April

While we were living in Mt. Vernon the young mothers of the branch invited me to be a part of their at home preschool group. I am so grateful they did! The kids looked forward to it every week and it was such a help through the cold winter months. One of the weeks that I taught I remembered to take a picture. We learned about transportation and as snack they got to make traffic lights out of graham crackers, m&ms, and nutella and little cars out of apple slices, toothpicks and grapes.

When it was my turn to teach we always met at the church. As I was cleaning up Tatum drew this awesome self-portrait. I had to a take a picture of it. Check out that hair!

During the Priesthood session of general conference it is a tradition for the girls to out for ice cream. We headed to DQ and Alissa and Genevieve joined us. And we let Declan come along even though he isn't girl. :)

We got some fresh air between sessions on Sunday. It was beautiful temperature wise but soooooo windy.

Grandma's house is the best place to live when you're 2. All the treats to make your teeth turn black. ;)

In April we went to the temple with my parents. They ended up not being on the schedule to work so we got out of there sooner than we expected. We stopped at a little playground on the way home and let the kids play for a bit. Tatum got to try out this stand up teeter totter with Papa and daddy.

Our offer had been accepted on our house so a lot of shopping or house stuff happened in April. I actually took this picture to remember what the rug was called because it was so soft, but I had to keep it when I saw that perky little face in the background. I think the kids might have gotten tired of all the errands...

Story time was a weekly habit for us in Mt. Vernon. The kids loved Miss Kathy and her stories, songs and crafts. An extra plus occurred in the spring when the geese that live at the nearby pond had goslings. We always had to stop and see them. It was amazing to watch how quickly they grow and change. And extra fun to watch with friends!

Later in April we headed to North Liberty. We wanted to pick up our bikes from the storage unit and we also checked out a kite festival they were having and the spring celebration at Forever Green.

The kids loved seeing the animals.

But the kite flying was probably the highlight. It was the perfect weather for it.

Declan's favorite part was definitely the fire truck they had parked there for the kids to see. In this first picture he was saying "it isn't working!" with genuine frustration. Apparently he was truly expecting to just drive it down the road haha.

He got over his disappointment quickly.

Another day at story time. Working on a look and find with Matthew.

The geese and goslings!

There's that orange chair again. And a little girl sitting like she's a real big girl. Speaking of growing quickly.

Declan got sick in April. He did a lot of sitting on the toilet and sleeping on my lap for a day or two.

Luckily he was better for preschool on Friday. It was pet day and the kids decided they should carry their dogs to preschool like this. Pretty clever, I'd say. And cute. :)

Videos from April:

Declan really mastered his balance bike this spring. I love watching him whip around on it. I feel like a tried fifty times to get a good video of how he rides it. But it's impossible! I can't keep up and these videos from the back just don't really show it. Oh well, it's still pretty funny to watch him racing Tatum.

This video cracks me up. At story time one week Miss Kathy brought in fresh eggs from her chickens and let all the kids crack one. She did it in a bucket on her lap. For the next few days we kept catching Declan "cracking" his plastic Easter eggs into this plastic bucket. :)

Declan loves to "go for a run". In the house, outside, anywhere but the track. His mannerisms always crack me up.