Letter to My Children May

Dear Eli, Lilliana, and Ari,

Spring is finally here and you guys want nothing to do with my ideas of school, playing games, or cuddling. You want to be outside enjoying anything that is above 45 degrees. You come in with dirty feet and mud all over. I wash sand out of your hair daily. When I hug you, you smell of dirt. There is constant dirt under your finger nails. I believe if you had your way you would live outside. There is crying at the door to go out when it rains, and crying when it is time to come in at least from Ari. You love being outside. I am thankful it is warm and nice for you to go out. Thank you for letting me see spring through your eyes and the wonder of dirt.

Love,
Mom 

Caterpillars

Eli only has two more weeks of school until Summer break. He knows when we finish our last two letters we will be on break. What he doesn't know is that really summer will continue some school. We will continue our Bible and character lessons everyday. We also will continue our hymn work. The way we homeschool he learns without even knowing. All of the kids actually do. I have noticed Ari is picking up more than I give him credit for as is Lilliana. Since winter was long and we could not get out as much we will spend the majority of Summer doing our nature studies as we will be outside a lot. Right now we are studying the life of a Butterfly. You can actually order painted butterflies and have them delivered as their larvae. Then you watch them grow and go through the changes. The day they arrived you would have thought it was Christmas. The kids knew they were coming as we studied butterflies for a week and I told them they would be coming. They waited everyday for the mail to arrive. When they did they wanted to know about everything. 

Needless to say they are big hits! Ari is especially interested in the fact that they have poop on the bottom of the container. He seems to really enjoy them as you can tell by this video. 

They are actually now in their chrysalis. The kids can't wait for the butterflies to emerge. It has been a fun project. We are off for a nature walk. Happy Monday! 

Our Easter

Easter was so nice and warm this year! It was amazing. We had a wonderful church service. There were at least 10 people that stood to accept Christ as their Savior. The Spirit was working on hearts and it was wonderful to see. It was also the first service I have been able to sit the entire time through. Since the youngest two have been born I always get called out of the service because they wouldn't stop crying  in the nursery. It was so nice.

We did a small egg hunt at our house after nap. The kids were so excited. 

We had a great dinner and after took a walk in a new area and took some photos. The light was wonderful and the kids loved our walk. We found a great habitat to see all sorts of things and will be spending some more time there for our nature studies. 

The family pictures I took using my tripod. 

This girl loves to dance in her dress.....

All in all it was a wonderful Easter celebrating Jesus' resurrection. I hope yours was as blessed as ours. 

Celebrating Early

It has been almost two months since I have written a blog post. I spent most of March without a camera. It was actually nice. It gave me some time to be away and I came back with some new perspectives. I usually find if I am in a rut that helps. My camera was actually replaced and upgraded. So I now am sporting a brand new camera. While it is the exact same model as my old a few changes have been made. One, is the color. My last camera pulled a lot of green and I had a good workflow to fix it. Now, my colors are great so working out a workflow is where I am. Either way it has been a good month away. 

A couple weeks ago, we headed to Grand Rapids for the day to go to the museum with the kids. There was a Dinosaur exhibit at the museum. They were so excited. Anthony and I also were going to stay on the West Side at the Lake Michigan shore for the night as the kids were staying with Grandma.

We began our day. It was beautiful. After the long winter we had, I think when it is above 50 it feels amazing. It was bright and sunny. We had to park a little way away from the museum. We should have known it was going to be busy thanks to Spring Break.  We took our walk from the parking garage to the museum and enjoyed downtown Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids, is a very beautiful city. The river runs right through it. I believe it was actually rated the 2nd Best City in the U.S. to raise a family. 

The waiting begins.......

Unfortunately since it was spring break and the dinosaur exhibit is about to be done, the line was very long. I didn't realize it would be that long. In fairness to my kids they did great. We waited at least an hour maybe a little longer to get in. Poor Ari had not taken a very long nap and he did well until it was time for us to pay. At that point he had had it and had a bit of a meltdown. Either way I can't complain if it took an hour to get to that point.

Part of the Berlin Wall......

The museum was really neat. I think next time we go they all need to be a bit older and we will spend more time. It was really fun though.

They loved the dinosaur exhibit. 

The Museum also has an old wooden carousal. Well of course, we had to take a ride.....

By this point the kids were tired and it was time to head back. They loved walking back over the bridge. For some reason the bridge over the water was a huge hit with them. 

We met Anthony's mom and dropped the kids there. They loved seeing where Grandma works and getting to go home with her.

Then Anthony and I had a wonderful night alone. We did it to celebrate my birthday early. We love staying at B&B's. There is a great little town that has several. We decided to try a new one. I really liked it. Each B&B has had great things I have loved. This particular one had bikes we could use. We enjoyed a walk at the beach and watching the sun set. It was such a beautiful day. Believe it or not it was 70 degrees and there was still ice on the Lake. If you look in the pictures you can see it. We won't mention the fact that Anthony thought he could walk on them and be careful. Needless to say he ended up with wet pants and shoes.

Either way it was a wonderful evening. The sunset was beautiful too!! 

This is the South Haven lighthouse which is actually spectacular in the Winter. I have seen some wonderful winter photos of ice hanging from it.

Saturday we got up ate and then went for a bike ride all around the town. It was a lot of fun. 

And because Anthony told me I couldn't take a picture and ride............

....I proved him wrong.

All in all it was a great weekend. It felt good to get away and have some down time to recharge.