April

I had started telling you about our spring and then abruptly stopped. Here are the April highlights.

- Luke and Nathanael were both memory masters again in our Classical Conversations program. The end of year ceremony was very nice and we were happy that John's grandparents were able to attend and see what CC is all about. They treated the kids to dessert afterwards. We did not really fit in with our CC group here and never really made good friends. It felt like most people in that group had lots of friends already and they didn't really need any new ones. So there was not a lot of effort made to include the new family. Our group was also 40 minutes away in a suburb of Omaha (there is no group in western Iowa). As a tutor, I had to be there early to set up. I am still not at all a morning person, so getting up so early to drive in was really hard on the kids and I. Add to that my lonliness and the fact that I had seven 9 year old energetic boys and I was completely drained by the end of the year. After some prayer, we decided not to return to CC the following year. We are just going to stay home and do traditional homeschooling, but we will still incorporate the CC materials, as I have all that stuff and I still think it's an excellent program. We all have peace about this decision.


-We decided to forgo the traditional Easter celebration this year. It is hard to not be able to do what we used to do on special days, so we are making new traditions and new memories here. This year, we decided to celebrate a simple version of a Messianic Passover, complete with a Seder meal. I did a lot of research and found some scripts on how to do it and what to say. I made a Seder meal and we celebrated at home. It was totally awesome and brought so much more meaning to our Easter celebration. We all enjoyed it very much and have decided to make this an annual tradition. We may try to join a Messianic Jewish congregation one year for Passover, but it was good to have this first experience at home so we could explain everything to the children. On Easter Sunday, we went to church, watched Fiddler on the Roof, and then had dinner at a local park with John's aunt & uncle and grandparents.

Seder Plate (I'm going to order a real plate for next year.)

Table set with my late grandmother's china

John breaks the middle matzah

About to eat our meal

Looking for the hidden matzah!

I found one!

Look what I turned in my matzah for!

-John and I celebrated our 11th anniversary and I celebrated my 21st birthday. *cough cough cough* For my birthday/anniversary/Mother's Day gift I asked John if we could take the family down to Branson to the Sight and Sound Theatre there to see Jonah. (https://www.sight-sound.com/) John and I have been to the Lancaster location twice before and enjoyed the musicals we saw. I wanted the children to experience it. I knew that would have to wait until after spring time. Farmers do not take time off in April (or May or June....) So that trip was planned for sometime in August. (We just returned and I'll tell you about that in another post.) I ordered Georgetown Cupcakes for my birthday so I could have a little piece of home. (These are the cupcakes featured in the TLC show DC Cupcakes. They are the best cupcakes we have ever tasted and nothing here even compares.)

mmmmmm..... cupcakes!!

-Luke hit double digits! He was so excited, and mama was so sad! I can't believe I have a 10 year old! Where has the time gone??!? I'll have another one hit double digits next year. Yikes! This birthday was a little bittersweet as his "bigness" was showing when he requested to not have a party or go to a special place or have a birthday cake. (We used to do theme parks instead of parties, but the closest one is now 2.5hrs away.) Instead, he asked if we would be ok with spending a little more money on his gift. The boys are really into Lego Technic sets right now and those sets are not cheap, and he knows it. Then he asked if he could have a Dutch Apple Pie with vanilla ice cream on top. Those who know me well will know that I love making my kids really cool looking birthday cakes. So it was kind of sad to not make him one this year. Gluten free pies that taste great are very difficult to make, so I do not make pies very often. Pie is special around here. I told him that we could do that and also have caramel on top. He loved that idea. He did get his first Technic set and some motors to run it with and was a very happy boy. He's getting really tall. I think I only have a year or two max left before he passes me in height.

Birthday present delight- Lego stuff!

Easter 2015