Our little guy turned seven this week and we had a fun day celebrating him.

Since it was over spring break, the original plan was a morning at the zoo. It was POURING when we arrived, and I’m just past the point of the year in which I can deal with cold and rain outside. So we pivoted and headed to the other place we have a membership, Pacific Science Center.

I took these photos one right after the other and they crack me up because I don’t think I could have captured better descriptions of their personalities if I had planned it.

I love adventures with these kiddos.

The birthday boy requested cake pops, so we got those started after lunch.

While he was taking a break from baking, I looked over to find he’d cut up his spring break puzzle box to create a stand for the picture guide. If that’s not Chase, I don’t know what is.

We met Greg at Eureka! for burgers and fries for dinner then came home for cake pops and presents. Everything was put in the “best presents” pile, expect for the Dragon Masters Yoto cards I got him. He might still be listening to Ramona on repeat when he heads off to college.

Final birthday event – the measuring stick! He’s exactly as tall as Paige was on her 8th birthday, and I need him to grow about 1/2″ before July so he hits 48″ and can go on all the rides at the amusement park in Paris this summer.

Because it’s spring break and most of his class is out of town, we’re having a small party at our house later this month.

The Brownies had their first ever booth sales.

We had friends over for dinner and s’mores.

I wasn’t able to clean Chase’s Hot Wheel track to bring it back in the house (way too many nooks and crannies I couldn’t get into), so he was upgraded to this super cool one that they now have.

We celebrated Pie Day…

… and St. Patrick’s Day.

We made it to the season of light in the evening and took advantage.

We even got a few days of warm enough to sit outside weather.

I chaperoned a Kinder field trip to the bank.

We visited MOHAI for the first time on a day they had no school and it was so cool. The kids were bummed we had to leave to make it home for a delivery.

The kids and I had a Yes Day while Greg was on his spring golf trip. I was terrible at taking photos, but it involved milk shakes for breakfast and ice cream sundaes for dessert, the trampoline park and the indoor pool, pho and pizza, and really just a great day.

Chase is in his paper airplane era. He comes home everyday with 5 or 6 in his backpack. I think Mrs. Williams has decided she doesn’t want them in her classroom, lol.

The kids started spring golf and I’m soaking up the one year they’ll be in the same session!

We spent another Easter in California this year! While the weather did not show up, we had a lovely time with family.

She’s six weeks older. He’s eight inches taller.

I dread coloring eggs (in fact, my kids swear they’ve never done it though I’m not sure that’s true) and am grateful that my mom put all the effort in to make it happen.

Learning new games with Grandma and Grandpa.

Happy Easter! Someone is going on year three of giving our family photos a little extra character.

The rain finally stopped in time for the hunt!

The star of the show these days is this girl. We are all just a little obsessed with Kinga.

We also celebrated Chase’s 7th (!!!) birthday on Easter with some egg nest cupcakes.

I’m so glad we stayed through Monday evening, because the weather really turned around. These three decided on an impromptu lemonade stand and made $7 each.

Then it was a little swimming in the heated pool…

…more time playing with this girl….

…and a walk to YogurtLand before we heading to the airport for our 7:10 flight.

I feel like we had so many events with their own posts in February that there shouldn’t be much random, but there are still a few things I want to remember!

A successful egg drop at school!

Saying goodbye to long hair (for now!)…

Cookie delivery to all our generous neighbors!

Sunny days to play at the park with friends after school – such a relief in February!

That “post vacation, I need veggies” feeling.

Renewing our zoo membership because it’s really a great way to get everyone out of the house on a weekend afternoon. So far we don’t have kids who are interested in team sports, so we have to spend our weekend trying to fill it, not trying to find blank space!

Chase bought himself a basketball hoop, so maybe we’ll have weekend sports in the future!

This is the only photo I took, but I want to remember my three day trip to New Mexico for a 2.5 hour appt with my CIRS doctor. It was a fantastic appointment, but getting from Seattle to Roswell, NM is not logistically easy!

We spent the last few days celebrating our girl!

She had a cat themed birthday party with school and neighbor friends on Saturday. The girls painted wooden cats, made cat names for themselves, played a ton, and ate pizza and ice cream cake.

On Wednesday she had waffles with a candle….

…we went out for sushi…

…and finished with grabbing dessert at U Village. She chose macarons, which we brought home and ate while opening presents.

She has grown so much in the last year! She loves the Babysitters Club books, her jazz dance class, watching 90s shows like Full House and Clarissa Explains It All, and learning the guitar. When given the choice of what to participate in for a mini school competition recently, she chose art, cheer/dance, and dramatic reading.

She definitely seems like a preteen at times, but she also spent all weekend playing dress up and house when we were in Boston and her favorite gift from last night was the doll school set Chase picked out for her… such a sweet middle ground we are in, I’m trying to soak it all up!

I think she would like me to add that she is very proud she was the only person in her class to get 100% on their first division test! Her teacher this year is very into having a growth mindset, and I can see how it’s helped Paige learn to stick with hard things and see them through – definitely the biggest area of growth I’ve seen from her this year. Well, that and she’s now over 4 feet tall!

I can’t wait to see what this next year brings for her!

We had the best time in Boston for Mid Winter Break this year! I’m so glad we’ve been putting the effort in the last few years to get the Martin cousins together as much as we can given two opposite sides of the country. It’s really paying off – they play together so well and were all excited leading up to the long weekend.

