April has absolutely whizzed by. At the beginning of it, we were still recovering from our trip to Hong Kong and the end of spring break. Fortunately, we had only a short week back at regular life before Easter and a long weekend.
We had a fairly low key Easter this year, which was just right for our family. Church, dinner with Peter’s parents, and a backyard Easter hunt for our girls. On the holiday Monday we had a hot dog roast with friends at our local beach.
Mid-April, Peter was away for 3 days on a trip with his class. This had been a long time in the planning and organization and it was nice to see it come to fruition and for all his hard work (on top of all of his regular work duties) be recognized. Immediately after he got home from that he went into a full weekend of re-certifiying his Wilderness First Aid. The following weekend was also largely taken up with this course so it felt like a decent stretch of time where we didn’t get much time with him.
But as we move from April to May, the weather seems to get a little nicer every day (with a few days of rain still popping in here and there). Daylight is stretching out longer which adds to our time after school and work. We’ve been working in our backyard – clearing garden beds and planting things. Along with some neighbourhood friends, the girls have been clearing out their playhouse and making their own little garden. It’s so lovely to see them running down the street to see if their friends can play and the freedom that the good weather and longer hours of light bring them.
We’ve also been doing quite a bit of spring cleaning and the kids recently decided to make a big shift in their room. They cleared out their old picture books to make space for all the chapter books they are now reading.
It was time but it’s bittersweet. Looking at the books they are ready to part with, I can’t help but think of the hours of their childhood those titles represent. All the moments I spent reading and re-reading, cuddled up on the couch, or in a bed, or at a bus stop, or even on the bathroom floor. We winnowed the collection down to two baskets of family favourites that we wanted to keep and Pearl and I organized the chapter books in place of honour.
Happy May! Hope your spring is off to a beautiful start!
Karissa Reads Books 
It looks like the dog enjoyed the Easter egg hunt as well 😉
Haha, she did! She found two eggs, which she had to trade for dog treats!
What a marvelous month! I totally hear you on the bittersweetness of book clearouts and rearrangements, especially at that age.
It’s a new stage! Super fun to watch them find their own reading interests though and enjoy books in a new way!
Yes, how lovely!