Our month started out with a fantastic study of Jesus Christ. This year studying the New Testament, we've learned so many new things (or remembered things we'd learned in the past and maybe forgotten a bit) and seen things from a new perspective.
We began this month by listing things that we know the Savior is. The kids all took turns adding to our descriptive picture. We then wrote a short testimony in our scripture journals. What a great way to start our month!
While the big kids are in school, we get to play! This month for our clubhouse playdate it was a marionette show.
Lizzie enjoyed being right in the front.
Oliver only came for the snacks. He wasn't interested in the show at all.
Let the pool times begin! We never fully stopped going to the pool, but it had been a while since we have gone regularly.
We love living within walking distance to our pool and love that we can enjoy it for the majority of the year.
Pool pictures never get old. Well, maybe they do. But then again...?
We had some friends come over after school one day and they decided to make a haunted house in our garage. Abby has learned some fun makeup tricks from her cousin Macy.
Maggie really got into character!
Elizabeth was not one to be left out!
They put together a super fun and scary adventure for each other and a few of the other neighbor kids. I love seeing them use their imagination and creativity! It was also entertaining to see the remnants of the makeup for the next few days (that darn play makeup just won't come off!). I had to explain several times that our girls didn't have bruises and black eyes...just left overs from play time.
Bryan ran his first Ragnar race this month. He ran 3 legs for a total of 16.3 miles. His team ran a combined 200 miles! It was an incredible experience.
We are very proud of him from trying new things and crushing it!
Margaret turned 6!!! She had been waiting for this day for an entire year!
Maggie Belle is growing into such a beautiful young lady. She has a very tender heart and her love knows no bounds. She loves learning new things and catches on quickly. Maggie loves to do math, read and write, but her absolute favorite is to cut and paste. She has a very determined spirit and works hard to accomplish her goals.
Maggie loves unicorns and art projects. We sure love having Maggie around! She keeps us on our toes and keeps smiles on our faces.
Maggie requested a cupcake cake for her birthday. She had a particular one in mind...and lucked out when our grocery store had it in stock when we went looking. I lucked out as well since my decorating skills are not up to her standards.
Happy birthday you crazy child! We mean that in the best possible way, of course. We wouldn't have you any other way!!
Anyone else have a scene like this while trying to do family scripture studies?
They see how many of them can pile on the unlucky one on the bottom without tipping over. You win some, you win others in different ways. Building our family relationships is a central part of our studies (that is part of what Christ teaches, after all) so sometimes we just need to adjust our perspective and/or perception and be surprised about how it all fits in to the bigger plan/goal.
Art projects!
Maggie was given some ceramic unicorns for her birthday. She had a blast painting and glittering them!
Have you really enjoyed your chocolate if it isn't all over your face?
According to our research...full facial coverage is required for maximum enjoyment.
Guess what happens when you leave your front door open for longer than 30 seconds? If you guessed that birds fly into your house, you would be correct!
Our visitor came in and wouldn't leave for 30 minutes. I finally had to take the screen off the large window (above which he is perched in the photo) to help him find his way back to his home.
Adventurous Margaret took a spill while riding Daddy's longboard one afternoon. She leans toward the dramatic, so it took me longer than it should have to believe something was actually needing my attention.
One split chin later...good thing it was a Saturday and Dad was able to super glue her back together. Brings a new meaning to the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme. She's collecting some really good (scars) stories to share with posterity.
We decided to try a few new methods for coloring eggs this Easter season. **When we finished, Zeb asked why we couldn't do any the "normal" way of dipping them in the colored water -- guess we need to make room for that method next year!**
It was really fun taking turns dropping colors onto our cool whip base, which we used to roll the eggs in. We then let the eggs set for a few hours before wiping off the cool whip concoction. They turned out pretty and pastel. We also colored uncooked rice and shook the eggs in the rice to get a cool speckled effect. The deep colors were achieved by wrapping the eggs in paper towel, dropping color directly onto the paper towel and then spraying with a 1:1 water:vinegar solution. We let the eggs dry for a few hours before removing the paper towels.
We had so much fun experimenting! Maybe we'll find even more ways to try and just implement a rotation.
Or maybe we'll just color eggs year-round so we can each use our favorite method and not run into a surplus issue.
Super smiles on the super sloth!
Abby doesn't like to leave her sloth in her bedroom. Oliver likes to sit on the sloth. Seems like a win-win. Except for the fact that the giant sloth is not where it belongs.
Easter Morning! We love celebrating Easter and focusing on Jesus Christ. We did little mini lessons each day this week leading up to learning about the Resurrection. Keeping our focus on the Savior brings such a kind spirit into our home. Hopefully we can keep it daily. Realistically, it comes and goes. We have definitely seen an increase of kindness as we've been more diligent with our home studies this year. What an amazing testimony builder of revelation from our leaders!
It also helps that our crew is just so dang cute!
These brothers have a special bond.
Silly and sweet sisters. Kind of hard to smile when the sun is so bright, but they pull it off.
Zebediah had his Spring Concert for 5th grade band. He has really enjoyed learning to play the trombone (it's currently on his Christmas wish list).
His teacher has mentioned a few times that Zeb is naturally talents when it comes to music and rhythm (yay!) and that he just brings joy to the classroom. It was a fun night listening to the progress the kids have made over the school year and seeing their joy was priceless. Zeb loved that we ran into his teachers at McDonald's afterward.
At long last our Lunch With Loved Ones happened. It was postponed 2 or 3 times due to the rain that we kept having, so we were thankful for a sunny week.
Menifee Better Together has become one of our favorite family traditions. This year a few new projects were added to the mix (we've planted flower pots and delivered them to seniors in the community in the past since our kids weren't old enough for the home projects).
Zeb and Bryan built and painted playhouses. It was a very popular project and had a surplus of helpers.
The other 4 kids and I helped paint a garden mural at a local community center. (Also a very popular project with a surplus of *unsupervised* kids)
Oliver and Elizabeth took a break and played in the playhouse (the same model that the boys were building) while the older kids finished up the wall.
Overall, it was a successful day of service in our community and a growing experience for our family. Can't wait for next year! Good thing we can find projects year-round on Just Serve whenever we run out of our own ideas.
Another birthday! We seem to have those a lot. Hehe.
Elizabeth turned 4!! She has also been waiting quite a long time for this day to come. She asks nearly every day when it will finally be her birthday. Well, that day came.
She woke up to balloons and flowers. Just a few of her favorite things.
Lizzie is very spirited and has developed quite the attitude. She says the sweetest things and then makes the silliest faces. She is very smart and loves to try new things. She loves to be my "best helper" with Oliver, chores, errands, you name it and she loves to help. Liz has an amazing imagination. She has "dog Ella" and a "mom Ella" and a "friend Ella". Her stories and adventures with Ella are incredible. I'm kind of jealous that I'm not included. She loves to eat cookie pie (pizookie) and string cheese. She loves dragons and all things pink.
Lizzie asked for "Hulk smash" cupcakes for her birthday treat. What?! Where did that come from? Just a bit on the opposite side of pink dragons. Oh well.
Turned out pretty great, if I do say so myself. Which I do. The key lime cake base was delicious with the purple coconut buttercream frosting.
We love our big little girl! She keeps us giggling and excited. She likes to remind us what Jesus wants us to do. She loved her birthday and can hardly wait for it to happen again.
Whew! That month was exhausting!
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