A New Obsession

John's school hosted a family science night full of amazing STEM activities. John toured them all and then ignored them and spent over an hour staring into various microscopes trying to find a water bear. 

He never did, but he did find something called a columbula, which was exciting enough to the scientist leading the activity that he took a picture. John took one too. Behold its glory.

For the record: Among the exhibits he ignored were a book of science word problems that he helped publish, a game he coded, and a rollercoaster he built out of cereal boxes. 

Spring! (For realsies!)

This is how we all feel about weather that is consistently above 50 degrees and doesn't involve snow. 

Dance Performance!

Joy had a last minute opportunity to perform with her ballet class at a local street fair/festival for Earth Day. She did great, and had a great time. She told me afterward "I didn't remember all the moves, but I did remember to smile!"

(Check out her adorable red ballet shoes. They kill me.)

Catching up: High School Acceptance!

I could write many many blog entries dedicated to the ridiculous process of applying to high school in New York City. The very fact that you have to apply is a sign that things are more complicated than they need to be. The bottom line is, it stunk, but we made it through the process and Rose got accepted to her top two choices. (They get a public school spot, and can test for a specialized school spot as well.) 

After much (and I really mean much) deliberation, she chose the specialty school- Bronx Science. It is one of the top schools in the state (#9!) and not too shabby in the national rankings, either (#46). We are very proud of her. 

Catching up: What the What?

The day after Joy's birthday she got a present from the mayor of New York City. A snow day! (Happy spring!) I had to go out for a bit, but the kids were not interested in braving the elements. Apparently they had no trouble keeping busy, because when I came home, this is what I saw when I opened the door...

Catching up: Joy's Sweet Sixth

Joy had been looking forward to her birthday for months. When the big day finally came, she was ready and waiting to be the queen of the world.

She got to use a no-uniform pass, so she picked a fun birthday outfit.

She begged to be allowed to open one present before school. We totally caved.

At school, they were also celebrating the Very Hungry Caterpillar's birthday, so they had a big party and she got to pretend it was for her too.

After school, the other kids all had activities so she and I had a donut date. And she built the Lego set she had opened that morning because she just couldn't wait.

After Stephen got home, we went out to our favorite local restaurant for a special birthday dinner. 

Back at home, we had lemon strawberry cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream. (NOT a good combination just in case you were wondering. But she was the queen so she got what she wanted.)

To end the night, her patience payed off and she FINALLY got to open the rest of her presents. She was properly spoiled- and even got a new best friend that was as big as she is!

Catching up: Interfaith Concert

Our church was asked to participate in a community interfaith concert at a beautiful old theater called the United Palace. The primary kids (so our younger three) sang "I Am a Child of God" in English and Spanish. I sang with the adult choir, but we weren't nearly as cute.

Catching up: Jr FLL (Lego) Expo

This year our theme for Jr FLL was water's journey. We studied why water is important, where it comes from, and how it gets to us. Apparently NYC has a very unique water system, so it was fun to figure out what made it different. The team had to pick a water use and improve something about the way water gets there. The kids picked a swimming pool, and created an awesome water slide shower that you had to ride down before getting in the pool, so it's water would stay cleaner longer. They also had to program a robot as part of their model. They turned ours into a food truck that would drive through the city and play music when it arrived at the pool. Seth helped with the coding, and we recorded Joy playing the violin for the music. They had a great time at the Expo, seeing what other teams had done, presenting their project, and playing with their team members. Each team got an award, and their team was given "Master Programers." They were very proud.

Something New

This kid is trying something new. He just joined the Tae Kwan Do Warrior gym. So far he is loving it. 

Bargain Hunting

I always find the best deals at ALDI. This cutie was a real steal, and worth every penny.

This Weekend

I want to take a brief pause from catching up to make sure I don't get too far behind in real life. So here are some fun shots from this weekend.

We had one day of glorious weather and spent the morning at our local park for a neighborhood egg hunt that had been postponed due to untimely snow. Rose was an observer this year (she finally aged out) but still enjoyed the cupcakes we brought. John was more excited about climbing trees than hunting eggs. They all had a great time.

After the egg hunt and some visiting with friends, we all headed down to Seth's first Pine Wood Derby. Seth (and Stephen) built a Snoopy "Flying Ace" plane. It looked awesome, and as a total surprise to us, was also fast. (It is the red blur in first place in the racing picture.) It won third place for speed among the Wolf scouts, and first place for design. We were all proud of him.

Catching Up: Anything Goes!

