She has been asking to have a family bonfire but realistically it isn't possible.  We are only a family of five however getting everyone at home on the same night at a reasonable time and all wanting to sit around the fire is next to impossible.  Key word I think is the "wanting".  John thinks bonfires are stinky.  He's kind of picky that way. I finally bought all the S'more stuff and she gathered wood from the "wood box".  It isn't really a wood box just some place we throw tiny useless scrap pieces of wood, sometimes cardboard and newspapers.  She drug that out to the back yard, assembled the chairs and the little table with all the S'more makings. Then she took the BBQ lighter out and started the fire by herself.  I was quite amazing. I don't think that the boys ever did that. Job did singe his eyelashes, eye brows and hair once but that was with Dad's supervision in lighting the BBQ.  She has a little bit of an independent streak in her. I wonder where she got that. I mean the youngest child isn't supposed to be independent right? Or are they supposed to be really independent and not need anyone? Not sure which it is. Within five minutes of her sitting out there by herself, family members slowly started trickling outside to make their own S'more and then our neighbor came over as well. That has also typically been a Spring Tradition as well.  Of course Job doesn't do things the same as everyone else. He decided to climb to the top of the orchard ladder and attach his marshmallow to fishing line and roast his marshmallow that way. Why? Can't he be normal? By the way, fishing line melts and his marshmallow was doomed to burn in the middle of the bonfire. Nothing is normal. I left at the time they decided to make paper airplanes and set them aloft while in flames. That was my husband's idea. And some wonder why bonfires and kids make me crazy.

I have no idea where this came from but Job, my child who doesn't like heights, decided to place our hammock high in the cherry trees.  He even measured it.  It's 12 feet off the ground.  He comes home from school, has a snack and climbs into his hammock for about 1/2 hour.  Sometimes he just sits, other times he has his binoculars, and others he brings the iPad so he can read.  We have a book on there that has captivated his attention.  He's rigged up a little "elevator" so that he can haul his dinner or any item he wants with him in his hammock.  During the day if I can't find him I check the sky hammock and often times that is where he is.

My kids need a reason to dress up. I never need a reason to pick up my camera. Job really went all out with this dress nice for dinner. He wanted his picture taken and really hammed it up for the camera. It was hilarious to see him peacock and pose. Lona not so much. However having the kids goof off and be silly with posing makes other kids relax and get into it as well. Our Youth Group had a special dinner for the middle school kids in that they had to dress up and order from a menu.  The kicker was that they had to order from a menu that was not in English.  They even had to order their silverware.  I guess it was fun.  I heard about it from Lona but not so much from Job.

The Grace Project (our youth group) have gone through some changes.  We started out as a large group including high school kids.  We would play games, sing, and have a teaching time only to be divided into groups based on middle/high school and gender.  I went with the middle school girls.  We would discuss the teaching which was on Mark while doing an activity in a journal. I wanted the girls to really dig into God's word and have it speak truth to them.  I follow a gal on instagram called gypsymama who is inspiring with her journaling.  It isn't fancy and doesn't have a ton of art but she digs in and learns. Then there is the Bible Journaling community on facebook that is very artistic and often draws out elaborate pictures in their Bibles based on the text.  Finally there is someone on Pinterest that started it all for me, Stone Soup.  I really like how simple it is and how she breaks it down chapter by chapter.  So we started doing something like this at the beginning and then there was the "Great Divide" and the high school and middle school were split.  We had our own seperate teaching and game time although the singing was all together.  We didn't have a direction yet with the middle school.  While the high schoolers kept working through Mark, we were sporatic.  They would have lock ins and have progressive dinners.  We didn't and the girls kept pushing for something fun. I understand that but have to say that I have one night for youth group since my other nights are tied up with other things. Well spring break hit and Lydia took charge and set up a sleepover at my house. We set a time for t he girls to show up, I bought supplies and had the boys set up the tent.  The weather held out and we had 13 middle school girls show up and spend the night.  They set up their sleeping bags in the tent, jumped on the trampoline, roasted marshmallows and had s'mores, played a little volleyball, journaled and watched a movie.  They scooted out to the tent around 11:30 and I think that by 12:30 they quieted down.  At 6:30 the next morning they started rolling around down there so I quickly threw on a sweater and started making waffles.  By 10:00 that next morning they had their stuff packed up and were headed home.  My boys including my husband had abandoned the house by 5 pm that Thursday night and had a sleep over of their own.

We've sort had egg hunts before but our Easters weren't characterized by them. We've done different things. It's been hard and we've tried to find a balance between what we thought a church wanted and what we've believed. This year I felt free to celebrate with an egg hunt. I quickly scanned Pinterest for ideas and came up with hollowing out eggs and filling them with bird seed. Before I filled them I dyed them with natural ingredients.  Again I turned to Pinterest for this.  I used turmeric, coffee, blueberries, beet juice, and tea.  I think that the blueberries were the best.  Turmeric was OK but not great.  I also picked leaves from our plants outside and then placed them on the eggs and covered them with bits of nylons.  I then placed the eggs within the nylons into a whisk and submerged them in jars with liquid and the ingredients plus some vinegar.  These jars I put into a pot and surrounded them with water and simmered it on the stove.  The reason I used the whisks were to keep the eggs in the liquid.  Since they were hollow they tended to float.  The whisk kept them at the bottom of the jar.  It worked OK.  Once they were out and dry I made the holes bigger and filled them with bird seed. Then I just used masking tape to seal up the holes.  On Easter after coming home from church, I hid the eggs  in groups.  Each egg with bird seed was hidden along with two to three chocolate eggs. The kids had to find the eggs and break the eggs on some else's head.  The person who had sequences in their hair received a prize. I actually bought chocolate bunnies for Lona and Isaac and a box of dots for Job. Once they broke an egg on some one else's head it was a little bit of a war and John and I both received an egg to the head.  It was hilarious to watch.  I really wanted to make it fun for a 16 year old but I think Job was the one that got into it the most. Isaac was a good sport in humoring me to look for the eggs and then allow both Job and Lona to break an egg on his head.  He's a good oldest brother.

 We've had many boy sleep overs.  They consist of food, video games, maybe a movie with more food, breakfast and more video games.  But girls, they are different.  They are busy, extremely different and they chatter and craft and do their hair (different colors), and paint their toes and nails, and cook and bake and paint their faces and wash their hair. It's a whole different ball game with girls. Sometimes it's like having toddlers because they are so busy but the great thing is that they can pick up after themselves. Sometimes I feel like the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) book only it would be named "If You Allow a Girl Sleep Over." Sometimes, their ideas work out, like painting the mason jars and sometimes they don't such as kool-aid coloring their hair. They've had success dying their hair with Kool-aid before but not so much this time. Then sometimes they take over my crafting, like hollowing out raw eggs to get ready for an Easter Egg hunt.  It was the noise of blowing out the egg and watching the yellow stream of liquid streaming into the container that drew them in. Sometimes it's one extra girl and sometimes it's a group.  Won't summer be fun, with all sorts of days to have sleep overs?