April showers and all that jazz

Ah, April, the month were Spring becomes a reality.  Also a month where school starts to truly wind down.  Even for little preschoolers.

Dade preschool, Alphabet Adventures, was a perfect fit for him.  He got some good academic learning in with all those letters and sounds coming together to make words.  He practiced social skills like asking before taking and sharing with others.

Most of all, he got to do fun things that we don't get to do at home.  (Why did we ever get rid of our Light Bright?  Seriously!)

Of course, everyone's favorite thing was the airplane.  I remember when they were selling those at Costco a few years ago.  I lusted after one for sure.  Thank goodness preschool had one...

We also got to celebrate a couple special birthdays.  I threw an impromptu 30th bday party for my sister.

I even made lemon meringue cookies which are easy to make, but an awful lot of work.  (Don't worry, I ate so many it was worth the work...)

Meanwhile the boys played Space Team together and were generally very loud.

We also celebrated a grandma & a cousin's birthdays at a big family party.

It's so much fun to see the younger set (mostly boys) playing games together....

As well as the older set (mostly girls).

And Adia got to play her harp for part of the time!

Unfortunately, the cousins also enjoyed putting my Face Juggler app to work on the party-goers.  If this doesn't make you feel sick, you aren't normal.

This one is just plain frightening.  I'm waiting for the nightmares of a my son growing a dog-head.

I regret the birthday party for my sister because she showed my kids a new app (Perfect 365) where they can style their hair and put on make-up.  

Not that they do that in any normal sense of the word.  I think I prefer Face Juggler to some of these monstrosities.

Seriously, I'm feeling nauseated.

My poor son is emasculated with a few finger taps.

And look what they did to my baby NEPHEW.  It's sick and wrong.

On that disturbing note, my brother left this for me as thanks for letting him do laundry here.  He apparently won it at a white elephant party a year ago.  I don't know what's worse: the babies or the fact that it was opened a year ago and has no mold inside.

Since Ash's bday is over the summer, she got to celebrate it on a specific day given her during the school year.  We did the honors of picking up her donuts for school.

Even managed not to eat them all up before dropping them off...

A couple weeks before Easter, our favorite community pool had an Easter egg toss.  It was MUCH more crowded than the St. Paddy's splash the previous month.

But the water was pink and looked amazing, and we always have fun playing with the little cousin.

Dade became even more fearless with the snorkeling mask on.  No more water up the nose.

The three girls that came (Adia had to study) were adorable as always, passing out extra eggs to other kids who didn't get any.

Dade finished up his soccer season.  I'm not sure he'll ever really get into soccer.  I think he got tired of running after the ball with no real reason (since the rules don't make any sense to a 4-year-old anyway).

One thing he has continued to excel at is Minecraft.  He is a true addict and has to be pulled away from the computer physically most days.

He's even resorted to taking pictures of the screen with with my iPhone.  Until Sedona taught him how to take real screenshots.  Now the computer is filled with random pictures of zombie baby villagers riding chickens (I'm not making that up)...

We had some real fun with everyone in town from Gram J's bday.  One of them was lunch with another grandma.

Of course we decorated eggs for our traditional egg roll.  (Spoiler: Humpty Dumpty doesn't make it...)

Ah the days of making dye for eggs.  They are gone and replaced by Sharpies.  One of the best inventions ever.

It may be blurry, but it really captures Dade's glee at having won a round in the egg roll.  Too bad it was the only round he won!

What a good little baby my nephew was as he was passed from person to person all morning.

We also met up with cousins to tour the new building for the SLC aquarium.  

All the cousins together again.

We picked up some smashed pennies for our friends who collect them.  :)  

Best part of the aquarium every time: the penguins.  Those birds can swim!

It's not the best picture, but you can sure see how fast those bad boys could move through the water.

The only real drawback was the barf one of the cousins slid right through about halfway through one of the exhibits.  Thank goodness his mom had a bag of clothes in the trunk to be donated.  Hallelujah for Goodwill!

My girls with a toucan.  Not nearly as silly looking as Kellogg's would have you believe, it was actually a gorgeous bird with beautiful plumage.

