First camping trip of 2015

We went on our first camping trip of the season over Easter weekend.  It was fun, and nice to be away, but I'm not particularly sure I liked being away from home over Easter.  We did come home on Sunday and pulled of some Easter fun though, so it all worked out.

Aaron had only one thing left to complete his Wolf requirements to earn his Wolf badge for cub scouts, and he finished it at camp!  It was to cook an outdoor meal.  So, we thought it'd be a great time to also try out our emergency rocket stove that we got for Christmas.

 it was a good experience all around, and he did great!

I think he liked cooking over the real fire.

It was chilly, but when the sun came out it just warmed you right up.  April also decided that the hand warmers helped her face too.

It rained all afternoon one day.  There was a puddle already here when we arrived, but the rain just made it bigger.  The boys had fun stomping around in it one afternoon.

He was in puddle stomping heaven!

 And, yes, it was cold! Apparently not too cold for him though.

I love our OSU windsock when we are camping.

 Having a trailer to warm up in at night makes such a difference!  It got very cold, very fast this evening. The boys came in after s'mores and we read stories.  Here they are listening to "The quiet way home" on the ipad.

Our last lunch at camp.  We were packing up and almost ready to go home at this point.  I was kinda sad to go, but ready to get home and celebrate Easter.

 Yes, a super healthy lunch of mac'n cheese, I know.  It's quick and easy for packing up.

 By the way, we realized 2 days before this trip that our fridge in the trailer wasn't working.  So, this is the first year since we've had the trailer that we had to keep everything in coolers.  It went ok, but that fridge sure is convenient!

Desiree

March wrap-up

Oh March, you came and went!  Now it's April, and I don't want to forget some of the fun things we did.  I'm really trying to enjoy the small things right now, and that's most of what I have here.  Just the small and simple moments that we had over the month of March. Not much really, and mostly just normal life.  But, they are moments that I love, and want to keep a record of!

I kept our Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes out of the halloween costume box for Dr. SEuss's birthday.  I finally got the boys to wear them by the end of the day for a picture. We didn't get to do much for Dr. Seuss day like I wanted to (story of my life), but I'm glad I got these cute pictures!

We read Dr. Seuss books at bedtime.

I had been wanting to take the kids to this indoor archery place called Archers afield, they have a homeschool time so I thought it would be a fun "field trip".  It was!  They all loved it.

We played a lot of games this month because 1. we like to play games, and 2. I was leading a "board game" class at our co-op so we always had a lot of games out.  This Guess Who is pretty popular both at home and co-op.  I loved this quiet time with Alex.

This is Aaron with some of his friends at co-op one day.  This is the Crazy 8's math club that he is in this term.  They were doing math with glow lights!  These boys just figured out how to make a pyramid with equal sides.

Alex just loves Crazy 8's.  I help with the class so he is in there with me.

Here they are making shapes out of glow lights.

I was ready to get rid of the chickens this month.  I am tired of chicken poop everywhere, but that's really the only reason.  I love my chickens, and deep down I knew I really didn't want them to go. Well, I had a sweet lady come over and help me realize this AND she helped pull out the old garden so we can make a chicken run.  Hopefully we'll be able to build a chicken run soon!  Here is the dirt left from the garden, the chickens just love digging in that.  Aaron decided he should smooth it out.

I found out that a local hardware store (Long bros.) was building bird houses for their kids club this month, so I signed Aric up.  He has been wanting to build a bird house for a while now.  He LOVED this!

For St. Patrick's day I bought the kids some sidewalk paint.  They had fun, and it lasted about 10 minutes. We might try some homemade stuff with how fast it goes!

Also, for St. Patrick's day I didn't get any other pictures.  But, we had a yummy dinner of Corned beef and cabbage.  We also watched Darby O'gill like we do every year!

Time for a birthday!  We had a nice family outing to Red Robin for Michele's birthday dinner.

We get together with a local homeschool group every week at the library for activities and classes.  Well, one of the weeks each month a family gets to pick a country and present it for a "cultural day." This month was our turn, and we did a presentation on Italy.  The kids all participated, and we all survived.  It was very intimidating, but also fun at the same time.  I only got a few pictures of the happenings... April read a story about Galileo.

And, we had some crafts at the end.  Here the kids are drawing like Michaelangelo, laying on the floor and drawing a picture on the bottom of the table, to feel how he might have felt painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The kids loved this activity.

One other craft was making a pasta picture on a plate of "red" sauce.  Italy is a fun place, and now I want to go visit ;-)

That's life for now!

Desiree