From May right into busy June… our anniversary, my birthday, Father’s day, VBS and an extended cousins visit from Florida… oh and schooling and the first day of summer. If anything June is NEVER boring for this family.

We slipped some school in around the cousins, but for the most part this was a true summer break for the kids and school.

You never knew WHO was going to come to class… a princess, a batgirl… ever changing.

We pulled out the pool and dusted off the playset. With the cousins around there was lots to do around the house.

The boys were quick to settle down around the computers in the sub basement room.

Echo and I took advantage of the break from school and enjoyed the sun and quiet in the sunroom until the high point of the day when it was simply too warm to do so!

We managed to see our friends play soccer…

Go Evan!

Nathan watching his brother before HIS game

Go Nathan!

Found time for the beach…

Got to craft at a special Target event…

With the highlight of the cousin visit being a family trip to Mall of America for food AND rides in the amusement park! Thanks Nana and Baba!

Silly boys

Lego store too… of course!

Ken and I even snuck away to watch our god son (Anthony) play soccer.

With Aidan benched due to a bad concussion before school was out we made quite a few visits to their house for somewhat quiet, relaxed play.

Gavin and I went to one of Alex’s baseball games

and watched?

And somehow managed to sneak in a week of VBS with the church that runs the day care that Schwartz kids go to.

Party poppers

end of VBS dinner

We even had Aidan over for a sleepover.

The kids were enrolled in summer courses at the YMCA thanks to Nana and Baba. Zander took run club, Emanuel a cooking class, and Gavin and Trinity were in archery while miss Echo loved the daycare time.

Add to that the fun of preparing for an October wedding with my high school besty Shandai and I have to say… the most unusual month EVER! At least for this year.

SHAPE!

Tiny hats! Ready for the wedding

We fit in a second visit to the beach with the Schwartz boys and I even had a full sighting of the elusive “other cat” as Echo has termed her, while crafting with Renee.

And as the photos prove – I was never far from a crafting project. Sunshine and fresh air go best with crochet. I swear it!

There was a whole lot more to see… so be sure to follow on to the overflow post for the rest! Thank you for reminiscing with me, it was quite a month!

May 30-June 2

And in a blurry blink May is coming to an end! What better way to learn about Texas and discuss weather than to draw up the 4 seasons. The kids were stunned by the lack of real lasting snow.

Trinity and Emanuel drew us up a stunning Texas poster full of things the remember reading and hearing about over the last month.

The big brothers are really pulling out all the stops and reading to the littles. I love it when they do. The storytelling is getting more and more fluid and fun. And the audience is definitely learning more patience as we go along.

We are seeing more and more gorgeous weather and with a willing Daddy to remove the cars from the drive… well every afternoon we can we are out in the sunshine in our toys with bubbles and books for Mommy.

And then back in to make box forts for the girls!

On Saturday I took the leap and headed over to Regency Hair School and got a brand new CONSISTENT colour! I have to say the price was AMAZING (set price not sliding according to hair length) and the work wonderful. I had an amazing student and walked out with a terrific colour!

We managed a few garage sales and came away with new shoes for Miss Echo, a skein of eyelash yarn and a summer dress for yours truly. We are on the hunt for good finds this year… books, a scooter for Emanuel… anything homeschool related. Garage sales can be where it’s at. Sadly so far this year all the homeschool ones posted on the egroup are not reasonable driving distance for us.

Sunday was new members service for us! Very exciting, not only did the kids sing at the front first with the Sunday School group but we also came up to declare ourselves new members of Saint Mark’s. With a brunch to follow we had a great time meeting some of the other members, having a lovely meal with our new church community and spending some time as a family all dressed up!

We brought home our carnations that were pinned to our shirts and put them in a pretty dish to make into a centerpiece on the table. So pretty!

We had some amazing Lego creators hard at work to make Pokemon.

On Monday we set to work making peanut butter and birdseed on toilet paper rolls for birdfeeders to hang in the front yard. Another Scouts achievement to add to Emanuel’s list for his year.

