Some Spring Things

Tuffy first eats rice cereal on April 22nd.

Kids teach Mama to Heeley and go out for Black Bear yogurt as a treat from our nursery workers at ReEngage on April 30th.

Grandpa catches a fish on May1st so all the kids try to catch one too on May 3rd.

Holmes come over for tea and what turned into Puppet Poetry on May 4th.

Four year old Berg finishes his first Phonics reading books and chart and gets to take the whole family out for Mud Pie on May 8th!

We went to Mount Rainier with the Norquists for Julia's Snow Birthday and we found snow! We went for a snow hike, sledded and even built snowman on May 9th.

Peter surprised me with a trip to Gene Juarez (I love to be red head) and a fun B&B overnight in Tacoma for our 15th Anniversary. I thought we weren't doing anything because we had said that buying a new home would be our Easter, Christmas, birthday and anniversary presents this year!

Free bees came to us while we were getting ready for Berg's birthday party on May 17th. Peter and I both heard loud buzzing sounds, looked up and realized there were thousands of bees overhead, so Peter cracked open the hive (our bees had died this winter) and they all swarmed in. Within 5 minutes they were all in there and you'd never know the air was black with flying insects just minutes before.

Agape League Spring Pageant!

On April 19th the kids were finally able to perform the musical they had been working on every Sunday after church! Agape League! They were all Fruit of the Spirit super heroes and they loved it! And we all loved the songs even Pella and Berg knew them all and the dances by the time they were ready.

All four of our oldest kids decided to be in the musical and they all sang and danced in the opening and closing song.

Opal was a dancer and dances in both the big and little girl dances. She also had a duet and sang so beautifully!

Jasper was in the boy dance and a special "Jump It" freestyle dance. He also had a small speaking part!

Kivi was our little actress and played the part of Shadow, the general's right hand superhero.  On top of memorizing all those lines, she sang in a trio in the boy dance, too!

This was Eben's big year, his last year to be in the Promiseland musical. So he was able to do a lot! He had a main speaking role, although we didn't see him when he actually said his lines because he was the computer "Agape Interface". He really sounded like a computer, too! (The middle picture is him intently listening to see when his lines are coming up so he can go backstage and say his lines again.) He was also in the boy dance, the big kid dance, a dance duet with Raegan and sang a duet with Nathaniel!

We were kind of sad they were only able to perform it one time. It was a great show and they did amazing! 

Miss Niki, Marlee and I directing from the floor. Marlee helped me this year with choreography!

Hooray - they did it! Grandma and Grandpa and even Mr. Lonnie and Miss Meri came to see them!

Afterwards, we had giant waffle ice cream cones to celebrate!

Tuff's Dedication

 On April 18th we dedicated our Tuff Jobe Johnson! We wore our special new dresses and bow ties that we were going to wear to Dodie and Missa Teeve's wedding.

Tuff sucked on his finger for most of the time.

 Dada gave him a blessing: May the Lord bless you, Tuff, and claim you as His own. May you always seek God's will and to glorify Him with your life. May you enjoy God's favor and experience joy in this life that only a life serving the Lord and serving others can provide. May you always turn to God for strength, guidance and wisdom and may you be a conduit of His strength, guidance and wisdom for others.

Then Mama read the verse we picked out to be his life verse: Psalm 27:1 The Lord is my light and salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?

And Pastor Pritchard prayed for Tuff and our family.

Grandma and Grandpa were able to be there too! We love you, Tuff!

Mid April Memories

April 7 - We're doing Story of the World for our history since Tuffy's been born, it's kind of taking the place of our journeying to a different country and learning all there is to know. We had fun learning about the Maori people!

April 8 - Reading Berg. Berg is an amazing reader. We think it might be because he had so much practice with letter and sound games on the iPad.

April 15 - Tuff and Dada time. My two twins with their round, bald heads, cleft chins and dimples on their left cheeks. If only Dada had bigger eyes...oh wait, no that's just scary.

April 16 - Opal and Jasper are doing great in math. They finished their second grade math and went straight into 3rd grade math like little champs.

April 16 - Tuff sitting and having tummy time with the boys.

April 17 - Jasper and Pella found a "butterfly" (actually it was the hugest moth I've ever seen!) But they were very excited to hold it and "help" it fly.

April 18 - Dada finishes up painting the house to get it ready to sell! Why didn't we do this long ago? Now it looks great. No more peach poop.

  

And the kids have a movie and nail day while we wait to go to church and dedicate Baby Tuff 'n Stuff!