April Adventures

The month of April has been in full spring swing!  We have loved watching green pop up in our gardens and are happy to see buds on all but one of the shrubs and trees we planted in our new yard last September.

 The day after Easter break the kids headed back to school.  Over the holidays I had showed the kids some pics of friends doing Easter egg rolls.  We have never done it before and don't really even know the purpose but I gathered up our eggs and brought them to the school at pick up time.  The neighbors begged me to text their parents so they could join us too.  So fun!  We rolled and tossed our eggs, we saw who could roll it furthest, whose eggs could survive without breaking, etc.  Talk about good exercise running up and down the hill too ;)

 We cleaned up our mess when we were done and at that moment I swear every Seagull in the city came flocking our way.......yikes!  The kids are pretty sure we will be rolling eggs for years to come.

 We survived another theme day at school.  AL couldn't decided between blue hair or a cupcake idea I had shown her on pinterest.

 7:50am she decided cupcake (we leave at 8am).  I was amazed I pulled it off!

 That night T and I managed to rope my parents into babysitting the kids so we could head out on a date.  Gotta love having parents so close by now!  My mom showed up with this cute gift for me, I seriously loved it.

 T got to pick the date venue and we hit up the Car show.  We are currently in the market for a new vehicle and have test driven many over the year but it was so fun to actually see them all in one room and compare those little differences and see what is most practical for our family.  I'm ready to kiss my van good bye but since it is running perfectly still we will just hang on to it and keep saving $ (trying to balance needs vs wants on this one)

 After tons of window shopping we headed out for a very late dinner with a gift certificate from my birthday from my MIL which we loved. 

 We seriously had such a fun night together and let me tell you we paid for it big time the next day lol.  The kids must have stayed up pretty late partying with the babysitters and then woke up pretty early.  I'm not sure I've ever seen such a crazy grouchy bunch.  I'm talking crying, yelling, tantrums.  We seriously weren't sure what to do so we thought we would let fresh air cure it.  Well we loaded up the van with bikes and kids and they protested the entire drive to the ravine.  You can't tell but in this pic there are some miserable and mad kids. T and I kept looking at each other and laughing that we had created this little army lol

 We decided to explore a trail and it led to a park.  Wouldn't you know it, the kids loved it.

 They laughed and played every ounce of grouchy away!

 We hiked out of the ravine tired and happy.  Success.

April has seen some good use of the BBQ.  Nothing beats the smell and taste of outdoor cooking!  Even raking and fertilizing the grass feels less like work and more like fun.

JA has fallen in love with Lego.  We decided to transform this play table into a Lego table.  Best idea ever.  His imagination goes wild building every day.

 We also celebrated my nephew's 10th birthday a week early!  He is such a great kid.

For our monthly RS activity we had what is becoming an annual service auction.  We all arrive with some sort of service to auction off (some are home made and are brought to the event like a craft, a baked good, etc and others are for service you will provide down the road).  For the last two years I have auctioned off my service of filling one planter pot with annual flowers.  We all complete a survey to earn points/tickets to bid with (ie. one point if you showered today, one point if you voted in the last election etc).  Then the wild bidding starts!  So much fun.  I was in love with this sign my talented friend made and couldn't believe my luck when I came home with it.  The perfect addition to my front entry.

Another highlight was getting out on a girl's night with friends to go see this amazing production.  It was all written (music, songs, script) by Maren Ord Burnham (a star of the late 90's).  Several friends were acting in it which made it extra fun.  I loved it all but the music was truly my favorite part, amazing.  Followed by a late night dessert with girl friends and you have one very fun night!

The next day this tired mom was spoiled with my parents inviting the kids to join them while babysitting my nephews.  Hooray for some time to relax, T to study and time to run around to hardware stores to plot out some veggie garden boxes for the yard with only WR in tow.

 

Helping their cousin assemble his birthday gifts.

These guys sure do have fun together!

 

One last noteworthy seeing the lake completely ice free that night!!!  Something about that scene makes me feel so much more alive.  I love the happiness that comes to the soul this time of year.