Springtime Fun

 We filled our Spring with as much fun as we could cram in.

We hosted our April Keepers of the Faith meeting and taught the girls how to play croquet. It was a great afternoon. After a round of croquet, we came back to our house for snacks and the couch game. Such a great afternoon!

Katherine set up a library in our living room, and we all checked out books from it for a few days. Love her coffee cup :)

One morning the kids asked to go to the mall to walk around Scheels. Katherine insisted on a picture with this dog statue. 

Elisabeth spends most Wednesdays serving at Arms Around BA. She does many things- marks of bar codes, organizes groceries and other donations, help people with food orders, but her all time favorite thing to do is babysit while the parents are shopping. Her heart and desire to serve others is such a joy to watch. Praying her desire to serve grows as she does. 

For our last book club book of the year, we read Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library. We divided the kids into groups and asked them to design their own board game based on one or more of the books we read throughout the year. The kids understood the assignment and worked very hard on their board games. It was fun to hear them present their ideas. 

It's a rare moment that Matt is nap trapped these days. I don't think he minds it. 

Friends spending the mornign with us and pretty weather of course means a game of wiffle ball in the backyard. 

Afternoons in Kidsboro lead to all sorts of creativity. Look at this flower braid. 

We rented out a small baseball field for an afternoon of wiffle ball for the middle schoolers in our homeschool group. Nathan had been asking all year for this event. He was very excited. 

We attended our annual homeschool group's elementary Easter egg hunt at the Gundersons. Their property is just wonderful for egg hunting. The girls had a blast.

We've had an unusually rainy Spring, and this adorable puppy has been enjoying the mud. We've had to bathe her more than normal. Good things she's cute. 

This girl has been on a reading kick especially with a new kindle to read her books on. 

Nathan completed his Algebra 2 curriculum at the end of April. Proud of him and his perseverance getting through such a tough math year. He works really hard at everything he does.  

The kids had "nerd" night at AWANA and were excited to plan their costumes.

Samuel's creativity and ability to execute his ideas always amazes me. He won the night with his "nerd" costume. 

These cuties sure love a theme night. 

Elisabeth struggled to finish her writing assignment at the end of the year. I really didn't want her to have any last assignments hanging over her to have to finish after our beach trip. Thankfully she buckled down and finished on time. Yay!!

Easter 2025

 We had a pretty simple Easter this year but so enjoyed worshipping our risen Savior and celebrating with friends. 

Of course we took pictures in the kids' Easter best before we left for church. 

Chocolate bunnies are an annual tradition. 

After church, we picked up Mexican food and enjoyed a non traditional Easter lunch with the Shondelmyers. It was rainy outside, but no one seemed to mind.

Elisabeth did decorate her traditional nest cake for dessert. 

The kids asked to dye eggs, something we've never done before, but they're so independent and responsible these days, they pretty much did it all on their own. Samuel was very proud of his- it turned out great. 

We ended the night watching the Sight and Sound production of Jesus. Simple and special is our favorite way to celebrate Easter. 

Hot Springs Getaway

 After an incredibly busy winter season, Matt and I scheduled a quick getaway at the end of March to slow down, relax and spend some quality time together. We were looking for a location that wasn't too far away but still felt like a vacation, so we settled on Hot Springs, Arkansas. 

I booked a cute little condo on the lake, and we left town Friday morning. I enjoyed the view from the back porch of our condo. We sat and read out here several times during the weekend. 

We didn't schedule a lot of activities. We really wanted to relax. We brought a few games and played those on Friday night. We also ate at a delicious Italian restaurant. 

Matt needed to do a little clothes shopping, so we drove into Little Rock on Saturday to shop at the outlet mall. We spent the day shopping and grabbed a really yummy lunch at a steakhouse. 

We drove back to Hot Springs that afternoon, enjoyed some delicious ice cream and did a little more shopping in Hot Springs. 

We also watched the sunset on the lake that evening. So beautiful. 

We spent Sunday morning exploring Hot Springs National Park. One of the original bathhouses was converted into a museum, so we toured that. It was a piece of history I was really unfamiliar with that was interesting to learn about. 

We also walked along the downtown area of Hot Springs, felt the hot water coming out the springs, and browsed some of the shops. 

Sunday afternoon, we drove over to a beautiful botanical garden and explored for a few hours. 

The area was so beautiful! We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon seeing tulips, waterfalls, and lush landscaping. 

We ate Mexican food for dinner and then went back to the condo to relax. We were able to finish a show we'd been watching for months on Netflix and played some games.

We came home on Monday and jumped right back into the busyness of life with four kids. We even brought Bella a gift. She was the only one of our "kids" that got a gift while we were gone, ha!

I think she liked it! Matt couldn't pass it up when he saw it in the shop. 

Quality time with Matt fills my cup more than almost anything else. I'm so thankful we both prioritize it in our marriage.