Daisy's baptism day

Where has April gone?

I've really had very little desire to blog lately, but here's a few updates from April.

Justin had his birthday on the 3rd. I talked to him about having a party but I think Justin's ploy is to have very low key stuff for himself so he can make me feel guilty about all the thought he puts into stuff for me. We ended up going on a date for his birthday, and he got a watch and a book called "The Dangerous Book for Boys" from me. I found the book on Amazon and it was highly recommended. Justin hasn't gotten to read much of it, however, because Brighton stole it the same day I gave it to Justin and has been reading it ever since. A day or two later we had a family birthday dinner at his parents house. One of these days Justin is going to have a birthday surprise so big he'll never knew what hit him. Just didn't happen this year...
We love you Justin! 

Adaira had her birthday on the 5th and is now the BIG 5! We aren't going parties this year but she did get to pick two friends and go the movies. We went and saw Gnomeo and Juliet and they even got concession treats (which I NEVER buy!).
We had a little dinner with the grandparents (both Owens and Ellsworth) the next night so she could have a birthday cake. For her birthday she got to spend the night at Grandma Jo's house and watched Tangled and do other fun activities (Brighton came along too, as did Adaira when he did it for his birthday) and she also got to go to Target with Grandma Barbara and Grandpa Dean and pick out her own present. She picked a slip'n'slide, which was nice because the one Brighton picked for his birthday last year only lasted one season :)

Here is a little about Adaira at 5 years old:

• She loves jewelry and princess dress up
• Her current favorite movie is Princess & the Frog
• She is a tough cookie, knows how to be loud and mean with her Boston accent
• She can also be super sweet, such as when one of her brothers gets hurt (not by her) and she is right there trying to comfort them and tell them how sorry she is that they got hurt. She's also usually super sweet with her Daddy. She is definitely a daddy's girl and even the tone of her voice changes when he gets home from work each day.
  
• She is super smart. She is reading simple books already and loves any opportunity to try and read something to us.
• She is excited for Kindergarten! I was worried about this because she gets super shy around strangers (or even non strangers at church). We went to the school last Saturday to test the both of them for CATS and she came out saying she loved it and her teacher was so nice and asked me about 5 times when she was going back.
• Adaira likes to take self portraits with the camera, LOTS of them. Sometimes we don't even know she's taken them until we find them on there. All of these pictures were taken by her or by me or Justin at her request.

 These are only half of the pictures like this...

With cousin Kalvin who was visiting from New York

• We are so grateful to have Adaira in our family. It's a completely different experience having a girl and we are glad to experience it. She is so special to us and we can't wait to see what type of Young Women she will become when she is actually a Young Woman - vs. being 5 and acting like one! :) We love you Adaira!

In other news for April, my birthday was on the 12th and that was on a Tuesday, which is the day I work down at LDS Family Services. I decided that I still wanted to go to work because let's face it, working is easier than staying home with the kids, so that was going to be my self-pampering on my birthday :)
Justin is so sweet that he can't let a special occasion go by unnoticed, so of course he contacted my manager and wanted them to throw me a little surprise when I went into staff meeting that morning. Since my mom works at MCC, which is right by the agency, he coordinated with her to bring all the goodies to the office that morning. They had balloons, donuts, party hats, and silly string waiting for me. Justin also left them the camera but the batteries were dead so this was the only picture of it (which is funny because it's just some of my coworkers, a secretary, and my manager (who looks like the dork in this picture) waiting to surprise me.

My manager said that Justin had told him not to waste any silly string or something, so when I walked in they ALL started spraying....and kept spraying. I backed out of the room and then came back in and they all started spraying again. That gross stuff was all over me! We had a good time eating donuts after that and I felt special for having such a sweet husband who didn't want my birthday to go unnoticed.

Dale continues to be the most wonderful struggle of my life each day. He is literally either causing trouble or making me laugh 24 hours a day. He will be in an all out screaming/crying fit if I can't make breakfast fast enough because he is always starving in the mornings, he loves pulling any item out of any drawer and making an absolute mess out of every square inch of the floor around the house. He still has the most affection for my bathroom, where he likes to get into and eat make up, chapstick, deoderant, etc. Case in point:

 He gets random items out of the closet, ALWAYS

 Here in this picture I was trying to get him to smile for the camera with me but he would just turn at stare at me smiling, so I just looked back at him.

Though I feel on a daily basis that Dale is going to send me to an early grave (I'm really not exaggerating that much...) he is so fun to watch as he grows and develops. He can be so cute and funny sometimes. It's fun to tell Justin the funny things he does or tries to imitate during the day. One of the cutest things in the last few weeks is that he's developed quite an attachment to both of his blankets from his crib (they are not very small blankets!). He wants both of the blankets out and he will drag them all around the house and occasionally drop them in one spot (like right in the middle of the kitchen) and lay down on top of them and rest while he sucks his fingers. It's a cute sight that I'll have to try and catch on camera.
By the way, Dale likes watermelon, how can you not love and laugh at his cute little expressions?

 I can't get enough of this cute little profile!

Brighton lost his first front tooth! I wasn't looking forward to it because I loved his little baby toothed smile, but once his tooth was close to coming out it moved closer to the other one and started looking funky since there was a big gap on the other side, so I was ready for it to come out!

Before

After

Yesterday at Brighton's school they had the annual family picnic. Justin worked from home that morning so he could go with us. We had lunch with Brighton and then we and the other 1st graders did about 4-5 dances for us to different songs. I did the Cha Cha slide with Brighton and Justin did the Chicken Dance.

 Justin was going to work right afterward and was carrying a concealed weapon on school property...sssshhhhh!!!

Yesterday we had irrigation right in the middle of the afternoon. I've never let the kids play in the irrigation ditch because it's just dirty and gross. For some reason today I thought "Why not?" the water was high but wasn't rushing very fast, so we all got in and ended up having a great time. I kept thinking to myself "Why haven't I done this before?!" Growing up I used to play in the irrigation and the ditch (until it was covered up) all the time. I just remember the water being cleaner back then...

 Going through the tunnel...

Sometimes I have to relax and just let my kids get dirty, even when I don't want to. It makes great memories for them, even if I have to clean grass and dirt off the floor and bathtub afterward! I'm thinking swimming in the ditch will become a regular occurrence around here.