The month of April continued with a belated egg hunt, field trip, more soccer games, and Savannah’s birthday. Here’s the recap:
We had a belated Easter egg hunt at Cici’s house on April 16th, and it was a great day to be outside. Cici tells the kids how many eggs they can grab, and then it’s always a race to see who can find their eggs first.
Travis was really proud of himself for hiding a light green egg in the lemon tree, and it took the kids forever to find it. Brooklyn was the one who spotted it first, which didn’t make Savannah very happy ;)
Checking out the loot inside their eggs :)
Abigail really wanted a pretend makeup kit, so she picked out one on Amazon and bought it with her own money.
It was very entertaining to watch her painting her face with lots of color and sparkle :)
Cici gave the girls some kinetic sand and toys to go with it. They enjoyed making things together, and it’s so nice that it doesn’t make a mess!
Big news for me this month – I was elected to the PTA board as secretary for the upcoming school year. I figured with it being the only year the the girls would all be at Mill Creek together, it would be a good time for me to volunteer in that capacity. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but I knew it was a good group of parents to work with.
Springtime is usually great weather for soccer practice!
Travis’s Aunt Jann was really sweet to ask if she could come pick Abigail up and take her on a lunch date on April 19th. They enjoyed their time together, and I enjoyed a little peace and quiet.
We always enjoy getting to walk to school with the Dyess crew :)
It’s a little hard to read when your cat is covering up half of your bible ;)
On April 20th, we had some of Abigail’s friends from church over to our house to do a spring craft, eat lunch, and play together.
I found a cute Pinterest tutorial for making butterflies out of paper sacks, and they turned out really cute. It was a fun morning!
We didn’t have time to do the Q-tip painting ideas that I’d found, but Abigail wanted to do them later on her own :)
On April 21st, we went to Career Night at school, an event hosted by the PTA where kids could walk around to different booths and learn about careers that sounded interesting to them. It was very crowded, but the kids had fun. The highlight of the night was getting to pet a baby goat at the farmer station!
On April 22nd, Abigail and Savannah both played their games at 8 AM. Savannah played on Dublin 4, and Abigail was on Dublin 2, which worked out nicely. Travis took Abigail to her game, and I took Savannah to hers. We also had some special visitors today! Cici came, as well as Mike, Phil, and Gigi. Travis said Abigail played great. She had some big kicks and even scored a goal. She told me she “dribbled the ball where the other team couldn’t get it.” Travis apparently forgot to take pictures at her game because I can’t find any. Oh well ;)
Savannah’s team only had 4 players today, so they all played the whole game. It helped the game be more evenly matched. Savannah scored 2 goals and almost scored a third goal. Her goal kick went all the way across the field and almost went in…haha. I think her team won 5-0.
Brooklyn’s team played at 9:30 AM on Dublin 3. Her team won their first game of the season today…3-0. Brooklyn scored one goal and almost scored another. She played defense and forward this game. She sat out the first quarter this game, which was unusual. Brooklyn played great!
We enjoyed pancakes at Sunny Street Cafe with Gigi after Brooklyn’s game ended. The more sugar, the better – in Brooklyn’s opinion!
That night, we went to see Lucy in Liberty Middle’s production of Seussical Jr. I’m not sure I’d ever seen a middle school theater performance before, but Lucy and the rest of the cast blew my expectations out of the water. She did great!!
It was neat to get this picture of Brooklyn AND Savannah at school together. Apparently some of the 2nd grade classes got to tour the science lab where the 4th graders were presenting their anatomy projects.
Each group was supposed to make a body system out of recycling materials, and Brooklyn’s group had the pulmonary system. I loved how they made the lungs out of milk jugs…so creative!
Abigail found a fun way to eat raspberries :)
We delivered the Millstone News with Emily and her girls on April 25th.
Abigail loved going to Savannah’s soccer practice on Tuesday nights and playing with Madison (and sometimes Mia). They had a lot of fun together!
The girls were very into hand clapping games this school year. It must have been popular in 4th grade because Brooklyn learned them at school and came home and taught her sisters. Their favorites were “Double Double”, “Miss Mary Mack”, and “Shame Shame Shame.” I even remembered some of them from when I was a little girl!
Grandpa was sick this month and had to be admitted to the hospital for a few days. The girls made him a big card for his door :)
Savannah had her 2nd grade field trip to the Space and Rocket Center on April 27th. None of our kids had been there before, and it was my first time going since my parents took my sister and me on a trip there when we were kids. I told my mom that the only thing I remembered about that trip was that on the way there, an 18-wheeler on the side of the road had a tire roll across the interstate and hit our station wagon (or maybe it was a van by that point). I was traumatized when my dad had to go sit inside the police car to file the police report…haha.
Savannah and I had a great time on the field trip! I rode the bus and sat with Savannah and Vevon on the way there. On the way back to school, Savannah wanted to sit with her friends Lillian and Aubrey which made me so happy to see. She still wanted me to sit close by though. The weather that day was light rain off and on, but they still had some of the outdoor rides open. I was paired with Tenley’s mom, as well as Ms. Connelly the student teacher, and I think we had 6 kids to supervise. We were basically on our own with our group the whole time to go and see what we wanted, as long as we met up for lunch at a certain time. Savannah chose not to ride any of the outdoor rides, but maybe we will try them if we ever go back as a family.
