​

​

Hello, Friend.

This week isn't feeling much like spring to me. My family is traveling through Colorado on the first leg of a 2-week road trip, and it started snowing almost as soon as we arrived!

But whether your spring is sunny and bright or snowy and cold, April will be here before we know it, bringing lots of special holidays with it.

Of course, the one I'm most looking forward to celebrating is Easter. But I'll devote an entire newsletter to those resources soon. In the meantime, here are a few fun printables for some other April holidays.​

Free resources for you this week:

• April 4 - National Fun Day - For 50 frugal ideas for family fun, download our bucket list.
• April 7 - No Housework Day – Teach your children how to do housekeeping chores, and you’ll eventually work yourself out of a job. Until then, housekeeping matters. So attend to it faithfully, even if you do opt to take a break now and then.
• April 12 - Drop Everything and Read Day – We have lots of great resources for book lovers, including this fun reading challenge for folks who want to drop everything and read every day:
• April 15 - National Laundry Day – Click here for a free printable stain removal guide.
• April 21 - British National Tea Day - Celebrate by taking our Tea Time Trivia Test.
• April 25 - National Crayola Day – Color some of our free Christian coloring pages.
• April 28 - Thank You Thursday (last Thursday in April) – Need help writing personal notes of gratitude? Check out my step-by-step guide: How to Write a Thank You Note​
• April 30 - Save the Frogs Day (last Saturday in April) – For some fun free frog-themed printables, hop on over to this post. You might also enjoy these froggy books or frog-themed snacks.

What we're reading this week:

My husband finished reading The Penderwicks aloud to our family just this afternoon. We brought the first two books of the series with us on vacation, but are now thinking we should've packed three or four. The series follows a widower and his four young daughters as they, too, go on vacation, meet up with some very interesting people, and have lots of adventures (and misadventures). If you enjoyed Little Women, you will likely love The Penderwicks, as well.

What we're watching this week:

The resort where we're staying had a very limited selection of DVDs for us to check out. My boys were in the mood for a war movie, but about the best we could do was Casablanca (the Humphrey Bogart/ Ingrid Bergman classic) and Chicken Run (a claymation version of The Great Escape, which is the show we really wanted to watch, but the front desk didn't have a copy of it).

Progress on last week's goals:

I'm afraid my closet desk is still rather cluttered, but I got everything else on my list done before we left town. That includes ✅ attending our county convention, ✅ packing our bags, ✅ planning our itinerary, and ✅ loading up the freezer meals for our trip.

I also ✅ submitted some brand new swag for the upcoming Homeschool of the Future Summit. If you're interested in attending this online conference April 4-8 (or taking advantage of those free swag bags), you should register ASAP. You can listen to all the sessions for FREE if you sign up before the summit begins.

Goals for this week:

• Make great memories with my family
• Spend time with my in-laws
• Finish reading 2 more books
• Do some quilting

Another poll for you:

Green thumb or no, a lot of my readers are experienced gardeners. And what a variety of crops you grow! I felt inspired reading about all of them.

This week's question: Are you more likely to play tricks on others for April Fool's Day, or have pranks pulled on you? Any particularly memorable practical jokes from the past you'd care to share