March

March was a month of visitors with my dad, Uncle Kenny, my mom, Ricky, Ana, Bre, Rad, Jen, and boys and even Uncle Terry and Aunt Toni again stopping by for a visit. Or in some cases, staying here for several weeks much to our delight.

In the spirit of time, I'm going to just post pictures of the month.  That should work well considering it is the last day of March.

Soccer has been big this month.  Brady has been playing in the Sunday morning "league" in Apopka. It's been a small group of only about 10 kids. I say this humbly but Brady is by far the best in the group and scores between four and seven goals each week.  It's for 4- to 6-year olds so obviously he's at the top of the age group.

The girls are skipping Sunday this go round because they are doing the "Florida Christian Soccer League" at FLEC.  They play a couple of times a week at 4:45 or 5:45 pm.  They did try outs for the coaches to assess each kid's talent and then had a private draft.  This was Aubree walking off the field after tryouts and Brady grabbed her hand which I thought was so sweet.

She was happy to be picked by Pastor Moreno who is in charge of the Apopka league.  She's in the group of 2nd and 3rd graders.  They have six teams.

They randomly got assigned numbers.

Calleigh got picked by Luke Wandersleben which puts her on the team with his younger brother, Christian, who is one of the best kids.  It was the team she wanted!  Her group is 4th and 5th graders.

The girls have lots of fans in the "stands."

Colby seemed to spend more time laughing with Papa than watching the games.

Waiting to do offering on the first Sabbath of the month.

That evening, we had a family movie night in the church parking lot.  Colby and I watched "Finding Dory" (well, he watched while I read my Kindle).

Meanwhile, the bigger kids watched "Wonder" inside with Grandma and Grandpa.

Ricky, Ana, and Bre came into town on Sunday, 3/4 and the kids took advantage of Uncle Ricky with some sporting events in the backyard.

Papa and Uncle Kenny (my dad's oldest brother who lives in New Brunswick, Canada) arrived the next day.

Colby was very excited for Papa to be here to read this book to him.  I am not a big Dr. Seuss fans because the books are silly and so long so I told him to wait until Papa arrived and he'd read it.  He didn't waste any time!

On Tuesday, 3/6 we went down to Plant City for the Strawberry Festival.  This is the first time we ever went and I was impressed.

The strawberries were SO good!

The main purpose of our trip there was to go to a Gaither Vocal Band concert at the festival.  Five of six Brace siblings also joined us (Dad, Kenny, Shirley, Wanda, and Mary)

I bought the kids lollipops to entertain during the concert and Aubs took a little siesta with it still in there.

The concert was terrific! At first we were concerned that it was outside as it was a rather hot day but it ended up being fine.

Afterwards, I told the kids they could go on two rides each..  They wanted to go into this fun house for the second choice but Colby was too small to go without an adult.  I had to go with him but I had no more cash to buy tickets and there was like a $2 or $3 charge to use your card which I didn't want to do. Calleigh selflessly volunteered to skip it and give me her ticket. After a lot of back and forth, I accepted her offer.  But when the lady in charge realized what happened, she waved Calleigh in too and we all did it.  Lots of fun!

Girls decked out for Duncan's birthday.  He turned 40 on March 8.

His request was to eat out at Ethos Vegan Kitchen.

See that part without the frosting on the right there?  Yeah, I'm sure you can guess who licked it off.  It begins with a "D" and it wasn't the birthday boy.

Tried to get a picture of us and when I saw it I was like, "What the heck happened to my hair??" That's actually a plant behind my head but it totally looks like my hair is sticking up.

The kids found this Whippet mug at the Strawberry Festival so it made a great birthday present.

Our other gift was this cool world map.  You stick pins into all the places you've been as a family.

We introduced Uncle Kenny to yard sales.  My dad didn't know if he'd find it tedious or what.  But he thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He's a kindred spirit for sure.

