Art Show, Snow Fun, a Concert, Lego Creations and Superheroes!

It has been a busy week!  The kids have rediscovered lego night at the library and are so exited to go and create some neat things.  The top picture is of Ben's creation of Robin Hood. Next is James' edition of Garfield at the beach complete with John surfing. Noah's is a scene from the BFG with Sophie outside of her orphanage in London.

The Mt. Blue RSD had it's annual all district orchestra concert a bit late this year thanks to a storm cancellation.  It is always an impressive concert to see how many stringed instrument players we are fortunate to have in our school system.

We recently had an art show at church as part of the celebration of Lent. We have so many talented artists in our congregation and they graciously allowed our kids to submit their art too.  The feathers/wings were made/painted by the kids in Sunday school. James drew this picture 1-2 years ago and has been displayed in the entryway of the church during that time.  Someone asked if they could use it for this show and when I asked him to write a description of it I was pretty surprised at his response, "When we were learning Leonardo DaVinci I wanted to try and draw the Mona Lisa.  Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out well and I turned it into a love sign for church.  Because the right thing to do is to give love and help others, just like Jesus.” Ben spent hours creating this small lego creation entitled, "Me and God" and he says, "This is me and God in front of our house. p.s. I think that Lent is important so we get to listen to God more."  Apparently he thought the "p.s" portion of his sentence was important as he thought it added humor...

We are still enjoying winter, but have had some warming.  Ben and Audrey tried out one of Audrey's birthday presents the other day before breakfast. The kids all enjoyed a fun birthday sledding party, maybe the last of the year?

Audrey Turns 5!

It has finally happened that our youngest baby is 5!  Audrey is growing into a kind, thoughtful, loving and spunky girl.  She loves having her older brothers read to her, playing soccer, swimming and running.  She is an excellent story teller with an impressive imagination.  She is regularly keeping us up to date on her imaginary friends: French the Dinosaur, Grandma Judy, and, most recently, Uncle Junie. She is quite the story teller!  We love you Audrey and can't wait to see what this year has in store for you!

Audrey's 5th Birthday Party!

This big girl celebrated her 5th birthday today with a Robin Hood party.  She has been looking forward to this for months and getting to wear her brother's Peter Pan costume for the event was a bonus. The kids had a grand time shooting arrows, tossing bean bags, and hitting the piñata. Thanks everyone who was able to join us!

Winter fun:)

Bring on the snow!  We have snow everywhere now and love that we don't have to shovel around the pig pen. James spent all afternoon the other day building this elaborate snowman all by himself.  It is a snowman golfing complete with a club, ball, hole and flag.  

We made it to Black Mountain two days before Audrey turned 5 and she skied her first black diamond trails!  Once she got the hang of it we had to try 3 others.  She was particularly motivated to be able to say that she was skiing the black diamond trails before she turned 5;)  

Noah Turns 11!

Phew!  Eleven years has just flown by!  This kind, thoughtful, helpful and curious guy turned 11 today. He loves swimming, skiing, running, playing the violin, and exploring anything mechanical.  He is a very patient and loving big brother who is always being asked to play with or read to someone. We love you Noah and can't wait to see what this next year brings!

His siblings thought they were being so funny by playing a present trick on him by wrapping all of the presents in one box with lots of trick boxes.  By his pick we broke out the soft serve ice-cream machine and made what the kids still refer to as, "cold peanut butter soup".  

St. Patrick's Day and Noah's Birthday Celebration!

Noah decided against a big birthday party this year and instead opted for an experience.  He chose the shark exhibit at the Portland Science Center followed by a hibachi lunch.  We were fortunate to also be in Portland on the same day as the St. Patrick's Day parade.  The shark exhibit was certainly eye opening and a great learning experience for the kids.  Hibachi is always fun and the restaurant did an amazing job of embarrassing/making Noah feel special for his birthday;) Thanks for joining us Bennetts!