April Recap

April

It is June and I am just finding some time to post about April.

I had to post this for my mom; I know Andrew takes after her.

And this other little cutie loves to watch his siblings playing outside. He is so ready to be out there with them. He is always ready to give his mama a big smile though.

April 6^th

The Blue Whales.

This season is going by so fast. Unfortunately with an unpredictable weather I haven’t been able to bring my camera with me as often. Julia has really grown a lot in the past year. She is now a bit more aggressive although she is still too nice to try and steal the ball from another player. She is great at defense but would rather be up on front scoring the goals.

On this game she actually scored three goals. One of them from middle field and one that made it to net so hard it unhooked it from one corner. It was so amazing to see her reaction after that last goal. She was so surprised that she had really done that all by herself.

 

Every time that Julia tries her best at soccer she gets to pick something fun to do later on the day after we are done with our chores. Well this day chores were done in 20 minutes instead of the normal 3 hours that takes them between complaining and wandering around.

She picked to go to the castle park in Layton. The brothers were so happy for the choice. They all love that park.

Daniel got his first swing of the season and as you can see he enjoyed it A LOT

April 8^th
Daniel attempting to crawl
I can believe how fast my little man is growing. I want him to stay little but he insists on doing the opposite. These were his first attempts at crawling. His chunky legs know what to do but his little arms just don’t want to cooperate much. As a result he was stuck on that same place until he gave up and decided it was much easier to roll around instead.

April 12

Daniel

I can’t say how in love I am with my little man. He is always so happy and content with life. Every time he sees me I get a huge smile from him. He loves to snuggle and when mommy is not around he would snuggle himself.  It was a busy morning and had left him on his highchair with some cheerios while I worked around the house. I walked by and saw this sweet little face; he was rubbing his own head.  And that was the end of my chores for the day, because he and I went to snuggle together for a while.

 

April 17^th

Josh’s Kindergarten round-up
I cannot believe this little guy is starting kindergarten soon. How fast time goes by. He got to meet the kindergarten teachers and visit the k rooms. They had the current kindergarteners come over, to the gym where we were, and partner each other with one of the little kids. Josh was a little timid at first and asked me to take him to the group. After a second I heard him talking to this little boy.

He introduced himself to the little guy and then his “interrogation” started. Hey what’s your name, hey how old are you? Oh, I am 4 but my birthday is coming up. Hey where are we going? Do you know this playground? My sister knows it. And he kept talking to that little boy until they went inside the classrooms for an activity. He was so excited to come out with a little stick puppet and told me all about the games they had played and how he couldn’t wait to start kindergarten.

April 20^th

Andrew

Today I couldn’t stop smiling at Andrew on seeing how sweet and loving he was. Sometimes I find it so hard to find time on my crazy list of to- do’s to stop and just enjoy my kids. I am glad this was not one of those days; otherwise I would have missed watching my son’s kind spirit on action.
I had forgotten to feed the cat so he was meowing. I came back to the kitchen and saw Andrew sitting on the floor telling the kitty that everything was ok, patting him and asking him if he was hungry; next I saw him give him some food all on his own.

Later that night, as I was trying to get kids ready for bed, Daniel started crying. Andrew ran to where he was and helped him feel better. He grabbed some toys and started telling him: “oh, buddy is ok, mommy is right there, don’t cry”. It was the sweetest thing to see these two together. I know they will be good friends when they grow up.

April 23^rd

Orthodontist Field Trip

Josh had been learning about dental hygiene at joy school and it was only fitting for us to visit a dental hygiene office.  Coleman’s Orthodontics is such a great place. They learned a lot and they were even able to make a mold of their finger. At the end they got balloons and a treat bag filled with toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss. My kids love mint floss and that’s what they got.

8 months

Time doesn’t stop for our little man. He keeps on growing and growing for sure. I love his personality. I love how happy he is when he wakes up and how you can tell in his little eyes that he is ready for some fun.  He is definitely NOT crawling; like his daddy he prefers to do the army crawl. He is so mobile now, and for some reason he thinks he has to do a scavenger hunt for forgotten treats all over the house.

He has 7 teeth now and his feet had finally hit a stretch he is now wearing size 2 shoes.
He loves his high chair. A good movie some cheerios and he is set, that is until the cheerios ran out. Luckily, he has not one but two big brothers who think pouring a whole container of treats on the high chair tray is what he needs.

He is excellent at grabbing things with his fingers; like the spoon right as I am feeding him. for some reason he thinks he can feed himself.

He has outgrown size 9 month and has moved to wearing 12 month-old clothes.
loves to bounce, loves to play and loves to make music

March Recap

March 5

Too big for his Car Seat

I just thought it was cute the way his feet stick out of his car seat now. I love the car seat, even though is a pain to carry it around, once I put the cover on it he is GONE

 

March 8

Sleep Deprived

Andrew’s sleeping habits have become so funny lately. He would be playing one moment and the next he is sound asleep. Here he fell asleep just 5 steps away from his bed. Guess he didn’t quite make it.

 

March 9

Julia’s first Piano Recital

Julia had her first recital at the Layton public Library. She was so thrilled to find out that her daddy had his recitals at the same place. Her piece was Chief Thunder Cloud. She did beautifully, considering we had barely started piano lessons 2 weeks prior. Grandma and grandpa came over for support. Josh and Andrew came over because of the cookies.

