April Dump

 April was an incredibly full month. We are entering our busy season as the weather warms up :) where we get out more and do more than sit at home freezing our booties off. To show you how our days go, I thought I'd just put all the April pictures in chronological order as they were taken. I usually take at least one photo a day. So, buckle up for a ride through our April :)

We had a late birthday celebration for Mimi and early birthday celebration for Michael. This was after a lonnnnng day of starting the garden! It's finally garden season. We started with compost and tilling before putting down tarps to help with weeds. Then the kids and I got started on our cold-weather crops- beets, lettuces, radishes, snap peas, and cabbage!

Part of Mimi's birthday gift was a pedicure and Isla got to join too for her very first one! We had a lovely "girls day" with fancy Italian food and ticklish pedicures :) I loved watching Isla giggle her way through her toes being painted. Good looking toes are a first sign of sandal-wearing, warm weather!

The kids performed a song at church and more gardening followed.

The first part of April's weather was actually colder than some of February and March. So, we spent a lot of time at our school table. Ewan has taken an interest in learning his letters and doing some of the work Isla does. Isla still hates reading, but loves the new reading games on the computer that come with our curriculum. And Eleanor is just there most of the time :)

We spent time at Nana and Pop Pop's house one evening for a change of scenery.

April was also full of lots of bad weather, tornado watches/warnings, and wind! It felt like we used our basement more in April than the entire year combined with all these tornadoes.

Only 4 months in to 2025 and I reached my goal of reading 50 books for the year!! I have been on a reading roll! Do you think I should aim for 100?

I loved this description of what reading is in The Last Bookshop in London (fantastic book by the way). It says, "Reading is... going somewhere without ever taking a train or ship, an unveiling of new, incredible worlds. It's living a life you weren't born into and a chance to see everything colored by someone else's perspective. It's learning without having to face consequeneces of failures, and how best to succeed." Reading truly is magical.

Every Friday night at our house is pizza and game night. It's one of those things that has turned into a tradition and I hope my kids remember our Fridays fondly someday. It's hard to find games that all of us understand, but also keep us entertained. But, we have found a few good ones and they usually end in giggles :)

We finally decorated for Easter. Good thing Easter is so late this year or I might never have gotten our two decorations up :) 

We discovered a mourning dove made a "nest" behind our outdoor couch. I use "nest" lightly, as it was a pathetic bundle of sticks sitting on a cord. The kids are fully invested in her safety and the health of her eggs. They even constructed their own nest in the yard until it was blown away.

Every Sunday night in our family is movie night, another tradition that I hope stays with them. We often just watch mild tv shows because it's really difficult to find a movie that doesn't scare our very sensitive children. We did, however, discover The Americas, narrated by Tom Hanks, and we love it! I highly recommend.

Most days spent at home have school time in the morning and outside time the rest of the day. The kids help me in the garden whenever they can. They LOVE to find worms and re-home them (which means they move them across the garden). We have spent so much time with worms that I'm currently writing a week-long curriculum all about worms for us to dive into soon haha 

A highlight of April is our favorite guy's birthday! The old man turned 35 and we celebrated with his favorite pizza (Monicals) and homemade dessert (mint icecream cake). We sure love him and are so thankful he's ours. 

I looked at our week ahead and weighed the options of getting sick now vs. later and decided a trip to the children's museum could be managed. Of course, the kids had a blast, as they always do. They don't just play either, they really take their time to read the different pieces of information or work on something brilliant. This trip was spent designing a cereal and learning all about the crops needed to make cereal.

(And bonus- we did NOT get sick from this trip!)

What do you know... more crafting and more baking.

Our first co-op of the month was cancelled due to weather, so it felt like it had been awhile since we'd seen our friends. The second co-op of the month started at a coffee shop with books and games and ended at the gymnastics open gym. The kids had a BLAST and it was so good to see our friends.

