Brooklyn's birthday and Easter

Brooklyn's birthday and Mother's Day

My sweet little niece turned 1 on April 21st.  She is certainly starting to develop her own personality.  She loves to eat and her favorite word is, "No".  But she is sure cute!

 We celebrated Mother's Day with going to church to see Brooklyn dedicated and having the family over for dinner.  Matt grilled some delicious ribs and it was nice enough that we could all be outside (although we cleaned the whole basement just to be safe!).

 We also got the garden planted and weeded.  I had to take a picture because I'm sure it will never be this weed free again.  Although, we assigned each kid a box that they will be in charge of weeding this summer so I hope that helps!

Pool time, Pottery and 4H Fair

We've had a great time with the pool this summer.  It has been more work than I thought it would be...but the kids have LOVED it!  It seems like as soon as I got everything figured out, a few days later it would be dirty, or green, or brown, or low salt, etc.  We've had fun though!

Happy baby!

 The boys went on their annual fishing trip up north so while they were gone, we took the girls to paint pottery.  We had a great time!  Then we went to a Mexican restaurant in downtown Warsaw that was yummy!

 

We spent a lot of time at the fair this year.  The weather was great!  We got to see several concerts, the pig show, and the kids rode several rides!

pirate highwire act

 Emmy got to see her first concert, Danny Gokey.  She loved it, but thought it was loud!😁

 Matt and I went to see Martina McBride.  We saw her a few years ago when she came as well.  Or at least that's what we thought...but then Martina said she was there 20 years ago!  Wow, we are old!

Summer FUN!

Potawatomi Zoo and picking blueberries

We've been having lots of fun this summer and going to the zoo is always a highlight.  Kristina, Caleb, Brooklyn, mom, Emmy and I headed over to Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend.  Matt and Landon decided they wanted to go fishing.

Caleb loved all of the animals, but especially the tigers!

We took a little train ride around the zoo and ate lunch in the park.  It was a gorgeous day and wasn't very busy.  The kids did well and Caleb fell asleep on the way home!🐒🐪🐯🐢🐆

pretty baby girl!

The next day, we all packed up and headed to Beech Road to pick blueberries.  Last year, just Emmy and I picked from our family and we ate all of them.  This year, we brought along the boys and picked about 20 lbs worth.  Plenty to eat and freeze for later!

This boy picked a few berries, but mostly ate and played in the dirt! 😁

Catch up from March/April

So apparently, I did not learn a lesson from last time and still haven't blogged much in these 2 months either! 😜  I'll try to do better in May, but no guarantees!  So get ready for another loooong post...

We took the girls to see Disney on Ice.  They LOVED it.  A few years ago, we went to see Frozen on Ice.  This was fun, though, because they recreated different movies (Snow White, Cinderella, and Tangled).  We all enjoyed Rapunzel the most.  It was a fun afternoon in Ft. Wayne.

 These girls have become so close this year.  They mostly get along, but do have their fights every once in awhile.  Kenna got to spend the night at our house and the girls decided they wanted to play in the bathtub.🛀

Our Spring Break was the first full week in April.  The weather was quite awful (that's pretty normal though!).  It was cold, rainy, and windy.  We still had fun trying to find indoor activities to do.  We tried Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline park, for the first time.  It was a lot of fun!  We also picked out some new engineered hardwood flooring to be installed.  

Landon and Emmy did a fantastic job in their Spring Concert.  It was very convenient for me too since I got to watch my own kids and supervise my students at the same time.  They performed "It's a Jungle Out There."  Landon had 13 lines to memorize as Leo the Lion.  He did a great job.  So proud of both kiddos!

We had the day off on Good Friday this year (no snow days to make up).  So we went with the Davis family to Linton's Easter celebration.  We went on a train, met the Easter bunny, pet some farm animals, and collected eggs.  Then we went to Arby's and a playground to play.  Love spending time with friends!

We celebrated Easter this year on April 16.  We celebrated early with the Hahns since they went down to Evansville to visit Nate.  The kids sure do love egg hunts.  They did 4 this year and never tired of looking for those treasures!🐰

 Easter Sunday is a wonderful day to celebrate Christ's resurrection!✟

We definitely accumulated more candy than necessary, but it was a fun day with family!

The best surprise of the last 2 months was my niece being born!  She took her time (9 days late) but she is beautiful.  Welcome to the world, Brooklyn Kay!

And last, but not least, we got to enjoy our RV for the first camping trip of the year.  We went to Chain O' Lakes with the Fryes.  It was COLD, but the sun was shining and it didn't rain, so we had fun!  We had sweatshirts and long underwear and stood close to the fire, but it was nice to be outside again.  Hoping for several more trips this summer.