Last year, Seth and Joy were adorable little Cratchett children in a production of A Christmas Carol by a local children's theater company. 

They had so much fun, Rose decided she should give the teen production a try. She was cast as a passenger in the ensemble and loved every minute of it. She even learned to tap dance! 

She had 8 shows, but knew someone in the audience for each one. She had lots of friends come, the young women at church came as one of their activities, and Stephen's mom even came all the way from Illinois to see it!

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of her in her cute 1930's costumes, but here is a selfie of us with her stage makeup on, and a shot of her munching on all of the goodies I bought her after her opening night. As she phrased it "Apparently you get a little spoiled when your mom was a theatre kid."

Catching Up: Stake Conference

A couple of months ago, Rose was asked to speak in church. I happened to walk by as she was being given the assignment and I told her that she wasn't allowed to say no. (I may have used the phrase "just suck it up and do it," but that's not important now.) Then, John was invited to sing a solo at Stake Conference. After much discussion, I convinced (or maybe shamelessly bribed) him to agree. So when I was asked to speak at that same Stake Conference, I recognized that I couldn't fight karma and said yes. And for good measure, I joined the choir since I was going to have to be there in person anyway.

We were both a little nervous about speaking/singing in front of so many people. We both practiced a lot. For the big day, he got a hair cut, and I actually curled my hair for once. In the end, though, looks didn't matter much, because the broadcasting equipment wasn't working, so we were only heard, not seen. That was much less nerve-wracking, and in fact, most of the people in our ward didn't even know it was us. So, all of the blessings with less of the stress. Total win.

Catching Up: Aladdin

The following week we dusted off the Aladdin t-shirts and actually made it to Broadway. Because it was a school day, we skipped meeting up for dinner. After a sleepy subway ride downtown, we met Stephen at the theater.

The seats were up high but great, the show was amazing, the special effects were mind boggling, and I am so glad we went.

Catching up: Finishing Up Mid-Winter Break

The rest of the days we were too busy having fun to remember to take pictures.

On Thursday we met up with friends again- this time at the church, because the weather remembered that it was actually supposed to be winter and because John and some friends wanted to film some videos together. There were scooters, balls, toys, books, puzzles, snacks, and plenty of imagination. It was another great day with friends.

On Friday, we did all the homework we had been putting off the whole break. It was not fun. But once they finished, each kid got a brand new Lego set to build. And the satisfaction of not having to worry about it for the last two days of break.

We also hosted the young women from our ward for an activity. We watched CoCo, while drinking cocoa and eating coco puffs. Sweet movie, sweet treats, sweet girls.

On Saturday, we thought it would be a great treat to take the kids to a book store and let them pick out a new book to read. Turns out, our kids all prefer the library. They had the hardest time finding a book that they wanted to own, and that we wanted them to own, that they would read more than once, but would take more than 10 minutes, and was within their budget. Still, I think we had fun, even if it turned into a series of agonizing decisions. And both Rose and John found a new series that they each like. That night we watched Thor, and drank (root)beer in his honor.

Our last day of break was Sunday. After a relaxing morning and a nice day at church, we had "rice crispy treat wars." The teams were boys vs girls and they each came up with a unique rice crispy treat recipe. The boys was pina colada flavored, and the girls was fruity with frosting. We decided theirs would have won, if it had had a little less frosting. As it was, we called it a tie. Both recipes were tasty and will be added to our line up.

Overall, it was a great break with plenty of time to rest, relax, and reconnect with family and friends.

Catching up: Pajama Party and Park Hopping

On Tuesday, the kids requested a pajama party. We stayed in our jammies and ate breakfast food all day. Plus we watched lots of our favorite movies and shows. So comfy!

On Wednesday, we met up with lots of friends (total of 14 kids, three moms) and did a little playground hopping. We started at one of our local spots, Anne Loftus.

Then we hopped on the subway and headed downtown to another favorite playground, Union Square.

After plenty of fun we walked over to the Lego Store to browse. They had a lot of pieces out to free build with. (Percy Jackson minifigs, anyone?) It was really fun.

Then we headed to Times Square, for what was supposed to be the highlight of the break. Notice the t-shirts? Thanks to a last Christmas gift from Stephen's Grandma Molly, we were able to get tickets to Aladdin on Broadway. Stephen was really sick, but managed to stand upright long enough to meet us for dinner. Unfortunately, as we were eating we double checked our tickets and saw that they were not actually for that day. Fortunately, they were for the following week, so we didn't miss our chance to see it. We still counted the day as a win.