One of the lessons in Isla's reading book was to brainstorm ideas for a story about a big farm. The goal was to start to learn about storytelling and the process of writing. When we started the activity, Isla's eyes immediately lit up and you could see the gears turning as she started to think up her story. She was on a roll and we kept the ideas going until sooner or later she had an entire story, including a full mystery with suspects, mysterious happenings, and the clever twist at the end (you'll never guess the superpower-stealing culprit). I was honestly super impressed. We were able to discuss characters, points of view, conflict and resolution, titles, and plot. Michael said he wasn't surprised with the amount of audiobooks she listens to. Now we are in the process of typing the story up and illustrating it. She's hoping a publisher will pick it up soon :)

This is what I appreciate about homeschooling. Her math and reading activities have been difficult to get through lately and it seems like we've fallen into a rut. But this activity totally sparked her imagination and creativity. She kept telling me how much fun she was having with writing this story. And THAT is the joy of homeschooling. Seeing her passionate about something and allowing her to lean into that.

Every day we get a little messier in the mud-filled, super-soaked April.

Every once in awhile a set of grandparents takes a child or two for a special day. Nana and Pop Pop had Ewan over for the day to play Mario Kart, ride on all the toys, and eat Mickey Mouse pancakes. It was much needed for ALL of us to have a special day.

I'm embarrassed to say how many times we've visited the plant nurseries this month. Enough that the kids know the names of the cats at two different places. 

Another family game night. Unfortunately, this one ended in tears though. Apparently Sorry is not a good game for our family.

We finally had a beautiful weekend, so the whole family got to work. I laid pavers and mulch to beautify our garden. Of course, the kids and Michael helped.

One of the signs that summer is around the corner is going to Pop Pop's car shows. We had the first one of the season, complete with icecream!

Ewan has really started to take an interest in school-related activities lately. He enjoys learning his letters and sounds and is pretty quick with math skills. Eleanor thinks she is included too :)

Garden lunches, school, and chores on repeat this time of year.

When it's warmer, we love to have dinner and s'mores over the fire. I'm on the lookout for easy meals over the fire to add to our repertoire, if you have any ideas. The kids love it and it's an excuse for us to spend more time outside.

When I make a big pile of pancakes that gets completely eaten, you know it's going to be a good day!

Our co-op had their third annual Easter egg hunt out at our friend's house. She stuffed over 300 eggs because our group has gotten so big over the years. We are such like-minded mamas that candy-less eggs was to be expected and we were all happy about that :) Tradtionally the egg hunt has had freezing rain, but this year it was so beatuiful that we even went home with sunburns! 

Michael had a 3 day work trip, so me and the kids survived on Steak and Shake and pizza :) We still made it to violin lessons and running errands all on our own. But we were glad when he got home.

And then Michael made it home in time for ANOTHER egg hunt at his uncle and aunt's house. It was great to get together with extended family. The kids even got to play in the sand traps at the golf course, the highlight of their week I think!

And then our third and final egg hunt was at Nana and Pop Pop's house. We had a big birthday celebration for Elouise (2), Michael (35), and Trevor (30), followed by lunch and an egg hunt. The kids love to get together with their cousins. Both Sarah and I commented on how Elouise and Eleanor's relationship is starting to really take off. They even played with each other this time. 

When we got home, it was time for Easter prep, but first things first Mimi and Bupa stopped over to drop off Easter baskets from them and Great Grandma June (complete with an egg-laying duck!). It was like Christmas! We gave Bupa his birthday present early too. 

And in between all the Easter festivities, I made sure we made our traditional Resurrection cookies. I love making these because as you make them it tells the story of Easter. Each ingredient represents a part of the story and in the morning you find hollow cookies just like the empty tomb! And of course, cookies for breakfast is always fun :)

It was such a busy day, that I didn't get many pictures on Easter. But the kids enjoyed opening their baskets and hunting for eggs around the house (I guess this was actually our final egg hunt). Then it was off to church to celebrate Jesus' Resurrection! We all came back home for a big smoked ham with all the fixins. I'm grateful when our whole family, from both sides, can get together. It reminds me how full our life truly is!

(I just need it to be known, Ewan did not wear Spiderman clothes to church. He just immediately changed the second we got home into his "slinky" clothes. And there was no convincing him to change back).

And to finish out the long weekend of Easter festivities, we had homemade popcorn and a long movie night after a nice bath.

I know April isn't over yet, but our month is so full that this post is getting long! This seems like a good place to stop with Easter at the end. The days are long, but the years are short. And April was proof of that.