April was a busy one! Part I

The Thinker

The Dreamer

The Blondies

First thing we babysat for my niece one day for a few hours.  This two year old girl needs a lot of supervision and planned activities at our house with so many new things to touch and get into, so we paused our homeschool to have all hands on deck.  :)  The three boys were excellent babysitters, helping her with everything and helping me do some learning activities with her too.  

We walked down to our playground in our neighborhood and were working on boundaries with her.  ;)

Then came Holy Week and then Easter!  We went to Easter Vigil and got home around 11pm and baked the Apfelkuchen he made from scratch for the third year in a row.  My husband who doesn't really cook, and certainly doesn't bake, has taken on this tremendous tradition.  I wouldn't do it because I actually don't really love apple desserts.  Put some ice cream on it though and it isn't too bad.

      

We did a terrible job of getting a family picture before Mass because we were so worried about not getting a pew again (It had just happened when we got into traffic on Holy Thursday and arrived only five minutes before Mass.  We sat out in the Narthex.) that Brian and Hannah ran inside as soon as we arrived to save us a pew.  We barely fit into one of the pews actually.  Bob has to sit in my lap.  At some point we'll have to start splitting into two pews. 

Here are the non-pew savers.

Easter baskets

We went to my sister's for Easter in the afternoon to dye eggs, do an egg hunt, and have dinner.

Isaac's Key Lime Pie

Then we met some friends at a park one school day after completing our school earlier in the day.  We walked around the lake and saw many turtles and ducks.  The boys played on a playground and in a huge sand box too.  We had lunch and finished the day with a Sonic drink before heading back.

The boys went with me to get a gift for Genevieve's friend's birthday party to Five Below.  They were so excited that I let them use their money to buy kites (just Judah and Drew) and all three boys bought a long handled sand shovel that they can't wait to use at the beach.  The kites were perfectly timed because it was windy for many days after they bought them.  

Earlier that day, Judah had asked me when they get to go fishing again?  I asked, "To whom should you ask that question?"  When he replied, "Dad," I said something like, "Yeah, I'm really not the fishing mom."  Truth be told I loved fishing when I was younger, but I just have too many things I like better now to make time for that.  So, as we were walking through the garage to get in the van, Judah saw the huge kite wrapped up and hung up high and asked, "Are you the kite mom?" with hopeful eyes.  I said, "I don't really want to be," but I know that Brian is also not really the "kite dad" unless we are at the beach.  Apparently, I am the "kite mom" because they kept coming in telling me it wouldn't work and it was stuck, blah blah blah.  So, out I went to teach kite skills instead of making dinner.

Then we were finally able (and brave enough after a year of no field trips) to go on a field trip.  We went to Fredricksburg for the day with some other families.  I went with some mos to the Pioneer Museum with the younger kids and Drew went with another mom to the World War II museum.  Then we met up to go to Mass in the cutest old church and have a picnic outside.  It was a beautiful day!  We've had such a mild spring here!

The Pioneer Museum was all about the German settlers that came to Texas and the World War II museum was a lot about Admiral Nimitz.

Bob, friend, and Judah (in the front)

We even got ice cream in town before heading home.  It was a fun, but exhausting day!