Easter 2012

Margaret loved helping me prep for Easter. She is always a willing assistant and I love her company. We had fun coloring eggs and making a mess.

The boys loved enjoying the "fruits" of her efforts on Easter morn.

We spent the afternoon with the McMullins in Cape, plus our good friends the Kramers and Coppietters. Here is Briana (all grown up) carrolling the little ones.

And of course there was an egg hunt in the front yard.

We had such a nice visit. It was Nathan's first little car trip and he was a champ. We really adore his sweet personality.

One Week!

Congratulations little Nathan. You made it through week one with the Burke Bunch! You can tell from big brother Andrew's grin just how much we all adore you. Your brothers rush in the door after school just to check on you. Margaret can not read you enough books or sing enough songs to you. You are the star of the show these days.

Nathan's First Week

Nathan Thomas at 3 days.

Uncle Mark and Aunt Daniela came to visit and meet Mr. Nathan (and Rapunzel too!).

 Dad and Mom and sweet baby Nathan. We love you so much!

Welcome to the World

Mr. Nathan Thomas Burke
March 20, 2012
4:03 am
7 lbs. 13 oz.
20 1/2 in.
Pure Perfection

We love you so much already.

We are so blessed to have you join our family.

Welcome to the Crew.

We can not wait to share our days with you.

What do you do when you can't leave town for Spring BReak because your baby is due in a week? You cram yourself into here...

And ride to the top of this...

All for the sake of these little folks.

(We had a fun day of it. But what was I thinking? The Arch and the Zoo?)

We had been waiting for March to roll around for months. Boy did it come in with a bang. On March 2, during a wind storm, one of those trees that I wrote about saving way back here, fell on our garage. While it punctured a few small holes in the roof, the real damage was inside the attic. Seven trusses where busted and had to be repaired. Thank goodness though that it was on our garage, and not in a finished part of the house. A second tree cracked almost all the way through and swayed above our kitchen, threatening total disaster, until Jason and his Dad had someone from the shop come with a Bobcat to push it safely down away from the house.

As they prepared to move the trampoline out of the tree's path, the wind picked up and the tree started cracking more, so they frantically pushed the tree toward the yard. It of course fell directly on top of the trampoline.

All in all, I am so grateful that more damage was not done. If you look at the picture below, you can see a tree limb behind Margaret that is sticking straight down into the ground. Thank goodness no one was hurt- clean up is something we can handle.

Homework and Skills

The next two headings on our family responsiblity chart are Homework and Skills.

Homework needs no explanation. I will say though that I love Margaret's Pre-K teachers for sending "assignments" home with her. She sits at the island and works away while Andrew does his work each evening.

I created Skills when Tanner started coming home without any homework. I thought that he still needed to review some basics each evening. For us "Skills" includes spelling words, math practice and reading. It is just a quick review of the essentials. Plus it is good for me. It helps me stay on top of current spelling words and math topics. With Tanner not bringing home assignments it would be possible for me to have no idea he was struggling a little with a topic, like, say, long division, until I got graded work home at the end of the week. Reading is 20 minutes, kids choice. I like to think that is just a minimum to get them started, and that they will just read and read because they want to. While that does happen some evenings, and I love when it does, other times those 20 minutes are all the reading they get in.