Yup, still back tracking and going. But as the temperatures decrease enjoy my review on the days warming up. Hopefully NEXT year I will stay on track… maybe?

April was Easter of course, we did our usual church and such but the day was mostly spent with the Novak’s. You can see Easter HERE. It was a rather busy day but so much fun!

April turned out to be the month when we got gifts from Canada. Grandpa Mike sent us 5 matching beach towels! With how much swimming we do, this is one of the best gifts ever! And matching means I know exactly which towels are ours.

Plenty of time was spent at the YMCA.

April was still a snowy time. We took full advantage of the snow whenever we could this year. At least the girls did.

I kept myself busy crafting as usual.

Rainbow blanket for me!

Neko-Chan remained heart tuggingly cute.

We kept our progress going with school, of course.

Trinity and Emanuel continue to wow us with their growing karate skills.

And when it rained we brought out the umbrellas and got out groove on that way. It was rather funny, it snowed, then melted and rained and then dumped a whole bunch of snow on us again.

Enough for snowmen and forts and fun for hours.

Trinity built her own Great Wall of China, out of rocks.

And we pulled out bikes and scooters.

Breakfast at IKEA was snuck in, we even came home with a free plant!

We did fun science experiments with eggs, did you know that if you leave one in vinegar for long enough it becomes bouncy! Until you drop it from too high a height!

I even managed a visit to see my niece Maevowyn. I am biased I know, but she is such a cutie.

April always seems to be a little more crafty and a lot of fun for us. Don’t forget to check out Trinity’s birthday HERE (Which I managed to also forget to post), and that was April!

Embroidery for American Revolutionary War

Well I missed sharing this event remotely close to the day as well. Oh well, enjoy the glance back.

Easter was a bit rough. I had a few sick kids the week before so there was question of us going anywhere or doing anything. But we managed.

In the morning we did the usual church service. Of course the girls had to have Easter clothes and dresses. Even the boys dressed in their Sunday best to make a nice showing. The twins also helped server Easter breakfast.

Of course we took tons of dressed up pictures! The rest are at the bottom of the post! (Zander is in white)

I had a chat with the Easter bunny and this year everyone got a book with their goodies. Big smiles for everyone there.

We then had our second Easter egg hunt of the season (we did a previous one end of March). The Novak’s were invited to a larger hunt and told to bring us along. It was quite the event with lots of amazing prizes. Everyone did rather well.

After the hunt it was time to go to the Novak’s for dinner. Good food, good friends… Snoopy! It was a great day. Family isn’t always blood related. Sometimes they are friends who you couldn’t imagine living without!

And now for the rest of the family photos. (Zander is in white)

New month, new school year! This year I gave the kids the option to “chose” their school year… We get asked this question A LOT through the years and the kids never really know how to answer it. We don’t align to a specific grade and in Trinity’s case, I didn’t register her OFFICIALLY until she was 7 but she has been schooling much longer. (this saves us on testing until it is required by state law) I gave Echo Kindergarten and Trinity chose Grade 3. The boys, they got creative.

Emanuel went with Grade Dinosaur. Gavin  decided on Grade Minecraft. Zander went all out with Grade Mom is the Best Teacher. (mild suck up action there).

I even wrote my own “grade” level.

Poor Echo continued to get eaten alive by the mosquitoes.

I went all out and tried blue hair… it faded a bit too quickly for my tastes but was fun for the short time it lasted.

Note Echo’s temporary blue streak thanks to hair chalk.

September was also the month of our Uncle Ted and Uncle Sean visit. Ted was here 1 week and Sean 2. It was amazing to have 3 of my boys together for the span of time. So much fun.

With Cookie the new Fat Sheep

We also did Renaissance Festival with the boys and Shandai and Ravyn (no kids of course). Costumes for those who wanted etc etc. I will post the many many images and share the fun in a future post.

We ate out at our favourite Indian place.

Sean took Ken and myself out for a super fancy dinner as well!

Fancy outfit… ignore the bathroom

Super pretty room

Played with the Uncles.

Worked out hard.

Learned as much as we could.

I snuck in my craft time whenever possible.

At the pool

I think we all had fun walking outside to the park.

There was a robot kit to make with the uncles.

And Sean even taught Echo how to play WoW (World of Warcraft) which I hadn’t seen in AGES.

Don’t forget swimming.

And the most unusual students.

As well as some amazing sunsets.

New school year, new start! We made the most of it with lots of fun, workbooks and working together. Keep an eye peeled for an overflow blog post. There are just too many pictures to share!

Gifts from Ethiopia!