April Celebrations

 April is always a very busy month, full of birthday celebrations, field trips, and end of the school year projects. Here are some of the highlights.

We celebrated Dan's mom's 80th birthday with a big celebration! 

She's such a special lady in our lives, who loves the Lord and supports her family and friends unconditionally.

While a few people weren't able to come because of sickness, we still had a packed house for her birthday party.

Happy birthday! We wish you many more wonderful years!

These two handsome guys also have birthdays in April. We were able to join them for a meal on each of their birthdays.

Later in the month, we had a second family party to celebrate Emma, my dad, and Dan's dad. 

A cake for the three of them - My dad turned 79, Emma turned 10, and Dan's dad turned 85 in April!

 

In other April news, StoneBridge School had Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Day, and both girls had field trips. I went to the zoo with Hallie's class, and Dan drove the school van and attended Emma's field trip to the Virginia Air & Space Museum.

It was a dreary, rainy day to be outside at the zoo, but the kids didn't mind. We spent about an hour inside the reptile house to stay dry, and then the rain tapered off enough for us to enjoy seeing more of the animals.

As the room mom, I was in charge of half the class of 1st graders. I'm happy to say that I didn't lose any of them, although some of the boys seemed to want to be left behind to live in the zoo! I'm pretty sure they would've fit right in with the monkeys.

  
Emma had fun at the Air & Space Museum, too.  She got to pilot a plane, but apparently it wasn't that exciting because she fell asleep at the controls!! Mayday, mayday!!

Emma also worked with a team of her classmates to figure out the mass and energy needed to build a roller coaster.

We attended two birthday parties in April for school friends. The first was at Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline park with a fun obstacle course and lots of trampolines. 

After two hours of activity, the girls were exhausted!

Another of Hallie's friends had a fancy fairy tea birthday party theme.

Speaking of fancy, Dan and I attended StoneBridge School's formal gala/fundraiser one evening. We got all dolled up and enjoyed a night out together.

On Easter Sunday, our church had a late morning service, so Hallie and Emma were able to open their Easter baskets and dye Easter eggs before we left for church.

Emma's finished eggs

Hallie's finished eggs

We've read fun children's books recently like "The Good Egg" and "The Great Eggscape" by Jory John, which inspired the girls' artwork.

They received small gifts in their Easter baskets, including these cute slap bracelet stuffed animals.

After church, we picked up my parents and drove to Dan's brother, Tim's, house to have lunch with the Jester family and a big Easter Egg Hunt in their backyard. 

So many eggs filled with candy and money!!!

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 

Happy Easter from our family!

The Big 1-0!

 Emma is TEN!!  She's grown so much in the past year, it's remarkable. This year in school, she's really improved in her writing skills and has excelled in her other subjects, too, even the ones that require more effort (math). She's taken initiative in her homework and projects and can often complete her work without help. Emma's always been above grade level in her reading comprehension, and when she has down-time, she almost always has a book in her hands. Her 4th grade teacher requires the students to read chapter books that are at least at grade level, which has opened up a new world of book series for Emma. Her favorite chapter books are fictional stories that are written from animals' perspectives. She also loves comic books and graphic novels - anything that makes her laugh. She's grown taller this year, of course, and also stronger. We see it in the new skills she's accomplishing in her weekly gymnastics class. She's creative and artistic, and she can draw the most expressive pictures of scenes she imagines.  She loves animals and being outdoors, but she's also a "homebody" who loves nothing better than wearing comfy clothes and relaxing with a good book or movie at home.  We love our amazing 10-year old!

Emma with her #9 waffle on the night before her 10th birthday. 

Emma's birthday was on a Friday, and her class had a birthday party at lunchtime that day. Dan and I attended the party, and surprised Emma by picking her and Hallie up early and taking them to Bergey's Farm!

Emma LOVES the baby goats, and there were so many of them this spring!

This goat wanted to get by, and it wasn't afraid to walk right over Emma if she didn't move! It was hilarious!

Hallie's big and strong enough to hold the baby goats, too!

Next, we cuddled with the piglets.

Hallie ended up with a pig pile!

Once Hallie got up, they all ran to snuggle in Emma's lap.

There were tiny baby rabbits at the farm that we could hold. 

This was Hallie's favorite part of our visit. Snuggling the sweet bunnies.

Grandpa and Grandma Jester were able to join us at the farm and enjoy the animals with us.

Emma and Hallie took Grandma Jester back to the goat pen. Grandma loves animals as much as Emma does. 

Hallie got to pet some ducklings for the first time - her favorite animal! One of the ducklings escaped from its cage and she helped to rescue it and return it to the cage. 

There were also some very young baby goats that still need to be bottle fed. 

It was a first-time experience for all of us, and those babies were aggressive about getting to the bottles!

A day at a farm full of spring babies was the perfect birthday for Emma!

That evening, my parents joined us at our house for dinner, dessert, and gifts.

She got a pair of binoculars and a book from one of her favorite comic series from Nana and Papa Campbell.

We gave her a Magic Mixie.

She received a momma dog stuffed animal with baby pups in her (zipper) belly from her out of town cousins, Naomi and Miriam

It took a couple of weeks to coordinate her gift from Grandpa and Grandma Jester.  They came with us to Build-A-Bear to let her pick out her own stuffed animal, outfits, and accessories. Emma chose a rainbow rabbit stuffed animal, two outfits, a bed, and a few other items. It was a lot of fun!

The day after Emma's birthday, we were able to return to our friends, Dave and Cynthia's, house to visit their 10 Golden Retriever puppies again.  We met them when they were 2 weeks old, and this time they were 4 weeks old. They had grown so much!

  

  

2 weeks old                                                     4 weeks old

They were much more active and playful when they were awake, and therefore harder to hold on our laps.

Such cuties!

But after a while, they got tired and were happy to be snuggled to sleep.

It was part of a perfect birthday weekend.

Happy birthday to our 10-year-old! We love you, Emma, and pray that God blesses you immensely this year!