What We've Been Reading April 2016

"What We've Been Reading" is a series here at Children of the Church to both keep track of what we are reading and to share with others what we have been reading in our home.  Reading is such an important part of our daily lives and also our homeschooling journey.  Thank you for following along and please feel free to share what you have been reading as well so we can all learn together!

April 2016

Children's Book List (Our children are 6 years, 4 years, 2 years old, baby):

• Chapter Books
  • The Green Ember by S. D. Smith
• Children's Stories
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maruice Sendak
• The Hat by Jan Brett
• Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton
• Tuesday by David Weisner
• Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman
• Fritz and the Beautiful Horses by Jan Brett
• Mother Teresa's Alms Bowl by Anita Ganeri
• The House That Jack Built by J.P. Miller
• Blaze and the Indian Cave by C. W. Anderson
• Billy and Blaze by C. W. Anderson
• A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
• My Shadow by Robert Lewis Stevenson
• Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola
• The Children's Book of Faith by William J. Bennett
• Tikki Tikki Tembo retold by Arlene Mosel
• Noah's Ark by Barbara Shook Hazen
• The Quilt Story by Tomie dePaola
• The Friendly Beasts by Tomie dePaola
• Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann
• Never Tease a Weasel by Jean Conder Soule
• The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
• The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown
• Three Billy Goats Gruff by Paul Galdone
• Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty
• Chester's Way by Kevin Henkes
• The Story of Little Babaji by Helen Bannerman
• Ten Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle
• The Empty Pot by Demi
• The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
• You Wouldn't Want to be a World War II Pilot!  By Ian Graham
• World's Weirdest Animals:  Star - Nosed Moles by Marcia Zappa
• Digging Tunnels by JoAnn Early Macken
• Pete the Cat and the Bedtime Blues by Kimberly and James Dean
• Killer Bees by Toney Allman
• Poetry by Heart
• The Hundred Dresses by Elanor Estes
• Usborne Illustrated Stories for Boys
• Usborne Illustrated Adventure Stories  
• Catholic Mosaic Books
• Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
• The Caterpillar that Finds Jesus by Susan Andrew Brindle
• The Butterfly that Found Her Way Home by Susan Andrews Brindle
• Explore the Continents Booklist + Extras (Africa)
• Honey, Honey, Lion by Jan Brett
• A True Book:  Africa by Mel Friedman
• Africa is Not a Country by Margy Burns Knight and Mark Melnicove
• Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema
• Africa by Mary Lindeen
• A is for Africa by Ifeoma Onyefulu
• Introducing Africa by Chris Oxlade
• 3 Little Dassies by Jan Brett
• Homeschooling Books
• My Book House:  Book 2 (Story Time)
• American Cardinal Readers Book 1

My Book List:

• On the Way:  The Road to Pentecost by Colleen Mitchell
• 33 Days to Merciful Love by Michael Gaitley
• Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
• A Year with Mary: Daily Meditations on the Mother of God
• Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

What We've Been Up To

I have not posted in while, and honestly it is just because we have been kind of changing our priorities and flow of life, but here is an update of what a few things that we have been doing recently!

 

---1---

Springtime Garden

 

I have lots of little helpers this spring in the garden and we have been loving seeing all of our flowers bloom!

 

---2---

Starting Soccer Season

 

We started soccer again and it is amazing how much the children's skill set can improve in 6 months since their fall season!  It is so cute and fun to watch!

 

 

 

 ---3---

Porch time

We love having a front porch and a front porch swing and it tends to be where we spend a lot of our time!  I love to watch the kids riding their bikes or playing outside!  They also have been playing a lot of baseball with Daddy in the front yard this spring as well!

 

 

---4---

Big boy beds

Our 4 year old accidently broke a bed in their room, which led us to redesigning kids rooms!  We are so blessed that my in-laws had kept the bunk beds that my husband and his brother slept on and we took the leap (now hopefully the kids will not be LEAPING off of them!)  They LOVE the bunk beds!  Our 2 1/2 year old has still been sleeping in a crib, and although our older boys transitioned out of a crib around 18 months old, he had been doing great so we had let him be.  With all of the bed switching we finally got him a twin sized bed in his room and he is pretty excited!

 

 

---5---

Spring time at the park

We have been spending LOTS of time at the park!  Peter (5 months) started swinging in the park swings and I simply adore hearing his giggles!  He loves it! 

 

The big boys typically prefer to find woods or mud and sticks to play with, but either way we are simply loving the sunshine!

---6---

Tae Kwon Do

Our boys love Tae Kwon Do, and my husband and I love the outlet it is for them to run off some energy while also learning discipline.  They are both testing for their new belts this next week after a year of hard work!

---7---

Brothers

Mostly, we have just been hanging out and enjoying each other's company.  It is so great to watch the relationships grow between these sweet little boys!  We are very blessed.

 

 

We also are so proud (and a little scared) that at only 5 1/2 months old Peter has started to sit!  I think he might be trying to keep up with his big brothers!

 

 

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes!

 

 

Easter Lunch - Continuing to Celebrate Easter

Are you still celebrating Easter?  We are!  There are lots of ways to celebrate the 50 days of Easter, and a new activity for us this year is having a Symbolic Easter Lunch!  We had so much fun with our Lenten Lunch that Lacy from Catholic Icing designed so we knew that we wanted to try to Easter Lunch as well! 

We used the Way of Light for Children from Family Feast and Feria as our guide to pray, read about and reflect upon the events from Easter until Pentecost. It was a real treat to have so many goodies with our lunch and it is a fun way for the children to bring to life the Easter story.  This is a great activity to do with your family any time between Easter and Pentecost!

Find all of the food ideas and what they can represent HERE! 

At the end we talked about what their favorite parts of the story were.  Ryan (6 years) liked the part about Doubting Thomas and how he could stick his finger in the doughnut like Thomas did in Jesus's wounds.  Connor (4 years) loved the story of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit descending upon the disciples and Mary and us using red pepper to symbolize the flames of the Holy Spirit.  Luke (2 years) liked the story of the Sea of Tiberias and the fishermen, probably because Goldfish crackers are his favorite treat!  Peter (now 5 months) just enjoyed hanging out with all of us and smiled away!

This was such a fun activity and one that hopefully will become an Easter tradition for our family!

Ski Vacation

We had such a great family vacation to Colorado!  Here is a quick run down of our trip and lots of pictures.  A big thank you to my in-laws for helping making this trip a possibility and a great success!

 

We also were celebrating Holy Week during our trip, which you can read about at

Our Easter in Review!

 

The Drive

 

 

Family Time

 

The best part about family vacations is the opportunity to spend some quality time together.  We stayed in a rental home with my in laws and had a great opportunity to play games, chat and just have fun!

 

 

 

Skiing

Our boys had never really skied before.  Our oldest two (6 years and 4 years) took ski lessons on the first day and did well with that.  Our 6 year old was skiing on his own by day 3 and loved every minute of it.  Our 4 year old had a blast snow plowing down the mountain between someone's legs and our 2 year old loved the chair lift!

 

Critterland

 

There is a place at Copper Mountain made just for the little ones called Critterland.  It was great to visit and especially our 2 year old had a blast!

 

Traveling with 4 little ones is never easy, but we loved having some extra special time as a family!