March and All Its Madness

This is Henry's poster for his family spotlight for his kindergarten class. I printed tons of pictures and he chose his favorites and helped me write our favorite things to do as a family. It hung for a week at school then we brought it home and now it hangs in his room.

Can you tell Erica has been out gathering rocks?

She had quite a collection in there!

Sarah and Henry filled out NCAA brackets this year.

Since Henry really gets into anything sports related, he was all over it and seemed to delight in choosing Duke to lose in the first round and taking his beloved Cardinals to the championship. I'm guessing he's going to be one of those boys in class talking about brackets and "seeds" and "upsets" and whatnot.

Sarah was much more systematic in her selections and stuck to the rankings for the most part. She also chose the Louisville Cardinals to win.

St Patrick's Day fell on a day that the kids were out of school. Because I'm trying to eat healthier, I've found some....let's say interesting....pancake recipes. This day I tried out pumpkin oat pancakes in the blender.

They were soggy discs of blandness. This is Sarah's plate where you can see even my most obliging child only handled one bite.

Henry took one bite and asked if I'd please make regular pancakes again. He did come back a half hour later and ate some more though. He said he liked these better than the banana-egg pancakes I made the day before.

Sarah went through her hoard of stuff in her room and found a doll for Erica to have. It's nice having a daughters five years apart as the older one is ready to give away her toys at the perfect time for the younger one. It's Christmas for Erica every time Sarah cleans her room.

And James wore frog jammies so he wouldn't get pinched. Although I told all my kids if anyone pinched James, I'd punch them in the bum.

Sarah had pinkeye this day. She ruined a lot of our outside plans and plans with friends.

So we got out the table tunnel. Still a hit around here.

The kids didn't want to share so they set the timer for 2 minute turns. There was a lot of beeping but not much arguing.

There was also fort-making.

A lot of fort making. It had been a long week of trying to keep the house together and making everyone do their jobs so I pretty much spent the whole day saying yes, sure, why not. The house was a mess but I felt calm inside.

Before lunch though, it had gotten pretty chaotic so I set the timer for 5 minutes and told the kids they had to spend 5 minutes putting things away they were finished playing with. It worked. Then we had green eggs and ham for lunch.

Sarah and Henry watched the end of a couple of basketball games on TV and I checked scores online. They marked their brackets accordingly.

I'm kind of impressed at their level of understanding since I was a freshman in college before I even understood what "March Madness" even was. I knew it was basketball but I didn't know if it was NBA or college or whatever. I don't think I even knew it was a tournament, maybe just the end of the season?? I knew there were lots of March Madness sales at car dealerships and furniture stores.(Justin is reading this somewhere and shaking his head at how the two of us got together.)

Henry got a little bored after lunch so he asked me for some ideas. Since St Patrick's day was half over and Easter is a way better holiday, I told him to make Easter decorations. This is what he made and I love them.

Sarah and Erica are watching Christmas movies on Netflix while making Easter decorations on St. Patrick's day. It was a weird day and this pretty much sums it up.

**I wish I could describe well the devastation Henry felt when he came home from church on Sunday and discovered that Louisville lost their game. His face crumpled, he collapsed onto the ground. There were tears and heart-wrenching sobs. He was so sad. I love his passionate heart.  

When Sarah found out, she shrugged and said, "My bracket's officially busted." That's my girl.