We tried something new and instead of using an entire day to fly east, we took a 3:45 flight – with a cockpit viewing for Paige! – that landed in Boston around midnight. An uber ride later and we were at Mike and Kelly’s around 1am. The kids woke up the next morning at 8:30 and minus being a little tired, they were on east coast time without any real adjustment!

On Saturday we spent the day at the house letting the kids play together. They spent most of the weekend playing family and enjoying the leftover snow. Paige shocked us all by being the last one standing outside.

I love seeing the four of them together – they are now at an age where they can all have a conversation and it’s so sweet to watch their relationships grow.

On Sunday we headed into Boston for the Children’s Museum and lunch. I’m trying to get to as many as we can before Paige ages out. She had fun with some of the activities and also helping Abby enjoy the museum.

While Paige and Abby spent a lot of time together this trip, these two were a little pair. They are both in Kindergarten this year and seem to be connecting a lot, especially over Paw Patrol. It’s always fun to see how the kids pair up.

We headed to Pink Taco for lunch (or brunch, we are not cool anymore so we all forgot that 1pm on a Saturday means brunch), where all the kids wanted the pink churro pancakes and a side of bacon. We warned them they probably wouldn’t actually be pink, but what do you know! We had four very excited kiddos.

We headed back to the house for more outside time…

…while Uncle Mike and Greg picked up Grandma from the airport! We also had cupcakes for Paige’s birthday this night, but I didn’t seem to get a photo.

Monday morning was more playtime then a trip out of the house for bowling and the arcade. (And yay! I finally made it into a photo on the resuscitated blog!!)

That night all the grown ups went out to dinner in Providence, but we forgot a photo to prove it! Michelle, the girls’ nanny, came to watch the kids and it was reported that she is “super fun”.

We had some last bits of TV and playtime on Tuesday morning…

… then it was off to the airport. Greg left separately for a work trip and the kids and I ate an early dinner before our evening flight back west. We really had the best time together and can’t wait for our August trip. In fact, the kids requested a 177 day paper chain, lol!

Chase’s class had Market Day this month along with first and second grade. He thought a lot about what he wanted to make and decided on bird houses. I handed this off to Greg, thinking he would say no and find something easier (as I would have!), but together they designed and assembled 10 bird houses out of popsicle sticks. Chase did the counting out of sticks, and final painting while Greg did the hot glueing.

On Market Day, all students can bring $5 and shop the goods of their classmates. Chase and Paige both brought home a few items – it’s always fun to see what others are making.

Later that evening the school had Chili Bingo Night and kids can sell the inventory they have left. Chase asked me if she should wear a tie “like a real business owner” and I was tickled when he came down with his tie on… and sweats.

He spent time explaining his Critter Feeders (evolution from bird houses during the building process) to other parents and sold out! I, however, did not defend my 2nd place title in the chili cook-off. There’s always next year!

Usually I love going all out the first two weeks of February with a garland from Christmas cards, hearts on the kids doors, and other random ideas I borrow from creative people, but we’re just not there yet. We did manage some fun though! I got the heart plates out of storage this weekend and we managed heart pancakes this morning.

The kids came downstairs to a favorite book each and a little something fun. For Paige it was a Siamese cat Squishmallow that she has named Valentine, Val for short. And Chase got a pair of Crocs with two dino gibblets. Will we ever move on from cats and dinos? I’m in no hurry!

I spent most of the day at the school helping with auction prep then put on the 3rd/4th grade Valentine’s Party at the end of the day. Hard to get a good photo when you don’t want to include other kids, but we played a few fun games, including this race where you had to use suction from a straw to move gummy hearts across the table.

The kids both had sweet gifts from school for us. I know it will just keep getting more fun, but I am really loving being an elementary age mom. And, to keep things honest, the kids go to aftercare on Wednesdays and by the time I got there at 4:45, they were sugared up, exhausted, and it was not a fun next few hours.

It’s been a busy week! The day after Valentine’s Day, Chase’s class celebrated the 100th day of school and Paige’s class got to take a field trip to LEST!

Chase chose to dress like a 100 year old, though by the time Thursday morning came around he’d pretty much whittled his costume down to the minimum. He was not thrilled when he found out his cane was inflatable, but sometimes moms forget things and have few options on next day delivery…

I’d like to say he worked hard on his 100 sticker poster, but numbers come easy to him and he kept a little post it next to him to keep track and plopped these on and it was not really a big deal at all. Thankfully, since we were also working on valentines and his Market Day project (post to come!) at the same time.

Meanwhile Team Hawthorn got to take a field trip down to LEST (a middle school competition for Lutheran schools in the surrounding six states that happens to take place in Tacoma) to watch our middle school Cardinals in their first debate and basketball game. They dressed in school pride and made signs to take with them. This was a big deal for the 3rd/4th graders to get to be a part of LEST – I’m so excited for her to go in two years!

I’m a little late this year since the kids and I had the flu or something on our actual house anniversary. I love this tradition, especially with how rough things have been the last year. Having happy memories of our home, and seeing how much life we’ve lived here, is very welcome.

2019 / 2020 / 2021

2022 / 2023 / 2024

And of course, some personality from this year. Working on finding a little more love in the love/hate relationship I have with the house right now and it’s the little things, like photo comparisons and having people over for dinner like we did on Sunday, that really help!