What a great month!
Here are some of the things that happened . . .
Liam's (school) choir, had their UIL competition. His teacher encouraged parents to come see them, since it's the only time that they wear their "tuxes". So I loaded up the little girls, diaper bag, stroller, etc., and travelled out to the Allen Freshmen center -- which I had never been to before, so it took a bit of effort to find it, and I walked in JUST as they were leaving the auditorium . . . I had missed it. :( But I did get to hear them do their sight reading portion. But the view was not nearly as good as it would have been for their performance in the auditorium.
Not only could I not see Liam's face, I couldn't even see his back!! That was kind of a bummer, but they sounded so good, and they got all 1's, and were awarded the highest award they could be given.
We are loving all of Anna's changes. She has a tooth now, and is responding to her name. She is starting to sit up, and is rolling everywhere. She is so aware of what is going on.
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| with my friend Mandy at a soccer game |
She is soooo sweet and happy . . . Oh, how we LOVE this baby!!
Leading up to Easter, we went to the park with friends and decorated eggs,
and had an egg hunt.
We died our own eggs too.
The Easter bunny made a visit, and filled our baskets.
And we looked for eggs again.
After everyone got ready, we put on our Sunday best . . .
and this is the "best" picture I got. :(
After church we went to Grammy and Grampy's house for a delicious beef tenderloin dinner. What a treat!
Lukie got his big red cast off . . .
. . . and his pins taken out. (two in the middle, one below)
He was very brave. They just use plyers to yank them out! It hurt, but we gave him lots of strong pain killer before.
He had to have a new cast put on for another couple of weeks. He chose BRIGHT NEON YELLOW, and opted not to have anyone sign this one. :)
Here he is two weeks later getting it taken off!
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Of course we couldn't get through the month without another injury. Caleb fractured the growth plate in his thumb at football practice. He got his thumb stuck in his teammate's pocket. :)
So, for a couple weeks we had two boys that looked like this . . .
. . . and we got lots of inquiries, from concerned strangers.
Claire started gymnastics . . . she has been WAITING for this day!
And is loving it!
Caleb had his first pinewood derby. WOW! There were some really neat cars . . . and super fast too! The guy that wrote the book (that we used) with all the pinewood derby car tips, happens to be in our ward. He (I mean his sons) have never been beat, but some of the cars gave him a run for his money this year. :)
Caleb made two -- a BYU car and a UofU car (since we are a house divided). He raced them against each other to see which one he would race at the derby. BYU won!! Go Cougs!
Liam's track season is over. Here he is at the district track meet. There are some really fast 7th grade boys! He didn't win, but he shaved four seconds off his mile.
Our Bishop from our first American Fork ward was in Dallas on business, with his son Lee (family business), and they spent the day with us. We had lunch at Salt Grass, and then Quinn took them to downtown Mckinney. I cooked dinner and then they went with us to the pinewood derby and Liam's track meet. I doubt the derby and meet were that fun for them, but they were really sweet to go. :) It was nice to see them and reminded us a lot of the wonderful, simple, happy life we had in A.F. :)
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My sister Carrie (back row) and her cute family came for a visit (from Utah).
We had a "girls' night" one night. My mom was flying back from Arizona, so my sisters picked her up from the airport, and we all met at the Cheesecake Factory, where we had a little surprise baby shower for my sister, Taryn, who is due in a few weeks (do I need to point out which one she is? :) Our sister-in-law Caroline (far left), is the one to be credited with that great idea . . . and she and her family came up for the weekend from Austin. My sweet mom, who treated us to dinner, was taking the picture, and our cute sister Sarah, sadly wasn't there. (We missed her)
We all went to my parents' ward that Sunday, and this is how we found our kids waiting for us after church. Too funny. Although, I'm not sure others found it funny that they were all sitting on the bushes!
After church, we got to celebrate my nephew, Josh's, 12th birthday.
And the next weekend we all traveled to Austin for his priesthood ordination.
We took a picture with all the adults in it too, but not with my camera . . . here are the kids though! :)
While we were in Austin, Liam and Quinn got to go with Josh and Mike to see "The Zac Brown Band" in concert . . . which happens to be one of Liam's and Quinn's favorite bands!. They LOVED it!! It was so sweet of Mike and Josh to invite them. Josh won the tickets! How cool is that!?!
Me and Caroline and the kids stayed back at the house to play and visit. The kids heard the icecream man and ran outside with money to buy popcicles. Caroline's kids are quite responsible when it comes to money, but mine - not as much. Luke grabbed some money from the boys' room -- had no idea who's it was -- or how much he had -- and gave it to the icecream man. Well it turns out that is was Josh's -- and it was his rare $2 bill, and another dollar bill. The icecream man ended up charging them too much for the popcicles, cause I don't think he looked to see how much Luke gave him either. So we called these their "expensicles". Now we've got to work on replacing that $2 bill!!
They found lots of turtles while we were there. Two baby ones came home with us.
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While Carrie and Brad and kids were here, we spent an evening in downtown Mckinney. Grammy and Grampy LOVE to take the grandkids to Mom and Pop Corn (candy store) and treat the to a "treat"! . . .
we walked around the square . . .
. . . and we went to the magic shop, and were given a little "show".
My mom treated us all to a really yummy dinner (and dessert), and then we headed to the grass and fountains where we took our shoes off and enjoyed the grass -- adults talked -- kids played tag.
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As far as sports this month . . . Caleb is still going strong with soccer. He hurt his thumb during the first football practice though, so he's missed all the games and practices since.
Luke got to play one soccer game before he broke his arm, and has missed the ENTIRE baseball season as well . . . he didn't get to participate in one game or even a practice.
Because of Caleb and Luke's injuries, we have missed a total of 24 games and practices just in the month of April (although half of those have probably been replaced with dr. visits!). And I have to say . . . it's been REALLY nice!!! We've had a lot of GREAT family time -- and have been able to get more organized and do some extra special things. It has been a real blessing in disquise to our family. So much so that it's made us rethink how we approach putting our kids in sports, for the future. Maybe one sport a season for each kid . . . instead of two? We'll see how we do. It sure is fun to watch those boys in action!
Well that was most of April!
Until next month . . .
