April

We went down to NJ the day before Easter for a family gathering.  I told my mom I would be responsible for bringing eggs for an egg hunt... So of course that meant we had to decorate some :)

I got these edible markers and they made it so much easier.  Ricky and I had fun decorating too :)

Look at that beard!

Another craft I did with my co-op class, salt dough Easter ornaments.  The kids in the class got spray painted branches stuck in pots with plaster of paris for their ornaments.

Egg hunt time!:

Ricky talked his brothers-in-law into playing bloody knuckles with him

The next day was Easter and we enjoyed a lovely church service

And then went fishing!

it was a pretty blustery day

The girls and I found a little beach area.

Ricky's catch:

We came home and he decided it was finally time to shave his beard. Hooray!

We spent one school day in April making these little cardboard box doll houses.  I think Joanna's was my favorite, she's very creative!

And another day we made miniature fairy gardens:

I always wanted to get some of these English Daisies.

Katy's doll house.

another co-op craft, this one is made from toilet paper tubes.

Chase had the opportunity to play at Santandar Arena in between periods of the Reading Royals.

They won their little game and were presented with trophies

We got to sit and watch the whole game.  Poor Joanna was sick though.  I think Ricky wasn't feeling well either and we ended up leaving a bit early.

Chase's hockey finished up and we were invited to go to a sports banquet down the road from us so he could get a medal.

We also drove down to the Camden Aquarium with their co-op science class in April.  That was a lot of fun.

I kept thinking these penguins had fleas or something, they seemed very itchy :/

Chase was due for testing this school year.  I found a very nice lady who gives oral exams and he did very well with that.  We stopped for lunch and a treat after he was all finished with his testing :)

we shared this monster sundae:

I started preparing my garden and planting some colder weather things.  Ricky doubled the garden for me but then when I planted my cold weather crops it was almost full already!

Our chicks were finally ready to move into their pen:

we got guinea pigs:

Ricky and Chase ripped out the arborvitaes that were along the fence here.  I forgot to take a "before" picture but they were all brown and dead :(

Flowers blooming:

my serviceberry tree:

 

We also started thinking about maybe getting a puppy.  It felt so strange and lonely in the house without a dog in it :(  I had been talking with a friend at the aquarium about what happened with our dog and how we were thinking about getting a lab and someone with our group overheard me and said one of her friends just happened to have a litter of lab puppies the day before!  She gave me her number and lo and behold her friend also happened to live in our town!  So I gave her a call and she said we could go over and visit the puppies.  They still had their eyes closed but were super cute anyway :)

I originally thought we would get a yellow one since that's what we always had but she also had this girl here who was about a year old and the prettiest lab we ever say.  So we ended up picking out a chocolate one :)

The weather continued to warm up and be pleasant.  The kids thought it was just fine :)

One day while we sat doing school we saw this red-tailed hawk dive bombing a robin.  We were sad for the robin but it was cool to see the hawk doing hawk things.

I drove down to NJ one Tuesday to hike with my parents and spend time with them before our vacation.

Chase thought maybe he could sneak up to the deer :P

Katy was really nervous about climbing this tower but she did it!

We went on a second hike after lunch.

I finally decided what to plant in this side bed:

Chase had sent letters and cards to some of his favorite Flyers players and he got one back with a signed card from Giroux

Sorry this post was so long!!