April was less busy than March, but only because we didn’t travel anywhere. We still had every bit of the kid activities and things that we had the previous month.

Cheech relaxes weird

Easter was a little more laid back though than it has been in years past because we bought tickets to see the “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as a family party at the Alamo Drafthouse for mid-morning on Easter.

Silk dyed eggs are pretty!

We tried a new to us egg dyeing technique this year – silk dyeing! Our bubble family friends did this last year and it turned out so well, we thought we’d give it a go. I overpaid for some brightly patterned silk scraps from Etsy, and there really wasn’t much else we needed other than some nice white-shelled eggs. We wrapped the raw eggs in silk scraps, and secured them with a rubber band. Then we wrapped in something (in our case, pieces of old flour sack dish towel) to ensure the silk maintained good and steady contact with the egg.

We then boiled the whole mess in some water mixed with a bit of white vinegar for 20 minutes. Once the boiling time was over, I used tongs to move the eggs to a drying rack to cool completely. Then and only then did we remove the wrapping for our first look at how well the patterns and colors transferred. We were pleased with how ours turned out – definitely a fun change of pace from the normal PAAS color tablet egg dyeing we usually do. Note: do not eat silk-dyed eggs – clothing dye is not food safe. We had no intention of eating them, so we actually left them out on the counter to be admired until they got gross (maybe 10 days or so).

Mario and Luigi

Because we were going to our movie, we negotiated with the Maya and Ian to let the Easter Bunny know we couldn’t do an egg hunt this year. Thankfully the Easter Bunny worked with us and left the kids nice baskets full of candy and fun things like games and Lego.The kids seemed to enjoy their baskets, but I think especially Maya was sad there was no egg hunting.

Our movie party was fun. There were cute props for the family (visors and mustaches and little white gloves, etc), and the kids got to make a game block as the pre-movie craft, which they both seemed happy with. The movie was silly and visually arresting as you’d expect from a movie based on the various Mario Bros. video games, and the kids seemed to love it.

Star student

Then we had to hustle home and get Maya to complete her Star Student poster. She was the Star Student in her fourth grade classroom the following week, and it kicked off with her presenting a poster all about herself. We printed a bunch of photos and she stuck stickers and even added a few actual written details about herself, albeit begrudgingly. By all accounts, her presentation went well and now we have a new sacred thing cluttering up her bedroom. Hurray!

Ian and his guitar

The following weekend, we got to see Ian perform in a guitar recital, which was a lot of fun. He performed both solo and as part of a group, which was neat to see and hear.

During the next week, Maya received some very sad news. Her long-time piano teacher (something like four years now) would be closing her studio in mid-May. Maya loves Hannah. They share a common interest in birds, and Hannah answers all of Maya’s (often very tangential) music-related questions as patiently as anyone could. Maya doesn’t say much about it, but you can tell she’s been upset. They used to have a game where they’d turn happy songs into sad songs by changing from a major key to a minor key. Maya LOVES this game. Sad Twinkle (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) and Sad Mary (Mary Had a Little Lamb) were early favorites. I think all the songs have been in minor keys in Maya’s mind lately as she processes her situation.

Checkered Garter Snake

The next weekend, at Maya’s soccer game on Sunday, Ian the reptile and amphibian lover was happy to see a Checkered Garter Snake hanging out on the sidelines near us. He rarely gets to see snakes, especially in the wild, so it was pretty exciting. (Maya’s team won their game also!)

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

That whole following week was a blur. In and amongst the normal soccer practices and music lessons, we started the search for a new piano teacher. Also, Ian’s after school music group performed a play for us. It was called, “Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring.” The kids started the play in the dead of winter and were outfitted in black sweatshirts and jackets. Then as spring sprung, the jackets were removed, revealing that the kids were dressed in bright colored t-shirts and were arranged to form a rainbow. It was pretty and Ian seemed to have fun performing.

Mammatus clouds

The last weekend of the month, since the kids both had soccer games scheduled, Sean decided to rent a fancy lens for his camera so he could try to capture some action shots during their games. Alas their games were rained out! The storm was pretty intense, in fact, and the sky was wild looking. Mammatus clouds loomed large in the sky and the light was an orangey-pink. It made for some excellent photography, should a certain Dad be equipped with a fancy lens he’d no longer get to use for soccer games.

On Saturday, Maya’s music memory group competed. She had been meeting one afternoon a week after school for a couple months to listen to pieces by various composers and musicians. She’d been spending time listening at home as well. And then on competition day, we went to the AISD Performing Arts Center. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a small town where plays and whatnot were held in the local church’s hall, but that place was impressive. I just looked it up – the main auditorium seats 1200.

The orchestra at the AISD Performing Arts center

Maya was seated with her music teachers and participating classmates along with other AISD schools and their teachers and participants. A live orchestra performed small segments of the pieces they’d been listening to, and the kids had to guess which was which. Some of the pieces were on atypical instruments. For one piece, they had to try to guess from just a 5-second snippet. They had test forms open on Chromebooks so the results could be tabulated immediately. There had been a composer to composition matching component of the test as well. All told Maya did pretty well, and either way, it exposed her to some great and varied music and the experience itself was pretty neat. She’s already planning to participate again next year.

Ian was born to run

That Sunday, since it was nice outside and Sean had rented that fancy lens, we had the kids get suited up in their soccer uniforms and head to the park to kick the ball around so Sean could at least play with his lens a bit before returning it. There were lots of Texas Spotted Whiptail lizards running around on the sidewalk and field too! Very pretty, but also fast and hard to photograph. The kids were only slightly more cooperative.

Maya’s favorite thing is to punt the ball as hard as she can

And boom. April was over. I have a hard time not saying “yes” when the kids want to sign up for all the extracurricular things. But I don’t love how full our schedules are. It makes it nigh on impossible to actually slow down and take things in. Maybe a good summer break will erase our memories a little and we’ll find ourselves saying “yes” all over again next school year.