School's Out!

taking a moment to find joy in the little things

{pretty}

We celebrated the end of school with a little hike. We've hiked to the top of Multnomah Falls many times (it's kind of a tradition for May), but we'd never gone past the top of the falls to see Weisendanger Falls.

Multnomah Falls

This is the beautiful Weisendanger Falls we were wanting to see (and by "we", I mean me)

My backyard seems to be getting prettier every day!

{happy}

Another spring tradition of ours is to buy a praying mantis egg sac. I buy this the same time as the ladybugs, and I put these in the girls' Easter baskets. The ladybugs are live and provide instant gratification, but the praying mantis sac takes a while to hatch. We check on it daily and it's always fun to find that it's hatched. 

Also...the ducklings are still around and now come up to us expecting food

Sadly, though, since these pics were taken, we have only been seeing 5 of the 10 ducklings. We aren't sure what has happened.

{funny}

She was having her "day"....Now that school is out, I don't see as much of my girls. They are loving the extra time to read and paint and be outside. I know it will wear off and boredom will set in, but for now we are enjoying some down time. She created this "nest" and spent a significant amount of time in it. And I seem to have gotten my morning quiet time back - since they don't have to come down for school, they have been staying upstairs playing and listening to audio books. 

{real}

we did our state testing earlier this week and called it a wrap for the school year! Our state doesn't require much from those of us who homeschool, but I do an end of year wrap-up for our own records. I love to include a photo of each girl on the first and last days of school.

I'm linking up with  {pretty, happy, funny, real},

Wednesday Around the World, Image-in-ing and Little Things Thursday