The Birthdays

My birthday is in April and it was great! It started the week before my actual birthday with lunch with Russ and Judy. We had so much fun and the food was delicious! 

Russ and Judy, thank you for coming up to take me to lunch! We had a great time!

April isn't just my birthday though but tons of my extended family including my mom whose birthday is only a few days before mine! So we had another lunch when my dad came up to take me to his favorite restaurant for my birthday. Yes, you read that right...his favorite ;) Crackerbarrel is our tradition and I love that we go there on my birthday :)

My mom joined us and we celebrated both our birthdays at the same time. Efficiency at it's finest! I was able to capture some really sweet moments :

 My dad and Megan:

Missing from all these birthday pictures is Kristen. It stinks having a kid in college. She misses out on so much now that she doesn't get to enjoy the flexible home-schooly schedule any more. Rest assured though that she lavished me with birthday wishes and an adorable picture frame that I can't wait to fill! :)

It was a wonderful birthday :)

The Sun!

This spring has been brutal for me. I look very forward every year for the warm sunshine to return to our little corner of the world and this year it took it's sweet time. I thought I was going to have to move! Sheesh! Finally it's warm and sunny and all I want to do is watch our kids play outside! We're not getting much school work done around here ;) That's ok though, I hear we're in for some more rain so we'll get it done then, right??

Sunny days also give me lots of photo opportunities :)

 She turned her head just as I snapped this picture and I ended up with a sweet little picture of her curls :)

 These two have played together constantly and sweetly. I think sunshine makes it harder to argue ;)

 These next two have smiles, brilliantly blue skies and bubbles...perfect.

 Those were from yesterday. Today was...

reading in tents in the yard:

And now they're waiting for me in the swing. :)

Mother's Day

On Mother's Day:

-I slept in
-Todd brought me coffee in bed
-went to church
-Kristen and Jon joined us
-we all took my mom to lunch
-got two beautiful baskets of flowers, one from my mom and one from Kristen,  that are now on my front porch
-enjoyed every moment of sunshine...immensely ;)

From my mom:

 From Kristen:

 I love them! Thank you!

Then...I received the best gift ever. A gift that so perfectly celebrates the season of parenting we are currently in...

 I love it!

 I'm so very excited about all the family reading, dreaming, talking, morning coffees, relaxing that will happen on this swing! I'm not the only one either! The following pictures were taking at various times Monday:

Early morning:

 afternoon (working on schoolwork):

 evening:

They had their bedtime stories out there :) (Jon and Kristen donated blood which is why the red tape ;))

I can't wait for summer!

Showcase

A week ago last Thursday, we had our last day of co-op and our showcase. Unfortunately, Nicholas woke up very early throwing up so he and I stayed home. He was very disappointed to miss his last day and the fantastic pizza party we have but since we had no idea what caused him to be sick we didn't want to take any chances on spreading that nastiness around!

Lucky for us, that was a one and only episode so by the evening I felt he'd be ok to attend showcase for a bit. Brandon was in a play and Megan was in choir so we wanted to be there to see them perform. And I'm so glad we did! Nick was fine and the performances were wonderful!

Brandon's play was first. These kids have worked very hard learning their lines and acting. Brandon can be soft spoken so I was really impressed at how well he was projecting. They did great!

 I love their expressions in this picture:

 It was so fun! Brandon had a wonderful experience and learned alot about WWII and the holocaust.

Megan loves her music class. There's no way she would miss a single session! This semester they learned the flute-o-phone:

Brandon also performed a solo piano piece but I couldn't get a good picture from where I was sitting. He did great!

They all had artwork displayed.

Brandon took a fine art drawing class:

 Above is a portrait and an optical illusion. Below is a city scape using perspective.

 Megan and Nicholas both had a solar system class this session and they did the cutest solar system chalk drawings:

Everyone really enjoyed their classes! It was a great session!

More Horsing Around

Our zoo trip was just plain fun. I think we really needed a fun, family outing because this is what was happening as we were leaving:

Kristen and Megan were chasing each other around trying to step on each others' shadow :)

 Then Todd led a game of Follow the Leader to the car (which was parked waaaaaay out there).

This day was needed. Truly a blessing :)

Horsing Around

What is it with horses and girls? Growing up, I had horses and they were the very best part of living on a farm. I loved everything about them and still do. And so do our girls.

On our way to church we pass a farm that has several horses and lately Megan has been asking if she could ride one. Kristen was the same way and still enjoys riding. Our boys, not so much.

When we got to the zoo we started off in North America wandering around. Then we passed the pony rides. Megan's whole face lit up! Todd bought her a ticket (offered to get one for Nick too but he declined) and she was off on her first ever pony ride!

 She was a bit nervous at first but she got over her fear pretty quickly and begged to ride again!

That's one happy girl :)

Our Family Zoo Trip

Yesterday was a great day! First, I awoke with all 6 of us here and no one rushing off! I celebrating by making a big pancake breakfast :) That just doesn't happen often around here anymore! We deiced to keep the celebration going by heading to the zoo! Yes, it was packed. When you live close to the #1 zoo in the country, you simply do not get it to yourself on Saturdays ;) That's ok. We expected that. At this point, we take what we can get. The younger kids and I can go pretty much whenever we want and take our time at whatever exhibits they want, but it was so nice to be there as a family :)

Even though it was packed, we really enjoyed the animals. Here's a few highlights of our day:

You know we visited the tigers, right?

I've never seen so many pairing up/nesting birds. There'll be lots of babies soon!

 This little bird was so mad at us for spying her nest! She was  giving us the evil eye for sure!

 Then she fluffed her feathers like a very mad momma would and turned to face us. She was cracking us up!

We couldn't believe how hard it was to see the female here even though they were really close to the path. Sneaky ducks :)

And a trip to the zoo would not be complete without visits to the reptile house and the aquarium. I totally lucked out here. Since we were running out of time, we decided to split up....I got the aquarium :)

The aquarium fits right into our science studies right now and since the boys didn't get to see much of it, we'll be heading back soon on a much less busy day :)

Our parting shots:

It was a great day! More to follow :)