonight, her hair somehow ended up looking like this.  I'm not sure how, but she saw it in the mirror and thought it looked really funny, which it does.  It's like a helmet with a single eye-hole.  It actually doesn't look that different from the popular hairstyles that a lot of guys wore a few years ago, most notably by Justin Bieber.  That style is now out-of-date for guys, but maybe she's going to start it for girls. Hopefully not.

Box Surfing

I mentioned that there were two big cardboard boxes in the garage.  The first one wasn't that sturdy, but the second one is the box for my new Honda lawn mower that I got last year, and it's quite sturdy.   Like the other one, I thought the kids deserved a chance to have some fun with it before I recycled it.  So I brought it in, and they realized they could slide down it, as it is strong enough that with one side bent it, the other sides stay in place.  So here they are using it as a slide.  I'm not sure why Hannah is wearing her swimming floatie, other than that she just likes to wear it.


But then they realized there was a better option.  Why slide down it, when you can surf down it?  They collected various pillows (couch pillows, decorative bed pillows, etc.) and used them as surf boards, or, in the case of Hannah, who likes to play it a little safer in general, sleds.  I don't think they actually know what surfing is, so they weren't trying to emulate that, but rather they just figured it would be fun to stand on the pillows as they went down the slope.  And again, that's not something Hannah would ever do, but she was plenty excited to sit on a pillow and slide down.  I'm not considering keeping this box as a permanent fixture in our living room, as it doesn't exactly go with the look we are wanting (the trash-as-furniture look might be popular somewhere, but we prefer the more traditional furniture-as-furniture look), but the kids really enjoyed it, so I'll probably keep it for a little longer and give them a few more nights of playing with it before I recycle it.

Dad in the Box

I have two extra big cardboard boxes in the garage that I've been keeping for no particular reason.  I've decided that I'm going to get rid of them, but before I do, I decided to put them to the best possible use: Let kids play in them.  One of my favorite pictures was from the last time I did this, so I wanted to give them the opportunity to play in it and with it.  They liked it, though they didn't seem to pretend any particular scenario, like I imagined they would.  Like should they make it a rocketship or something?  Anyway, they still had fun.  After awhile, though, they invited Meghan to get into the box with them.  That's not really Meghan's thing, so she volunteered me.  I'm more than happy to do such ridiculous things that might cause me long-term back pain, so I crammed myself in the box


So here I am stuffed into the box with the kids.  It wasn't too bad, actually, and I don't even think it'll result in a trip to the chiropractor, which is a win for everyone.

A Night at the K on the Company

At my job, we are in the midst of the sales process with a potential customer, Rally House.  They are a large sports apparel and accessories retailer here in town.  They started as Kansas Sampler here in Kansas, but they have grown and are now in many cities across the US, but the non-Kansas stores are branded as Rally House.  Part of the sales process in these situations is often to treat them to special events, and my sales rep for this area, Matt, and I decided that we should take them out to a Royals game.  Unfortunately, the main contact we were hoping to spend the evening with backed out at the last minute.  So we took two other guys from the company, and we still had a great night at the ballpark.  The Royals won 8-6, and we got to see a decent start from Yordano Venture, a homer from Salvy, and a save from Wade Davis, so it had a lot of the elements of a standard Royals win, at least not including the come-from-behind variety that they have specialized in.  We were able to get really good seats (our company told us to make sure we didn't skimp on that since it was a customer event), and we happily obliged.  Also, I ate my new favorite Kauffman Stadium food, the cheesy corn brisket-achos.  It was a good night, and it didn't cost me a thing, which is always good.  Now hopefully we can get them as a customer!

Early April

 Hannah enjoyed using the roller skates several times. These are the kind where you can prevent the wheels from going backwards, so it isn't totally dangerous.

Our old china cabinet was moved to the living room for awhile when we got the new one and the kids enjoyed putting on a "puppet" (puppet meaning an actual puppet as well as a barbie) show behind it.

It finally became spring and we brought out the sand box. It never lasts too long because Joshua moves the sand out a lot and also likes filling it with water, but they had fun while it lasted. We will probably add some sand one more time before we replace it with the water table in the summer.

