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!