April...Performances, Packing and Goodbyes

April was another whirlwind of a month.  The first week brought nice weather and spring break!  We played outside, got some cleaning and errands done and had a fun week.  The girls made me a "picnic" dinner with salad, soup, and a bunch of other food they had made.  I love things like this!

Claire and Aubrey love to draw and write on the sidewalk and driveway too!  They made lots of fun pictures for me!

The girls got to a go to a friend's gymnastic birthday party which they just loved!  Now they all want to have a gymnastic party of their own!

Playing at the beach (Kingston Slough) with friends!

This girl is getting so big!  She loves to play (often by herself) and just talks so cute and makes big messes!

April 16th the girls were able to dance with Galletta at the Military Appreciation Days.  It was fun to get to watch the homeschool jazz and tap girls perform.  These girls are such sweet girls and it is so fun for them to get to dance to Christian music.  This year was mostly all Toby Mac music which is so fun!  Both of the girls are improving so much in their dance skills (Aubrey too).  This was kind of it for us to get to watch the girls do their homeschool dances as we had to completely drop out of their other classes and miss both of the June shows (this was super hard for me and Olivia in particular, so hard to know we are missing a whole season of cute costumes, and shows which I just love!!).   I will be excited to get back in the fall and back to our extra curricular activities.  Anyways, the girls performed both a tap and then their combined jazz routine.  It was really fun!  We happened to be sick this weekend though.  Claire had been sick the day before with a fever and was kind of hit or miss whether we should bring her or not, but we did.

Waiting for sisters to perform...

Claire up first with her tap class...she is just so tiny compared to these other girls.  I love it!

Next up was Livy with her tap group.  These three are really doing well.  They had a long intricate song and did so great!

Last was their jazz song.  This song was Backseat Driver and was just so darn cute!

We walked around afterwards and got some cotton candy and Aubrey was brave enough to get her face painted by a princess.  Unfortunately as soon as we got home Aubrey started fevering.  At this point I had started with the illness on the Tuesday before, then Raelyn and Claire had it and finally Aubrey and later Hans.  I got it the worst and had a horrible cough for a good 3 weeks and even lost my voice a bit. Everyone else had a fever for a day or two and then a break and then another small fever and then they were pretty much better.  Sickness this year has not been fun!

Poor sick baby...

Still sick...

Claire and Raelyn round two of fevers and feeling tired and sick.

Right before we left we were able to get Olivia in for a new eye prescription.  And she was in need of some new glasses.  These are the frames she chose.

So from the 16th on while sick and trying to take care of kids and run to appointments (car, eye, etc.) I was packing like crazy!  As Hans took off with the loaded van on April 24th I had to have the majority of the stuff packed and ready to go.  The girls and I stayed behind and flew down on May 5th.  I didn't think I could pull it off with all the sickness but I managed to get it packed and then we loaded the car on Saturday the 23rd.  I thought there was no way it would all fit but with the back seats folded down and two toppers and the seats to fill up, it all fit with some room to spare.

After the day of loading the car we headed off to the studio to watch the final "show" of the girls' homeschool dance classes.  It was really nice that Ashia planned this so we could be there and not miss it.  Another fun night watching the girls show their talent.  This year I really felt like the whole group improved immensely and was dancing so much better and so much more in unison.

Then Ashia gave out flowers and said a little something about each girl.

And as is tradition we headed to DQ afterwards for some ice cream to celebrate.  Fun to get spend time with our friends before we would be leaving in a few short weeks.

Saying goodbye to Samson was the hardest part!  We sure miss our sweet kitty so much!  We had to get some good pics of our boy before we left.

And the girls' final dance was at church.  Hans took off early that morning and we headed to church by 9:30 for practice.  This was a such a nice song and the girls did a great job.  Here are some of the pictures we got and a man at church took some really nice pictures for me and shared them with me.  I will have to try to get the videos up when I get back to San Diego so you can actually watch it.

The girls lift Claire at the end because she is the lightest tiniest one.  It was really cool.

Love this one!

After Hans took off I had to switch gears and start organizing, cleaning and prepping for our house sitters to arrive.  And of course we wanted to fit in as much time with friends as we could.

Monday we had our last book club and I caught this picture of these two buddies.  They are just the cutest together.  Missing them already!!!

Liv got her new glasses in and when she got her hat on I thought she looked a bit like a female Toby Mac.  She looked so cute regardless!

And Raelyn liked wearing the hat too!

On Wednesday, Claire got her Sparkie award for finishing all three books!  So proud of all the memorizing she did and hiding God's Word in her heart.

Friday night we had a bit of a crazy, fun night.  We had Kaylie spend the night as her mom needed someone to take her and we headed to Kopp's house to have a whole family sleep over, so the little girls could sleep over too!  The kids had so much fun and it was fun for the adults too!  We ate pizza together and then the kids played and we visited.  A fun night for the books!

Next day we had a birthday party to go to and it was pretty fun and little crazy as well.  The girls all chilling in the shade!

And another one of our favorite kitty!!

A crazy, busy, filled with sickness, and lots of sadness, but also lots of fun amongst all the work kind of month.  Next up May...