Life Lately

April was a full month!

As you know, we started off with a week in Costa Rica. That alone would have made for a busier-than-usual month, but add in Easter, family outings, a girls night, Articles Club, a ramp up at work, birthday parties, and house renovations...well, you get the idea.

In April I read the book Outlive by Peter Attia, M.D. which I highly recommend. This book got a lot of hype last year and I was surprised by how much I loved it. I breezed through it in three days. As for my morning Bible reading, I just finished Philippians today, so I am on track to finish the entire Bible in the next few weeks. As a reminder, I started re-reading the Bible in October 2022, so once again, it's taken me about three years from start to finish. 

Brooke is officially a toddler and into everything. Luckily she is still (most days) easy and sweet, but she keeps us on our toes. She is loving, full of positive energy, and will light up any room! She brings so much joy to each day.

Cam's baseball season took off in April. Cam enjoys playing and I enjoy watching him play! I've been so happy we decided to sign him up for baseball this spring. He has really thrived with this sport. We've practiced a lot in my parents' yard on the weekends and I have the bruises to prove it. :)

We got mulch for our yard and new gravel for our rock path this month. Our yard is at its peak! I planted flower pots and lots of herbs. We are clocking a lot of time spent outside. Other house things included cosmetic updates in both bathrooms (blog post to come!) as well as mold remediation.

For Easter, I made cookies for the Easter Eggstravaganza at church and also for each of my K-1st Sunday School kiddos.

Dyeing Easter eggs at Grandma's house:

It was my week to teach Sunday School on Easter and Cam enjoyed helping make the edible craft.

We spent a Saturday with our friends at the zoo.

Cam made an animal from recycled materials for a school project. After our trip to Costa Rica, he selected the scarlet macaw. His project turned out so good! It was nice to see him working hard on this for several days and his pride of having it on display at the school's Spring Fling.

Lastly, I bought this butterfly kit off Amazon, originally intended as an Easter basket gift for Cam. It showed up the very next day (it said shipping would be one week) so I just gave it to Cam instead of making it an Easter bunny gift. 

The kit included five live caterpillars and they looked like tiny larvae when they arrived. I was thinking there was no way these caterpillars were even alive, but I was wrong. After a week they were huge! We watched as they formed their chrysalis and then, after several more days of waiting for their transformation, we released the butterflies outside. 

Unfortunately my dogs ate the original butterfly pen that the kit included, so I had to buy a separate butterfly pen (pictured below) because I needed the butterflies to be contained once they emerged from their cocoon. So this $30 project became a $50 project, meaning I paid $10 per butterfly. 

Such is the life of a parent of kids (and dogs). The money just keeps flying away....