April's Treasures

Mud muffins coming right up! 

Collecting and splitting open what we believe are cherries from our cherry blossom tree...

Watching the automatic trash truck collect garbage... 

An incredibly sweet friendship between two incredibly sweet girls...

My three...

Gabriella and Mikey's first time pushing a cart of their own size...painfully adorable!

Working on popping weeds...

Kinetic Sand...among some of their absolute favorites of sensory play!

I can't even begin to caption this picture without managing to get all emotional about Gabriella, Michael and Josiah getting the chance to grow up under such an amazing Children's pastor!

Picnicking...

That smile, those baby teeth and those curls... Oh, my sweet Gabriella!

If we cooked this little one up for dinner we'd have to call it dessert, he's waaaay too sweet! 

Everyone (but I) found it so hard to believe that Gabriella

 chased after a toad AND picked it up. 

Aunt Becky taught Gabriella how to fool everyone into thinking that she kissed the frog. 

OH MY, if picking up a frog wasn't enough for them, kissing it really got them going. Haha!!!

My sleepy almost-four-year-old baby...

Investigating what seemed to be an injured dragonfly...

Nap time with my boys... 

Candyland for one...

I love, love, LOVE this picture...

Archery Class

Our local Parks and Recreation Center offers an Archery Class for children who are 7 years of age and older. Our awesome H.E.A.R.T field trip organizer, Katie, planned a class for our sweet homeschooling group. I have personally been highly anticipating this event, excited to see how much Isaac and Alyana enjoy archery. 

Ranger Mike, as always, was a great instructor and Isaac and Alyana had an awesome time! 

Michael and Gabriella didn't seem to mind an hour and a half of free play with friends, sand, pine straw and rocks. 

Here's Gabriella's nest and eggs... :) 

Josiah, on the other hand, wasn't shy in expressing his dissatisfaction with the fact that he had not yet been offered a chance to use the bow and arrow. He tugged on me while insisting, "I shoot". Poor 'Siah has few five more years before he gets to participate in this particular event, however, having the chance to hold an extra bow today did help him cope a bit. 

I was incredibly excited that I caught a video of both Isaac and Alyana in action! 

H.E.A.R.T: International Festival

Towards the end of our homeschooling year, our co-op hosted an International Festival. Each family had the opportunity to choose a country to study and create a display to share. The Sanchez and Candelaria team paired up and decided to prepare a presentation on Germany. Both Denise and Grandma Cindy have lived in German and were able to provide our display with genuine German items.

 

Denise is so amazing and planned some awesome group crafts for the kiddos. She took the time to share unique facts with them that they all found really interesting. 

 

After all the fun of learning about Germany, Denise let us feed, touch and (in Gabriella's case) hold Larry, her bearded dragon. 

When it came time to present, they each shared one fact about Germany. 

We also got the chance to make something tasty to share and for that portion of the project, Grandma Cindy was our hero. She ordered apfelstrudel, a classic German apple strudel, from a local bakery and picked up German chocolates for us to share. Josiah was persistent about helping place the chocolates in tiny muffin cups. I'm sure we all know why. :) I lost count of how many he snuck.

We had a great time not only sharing the information we gained but also learning about all kinds of other interesting countries.

 

 

A Neighborhood Stroll

Although we love the rain that April brings, it was nice to get a break from it today and celebrate the sunshine with a stroll around the neighborhood. 

Gabriella asked if Kitty could accompany us on our walk so I pulled out a little stroller from deep in the garage for her to push along. 

Josiah doesn't usually care for anyone to push him along other than mommy so seeing him give Mikey the chance to do so was a treat for me. 

The back of our neighborhood meets the back of an Elementary school. Today was the first day we were able to explore its playground that's open to the public after school hours. Gabriella and Mikey said it felt like we had found hidden treasure. 

Kitty and Lamby got a chance to drive the car on the way home since Josiah requested a ride (possibly his first ever) in the stroller . How excited I'm sure they all were; Kitty, Lamby and Josiah alike. 

Blue Car

Josiah sat at the school room window this morning calling out "ooooh, bue car!" to every single vehicle that passed. His level of excitement and the tone of his voice quickly lured Mikey right to his side. Both of their genuine amusement in watching cars drive by encouraged me to extend the fun with a little t-chart for graphing. I initially only made a chart for Mikey, as he can distinguish better between cars and trucks, but soon after made one for Josiah, too.  He insisted on being just like his big brother. Their spontaneous and engaging activity probably should have allowed me a few minutes of uninterrupted time, schooling with the others, but I just couldn't seem to take my eyes off of the two of them.

Ladybugs

One of Gabriella's recent library finds was a book titled "Ladybugs" by Gail Gibbons. (I love her books.) We have read over that book quite a few times in the past two and a half weeks.  I love how God is deliberate about leading us to "stumbling upon" books or experiences that prepare us for things to come. He's done it time and time again and today was another one of those times.  We just so happened to "stumbled upon" dozens of ladybugs this afternoon and the connections we made along with what we learned was quite grand. It's beautiful to see God work little things like that out just for us. 

(Aside: Josiah's work lead him to the stamps earlier today which explains the blue spot he's sporting on his chin in all of the pictures.) 

Josiah and Mikey were excellent ladybug finders but it was Gabriella and Alyana who did all the catching. :) 

It took a while but after watching his big sister enjoy the lady bugs crawling all over her, Mikey decided he'd give it a try, too. He was tickled, but even so not possibly as much as I. :) 

They came in with us for a short span of thirty minutes or so then were set free again. 

After a few days, we even made since of what these things were that we kept seeing all over the place...the pupa shell of an emerged ladybug!

Nature is oh, so fascinating!