Dadertot had his first eye exam.  As expected, everything was fine.

Though that will change before too long.  He's the only one left in the family with uncorrected vision...

Hiking season has officially begun and we started it off at Rock Canyon, one of our favorite, and closest destinations.

Dade showed us how he can climb over the top of the gate, after nearly falling off it.  

Adia getting her cleats on for a track meet.  She has been getting better and better, with a 5:33 mile run this month!

Here you can just see her passing some of the other runners.

I always want to show off the lovely tree in the front that gets these gorgeous pink blossoms.  We think it's a weeping cherry tree.  No fruit to litter the ground, but some gorgeous blooms.

And the part of the backyard we leveled and seeded.  The grass is just starting to come up and show us some green.  Yay for sprouts!

Seriously, I can't get over how  patient this furry thing is.  Poor doggy.

Personally, that's the face I would be making if someone kept putting yarn necklaces all over me.

We saw Jeremy from Studio C at our stake conference.  Is anyone else as obsessed with Studio C like my kids?  I think they may be it's biggest fans...

I saw this picture in a magazine and had to snap a photo of it.  I've been telling my girls for years that chivalry is not just for men and that I expect them to hold the door open for anyone coming behind them.  I'm glad to see popular culture is enforcing this.

I elected to have abdominal surgery this month to clean out my endometriosis again.  I'm so, so glad I did.  It turned out that my remaining ovary and tube were totally scarred up and webbed up and away from my uterus entirely (hmm, that must explain the total absence of fertility despite all those shots the last couple years).  Also tons of endo and scarring on my pelvic wall, and even on my appendix.  (Appendectomy anyone?)  The best part, though, was seeing Dade's face as he controlled the TV from my bed, and had fun raising the bed up and down.  Every little kid needs a hospital bed...  :)

I took this picture before I went to the hospital so I could show people my cute little boy and his pal.

Derek sent me this one of Dade at the BYU sculpture garden.  Dade enjoyed going to work with Daddy several times that week.

And Derek sent me this beauty while I was in recovery that nearly caused me to puke up my guts because I was laughing so hard.

Another perfect picture.  Needs to work on the thumbs up a little, don't you think?  :0

Sol's reaction to my absence: curl up in bed and be sad.

I was happy to finally be discharged and come home in time for Easter.  The kids were spoiled this year since I knew I needed to provide some serious distractions while I was out for the count.  My favorite was Despicable Me Minion Operation.  (Is it me or is Derek's bunny impression more like a devil impression?)

Dade's favorite was the Minecraft books.  Of course.

And the winner of this year's suavest Easter dresser: Daderade the Smooth.

I miss when I could dress the girls all in coordinating outfits.  It's hard to find modest dresses for Adia that don't cost a small fortune.  Oh, and that she actually likes.

I told the kids that since I couldn't go to Zumba, they had to exercise for me.  Just Dance hit the spot.

Baskin-Robbins had a sale on their ice cream scoops which we took advantage of as my first outing after surgery.

It took days for the purple to come off Dade's face from his Spiderman ice cream.

Derek got creative with keeping Dade entertained so he could squeeze in some work.  One of the things they did was make patterns.  They started with Othello.

Then moved to a shapes puzzle we recently acquired.  Dade was (unsurprisingly) very good at replicating the patterns Derek would start for him.  He's much like Adia who is talented at puzzles and other pattern-recognition projects.

My little nephew loves to look at and be outside.  One rainy day, the only thing that would keep him happy was to let him watch the drops fall on the soaking wet deck.  And it worked for more than 20 minutes!

A couple days after my surgery, Derek took the 5 kids to a really cool Easter egg extravaganza put on by one of my sister's friends.  They even had an adult Easter egg hunt!

And loads of cool inflatables.  If I had a cool thousand dollars, I would so buy a couple good inflatables just to pump up whenever we wanted to celebrate.

Adia took my 2-year-old nephew down the slide.  I'm pretty sure he liked it...

The kid also got their hair sprayed colors and faces painted.  It was great way to celebrate Easter and Spring and all renewal that the season brings.