April had its ups and downs and all arounds, and in all the in betweens we had some pretty great adventures.
We started the month in Texas for a reunion and it was so good for our souls! We drove down on a Friday, frolicked in some blue bonnets, and ate some Blue Baker with some of my favorite B-CS people! Shelley and I worked together at a photography studio my last couple of years at A&M - we have shared some significant life milestones, and she will forever make my heart happy! The kids slept reasonably well at the hotel, and then we were up bright and early for a walk around campus! The place has changed so much in thirteen years, but we still managed to find some of our old stomping grounds!
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| giving some pennies to Sul Ross! |
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| climbing around on the Century Tree |
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| Abbs didn't quite know what to think about sitting in the Century Tree... |
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| of course we had to show Abby the library |
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| and Bruce tried to catch a squirrel |
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| and another one |
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| he got pretty close a few times... |
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| this is Abbs being Little Foot with his tree star... |
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| and this is Bruce. Being Bruce. |
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| really love this new War Hymn statue! |
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| The church Charlie and I were a part of at A&M was having its 20th anniversary, so we hit up Chick-fil-a for lunch with some old friends and then headed over to the church office for an afternoon catching up and laughing over old memories. |
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| maybe I'm lying to myself, but I don't feel like we've aged (or changed) at all in all these years! |
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| except for there are a whole lot more kids now!!! |
After getting back home from Texas, and a week off from school, we hit the ground running with our next block of school! Since we're done going through the alphabet, we've been focusing on the vowels again. This month our themes were agriculture, inventions, and experiments!
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| still loving our nature club! |
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| and we love park play dates with our home school group! |
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| I set up a field trip for us to visit a local plant nursery |
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| and I put together a little "Oklahoma Inventions" scavenger hunt for another field trip. When we got out at the parking meter, Bruce said in a deep moan, "I smell donuts......" |
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| so... we *had* to check out Hurts Donuts and have a dozen for lunch... |
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| and then for another field trip we checked out a children's museum in Enid called Leonardo's! It was the last one from our museum network pass that we hadn't visited - and it was fantastic! |
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| There was a three-story outdoor play structure! |
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| we played for an hour or two, and then left for a bit to grab lunch at McDonald's and then came back for more fun! |
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| there was lots to do, but Bruce plunked himself in the tinkering studio for most of the afternoon |
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| there were so many tubs of stuff to work with! (Bruce was a little bummed that there wasn't any tape though...) |
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| Abbs even got in on the action a little |
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| the final masterpiece |
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| there was a "critter corner" and they got to pet so many different kinds of animals! |
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| including this super cute hedgehog! |
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| and Bruce made time to give all the babies oxygen after administering shots in their eyeballs... |
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| Abby found some trains |
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| and some long necks |
Easter kind of snuck up on us, but we did manage to get a few friends to come over for an Easter egg party the weekend before Easter!
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| always a full contact sport for Bruce |
Some of our home school friends invited us to come to the circus with them!
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| and Circus-saurus came! |
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| Bruce started to peter out right around intermission... |
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| and then our friends paid for them to have an elephant ride! (I felt bad though because their son got too scared at the last minute and didn't even go on the ride!) |
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| we left at intermission time, and stopped by the petting zoo on our way out! |
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| sweet friends |
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| and they invited us over to roast hot dogs afterwards! |
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| what an amazing back yard!!! |
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| we could have stayed here all night, but we had somewhat of a long drive home! |
We had a fairly low-key Easter weekend. It's the one major holiday that I've claimed as a non-travel weekend so I can host a dinner at my own house. This year we didn't have anyone join us, but we still had a great time.
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| egg hunt in the back yard! They got a few squinkies and Grossery gangs in their eggs this year |
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| we saw these huge lovies at Sam's before Easter and Bruce desperately wanted one. They've always been obsessed with giant stuffed animals, but I've only seen ones that were outrageously priced. These were $10, so we decided to make a couple dreams come true! |
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| we're still working on table manners, but they did much better for our Easter meal than they did for Christmas Eve... |
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out of all the Easter self-timed photos... this was the best. And yes, Bruce wore Charlie's socks like that to church... gotta love his self confidence!
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The weekend after Easter we headed to the wheat farm in Kansas for our annual Kolarik family reunion! And the number of grandchildren keeps growing! I think 12 Littles made it this year, including two brand new babes! I've been enjoying getting to know Charlie's cousins better, and I love that these second cousins are spending some time together too!
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| mandatory after dinner wrestling |
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| shout out to Sheena and Jamie who made the long trek with tiny babies - it could not have been easy, but we all appreciate the effort they put in to make it! |
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| Saturday was pretty cold and muddy - but it didn't stop Bruce from exploring |
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| Bruce showing Abbs the armadillo shell he found |
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| it's not quite a farm trip until you find hay bale kitties |
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| checking out the new cows with Grandpa |
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| Uncle Dave fitting the work crew with nail aprons to help with the re-roofing project |
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| bubble wands! |
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| repurposing bubble wands to be light sabers! |
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| I think they played on this trailer for well over an hour... |
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| Bluff Creek's sand bar was covered in water, so we had the weenie roast at the Bluff Creek farm house instead this year |
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| Charlie playing with the cattle brand some |
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| One of Charlie's cousin's planned an Easter egg hunt for them! |
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| getting ready to check out the new pond in the pasture |
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| I think Kolariks have been chunking things into Bluff Creek since 1879 |
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| and Abby renamed Charlie's parents' dog "Toby" for some reason. By the end of the weekend we were all calling her Toby, so it might be permanent. |
The last weekend in April we had planned to go camping with our home school group in the Great Salt Plains of Oklahoma to dig for some crystals - but the trip was unfortunately rained out. We made the most out of Plan B though, and spent most of Saturday in OKC, first at the mall for Lego Club, and then at the Science Museum.
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| Abby and I played at a pet store while Bruce and Charlie went to the Lego Club meeting. |
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| Bruce is getting so great with his Lego creations! He's been super interested in robots lately, so that's been mainly what he's focused on building |
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| I mean, look at this! I can't believe he can build things like this at 5 years old! |
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| and he now tries so hard to make things "mirror image" - matching color and brick choices on each side, etc. |
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| the dino robots left the Science Museum, and a really cool bug exhibit took its place! |
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| Abby and Charlie worked on making a giant Lego castle! |
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| and Bruce worked on various projects |
Other Highlights and Kidbits of the month:
We've been enjoying a lot of time in the backyard! Charlie brought home a lot of palate wood from a construction site, and he and Bruce built a new fort!
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| Bruce even made a flag for it |
This month our town had its city wide bulk waste item pickup, otherwise known around here as "Big Trash Day!" We spent several evenings walking around the neighborhoods, scavenging, pilfering, and trying to convince ourselves we don't need that tub of old Halloween costumes... The kids were so excited about Big Trash Day, that they started playing a game - called, you guessed it - "Big Trash Day" - where they each take different toys out of their rooms, and set them outside their door in the hallway. Then they sort through each other toys and take the ones they want. It's been priceless. And messy to say the least...
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| we had to call it quits on the game after a few days though, because I couldn't handle this everyday!!! |
These kids. They are getting bigger every day, no doubt about it. They make me laugh. They make me blow steam from my ears. They keep me on my toes, and bring me to my knees. Every day is a new challenge and it's been a wonderful adventurous ride figuring it out with them. They are the absolute best.
