A Colorful Race

 Our town held a color run this year as part of the spring festival.  If you're not familiar with the "color run" concept, basically everyone wears a white t-shirt and gets hit with color bombs (usually colored corn starch) as they run.  By the end of the run participants are colorful.  The kids participated in the fun run while I completed the 5k.  

 Here's everyone at the 1-mile start line.  Look how clean everyone looks.

 ...And here's the first dose of color.

 Owen ran through the color cloud to begin his race.

 Olivia must have done a good job of avoiding the color bombs because she did not have that much color on her at the end of her run.

 Owen, on the other hand, looked like he had run into every single color bomb along the route.

 I got hit pretty badly too- and mostly by my own children who kept sneaking color packets and hitting me with them.

The kids lent a hand throwing color at the finish line.  I think that hitting other runners with color was their favorite part.  We definitely had fun at this race, and I was so happy to see a decent turn out.  Hopefully, the city will continue to sponsor this event.

Olivia's AR Field Trip

 Olivia loves to read, and she spent lots and lots of time reading and taking accelerated reader (AR) tests this school year.  As a reward, the school took the top 10 AR readers from each grade level to Wild Adventures for a day of fun- and Olivia fell into this category.  This field trip occurred on the exact same day as Owen's beach trip.  So, while the boys were at the beach, the girls were at the theme park.  I thought that Olivia would have fun riding the rides with her friends, but that wasn't the case.  All of the kids pretty much ended up walking around with their parents instead of with other kids.  That was fine with me.  We took this opportunity to ride some of the rides that we can't ride when Owen is with us (because he is too short)- including two of the big roller coasters.  I let Olivia plan our day, and she wanted to do a lot of the animal-centered activities.  She fed the birds, butterflies, and pet a baby emu.  We had a great time.

Owen's Beach Field Trip

The Kindergarten field trip is a visit to the beach on St. Simon's Island. Owen was so excited to get to go play in the ocean with his friends. Brian went with them as a chaperone, and they both had so much fun.  As you can see, we will be rocking the Ear Bandit again this year as Owen still has one tube left in his ear.  After a fun morning at the beach, Brian checked Owen out and the two boys went to Zaxby's for lunch.  It was a fun day.

R5

 The kids and I (along with about 1,000 screaming tweens) attended the Fifth Harmony / R5 concert at Wild Adventures.  In case you don't know, R5 is a band that features Ross Lynch (from "Austin and Ally" and "Teen Beach Movie") and his siblings.  He's a pretty big deal for the young-girl set.  This concert was part of the Wild Adventures concert season and was free with our season pass.  We had a very full day- spending the afternoon at the park and then attending the concert in the evening.  It was actually a pretty good show. We didn't have reserved seats, so we sat on a grassy hill toward the back.  This turned out for the best because my kids think that they are professional breakdancers and were eager to show off their moves.  There was plenty of room to do that in the grass.  We didn't get home until after midnight, and the kids were totally exhausted.  

Easter

I always look forward to Easter and to celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.  Even though we do the Easter Bunny thing, we always make it a point to keep the true meaning of the holiday at the forefront.  

The kids spent their morning searching for the eggs that the Easter Bunny hid and playing with the things in their Easter baskets.

 We attended Sunday school and church.  Following the service, we took our traditional pictures in front of the cross.  Olivia was so excited to wear the new American Girl Easter dress that her Poppy and Nana got her.  She loves to having dresses that match her baby doll.

 After a delicious meal at Granny Buie's, the kids got ready to look for eggs.  It keeps getting harder and harder to hide the eggs each year.  We keep having to get creative in our hiding spots.  Even though some of the eggs were hidden really well, the kids managed to find them all.  This was a wonderful way to wind down the afternoon.

Getting Ready for Easter

 The kids participated in several activities leading up to Easter.  First was the Easter performance of the Children's Choir at church.  Owen and Olivia both had duets this year.  Owen sang "The B-I-B-L-E" with Natalie, and Olivia sang "I have decided to follow Jesus" with her friend Hannah.  All of the kids did a great job.

 Later in the week was the church Easter egg hunt.  Awards were given for the most (and least) eggs found in each division.  Olivia felt bad for Owen because he didn't find as many eggs as she did, so she gave him a bunch of hers.  This act earned Olivia the "sportsmanship" award- which she also shared with her brother.  I love it when the kids get along.

 Another fun pre-Easter activity was dying the eggs with their daddy.  The kids always enjoy this.

Snaggle tooth

After hanging by a thread for about two weeks, Olivia's front tooth finally came out.  It was followed almost immediately by her other front tooth.  We now have this sweet, toothless beauty.