Where Did April Go?

I have a lot of catching up to do!  Here is April:

Faith and I volunteered at Cub Scout Day Camp.  I walked our den from one activity to the next and Faith had her dream job: she helped with the animal presentation.  She held snakes and chinchillas for the boys to touch.  It was a great day for her.  I had fun playing Ninja Destruction with the boys during breaks.

 Last month one of my good friends (who is just 2 months younger than me) had a heart attack.  We have been inviting Abby, her youngest, to lots more playdates.  One morning we went to Target and bought dollar activities to do at home, ate cookies at a fancy bakery and played at home:

 Ivy is my morning buddy on Mondays and Fridays.  Tuesday we have lunch bunch at our house with friends for a few hours before school and on Wednesdays and Thursdays, she goes to her friends' houses for lunch bunch.

One morning we went to the castle that she has always wanted to visit. The Excalibur:

 I think she was much more impressed with the outside than the inside.  Once we went inside, she remarked, "Oh.  It's just like Sunset Station."  Yes - a casino is a casino is a casino... So we found the shops upstairs and made it a better trip with a Krispy Kreme donut.

 One morning I took her to Subway for lunch (Subway is her favorite).  She got to eat a cookie that was almost as big as her head!

 On another morning we went to UNLV to watch Faith perform at her music festival.  Bob Miller Middle School choir was the first to perform.  They did great and got superiors.  Faith is on the top row in the picture below (she's one of the ones that looks really Heavenly with the sun shining on her white skin really brightly.  Fourth from the right)

 I love having a little companion to go to these things with.  Ivy is good company.

One Saturday morning in April I was watching our neighbors children while the mother was in Idaho picking up their oldest from school.  We walked/rolled to the Henderson Walk, Roll and Stroll not too far from our house.  Just as we were leaving we picked up another boy for Will and Easton.  We had: three boys and a girl on scooters, one girl on a skateboard and one girl on a bike.  I walked.

 

There were all sorts of fun activities going on at the parks like Giant Inflatable Hampster balls:

 There's always the playground that's fun too:

 The SWAT team was there to show their neat stuff.  The boys really liked that.

 It was about at this point that Faith said, "I feel like I have to say this because Dad isn't here to say it: so this is how they're spending our tax dollars."  She's such a giggle.  I laughed all day about that because that comment gets said a lot at our house!

There were bouncy houses, huge soap bubble's being blown, face painting, hoola hooping with a fun DJ and also stilt walking activities that Faith especially enjoyed.

 On one of our lunch bunches in April we went on a little hike that was fun.

 These are Ivy's two lunch bunch friends.  Aren't they a cute bunch?

 Our favorite thing we did in April was see family.  We went to Utah for spring break and stayed in Alpine with some of our favorite people:

 We pretty much just jammed in on whatever Mom and Dad had going on.  The kids spent lots of time pretend fighting with sticks out back, visiting buffalo, setting gopher traps with Dad, we went to DI once with Mom, we ran a few errands, took naps, watched movies and had lunch with Eliza and Mariah at Brick Oven Pizza in Provo.  It was fun to see them and meet their boys.

 When Bill got there later in the week we went up to Temple Square and took a tour of the Conference Center.  I loved the artwork.  The gardens at the top were also quite impressive.  The mural etched in stone is also on the roof.

 Ivy and Will had a great time photo bombing our picture in front of the temple.

 We also went to Centerville to see Bill's parents.  Trisha had brought a cat to Grandma Joanie that they couldn't keep.  After a while it became apparent that this cat was pregnant, so it was really fun to see the baby kittens at Grandma's house.  The mother cat became visibly distressed while Ivy was handling the kittens...

 We also went with them to Antelope Island and saw buffalo and antelope and got eaten attacked by hordes of gnats.  I had never been to the ranch out on Antelope Island, and it was fun to see all the old tools, practice roping and Faith especially loved being close to the horses.

After that we took Grandma Joanie out to Outback Steakhouse for a late birthday celebration.

Lots of other really good stuff happened in April: General Conference, Ivy becoming an expert snapper (she snaps around with her little fingers while talking to you) and the weather getting warm enough to swim here.

I'll do better with May!!