 This is Maria, my neighbor and her teacher. Big applause to her for being such a great teacher.

 

March 11

Another loose tooth

Julia had been begging me to get her tooth out. It was her first top tooth and it was hurting her whenever she ate something hard like an apple or meat. Finally after pulling for 20 minutes we got that bad boy out. So here is her brand new smile.

 

March 13

Pan-STARRS

We were so excited to see this asteroid go by. We had an early dinner and got mostly ready for bed. I had the perfect spot for us picked in Antelope Island. We got there way too early but we had fun setting up our telescope and eating dessert while watching the sunset.

 The night was too cloudy and we couldn’t see the asteroid but we had such a lovely time, can’t wait for the next asteroid.

 

March 18

Spencer’s Birthday and Our 10 year Anniversary

This was a very special day for all of us in our family. It was Spencer’s birthday. This man that I am very much in love with turned 32 this year.

On Friday we went out on a date. He kept the surprise until we got to our destination: “The Five All’s”.  The dinner was so romantic. I couldn’t remember the time when it was just him and me. We left the kids at his parent’s house for the night and enjoyed a nice evening together at home. We had plans to watch a movie, but at 10:00 pm we were both out, deeply asleep on the couch.

The kids were excited to pick presents for their daddy. Mainly Snacks and treats, since he never mentions what he wants. Each of the kids made him a card. We went to the Olive Garden for Dinner and had Marie’s Calendar chocolate pie instead of cake.

This year was special also because it marked our 10^th year anniversary. I can’t believe it has been 10 years since we got sealed for all eternities. I am the luckiest person in the world for having such a great man to support me, love me and help me grow.

Spencer brought me some beautiful flowers and a very thoughtful card and on the side he wrote:

Your gift is:

N__   L_____   F__  T__  K______

I hope it brings you closer to your dream K_______.

He has never done anything like this before so I was taken by surprise. I struggle for 5 minutes to try figuring out what in the world my present was and gave the biggest scream when I realized what I was getting. I think I have dreamed about changing the lights in my kitchen since we moved into the house but timing has just never been right.

I got paper and pencil and started figuring out the layout and design right away. So on this day we finally got things started for the big transformation.

 

  goodbye old kitchen!

My flowers, he remembered that purple is my favorite

March 19

Library Fieldtrip

Joshua had another field trip to the Library. It was just so cute to see them read and pick some books.

 

March 26

Homework

Joshua does the UPSTART program on the computer every day. Andrew apparently had really been paying attention to the letters and their sounds, because the other day we were at the supermarket and he was able to spell a whole word without help. I was very impressed and sad at the same time; sad because you have to be able to click the mouse in order to use the program and Andrew’s hands are not big enough to do it by himself so he needed some help and I had not made it a priority to sit down and support him on his desire of learning

I asked him later if he wanted to do homework like Josh and he said he would.  So every day I ask, and when he wants to do homework, we sit down for 30 minutes and learn together. This has been a specially bonding experience for the two of us.

 

March 30

Syracuse Easter egg Hunt

I love the free activities that our city provides. We had the egg hunt this day. There were so many kids that the race was over within 1 minute. Andrew is always the lucky one who gets the prizes on the eggs. This time he got 3 giant candy pieces which he generously shared with Julia, Josh and even Daniel.

 

The kids and The Easter Bunny

 Grandma James Easter Egg Hunt

The place where Spencer’s grandma stays has an egg hunt every year. We love to go and have some fun, yet for some reason we just always seem to be late. This day we had a soccer game right before the Hunt. The day was chilly enough to have us pull jackets out of the closet again. The egg Hunt gave us an excuse to leave the game early that day, which was a good thing because the boy’s hands were frozen and poor Daniel was so frustrated to have so many blankets on top of him.

We barely made it on time to the egg Hunt. The kids got so excited about the treats they got, especially Andrew, who ate all of his treats before we could even leave Grandma James’s house.

Coloring Eggs

We went to grandma’s house to have some fun with the cousins and color eggs. The kids loved making dinosaur eggs, jeweled eggs, and Andrew loved cracking some eggs.

 

Daniel was happy by being an observer in the high chair as long as I kept feeding him apple sauce

 

 Easter morning

What a beautiful morning this was. We woke up and had the kids watch a movie about the resurrection of Jesus and then we headed for church. The kids were disappointed to see that the Easter Bunny hadn’t showed up yet. Julia drew him a card and a note explaining that she wanted him to leave the eggs outside like last year.
When we came back from church they were so excited when they opened the garage door and found a trail of candy to follow which led straight to the back yard.

Again didn’t take that many pictures because I decided to record them instead. Joshua’s reaction to the trail of candy was amazing. I’ve never seen him so excited. Then Julia and him started jumping together holding hands. It was cute.

Off they went to the back yard. There were some tricky eggs this year. They were so happy to find a boxed candy and a little toy amongst the eggs.

After all that candy, came the sugar crash. Andrew did not even make it to the bed, so close

 

We headed over Grandma Smith’s house for Dinner. We enjoyed a delicious meal and then Elaine showed the kids pictures about Jesus’s life.

Then Grandpa corralled all of the grandkids until all the eggs were hidden. The kids and their cousins had so much fun finding eggs. By the end of the night Andrew was an expert picking up eggs because he knew what was inside of them.

 

The babies of the family hanging out together

This was March for us, April here I come