You can probably tell he's very tall and in fact, he wears a size 15 shoe.  I had found a great deal on some shoes for Calleigh at one sale and my dad joked about whether Uncle Kenny had found any shoes.  But we all laughed, like what are the chances of finding size 15's at a yard sale??  No joke....the very next yard sale had these like new Timberland boots in a size 15 for $8!  It was almost eerie.

Sabbath brunch at Ron and Elaine's.  One of my favorite things!

Fun playing with Bre.

The girls completed another year of piano lessons (third year) and the deal is that they get a new American Girl doll.

After much deliberation, like A LOT, Calleigh ended up with Luciana who is the girl of the year for 2018 (she's an astronaut) and Aubree got the girl of the year for 2017, Gabriela (dancer/artist/poet).

One of the hardest things my dad has ever had to do. He had to bring Aunt Wanda to her new home - - a memory care assisted living center.  Even when you know you're doing the best for someone, it's still incredibly hard.

Playing "Nine Men's Morris," a game from the Middle Ages.

Soccer in the backyard with Papa. Calleigh randomly said to me one afternoon in the car, "One of my favorite things to do is playing soccer with Papa."

Saturday night, 3/17, at Braelyn's 11th birthday party.

Sunday, 3/18, was a big day as Brady ran in the Miriam Kittrell Fun Run (at FLEC) for the first time.  It's for pre-K through 2nd grade.  They run about three or four tenths of a mile, I'd guess.  We know Brady runs fast but we didn't know how he would do over a longer distance.  Much to our delight, he finished 27th out of 143.

Duncan has been training for a marathon and Aubree has been doing short runs with him.  This is the first time she did an official 5k.  I am SO proud of her.  She certainly does NOT take after her mom.

Her official time was 29:55.  This is showing non-FLEC students ages 1-14.

She finished 2nd among 3rd grade girls (this was only showing FLEC 3rd grade girls so you'd have to insert her name where I drew the line).

Duncan could have run it much faster but he obviously stayed with Aubree.

Came home one day to find that Aubree's bathroom had totally flooded and had gone into the hall and her and Calleigh's room.  Duncan got the plumber out in thirty minutes who had re-plumbed our house when we moved in and he admitted it was his error.  A bad gluing job (sounds weird).  We had to have these blowers set up in the bathroom and girls' rooms for about 10 days and they pulled up the carpet and pad which were soaked.  Fortunately it didn't cost us anything but it was a pain.  The girls slept in the boys room the whole time.

Duncan got the kids hockey sticks at Five Below one Sunday.

Playing with Papa and Uncle Kenny in the driveway.

And then with Rad in the house when his family popped in for the day (they were in the area for vacation with Jen's family).

Papa spilled his smoothie but didn't want to waste any of it!

Showing off some new "Tea" clothes.

Rubbing olive oil on some artwork to make stained glass windows for school.

Grandma and Grandpa brought over another Yum Yum box.  This one was from Poland and we all enjoyed trying out the snacks. Duncan and I went to meet someone about our bathroom remodel and this is what we came home to.  Poor Papa!

The to-do list they made. I had the idea that Family Ministries should provide "Busy Bags" to kids at church so over the last few months, I've been getting supplies at yard sales...books, coloring books, stuffed animals, crayons, puzzles, etc.

I've never met a Calleigh spelled the same way and here was one at our own church! I found out she got the inspiration to spell it that way from the same place I did...the TV show CSI Miami.  Uncle Russ and Grandpa's birthday this past Sunday.

Rough day on the boxing circuit.

                                  The kids giving the dogs a bath.

Colby's class, along with some help from Aubree and Brady, took part in the special Easter program this morning.  Colby was playing the part of Jesus riding in on the donkey.

Ron and Elaine playing the parts of Abraham and Sarah for Colby's Sabbath School.  They were awesome!

I think that's a wrap for the month of March.  Have a Happy Easter and a great week!