We observed an ant farm to learn a little more about ants.

Pre-K and Preschool Church Picnic

Meghan is now a "coach" for the Pre-Kindergarten Sunday school program, which basically means she's in charge of making sure the teachers have the tools they need. One of her goals is to increase participation for volunteer adults and attendance for the children. Since the weather is great right now, she decided to organize an after-church picnic for the Pre-K and also the Preschool programs, to include all staff, volunteers, and families of the kids who attend.  We met today at Buffalo Meadows Park, and we all enjoyed our picnic lunches, and then the many kids who were in attendance played on the playground equipment.  It was nice to meet some of the other members of the church who I didn't already know (Meghan already knew most of them), and it's always nice to be able to build relationships.

Joshua is 5 ½!

On April 10, Joshua turned 5 ½. Though I am always a little sad at how big my kids are getting, this is never more true than with Joshua. I cannot believe I have such a big kid who is almost ready for kindergarten. He has so many complex thoughts and statements. The other day he said, "The orange ball is Hannah. Speaking of which, I don't like orange." He sounded like such a grown up. I assume I say "speaking of which" because it seems like something I would say, but I didn't think he knew how to use it.  He is a little bit morbid and asks about death and natural disasters a lot. In some ways he is pretty bold, but in others a little bit anxious so I think he needs to know what happens in a tornado to feel like things will be okay if we have a tornado warning and things like that. He really likes working with tools and fixing things and mixing (whether that's food ingredients, colored water, or dirt with water) things. Mud is his favorite and it has been an exceptionally wet month so I am pretty much over washing muddy clothes and scrubbing boots and will be happy when we get to summer and it's drier. I sort of doubt we will move before the kids are gone, but if we do, my next house will have a sink in the laundry room or an outdoor shower by the back door because my kitchen sink gets scrubbed out so often right now due to mud. Phineas and Ferb is his current favorite show, which I actually really like that show so that works for me. He loves playing rough with other boys, which is not my favorite, but seems to be pretty universal among five-year-old boys. He doesn't play with toys a lot because he prefers to be outside looking at bugs, swinging, and digging, but he does like building with legos and duplos and magnatiles. He also likes playing imaginary games with Clara. Their favorite one is they take turns pretending to be a dog and the other one leads the dog around with a leash and throws a ball for the dog to fetch. He also likes playing hide and seek. He really enjoys sports and has enjoyed both soccer and t-ball recently and he also has made good progress in swimming, though he can't really swim yet and he believes he is a really good swimmer so it is actually really stressful to take him to the pool a the moment. He is about 43.75 inches and weighs around 40 lbs. He is growing so much, but still such a sweet and giving kid and we love him so much!

Blues and 'Hawks

As I've mentioned before, traveling for my job has enabled me to do a lot of cool things, including getting to go to sporting events.  Included in that was the chance to go to my first ever NBA game.  That meant that in my life I'd been to an MLB game (many, many of them, actually), an NFL game (a few), an MLS game (a couple), but never an NHL game.  I'd been to a few Kansas City Blades games back in the day, but they were essentially a minor league team.  But tonight I had the chance to complete the list of major sports by going to an NHL game.  The sales rep I work with a lot, Mike, and I are in St. Louis, and he was able to get us surprisingly affordable tickets to see not only an NHL game, but an NHL playoff game.  Tonight is the opening game of the first round series between the Chicago Blackhawks and the St. Louis Blues.

The crowd was electric, as the Blues fans were amped up for the first game of the playoffs, especially since it was against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Blackhawks.


We sat in the second row up from the glass, so we had great views.  It was way, way better than watching a hockey game on TV.  It's thunderous when a group of players all smash into the boards right in front of you, and that happened quite a bit for us.  We had a great view of the action.  This was our view, even without zooming in.

This one is zoomed in, but not that much because it's still just a cell phone camera.  It was so cool to be this close to the ice.

The Blues ended up winning 1-0 in sudden-death overtime, and the crowd loved it.  The place went nuts when the winning goal was scored.  I was rooting for the Blues, because when I don't have a strong rooting interest, I root for the local team.  It was a run night, and I'm glad I can now say I've been to an NHL game.