Miss Echo is utterly in love with “doing her mail”. She simply cannot be stopped when it comes to completing the pages Gammie sent her. I think she is going to LOVE the curriculum we picked up at Sam’s club for an absolute steal.

Our morning was completed with a blanket fort.

There was planting to be done in the straw bale garden out back…

Which of course led to playing outside.

Emanuel chose to use Art for Kids instructions (link on right) to make his very own Mario.

That evening it was time for one of the last Scout gatherings for the year. Darcy had to be at 6 places at once so we collected Aidan early, hung out for a while and then headed over to the dam. We ended up at the wrong parking lot but in the end the boys managed to meet up with their group for their hike.

Super high water levels!

We hung out at the Novak’s for a while while the boys played games until the rest of Aidan’s family got home.  A great ending to a terrific day and the start of a whole new month.

I swear I intend to catch up but we really followed through on our pledge to make every day count in May as much as possible. Living in the moment and finding the amazing in every second!!!

May 12-17

We are very blessed with our main penpal… Gammie has become instrumental in our writing and letter practice. We get more letters some months than we can almost keep up with but every one is answered! This newest installment came not only with letters but with a rainy day (and we have had a few) fun craft using pom poms.

She has added a new incentive for our school work… sending the girls their own work pages to mail back to her. Echo calls it doing her mail and I am happy to say she was VERY interested in doing it. We actually budgeted in curriculum overview books for the kids this month which includes one for her that she will start later in June or July.

There was also a new card game … whack a mole in card form?? The kids LOVED it!

Geocaching is going to be life changing for this family! Now even and every day trip to the store could be expanded to include a treasure hunt as well! We quickly are doing up all the local (walking distance) ones.

And on these outings we are finding more and more examples of winter being truly done and gone. After such a horrible winter each and every little indication is so AMAZING!!

Tuesday Trinity was teaching Echo how to concentrate on her pages…

Zander finished ANOTHER journal. Each book has higher expectations of the writer. This newest book means he has to have a title for every entry, the date and around 7 sentences! Anything to get the creative writing juices flowing! Well done Zander!

Another chapter of Treasure Island later…

And later in the day we made another trek out into the parks of Minnesota to find more Geocaching locations. This time we took Echo and while she and Mommy did not venture into the wooded area we did enjoy our walk. And met a nice puppy.

Wednesday was full of paper work.

Osprey

With the boys in the pool in the evening. I am not sure when we will sign them up for the next series of sessions but man are they improving. We honestly  cannot afford the large number of sports a lot of kids are in right now but what we do do seems to be so appreciated lately that I feel like as long as we keep taking advantage of what we can afford and maybe create our own opportunities we will do just fine!

On Thursday we were indoors and watching BBC nature shows. The kids made a lovely poster after.

The boys assembled some amazing Texas mini lapbooks. The links to these will be in my Texas Resource entry at the end of May.

More Wild Kratts…

Roadrunner

And reading…

And a Dirty Jobs about mosquitoes (I had to share Gavin’s picture… that is one HAPPY insect).

Emanuel learned about South Africa as well.

On Friday since everyone BUT the kids and I were out and about I snuck out with Ken and brought them home CHOCOLATE DONUTS! Yup we miss our Tim Hortons!!!

And I mean we REALLY love the geocaching. I would totally suggest it to any family (or person for that matter) that wants something to do that is really on your own terms. We have downloaded an app for our smart phone but you can get a GPS unit (we want one one day). We have been picking an area that has multiple caches to find and do our best to get them all. We have our own special bag of things we need (that is still evolving and I will share the total list in the future I promise) and try to keep the kids as involved as possible.

Nature was out full force as well. Amazingly enough all this was close to Sam’s (ok so we combined a  good trip Geocaching with shopping…). A Saturday well done.

Spring has sprung full force here… and this is our best year yet for taking advantage of it!