April 2015-Part 3

We did get to enjoy some really beautiful weather in April. The end of the month was when the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point started. I always love visiting the gardens during Tulip Festival. I randomly decided to head over with just Talia and Beckett one morning when we needed to get out of the house. It was such a fun visit! It wasn't too crowded. The weather was so nice. There were fun kid activities out down near the pond, so Tal and Beck got to play on the bounce houses and make pinwheels. They got along and were really cute the whole time. It was just one of the magical, fun mornings.

The boys' school held a Walkathon fundraiser. The boys got sponsored by their grandparents and aunts and uncles to walk/jog. I was really unsure about how it was going to go since it had been raining a lot the week before. That Saturday morning was a complete nightmare getting everyone out of the house. So much whining and no one would get ready when I told them to. I seriously debated about going at all. We did manage to get there and had a great time. We got checked in and got the boys' shirts, then had pancakes from the free pancake breakfast.

They had a few other activities going on besides the walking. The boys took off running and ended up doing awesome. Davin ran 14 laps and Weston ran 12. They took breaks to get their faces painted and to play parachute. There was also a hula hooping and jump roping area, the playground, and prize drawings every 15 minutes. I thought it was a great fundraiser and a fun family outing!

A few first in April . . . I taught my first sharing time in Primary since I have been in the presidency. It went pretty well. The kids really loved this block building activity we did one week.

Davin had his first track meet. He was so excited that he skipped to each event. He did the javelin and ran the 50m, 100m, and 200m races. :)

April 28th marked one month since the Harding's lost Tui. They established a cute program to spread smiles and Tui's love of superhero's called Tui's Treasures. That evening we headed to the Tulip Festival again all together and hid a treasure there. I have big plans to hide treasures as we travel this summer too. If you want to participate check out the details here.

The Tulip Festival in the evening was great. The only bummer was that the kids' activities were all closed. The boys were a little disappointed, but overall we had a great time running around the gardens and feeding the fish. It really is so beautiful.

Finally a couple random pictures. Beckett loves to watch shows in the morning. I found him watching tv like this. Haha.

I bought the seeds for my garden planters. I'm going simple this year and only planting herbs, zucchini, summer squash, and cucumber. Hopefully they all grow well and we get to enjoy some fresh produce this summer.

April 2015-Part 2

The kids' Spring Break ended with some daddy time. I headed out to St. George for a girls' weekend with my mom and sisters on Thursday morning. The kids got to play at the neighbor's house most of the day on Thursday, then spent the rest of the weekend with Ian. 

I drove with Mel and Wilson to St. George. The drive goes super fast when you're just chatting with your sister. We had a nice drive. Wilson was so good and slept almost the whole time. He was super adorable and happy when we stopped for lunch at Arby's. :)

When we got to the condo in St. George Mom, Jules and Joy were already there. Unfortunately, Mom and Jules were both feeling under the weather. We mostly just chilled that afternoon. We all did our nails with Jamberry wraps. Joy, Jules, and I made a quick Walmart run for groceries and random stuff we forgot. Then picked up dinner for everyone at Kneaders. That night we couldn't figure out how to get the DVD player working, so we ended up flipping channels and found Twilight New Moon on tv. It's super cheesy but we were all kinda into it. It didn't end until midnight though and we gave up and went to bed at 11. This was probably the funniest moment of the trip. It was a good laugh. Being tired probably made it seem funnier.

Friday we worked on making the LOVE squares for our cousin quilts. It took us all day to finish cutting and sewing the letter squares. We did sneak out that evening for a quick Target and Charming Charlie's run. We picked up Cafe Rio for dinner while we were out. Mom was still not feeling good and stayed at the condo. Luckily the condo was super nice since we spent a lot of our time hanging out there. We watched movies and sewed and ate and talked. All staples of a good girls' weekend.

Later that night Mel was up puking her guts out. Poor thing. None of us slept much that night since Joy and I had been talking all night until Mel was up sick. Dean didn't sleep well the whole trip and was up half the night too. Sigh. It was a rough night.

Saturday was another sewing day. Joy and I worked on piecing together our squares. Joy was a rockstar and finished hers. I got about 1/3 of the way done before heading to bed that night. Lucky for me Mom finished mine up. She's much faster than me. :) I took a break from sewing for bit and went down to the pool with Jules and Dean. It was pretty nice out and the sun felt so good.  I really liked the condo resort. I might have to take my little family there one of these days.

Saturday evening Mel stayed home while the rest of us went to dinner at Cracker Barrel. We took Wilson with us too so Mel could rest. The babies were so good during dinner and we enjoyed out down home cookin. After dinner we went to get snow cones. It was a somewhat ill fated outing that ended with Dean having a massive blowout (again) and having to go back to the condo naked. Poor Jules. It was kind of hard having the babies along for the weekend, but it worked out ok.

Sunday morning we just packed up, tidied, and headed home. It was really so fun to be all together despite sickies and blowouts. I'm so grateful for my mom and sisters. They are my best friends.

Mel and I got home around 2 in the afternoon. The ride home was thankfully uneventful. Mel still wasn't feeling great. That night I had to go to this cub scout meeting that ended up being a complete disaster. Later that night Ian and I woke up to Beckett throwing up. Poor kid. He sure loved his middle of the night bath though! He didn't throw up again, so maybe it was just something he ate. Here he is playing with his puke bowl the next morning.

On Wednesday that week it snowed! The weather went from 73 one day to 39 the next. Gotta love Spring in Utah!

I finally have been volunteering with the PTA this year. I have been helping with a 2nd grade's Take Home Library every Thursday. Well, the PTA asked me to help decorate a couple of the specialty teachers' doors for Teacher Appreciation week. It was actually kind of fun to do the doors. The actual putting up part was annoying, but the creative at home part was fun. The theme was Hollywood. I am pretty proud of how they turned out.

That next Saturday our stake held a Provident Living Fair. It was well organized and had lots of things to do with the kids. I grabbed a couple of my friends kids too while she attended some classes. The kids did some activities inside first. There was coloring, stories, a matching game, and 72 hour kit relay. Then we headed outside to the CERT trailer. We got to watch a demonstration with a K9 dog. Weston even tried on the bite suit!

After that Weston and Talia got a firsthand look at how the backboards from the CERT trailer work. I was surprised that Talia wanted to try it after watching Weston get turned upside down. Although, he was laughing so she must have realized it was safe and fun. Next up was the fire safety trailer. The kids learned how to recognize fire hazards in the home and how to stay low, feel a door and escape through a window in case of a fire. It was a pretty fun and educational morning.

April also was the start of track and field season for Davin. He chose to do track instead of tee ball this year. So far he loves it. It keeps us pretty busy though with two practices a week plus track meets.