Spring! Winter! Winter! Spring! I loved the big snowstorms, but they did make the winter drag on and on. This storm was on April 4th. Certainly, we've had snow in April before, but a foot of it? Tsk tsk. And the blossoms weren't even trying to come out yet (which is for the best, I guess).
Then here we are on April 11th! Sun hats! 70 degrees!
Poor Gussie didn't know what to do. He couldn't open the door wearing these gloves, for one thing.
And putting on a coat and exchanging the gloves for mittens didn't help anything. He stood there helplessly, pawing ineffectually at the doorknob and pounding on the window every now and then hoping someone would come to help. (I was wrapped in a blanket at this moment and couldn't possibly get up. Although…I eventually took pity on him and did.)
This was another day when it was somewhat warm, but so windy! The kids went outside to read and made these…wind…shelters? There are three of them under there, if you can believe it.
Full moon over the snow
I wrote about Easter, but I don't think I wrote about the rest of Holy Week! We've been trying to celebrate Holy Week for…oh…I guess it's been ten years now, since we had a Homeschool unit on Easter traditions around the world. We found lots of traditions that we loved so much, we adopted them for ourselves! We read Eric Huntsman's book and it was so inspiring (I think he has a new book now and even more resources). I think that's when we bought the Easter creche I love, too.
Anyway, the last few years we've done a big Spring Cleaning during the week along with our other traditions. I really love it; the children…not so much…but I try to make it at least a little fun! This year the deal was that after we checked our cleaning tasks off each day, we would do a fun activity.
(Some of) the kids are great workers! And then some of them just go around un-cleaning…or, not to put a fine a point on it, dirtying…what has just been cleaned. But such is life. At least we could appreciate our clean fridges for a few blissful hours.
It was so cute after I washed the rugs in the living room, we were crawling around smoothing them out again, and Clementine ran over to help us!
Gus had a little fever one day and he was soooo cute and snuggly!
Our activity one of the days was a "read-a-thon" while the little ones were napping. Daisy made a sign, of course, and we made some snacks…
…and then snuggled in with our blankets to read. It was snowy and grey outside and so cozy inside! And it was so nice! I read a whole book!
(My yellow feet)
The little ones joined us when they woke up, and then it was…not quite so peaceful. But still snuggly.
Another day we played Sagrada and Wingspan. I was so impressed that we figured them out without Abe OR Malachi there to tell us the rules. I actually had to read the rule books! It's been years since I did that!
On the Thursday we always have a Passover Dinner (modified, of course). We got our lamb as takeout from an Indian restaurant this year, and made tzatziki and a sort-of-Seder Plate to go with it. And then we always watch "Prince of Egypt" afterwards.
Some of us even dressed up in Israelitish costumes
(We made these costumes during our Ancient Civilizations Unit last year)
(And who knows what Gus is wearing here!)
Some place cards Ziggy made
Well, it was a happy week! And here are a few other things during this funny seesawing Spring:
• Some of Seb's teammates came to get him to run with them one day, and he was feeling sick and didn't come. So they went out to the hill and wrote SEB on it. I quite liked it.
• Clementine wearing Gus's shoes. He HATES it when she does this. And she HATES it when he tries to take them away from her. Makes for some melodious screaming duets.
• Clementine admiring several bandaids on her tiny fingers. I can't remember what happened…she just scraped them on the sidewalk, I think. Anyway, they lasted a good half hour after this. If that.
• Clementine in a cake pan, for some reason.
• Clementine reading
• One day we took some books back to the library and saw the firemen out doing some drills in the parking lot. (We hoped it would get more exciting than the scene pictured, but it didn't. They just dangled barely off the ground like this. But still! It was pretty exciting!)
We watched them for a while and then one of the firemen came over to our van and gave everyone fire hats (which I suppose they just carry around with them?)! So nice. The boys wore theirs for days afterwards. (And if you knew how flimsy these hats were you would be more impressed by that.)
• Gus is cute
• Junie turned 12! She is so excited to be truly a young lady now. I got her some Sunday shoes with a little heel (she has been dying to wear heeled shoes, but I held out this long so it would seem more special, haha) and Daisy helped me pick out several cute little young-lady-ish things in Junie's favorite color (orange)—nail polish, face scrub, lotion, cute hair clips, etc. She had a happy day.
Junie's ballet friends had a little surprise party for her the next week. So fun!
• Somehow Malachi weaseled his way into "catering" for a Homeschool Prom in the area. He volunteered to make 18 dozen muffins and they paid him $200 for it. Quite a deal! He told me he would make the muffins all by himself and I wouldn't need to do a thing (except provide ingredients, which he was paying me back for). I gave him a skeptical look at that, for which he chided me, but when the day came he recruited two of his friends to help, and three teenage boys in the kitchen was…rather worse than just one. After they somehow left the sugar out of an entire batch of 4 dozen, I took pity on them and came to help.
We were quite tired by the end of the day, but we got them all made! Orange muffins, poppyseed muffins, and pineapple muffins, all glazed with their respective glazes. They were delicious! And now we call Malachi the "Muffin Baron."
• Matching little boys…
…and matching big boys. This was after Seb and Malachi went to the Muse concert in Salt Lake City. They had a great time! Their only regret was that Abe couldn't go too!
• We were starved for sunshine after all the dreary days. Everyone went outside to read whenever they could, sometimes all at once!
• We finally had some track meets that weren't just miserable and cold.
Malachi in a beam of light
• Most exciting of all, our bulbs finally came up and bloomed! So many daffodils! Every year I just can't wait to see them.
And hyacinths, new this year
Also new this year, I planted a bunch of blue squill in the grass! I read that you can do that, if you just make sure the leaves have some time to feed the bulb before you mow them. I also read that they will spread and multiply. I wondered if I should be nervous about that? But I couldn't think of any downsides if the whole lawn turns blue in the spring!
I planted two different kinds. The other one has a different name I can't quite remember. Something like "Glory of the Snow"? Anyway, it was the most exciting thing seeing them come up and look so pretty! I love springtime!
And the days have gotten so long that we get to see some sunrises instead of just darkness when we wake up! Hooray!
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