The rest of April.

Of all of the things in all of the world that could have happened to my family, this ditch as an extension of our backyard might be the greatest gift we have received. 

I have no doubt that when my kids look back on their childhood, this ditch will take up more space than any other place. 

I took a picture of dinner one night because one day I want to remember that we did actually eat dinner every night. These pork kabobs were actually quite delicious and, while nobody but me actually ate the pineapple and bell pepper, Anderson did eat the pork! Max wouldn't come near it, which is pretty usual for anything that I ever give him to eat. 

Growing butterflies...so cool. I highly recommend the butterfly kit on Amazon. I really thought that the caterpillars were dead at a few points, but they did, in fact, turn and it was so much fun! Anderson even brought the leftover cocoons into his class when they learned about the life cycle of butterflies. 

My job is so amazing. 

SO busy, so never ending, so crazy, so frantic, so many things to do in so few minutes, but so amazing. 

Speaking of amazing, Denise will be leaving AE to go onto bigger & better things, but I will be eternally grateful for having her during my 1st year at AE. I feel pretty confident that we crammed a good amount of stuff into a one year journey. 

Speaking of Denise, Adeline spent the afternoon with us one day! The boys were so excited & Anderson was especially pumped because they found a snake at the library park. 

Mom & I had a garage sale one Sat & it was actually so much fun. Well, Nicole was there in spirit and in the form of donated items, but mom, the boys and I ran the show. 

Bop the Balloon Man, Anderson and their garden. 

My parents entire house/yard/neighborhood was made for these boys. It is so, so perfect. 

One weekend all we had to do was 3 birthday parties, football, Glover Enchilada Night and a garage sale, so I snuck in 2 festivals, as well! 

 (side note: I have discovered that the most challenging form of parenting is the "traveling for work" kind and this year has been really rough. I don't have to travel hardly at all compared to real travel people, but I have been gone WAY more than I usually am and it has been really challenging/exhausting. The perk is that weekends where I don't work seem so relaxing, even when there are millions of other things crammed int them.)

Back to the festivals, I did not get many pics, but I did snap this one because Anderson was fascinated by the whole endoscopy thing. He had so many questions-I think the poor vet tech person was ready for us to leave. It was pretty cool, actually. 

Enchilada night at GG's new house! GG has really worked hard over the last few months to make her new house a home and she has done a wonderful job. She has a knack for decorating and it is evident in everything that she does, especially making a house feel homey. 

It is always a fun time when we get to see Aunt LoLo & Uncle Andrew, too!

I maybe invited my sister along for the ride, too. 

Max was so concerned with  Baby Levi walking. Levi walks like a champ, but Max wanted to dote on him and help him anyway. It was so precious. 

(Another side note: Nicole & I are constantly amazed that we only make the active type baby. All  of them were crawling by 6 months and all of them, except our stubborn Lily, were walking before 1. While we feel very gypped that we did not get any sweet baby time of non-mobile kids, I have no idea why we are AMAZED about this.)

In a nice twist, we had a family "party" to celebrate Max's 3rd birthday! Everyone was, as usual, amazing troopers. 

Free Costco cake-check. 

Thank you Costco girl for reading the instructions wrong so that I got my cake free. #itkeepsgettingmorefree 

Mas was ECSTATIC about his new garbage truck from GG. I mean, he was giddy and it was precious. She knows her grandson's heart, for sure. 

My life> everything else. 

One of Max's best friends, Marley, had a party where Max followed the beat of his own drum & did not follow any of the group activities. 

We also got lots of hang out time with Lucy at Jack's party! These 2 finally sat & smiled for me when they were bribed with fruit snacks. 

Anderson had SO much fun at Jack's party & I am not surprised because Clare did an awesome job. Anderson actually said it was the #1 party of all of the parties. He was a sweaty mess when we left, so I consider that a success!

One day earlier this week our power went out & we had no choice but to have a picnic on the porch & play for hours in the rainwater. The boys had SO much fun and, honestly, so did I. Our evenings are always crazy with the whole getting home after 6, trying o cook/eat dinner, get all of the bags in, prep everything for the next day, do homework, baths, bed, etc. It was nice to not really worry about any of that and just go play in lots & lots of water. I think we were all actually a little disappointed that the power came back on that night. 

I work a lot of events, which is just part of the territory when you work at a high school. One night there were 2 events at AE and one of them was a "Mother/Daughter Tea" so I promptly invited Mom to be my date. She came and was such a trooper as we walked around the entire school about 10 times to go from event to event. I don't think we really sat down until the car ride home, so she did get a nice taste of most of my days. It was so much fun to spend actual time with her & for her to see my world away from home and for my work people to meet her. I had to give the welcome, so she saw me in all of my professional glory. Ha ha ha. 

She is the reason I have this job because the character traits that I need to be successful are directly from her-organizer, planner, OCD, etc. She made me realize I can always do more, so I do. 

And, she keeps my kids so much so I don't have as much guilt with the long hours.  That is equally as important. 

Also, I just realized some of these are from May & my title says April. Just round down. I am tired. 

 Anderson went on his last kindergarten field trip & while I could not attend (work sometimes wins) Noah's mom kept me updated with frequent pics.