She said her favorite parts of the field trip were seeing the big rockets, all of the different things that they could sit inside and pretend they were in a rocket ship, and especially playing on the playground. We saved the playground for the end of the day after lunch, and the kids played for at least an hour just running around and playing tag. I was thankful to be able to go with Savannah, and Abigail had a great day playing with Mrs. Marilyn at home.
Such a sweet group of friends!!
The soccer fields were closed that evening due to the rain, so the girls went on a scooter ride/run with Travis after dinner instead.
Brooklyn brought home a letter from school earlier in the week saying that she was going to have some art displayed at the Panoply Art Festival that weekend. We bought tickets online and decided to go on Friday night (April 28th). It was beautiful weather! We ate an early dinner at home and got there around 6:15 pm. We really enjoyed walking around and looking at the different works of art on display. There was a guy making brooms, we saw handmade lamps, and so many beautiful paintings and drawings. There was also live music, food trucks, etc. The first thing we did was walk over to the Student Art Tent to find Brooklyn’s artwork. She was so excited and proud! Her art was called Zentangle. There were probably at least 10 other kids from Mill Creek with art at Panoply, but only one other 4th grader.
We loved looking at the fish and ducks in the pond at Big Spring Park. Before the night was over, we had to get some gelato, and Abigail picked cotton candy. She was a sticky mess by the time we left…thankfully we had baby wipes in the car! I can definitely see us going back to Panoply again in the future. We really enjoyed it.
Whew busy day for Savannah’s 8th birthday (April 29th)! After sprinkles in the girls’ cereal this morning, Abigail had the first soccer game of the day at 8:45 AM on Dublin 8. This was her best game of the season so far! She scored 3 goals, including one from a big kick from a ways out. She was zooming all over the field and was having so much fun. It has been really cute to see how into the games she is. When she subs out, she cheers on her teammates (“Go Madi!” Go Emily!”)…at least the ones whose names she can remember…haha. She is still trying to learn everyone’s names. Her team played Laila’s little sister, Callie’s, team today.
At Brooklyn’s game at 9:45 at Palmer 9, Abigail and Callie ended up playing together and were so cute! Brooklyn’s team won their game 2-0. Brooklyn didn’t score today but played hard and had fun out there. She mostly played defense and midfield today and sat out the 2nd quarter. Paw and Rae Rae came to the games today, which the girls were excited about.
We hurried home to eat a quick lunch before Savannah’s game at 12:30 at Dublin 4. Savannah’s team won their game 6-2. The other team had some talented girls on their team! Savannah was really hoping to score a goal on her birthday, and she did—with a left-footed shot! She cheered on her other teammates who scored and played great defense too.
That afternoon, we had Savannah’s birthday party from 4:30-7 pm. We invited 7 friends, and this year only 3 were able to come (Aubrey, Lillian, and Gabriella). Savannah said after the party that it was the perfect number of friends. She wanted to have a smaller party this year than we’ve done the last couple of years. I was good with that! We did a simple ice cream theme this year and had pizza for dinner and an “ice cream bar” for dessert. The girls mostly played outside and in Savannah’s room other than when they were eating. They had fun on the swing set, playing soccer, and checking out Savannah’s toys in her room. It was pretty easy and stress free!
We did a scavenger hunt after pizza, and the girls hunted for 8 clues that led them to the ice cream toppings we were going to have. The girls were super excited about that! Travis was very generous with the ice cream scoops, and I don’t think any of them actually finished their ice cream (especially after they loaded them up with all the toppings!). The girls all got along great, and Brooklyn even said afterward that it was more fun than she thought it would be ;) Abigail had a lot of fun too! So glad that Savannah made two sweet friends this year in her class and that Gabriella is such a sweet and loyal friend from soccer and school too. Hard to believe that Savannah is getting so big!
April 30th was a 5th Sunday, so we didn’t have an evening worship service. Instead, we had the high school graduation party to go to from 2-4 pm. We decided to all do our own thing for lunch rather than eating at Cici’s, and then we had Savannah’s birthday celebration for dinner after the graduation party instead. Cici fixed peach dumplings, and we got Bigfoot’s donuts for dessert. Sugar overload! Savannah was excited to get some new markers, kinetic sand, and several new books :)
Notes and Quotes from April 16-30, 2023
- 4/17/23 – Abigail: “Brooklyn, you and Savannah are the best sisters I’ve ever got!” :)
- 4/18/23 – Abigail got a Rubik’s cube yesterday at the volunteer breakfast at school, and she was trying to figure it out. I tried to help her with it, but couldn’t get all the colors lined up right either. Then she said, “I’ll just ask Daddy to fix it when he gets home.” I replied, “Do you think he can do it?” And she said, “He can do anything!”
- 4/23/23 – We were listening to a rock song on Spotify, and Abigail asked, “Is this song about living in a hot dog?” Haha!
Thanks for reading!!
