Easter and April and a little May

Sorry this is really long, but then again, most of my posts are long. The boys and I went their school's 'Mother/Son sports night'. 

I've been working on a few house projects.  I got the craft portion of our playroom/craftroom/guestroom pretty much finished.  I still need to get the stainless steel countertop on, but so happy to have all the crafts, and my sewing machine, out and accessible to the kids.

Guestroom side of that room.  We hang all their art on the murphy bed, until we get guests.

I took off the trim on the old bookcase (so it would fit in the closet), reinforced it, and painted it blue.  The kids toys are nicely stored behind closed doors. Yeah!

St. Patrick's day attire.  They didn't get the memo that not EVERY piece of clothing had to be green.

Grant and Noah started baseball in March and it is CONSUMING our lives.  They're enjoying it, so it's worth it, I suppose.

 The kids' spring break happened to be the week before Easter, so the kids and I decided to head to Hurricane.  Ava LOVES my moms cats!!  The minute she gets up she is outside playing with the cats.

I took Ava to my aunt Shelley's for a haircut (her first 'official' haircut). Her shop looks the exact same as when I was little.

So fun to see all the things I used to play with when I would go over there. 

My cute little curly Sue.

FHE at the ball fields with April and Kyle and their families.

Ava takes great care of little Ollie when he's around.

Took full advantage of my moms cooking.

Bedtime stories from grandpa.

Em paid the kids a penny for every pecan they picked up.  She didn't realize they all would pick up lots of pecans.  The boys spent a long time cracking nuts with these 'fun' nutcrackers.

Noah's ball storage invention.

My cousin, Abby, had her baby while I was there, so we got to snuggle cute baby Bristol for a few minutes.  She has Aprils red cheeks.

These babies!! I sure love them.

Little Jack is always resting on his side.  Funny kid.

Jack kept trying to give Georgia kisses. Full face kisses.  It was so funny.

Rachelle and I took a lot of kids to the Three falls.

We went to the Arts Festival in St. George. 

Ava and Noah got to spin a pot on the potters wheel.

We don't have the finished products yet, but they are supposed to be fired and then they will send them to us.

  We were able to do my mom's infamous egg hunt.  All the kids love it, and she spends so much time and money on it, it's quite the production.

A few of the eggs were floating in the middle of the pond. Ha!

Nice posture Noah.  My kids love being in Hurricane around their grandparents and cousins.  It's constant entertainment.

I have NEVER seen a normal picture of these two.

Saturday morning we went to grandma Connie's for her egg hunt.  It was unseasonably cold, so the kids had to bundle up with grandma's beanies.

Wilson cousins all ready for the hunt.

Redneck 4-wheeler sledding.  We spent Saturday afternoon at the ranch playing in the sand, hiking, playing a competitive game of softball, chatting and the egg contest.

Don't ask!!

Noah's egg.  My kids haven't quite learned the intensity of this egg contest.

Ava's egg.  It was me. :)

Grant was a little more intent on spending time on his egg.  He had an angry bird shirt on that he wanted it to look EXACTLY like.

Hiked up water canyon while the judges judged the eggs.

Ava is a spazz.

I barely made it up this hill twice the entire day, the kids go up and down it ALL day long! 

Easter morning - the bunny brought them legos, tic-tacs and a movie.

I went thru all my old school papers at my moms.  Found all sorts of gems. I was such a good girl, right mom?!!!We decided to come home thru the middle of Nevada, because we were hauling back our cabin railings, but we hit snow over Donner pass.  We had to stop and buy chains and it took us 2 extra hours to get home.  So much for saving an hour by going that way.

My love had a birthday in April and we are so busy during the week, we celebrated the following Sunday.  Woah, so many candles!  Sure love this man of mine. 

Ava and Grant put up signs for daddy on his birthday ALL OVER THE HOUSE.  They were everywhere.

 

As soon as we got back from Hurricane, we had the pinewood derby.  Adam cut it out and I made Noah sand it and paint it (he got lazy after 2 minutes of sanding). 

The silver bullet.

 

Noah took 1st!!!  He was sooooo excited, and even more excited that his friend Evan got 3rd.  We were honestly surprised, because we just added weights and didn't spend a lot of time on it.

 

I've been working on our shower and finally finished it last week.  It's been a LONG time (years) since we've been able to use it.  Still a lot to do, but we're happy it works.

We've been spending any spare weekend at the cabin working on it.  Last time we were up there it was so pretty. All the wildflowers in bloom and everything is so green.

Dirty dirty Ava

The kids get very creative when we're at the cabin.  Noah made himself a phone and laptop out of scrap wood and some duck tape.  He played with it the whole weekend.

 

After a rain storm, all the clouds settled over the lake. 

Noah's becoming a pretty good little baseball player.

We're taking full advantage of the open strawberry stands.

One of our Saturday morning chore activities - Folsom lake adventure.

So nice to see water in our creek.

 

Ava is my mischief maker.  Almost daily, I find evidence of Ava's presence.  I happen to look under the bathroom sink, and found the soap dispenser EMPTY, a gel container EMPTY,  the lost tooth container broken and her doll with nasty soapy-gelled hair. 

 

A few days later I found Noah's racoon hat filled with random cereal in the garage.  I have to frequently look under her bed to see what she is hiding under there.  That girl is going to send me to the loony bin. 

Ava and Grant lost Nala's metal name tag somehow (I still don't quite know how that was possible), so they made her a new one out of paper. :)

My walks are beautiful this time of year.

April 16 - opening swim day

Ava had to write a paragraph about her day with her teachers teddy bear.

Grant's invention. We saw one of those motorcycles with the seat on the side at Home Depot and he thought it was so cool. 

Potluck after one of Noah's baseball games.

Monday we took the boat out to make sure it's running (Adam's taking it to Fathers and Sons next week).  All the kids skiied.  I only got a picture of Grant, because Adam was in the water helping the kids, so I had to drive and make sure Noah let got of the rope when they were falling and trying to take pictures at the same time.

Grant was pretty proud of himself.  We got Noah 'big boy' skis and he got up on his second try.  It's going to be a fun ski season.  

Wow, I'm impressed if you made it to the end!!  We're crazy busy, but enjoying it the best we know how.