News On Hand: Flurry of May

May is always a busy month for our family. There are holidays, ceremonies, performances and the weather turns nice making it hard to decide whether to play outside or work outside and also changes how much time we spend indoors.

We built lots of things with the time we spent indoors this month. And Nathan walked around my house trying to “fix” anything he could find that might need fixing and then some. Rick got a shadow on a few Saturdays as he worked on the car and around the house and yard.

We attended violin recitals for Haley and Lindsay that their private lesson teacher held. Both girls have progressed nicely over the past year. Haley continues to play in Chamber/Symphony Orchestra next year and Lindsay remains in Orchestra 3 for one more year.

Sometimes Ice Cream Cones were tearful things as they dripped and other times they were the best things for a warm evening treat.

Sometimes the weather was warm, sometimes muddy and other times cool. Really May was a very pleasant weather month this year, overall.

We visited the monkeys one morning and other times we were the monkeys!

We took lunch with us to the zoo one morning going right after morning drop off. We got a great parking spot, beat the crowds and enjoyed the zoo before the heat of the day. Hershey kisses were a special treat with just a couple for each of us. Nathan thought of his cousin Porter while he ate his and Kaitlyn wanted to know what color her tongue was.

Scruffles discovered the great outdoors, escaping out the back door with the kids. Mostly she hangs around on the deck enjoying the warm sunshine. She also follows Spooky around the back yard and they have fun playing chase which makes me laugh as I watch them. Spooky will not leave the yard as he is too big to fit through the gap in the gate and fence and he HATES jumping. And Scruffles role is being Spooky’s shadow.

Sandy is a different story. Nice weather hit and she is roaming the neighborhood or else is being completely obnoxious indoors. She likes to visit my neighbors yard and sleep in the lavender. She also likes to disappear and roam the neighborhood with her boyfriend, a gray and white Tom who comes to visit us all the time now.

Afternoons and evenings were so busy it was difficult to find time to bathe and take naps. But we managed to squeeze a few cat-naps in here and there.

We gained a new family member on May 12th; a five year old cat named Oscar who honestly responds to his name Oscar and so I am leaving it at that. He is a sweet sweet sweet boy in spite of his background as a rescue from an abandoned horse farm and an obnoxious boy he lived with who apparently cut the cats ears with scissors. He is here under the guise of being my birthday present. I’m completely fine with that.

The other cats are making peace with the feline addition but Sandy remains Queen.

Outdoors! Outdoors! Outdoors! It was Kaitlyn’s last time experiencing freedom during the school day. We got in as much as we could.

Of course some time was spent playing at home, especially on days we made bread, soups or got some cleaning done. We get out all things “bugs” during May and the children had fun making magnetic bug towers.

Both youngest children experimented with their babyhoods all over again! Don’t they look silly now?

Wagon rides for two were fun.

Puzzles are a favorite of both children. We read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, then put together the puzzle numerous times.

Then we retold the story in our own words as we looked at the puzzle picture.

One morning we went to the farm to play on the playground, visit the barn cat and see who we could see. Super Boy came along that day! Nathan put his cape on all by himself.

The kids had a blast and especially loved pumping water and watering the garden.

Lots of fun… Lots of Bees!

More watering, the windmill helped to pump the water and we experimented with all kinds of watering cans. Nathan liked the snail shaped one.

A perk about Parky’s farm gardens is that you can pick and eat any of the things that are growing there. Strawberries were ripened about two weeks early this year… the sweetest EVER! The kids couldn’t get enough of them. Nathan even ate some white ones that he picked and he’s been totally turned on to strawberries ever since.

Fish were swimming in the pond, the kids still munching on fistfuls of strawberries. A wonderful morning at the farm.

With days and evenings so busy Nathan took to napping in the car during after school pickups. He would stay asleep while I carried him inside and usually a cat would settle nearby or stay settled. Nathan felt cozy with the “magic quilty”; not his own but an acceptable substitute. You can get the best naps ever under this quilty… I’ve tried it out for a few power naps on a few of my long 19 hour days.

We discovered a brand new park one evening while waiting for YW and Cub Scouts activities to finish up and we were down a Dad.

The kids had a blast on the climbing walls, slides, spinners. We were there one morning recently and the horse, who lives across the street, stopped by and all the children got to go and pet the horse. Super Boy was present yet again and he was able to fly and rescue people and the cape helped him to go faster as I chased them around the playground making both kids laugh and giggle and scream.

It was a great evening out and the kids are eager to go back.

We got an exciting phone call with news that Samuel Michael Case had joined our family to become my children’s 11th cousin, our 10th nephew and my parent’s 16th grandchild. We got out some leftover cake and frosting and made a small birthday cake, sang to him, blew out a candle for him and enjoyed looking forward to meeting him.

Lindsay was tapped and inducted into the National Junior Honor Society one Tuesday evening.

I made Strawberry Truffle for Tristan’s Orchestra recital and we enjoyed a pizza/dessert dinner out on the green afterward one evening.

Nathan enjoyed running over to the Kindergarten playground between bites.

Kaitlyn imagined playing on the Kindergarten playground with new friends this coming Autumn and I realized, once again, how much Nathan will miss having his big sister around as a playmate.

Tristan brought home an A plus on his final project/oral report for the year. It just happened to coincide with crazy hair day, and just before a haircut at that!!!

Kids said goodbye to their old friends for the summer and report cards were brought home with not quite straight A’s from all three kids but all three had 100% attendance for the entire school year!!!