Our Life Lately In Photos: April Happenings

Y’all. I am so sorry. I have been insanely busy this past month, and I feel like I’ve neglected you and this blog! Posting has been scarce and sporadic, but things are starting to clear up so I should be back to my regular posting schedule soon! Thanks so much for sticking with me through this hectic season of life. I love connecting with you in this space, and I’m super grateful to have you here!

Because I’ve been incredibly busy this whole month with work and life commitments, I thought it would be appropriate to share some photos of what we’ve been up to lately. I hope you enjoy getting little sneak peeks into our life in these kinds of posts. If you do enjoy them, let me know in the comments below so I’ll know to keep sharing them with you!

Judah pulled off a classic April Fool’s Day joke on his dad! He got up early to make dad coffee only he dumped a bunch of salt into the pot. Dean had no idea as he’d totally forgotten it was April Fool’s Day. His face, after he took the first sip, was classic! Thankfully, he didn’t swallow the coffee! 

We took a Sunday afternoon hike in early April to look for morel mushrooms and spring herbs. We only found one morel, but we found lots of spring herbs like violet, chickweed, plantain, and a couple others in the little valley we searched. We also found a cool new hiking trail that we got to explore a bit. The boys love unexpected adventures!

This little man still takes a daily nap. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching him sleep… and with his blankie!

I put some STEM bins together for the boys this past month. There are times during our school day where one boy finished his independent work before we’re ready to get together for our group work so I thought I’d try these STEM bins and see if they will work well to keep the boys busy and make learning fun at the same time. These bins aren’t finished. I need to head up to the attic to pull out my laminator machine so I can put the covers on and get the seasonal clue cards ready.

The above photos are of another Sunday hike we went on with Dean’s brother, his wife, and their daughter. We hiked up on Doe Mountain which was new to us. Doe Mountain was supposed to be auctioned off to a timber company, but our county mayor got a grant to turn it into a recreation area. So far there are OHV, horse, biking, and hiking trails, there are campgrounds in certain locations, and I’m sure some other things. It’s a work in progress, and we’re happy to support the effort. We were planning on hiking to the old fire tower on this day but decided to wait until we had all the boys with us so they could see it.

Instead of hiking, the bigger boys along with all their cousins got to go to the movies with Mum-mum and the Aunties! These occasions happen ever so often, and they all look forward to these special treats very much. I think they saw Boss Baby this day.

I got a couple new books to add to my herbal library. My copy of Alchemy of Herbs finally arrived, and I bought a copy of the Botanical Safety Handbook so I can make sure I’m including safety information on the herbs we’re studying in Herb Folk!

Hey! We finally found some morel mushrooms growing near our house. I guess we don’t need to go far to find food! Dean was just telling me the other day that he thinks these morels grew where he found them because he always dumps the water he rinses the mushrooms in out in the same place each year. That means the mushroom spores are thrown out with the rinse water and helps them to come back in the same place year after year!

Uriah is 5 years old, and he’s finishing up Kindergarten this year. He loves to run around like a wild man in his undies which means that school work is done in undies too. Oh, the joys of homeschooling!

The boys are a part of the AWANA program at my parent’s church, and this is a photo of the egg hunt they had the night they of their Easter party! Even though the eggs were full of candy and they knew they wouldn’t be allowed to eat it, they still had a great time! And yes, I believe we did end up letting each boy choose one tiny piece of candy to eat that day. Hey, they can never say I was too strict on their diets!

I thought the lighting on the floor looked so pretty this morning that I just had to take a photo of it!

Dean was off work for Good Friday so we took a family hike on a portion of the Appalachian trail. This hike ended up being around 7 miles total. It’s fairly easy, but there are some challenging parts. They boys did great, and we had a lot of fun together!

We stopped halfway through our hike at Laurel Falls for a picnic lunch and some time playing in the water.

On the way out, the boys suddenly became interested in eating every violet flower they could find. Uriah is absolutely sure that the purple flowers are the only good ones. He does not like the yellow ones! LOL! I don’t think there’s actually that much of a taste difference, but in his mind, there is. Judah didn’t care much for the violets… he was interested in the chickweed instead.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a family photo of us on Easter morning. I know, I know. What kind of mother am I not capturing family memories like that. I’ll try to do better, I promise. However, I did snap this funny photo of the uncles trying to get an egg toss game set up at Mum-mum and Pop-pop’s house for the kids. I’m not sure it worked out the way they’d planned, but the kids had a blast anyway!

Driving around on the country back roads is one of my favorite things to do. So, while we were out for a drive recently, I took a quick picture of this cool looking barn. I loved the design on it!

My man recently made me breakfast from some of the morel mushrooms he found, and it was delicious. Sourdough bread topped with a fried egg, bacon, spinach, and sliced morels! Yum!

Again, sorry for the lack of posts lately, and thanks for sticking with me. I know you totally understand being busy! I have some great posts planned for May, and hopefully, I’ll get them all to you on time!