1) The Hillman Herald.

Miss Ellie has been putting out a typewritten family newspaper for years. (Here’s one of her first editions from 5 years ago).  It began as a little treat just for our immediate family, and an excuse to use her beloved typewriter, and over the years has expanded to quite a large readership.  Lately she’s been taking it more seriously and has set a deadline each month for gathering stories from the family (and book reviews from me), typing it up and sending it out to her adoring fans.

Ellie is a talented and funny writer, and I always look forward to reading her work. Each edition includes calendar items, important things that have happened in our family, updates on kids’ sports, “Ask Ellie” questions, as well as little activities; things like mad libs or step by step drawing instructions.

This month she interviewed Elijah’s Sunbeam teacher (the 3 year old class at our church).  Elijah is both delightful and difficult and it was so fun to hear his angel teacher’s perspective on him.  Jason and I may have teared up when we read that article.

I have saved a stack of Hillman Herald’s from over the years and read through a few of them just the other day.  I am certain these will be such a treasure to us in the future.

4) Kids Bowl Free. I’ve been making lists of summer time activities (hooray for warmer weather!) and recently learned that Kids Bowl Free is finally in our neck of the woods.  This is a nation-wide program that allows kids to bowl two games every single weekday all summer long for FREE! I checked into this years ago, but there were no participating bowling alleys in our area at the time.  The kids and I are so excited to go bowling as often as possible this summer.  Check it out!

5) Spring! It’s been a very, very long winter.  And just like every year, I was surprised when spring actually arrived.  It’s like I have to remember every year that winter won’t really last forever, that we won’t have to bundle up in 5 layers every time we go outside and then leave those extra layers, wet and soggy, strewn about the house when we come back in.  The temperature is rising, the snow is mostly melted and we’ve had a picnic as often as possible over the past few days. I’ve even made the boys put away their snow boots (which they would prefer to wear all year because they are so easy to put on). I’m sure we’ll have some more snow over the next little while, but at least it will be the type that only stays a little while.