New Clothes from India

Natalie and Meagan loved the new clothes that the Brians sent from their trip to India. They wore the whole ensemble to school today and got tons of compliments!

Awesome grandparents

The grandparents have been wonderful lately, helping us out when we are needing it. The girls are loving the attention. Grandma Sandi and Papa Bob brought a new car set for Daddy, but Natalie seems to like it best. The girls have been reading a lot of books, playing "Garbies" (Meagan knows that they are barbies, but still calls them Garbies!), and getting generally spoiled.

End of Spring break

Somehow breaks always go by faster than the rest of the year. I don't quite understand it. :)
It is gorgeous today, breezy and in the high 70s. This is my favorite time of the year, before it gets too hot. Also, it is March Madness, which I love too! At the beginning of the season, I was pretty sure that Kansas would not make it even into the tournament after losing lots of good players last year. Our guys are playing well, though! As I type, we are beating Dayton. If we win, we will be Sweet 16.

Not a usual holiday of ours, but...

....if the girls' Sri Lankan teacher can celebrate it, so can we! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Purim festival

Last weekend we went to the Purim carnival at the JCC. Daniel and Ashleigh met us with Joseph and the kids had fun playing. To be honest, they liked the regular playground more than any of the special stuff set up for the carnival, but that was okay. Natalie did a great job climbing up the mini-climbing walls. Usually she can't quite master them, but besides my standing there to spot her, she did a great job!

She is back!

Jenny disappeared the night of my birthday, about 2 weeks ago. Luckily, the girls were with their grandparents. If they had been with us, Nati would have thrown a total fit and insisted on looking for her forever, but since Grandma and Papa are infinitely more interesting than us, she let it go. Still, she was very sad. Actually, I think we all sort of missed Jenny. She is our third daughter! Wednesday night we heard some kind of commotion coming from the girls room; when we got up there Natalie was proudly holding up Jenny like a prize!
As you can see, Jenny now plays the guitar.

Something crazy....

Yup. It is TAKS time. We work all year to try to get our students to be successful on this lovely test, and Tuesday is the day for the Writing assessment. I went to Costco and got water bottles, peppermint gum (research shown to help kids stay alert), and granola bars. We have run after school groups, small pull out groups, etc. There is not much more that we can do now. Cross your fingers for us!