Time for a photo dump! Here is what we have been up to as we finished up April and enjoyed our May....

Trout Lake Camp and Girls Weekend

Colton and Paul went to Man Camp at Trout Lake camp and enjoyed a weekend of growing closer to God, each other, and having fun! Highlights included ziplining, archery, floor hockey, kickball, the hippo song, and more!

While the boys were away, the girls played! The girls picked favorite meals and the dolls joined us. We made smoothies and apple fritters and watched girl movies like Pride and Prejudice and had a girls sleepover in mom's bed. We toured an old mansion with some friends that have two girls around our girls ages and went exploring on some new hiking trails!

Grandma K turns 60!

Grandma K turned 60, and had her celebration at Great Wolf Lodge with an indoor waterpark! It was a fun 24 hours of swimming and food with cousins and celebrating Grandma!!!!

Babysitting

Summer is sooo excited to babysit...but can't officially babysit until she is 11. A couple moms have reached out and let Summer babysit their kiddos with an adult somewhere in the home. One mom has hired Summer as a weekly Mother's Helper. Summer has really bonded with James, and has loved her time with their family and learned so much!

Cousin Time

We have had so much fun with cousins!!!!!!!

Mother's Day

We got to spend Mother's Day weekend in Fergus Falls with Grandma and Grandpa T! The kids made me feel so special!

Parent-Kiddo Dates

We have had a lot of fun with kiddo/parent dates....to Loons games, out to dinner, outdoor theater, mountain biking, and more!

Paul Birthday

Happy Birthday to Paul! We celebrated with a Saturday night date night followed up by pizza with the kids on Sunday, yard games, and food cooked over the fire! We are looking forward to dinner with his parents this weekend :)

Mo

One of Larkyn's Christmas gifts from Grandpa and Grandma K was getting to meet and groom and ride the horse of one of their friends from church (named Mo). Larkyn, our animal lover, was in heaven!

Cheerleading and Soccer

Summer participated in a several week long cheer clinic and LOVED it! She can't wait until she is old enough to be on a cheer squad. Colton finished up an April basketball clinic and is loving that soccer is back in season!

5th Grade Graduation at Church

Summer is moving on up to youth group at our church! Our children's ministry leader and youth pastor planned a special evening for the 5th graders to remember what they have learned, have some fun running through noodles, pickles, and chips in a crazy obstacle course, and then be welcomed into the youth group as the current middle schoolers washed their feet in an act of service and welcome. Summer's Wednesday night club leader shared special words about each of the girls in their group, and Summer was/is so excited to be moving up to youth group!

Finishing up HOMESCHOOL!

What a year! What a blessing year like no other to be able to be home with my favorite kiddos EVERY DAY and do school together. I am so, so, so grateful for the time God gave us together this year. We wrapped up our year with an ABC countdown created by the kids....they each wrote down a way that we could celebrate the last month of school, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet, and then they voted for whose idea they would choose for each day. The final countdown was as follows:

A: Art Day

B: Books

C: Candy Day

D: Dance Party Day

E: Eating Day (Eat fun food)

F: Friend Day

G: Good Deed Day

H: Happy Birthday Everyone Day

I: Ice cream Day

J: Jello Day

K:"K"ooking class Day

L: Legos and Lemonade Day

M: Mom picks and Movie Day

N: Neon and Glow Day

O: Outside Day

P: PJ and Stuffed animal day

Q: Quiz Day

R: Race and Rootbeer float day

S: Show and Tell Day

T: Track and Field Day

U: Under the Sea Day

V: Vanderbeekers (Read Aloud) Day

W: Water Day

X: XTRA Surprises Day

Y: Yogurt eating Day

Z: Zoo Day

While we didn't follow every day perfectly, we did do something special as written above for most of the days, and it was a fun way to count down. I loved the kids' creativity in coming up with this list! I was going to take pictures on each day, and most days I forgot, but I will share a few!

A is for Art Day - YouTube drawing lesson

B is for Book Day - went to the library and got our usual bag of 70+ books :-)

C is for Candy Day - the kids earned one of these candies for each math problem finished, or sentence written, etc.

E is for Eating Day: The kids requested a list of favorite foods and snacks for lunch!

J is for Jello Day!

Q is for Quiz Day - we did mini quiz games for each subject - for math we were learning about measurement, so we made guesses on how much objects weighed in both the metric and standard system, and then saw who was closest by using my digital kitchen scale.

U (Underwater Day) and W (Water Day) were combined into BEACH day when it got over 80 degrees!

Larkyn excitedly helped me pick out all this Yogurt for Y is for Yogurt Day!

Z is for Zoo: Colton is in the background by the buffalo.....this was one of our best zoo days EVER as the bears were so active today and lots of animals were out!

On our last day of school, we celebrated with a sharing day. Each kiddo shared writing they had done, either their essay on "My Year Homeschooling" and/or their creative writing project they worked on in May. They also performed piano (and trombone for Summer). Then we went out to Cherry Berry, a new-to-the-kids self-serve yogurt bar with many flavors and toppings that you build your own creation. They LOVED it!