Honestly, I don’t think we could have packed even one more thing into the month of May. It was NUTS. Just for my own scrapbooking sake, I want to record what we were up to in this past month.
Anyways- let’s dive in!
May 1 we started with a playdate at Kid Clubhouse, hosted for the 3rd class by one of our 3rd grade teachers, who happens to be a manager there (she may or may not be related to the owner of Kid Clubhouse wink wink). They host all the 3rd graders PLUS siblings for free and then the 3rd graders have to use the cash register to purchase some snacks. It’s a FUN TIME.
That afternoon, I hitched a ride with my friend Abby to the Flying Pig expo to pick up our half marathon bibs and walk around the expo.
On Sunday, May 3rd we got up at 4:30 and headed to Cincinnati to run The Flying Pig!
And then after I ran 13.1 miles, I pretty much went straight to my first official birth as a doula.
Two days later, I got hit with such a bad cold. It was brutal. I WAY overdid it with a half marathon + a birth and my body said no way, no how are you going to make me do anything else. I was DOWN for the count. I even called off work one day, which I basically never do. And then it ended up turning into two weeks of misery and a sinus infection before I finally took some antibiotics and kicked it to the curb.
I wasn’t feeling great, but we went out for dinner to celebrate my Mom’s birthday!
That weekend, we got my sunflower field planted! During the sunflower planting, we also had one child who managed to hurt themselves with a chainsaw, which resulted in a quick trip to Urgent Care.
And we went to the drama class plays! Kiah played the Scarecrow in an abridged version of The Wizard of Oz, and Tera was Mama Pig in a retelling of some classic fairytales. They both did an amazing job- Tera loved it so much, and Kiah decided that drama is not his thing.
The very next morning- Mother’s Day- our pig had 11 piglets! We knew she was due, but they came a little bit earlier than we expected. She has been a great Mama and is doing such a great job- somehow we still have all 11 piglets surviving.
We hopped over to my parents house for lunch real quick before we hustled back home. We didn’t want to leave Mama pig for too long just in case something happened.
And the next day- baby bunnies were born! We have lost a couple of baby bunnies since they were born, but we have 7 living ones.
I took a meal to my sister in law who had just had a baby, and we managed to stop at the new Ohio Buc-ee’s on the way up! I still don’t get the hype, but my kids are absolutely amazed.
We had a preschool expo, in which the cutest kids get up front and sing and make a joyful noise to the Lord. I didn’t take a single picture, but I did get a picture of the balloon garland setup
I signed the 3 bigger kids up for field day at Athletes in Action. This was such a fun day for them! I ended up staying the whole day, and that was a poor choice. I should have taken Ori and just gone back home. For next time- I know to do this!
We went straight from AIA and picked up 58 chicks to bring home. Never a dull moment. Never.
That night was graduation for our school, which Theo had to facilitate- in full academic regalia. I didn’t know there were so many tiny details, but the regalia, hoods and caps are all different depending on what type of degree the person holds and what type of college they went to.
The next day was a graduation party/birthday party/baby shower hop. The next day was a Sunday and was ALSO church, VBS training and a bridal shower! Listen, y’all….I’m gonna need everyone to plan their celebrations for a month that IS NOT MAY.
That weekend led us into the last week of school. Monday was slightly calm, and Tuesday was a wild day at school- it starts to feel more like summer camp entertainment than an actual classroom. Good thing we have all these animals at home for a good dopamine hit.
Wednesday was FIELD DAY- which is both so fun and also SO EXHAUSTING. I mean, it just takes me right out every year. This year it was rainy all day, but thankfully it was pretty warm, so we just embraced the rain and tracked mud and wet grass into every single corner of the school…oopsies. One of our activities was to find this tiny Jesus’ in the ball pit pool…one tiny Jesus had a rather unfortunate accident.
I didn’t take a single picture on the last day of school…oops! We had our big expo performance in the morning, and each kiddo received a character award. Then, most students got picked up to go home early so we spent the rest of the day cleaning my classroom and entertaining the remaining kiddos. Friday morning we headed back to school to finish up cleaning. Friday was also my birthday! It was kind of a bummer day, to be honest. No one had any energy left to rub two brain cells together (me included) so it just passed without any fanfare (I love fanfare). It was also rainy and cold, so by the time I got home on Friday I just CRASHED and watched TV all afternoon (something I absolutely NEVER do).
Now, school is out- but May is not over yet! We hosted our annual end of the year bonfire on Saturday night. It had been raining for 3 days, but the rain stopped and the sun came out for the duration of our bonfire. Then it proceeded to rain for the next three days again! We host about 100 people and it’s my favorite night of the year!
Someone commented recently that the first week of summer must be so amazing as a teacher, but I find it to be so hard. I just want to sleep for a week, but my kids want to START SUMMER and I struggle to find a new routine and just recover from the whole school year. I honestly don’t really know what we did that first week of summer, but here are some random pictures: watching our friends sheep, a good book, my new chair, some wild hair dye, a Dayton Dragons Game, playing with baby bunnies and kittens, having a playdate.
On Friday, we hosted a small Farm Day Experience for some of the families at our church. We had about 25 families come out and just hang out with the animals and play on the playset and chat. It was a fun time, but boy, were we tired when everyone left!
Theo and I snuck in a little ice cream date night. We celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary this past week! And we are finally at the stage in parenting where we can leave the kids at home for a small window of time without having to find/pay a babysitter!
On Saturday we drove about an hour away to celebrate Theo’s nephew’s high school graduation! This kid was 5 at our wedding and now here he is going off and graduating high school. He is going to a welding trade school and hopes to work with large commercial drones- you can see one of the HUGE drones that he flies in the picture on his grad party invite.
We ended the month with a praise and prayer afternoon for my Dad. He was recently diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer, and he begins chemo this week (I actually wrote most of this post sitting in his chemo treatment with him). Before he went into treatment, we gathered to sing hymns and pray him into this next season of his life. I’ll write more of a recap post on that, but here are a few pictures:
And if anyone is still reading- you deserve a whole prize! That was SO MUCH. Believe me, I know.
How did your May look? Did you have graduation parties, field days and last days of school, or was your calendar mostly clear?
How old were your kids when you first felt comfortable enough to leave them at home?
Do you have any baby animals in your home, keeping you insanely busy?