We had a wonderful spring break this year! I knew that we wouldn’t be up to going anywhere or planning anything major with a 3 week old in our house, but I also wanted to make it somewhat fun for the big kids while they were off of school. The weather was ok. It was rainy and cloudy/chilly for most of the break, but we had enough days of nice weather to be able to enjoy some time outside, too!
The kids actually managed to get two weeks of Spring break because they got so sick the week that we brought baby Orion home. They were mostly recovered from their colds/coughs, but Theo and I decided to keep them home for that entire week in order to avoid getting any other germs and to give them a few extra days to recover.
The first and primary order of business during Spring break was to snuggle our baby. I would say we succeeded at that 🙂
I am a terrible mother and didn’t take any before OR after pictures, but Tera got her hair cut by Daddy! I told her to go and find all the scissors so we could figure out the best ones to use to cut her hair. If you are a hairdresser, you need to look away now, because I am sure that none of these are ideal for cutting hair haha. Yes, that is mud on her face.
We decided we wanted to go to an Easter egg hunt and have found one that we really enjoy that is about 40 minutes away. It was supposed to be a fairly sunny and warm day, but right when we got there the wind was INSANE. I mean, I felt like I was going to blow away myself! But the kids all enjoyed themselves and managed to pick up a bunch of eggs. Except for Ezra’s age group that was overrun by parents trying to pick up eggs for their kids. Gr.
Theo needed to drop off a chainsaw at a specialty repair shop that was a 40 minute drive away. We all went along and then found a fun hiking trail/park to walk around at. It was rainy but warm and we loved finally being outside and I was so thankful that I could walk and be out of bed!
The kids learned pretty quick that anywhere we went, there was going to have to be some long stop somewhere to feed and burp the baby. Ah, life with a tiny little one 😉
Theo needed to drop off some paperwork in Dayton so we decided to make it a family trip (do you see a theme here?) and also hit up One Dollar Book Swap and some kind of Discount Outlet Store. As always, we love One Dollar Book Swap, but the Discount Outlet Store apparently has a strategy that we didn’t realize. They pull out the bins of stuff on Friday and everything is $5 each. Sunday it is $4 each, Monday $3, Tues and Weds $2 and by Thursday everything is $1. Of course anything worth anything has already been sorted and sifted through by Monday haha. Whatever day we went, anything left was pure junk and not even worth the $2. Apparently on Friday when they pull out the brand new bins the store is PACKED and they have to rope it off and it’s INSANE. So maybe one day we will give it another go on a day when they have good stuff.
We went for a little walk in our back field and the boys were playing some baseball. Tera was happy to just plop herself down on that Spring fresh grass and hold baby Orion.
I didn’t take pictures but we (ahem, Theo) cleaned out and organized our whole barn. I pulled out and washed all of the spring/summer clothes and tried to pack up some of the warm winter clothes. I’m still in between maternity clothes and regular size clothes so I have a little bit of each still out and very little put away yet.
We also took an afternoon to hard boil and dye eggs. It’s fun to see the kids getting older and understanding the process and having more patience for the creative energy required to do this task :). Now if only they would eat hard boiled eggs- maybe next year?
We spent one day driving down to Cincinnati with Memaw and Pepaw and visiting Jungle Jim’s grocery store and going out to lunch at an authentic West African restaurant. The grocery store is fascinating and have all kinds of food from all types of areas of the world! The kids were fascinated with the bug candy.
I told the kids we could do one thing over Spring Break that required $$$. The options were the Ark Encounter, the Zoo, Entertrainment Junction, Get Air, or mini golf. We planned on the Ark Encounter but the night before I confessed that I just wasn’t feeling up to the drive and a whole day trip. No one was too disappointed and we settled on mini golf instead. We had a BLAST. It was hysterical watching the kids take 9 or 10 hits to get the ball into the hole.
Since we now have 5 acres of property, I figured I needed to start some kind of Easter egg hunt tradition! Theo hid a bunch of eggs around our property and we went for an Easter egg hunt. First we told the kids that they each needed to get a plastic bag and we were going to go pick up trash outside. We waited until someone found an egg and pretty quickly they realized it was an Easter egg hunt, not a trash pickup walk! Also at the beginning of our hunt, one of our male pigs escaped his electric fencing paddock and decided to join us for the hunt. Don’t worry- Theo put him back right away.
We also had a lovely Easter Sunday celebrating our Risen Savior. We got our whole family to church and then headed to my parents for lunch. My Mom loves hosting Sunday lunch and we all invited whoever we knew didn’t have anywhere else to be! The boys played a round of croquet and while the girls are fought over who got to hold baby Orion. Spoiler alert: Corinne won the baby holding battle 🙂
Our very last day of Spring Break was GLORIOUS and so we met up with my Mom (my Dad had a prior commitment at the time) to hike one of our favorite trails. These yellow flowers are called swamp marigolds and are some of the first flowers in bloom in our local area. It is yellow as far as the eye can see and just the perfect hiking trail for our small kiddos (and my postpartum self).
And that was a wrap on Spring Break 2023! It seems like we did A LOT, but at the same time all these things happened over the course of 10 days and looking back it felt like the perfect mix of relaxing at home and getting out and about as a family. It really was a wonderful time spent as a family. Now we head into the last six weeks of the school year, which are always crazy! Theo took a part time job as a school resource officer, so he will be working 6 days a week until the end of May. We have teacher appreciation week, end of year ceremonies and awards, field day and all of the normal of regular life together. Here we go!!