Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week We Went to the Tulip Farm

We had another fabulous and fun week.  The weather has been simply beautiful and we've spent quite a bit of time outside enjoying all this sunshine.  We've got about another week and a half of school before all three boys are officially done all their work for the school year so we're finding lots of other activities to fill our days.

Ian headed off to work on Friday while the younger two boys and I went to meet some friends at a tulip farm.  We had never been before and I was intrigued with the idea of seeing thousands of tulips all in bloom at the same time.  You can read all about our trip and see the many, many photos I took here.  We bowled a game and a half afterwards with our friends before we had to part ways and head on home for the day.  Evan went to work with his dad in the evening loading up scrap metal for a scrap run while Alec made up some cinnamon frosting to go on his cupcakes.  Ian took off in the dump truck to meet his grandfather in the campground and spread some gravel on the roads... it's weird watching my son get into a truck a drive away like it's a for wheeler and no big deal.  I'm so thankful he's had the opportunity to learn these skills driving around our land (where it's relatively deserted too) because I hope it will make me just a little bit less nervous when he really is driving around all over the place.  He sure seems to know what he's doing; he can even back up using his mirrors and get the truck where he wants it to go!

Saturday Evan was ready bright and early to go run scrap; of course the scrap yard doesn't open until 8 but I was so proud of him for getting himself all ready ahead of time.  Ian was off to work with his grandfather and Alec set to work frosting his cupcakes.  After lunch we took the younger two boy to the Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children's Museum and while it is a pretty small museum I was so glad to finally get there! (There will be a post on that trip soon).  We've been wanting to go for years but it never seems to be open.  Once home Evan spotted a few hummingbirds at our feeder and both him and I spent some time watching them fly back and forth chasing one another.  We all piled into the car and spent the evening at my mother's house with our family's first ever Cinco De Mayo party.  We ate tacos and Alec brought his cinnamon cupcakes (we were thinking churro flavored!) and had a wonderful time.

Ian and my husband went for a ride on their four wheelers Sunday morning.  When my husband got back both him and Evan headed off to the movies to see the new Avengers.  Alec, Ian and I went out to lunch at Panera bread and spent the afternoon lazing around the house.  Alec spent most of the day listening to his book on Cd and coloring. After Evan and my husband returned from the movies we took Ian to get his new kayak.  Evan got a new white board for his schoolwork but has spent the last week drawing pictures on it.  He wanted to take a picture of the cute little whale he made.

Bright and early Monday morning Ian decided to make waffles.  I read aloud while the boys ate breakfast and then we made some color changing slime (You can read about how to make some here). They played with the slime for almost an hour before we settled down to finish the rest of our schoolwork for the way.  After lunch we went on a kayak ride and I worked on re-potting some plants for the front steps. 

We saw so many turtles sunning themselves! 

Alec went to karate on Tuesday and as soon as we got home and got the groceries put away it was time for me to run Ian to work. He got a job screening dirt for the afternoon.  Once I dropped him off with his dad and arrived back home Evan wanted to go for a walk.  After dinner my husband asked the boys about building me something for Mother's day so we headed to Lowe's to buy some supplies for a new bench.

I didn't have anything planned on Wednesday but my husband called in the late morning and offered to teach the boys about soil testing.  They had been outside playing and catching fish but grudgingly agreed to go with me.  Once at the shop my husband walked them through the different steps for testing.  We headed back home for the afternoon and spent most of the day outside reading, fishing, and coloring.  After dinner the older two boys went with my husband to begin building the bench (Evan decided to stay home and buy me a gift instead).

First we heated all the water out of the soil

The pan is then dumped out on the top screen and shaken so that the soil falls through progressively smaller holes; sorting the soil sample by size. 

Who knew there were that many sizes of sand/ rocks/ dirt?!

We had plans to meet up with some friends of ours and tour a goat farm on Thursday but the boys all informed me that they didn't want to go at all as we were eating breakfast so we altered our plans.  As soon as their schoolwork was done Alec and I headed upstairs and made some t-shirts for ourselves using the Cricut and some iron- on vinyl.  It was our first time trying it and we had a ball!  After lunch we ran a few errands and dropped Ian off at work to screen some more dirt.  Then after dinner the older two boys went back to woodworking shop to finish putting the bench together.

Alec made a Pikachu shirt and I made flip flops with the saying: Not just an accessory.. a way of life

Other posts on the blog this week:

Ham and Broccoli Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

Entertainment Questions & Answers with the Blended Blog

As co-host of the Love to Learn Hop, I shared some Mother's Day crafting ideas.

As co-host of the Virtual Refrigerator Link Party, I shared some more photos of Alec's coloring pages.

My summer wreath tutorial with the Bling on the Crafts blog hop

How was your week?  I'd love to hear all about it in the comments below.

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