April

 April was yet another full month that flew by so quickly. 

Little miss Elodie continued to grow. She a small little chunky thing. 

At her doctor's appointment

At the beginning of April we did an Easter egg hunt for the residents. You never know how they are going to take things like that. If they will think it's too childish. But, they were super excited and had fun hunting for eggs. Our kids and Finn also had fun hunting and eating the candy. :)

our three girls

One of our residents had never had a Macaron before so, well, you know me, I had to fix that. 

They didn't turn out quite as good as I would have liked but they were still pretty.

Again, on childish things, we are continually learning that most of our residents have missed out on being able to act like kids. While they are teens, they love to play.

Nathan pulled out a bunch of our kids Legos and they loved playing with them.

We spent Easter weekend in Illionis.

Playing on the rock pile at the farm

Grandpa always has the touch

Easter Morning 

The kids loved their Easter Baskets

Happy Easter! :)

The Wyss family held festivities at the fellowship hall.  Some of the cousins hid Easter eggs for the younger kids. 

Back at the farm, we got a little taste of farm life. 

grandpa gave Aurelia a ride on the skidsteer. 

They played in the haymow 

Dad showed off some of his bees

I ran in to Washington one morning and visited Chelsea and Dolly :) We miss Chelsea at Gateway. 

Elodie was unsure of Dolly

Somewhere there is a picture of Matt, Jake, and I sitting like this in this exact same tree.

Troy.

He always does such a good job of coming to visit. 

We got back to Gateway to discover the tree in our backyard is a Magnolia tree!

I am very happy about this :)

bedtime Bible stories 

crazy kids in boots :)

One of our resident's was discharged. Our first as leads. There is always a lot of emotions on all sides when a resident is discharged. Thankfully, she seems to be doing well.  The kids never quite understand what is happening. 

We took the house fishing by the river one afternoon. 

Scott and Doreen texted us and said they would be in town and asked if they could take us out to dinner. We were on duty so they took our house too.  It was so wonderful to see friends again and to be able to share a piece of our lives with them. 

waiting in Barnes and Noble for our table

A cool double rainbow 

Aurelia's stuffed animals needed breakfast too

We did a team lunch with Pete and Jolene and Amber one day.

reading books in a tub...

a beautiful evening bike ride around the pond

relaxing with the kiddos while the residents were at school

hehe

eating a snack with Bodi

morning snuggles

cocoa 

And then we got the big April snow storm.

It was beautiful

Helping me make supper

Gideon loves games. Just like Nathan.  He makes up rules and loves to play games for hours. 

teaching me a game :)

Kacie and I met up for coffee one morning :)

It was good to get together

We got a new resident near the end of April. He enjoyed playing with Legos with our kids. 

Whether from the lack of attention, structure, or simply his age, Gideon has been pretty difficult some days. It's been hard when I feel like my little boy is slipping away. But then, he picks me dandelions :)

My sweet kid is still there

Elodie turned three months old!

These two are going to be best friends 

a quiet moment

climbing in a tree

"cheese"

my wild little kids

I was getting so antsy to get in to the garden. A few cold snaps held me off. But, we eventually got out and planted some lettuce and spinach. 

such good helpers

My parents came for a very quick trip out to Leo.  It was fun to have them even if for a short time.

building new Lego sets

Elodie had a rough patch as well in April. She got sick and was scared of nursing. But, in true Braker-kid fashion, she refuses to take a bottle or paci. She would scream for hours on end. Sometimes screaming for two hours straight before falling to sleep.  This added to the stress of constantly needing to be out in the house with mostly girls, dealing with Gideon's behavior, and some pretty stressful moments with resident behaviors.  It made for a pretty hard month.  

But, there were enough bright spots and wonderful moments and looking back I know God carried us through it all.

In Christ

~Michelle