Our Family: The rest of April

April was a great month. Except for the bit that Gordon was in China. Those bits are never fun. We manage to entertain ourselves while he is gone, but we miss him so much. The boys start attack wrestling me mid-week and I know that Daddy has been gone too long. We cannot go without wrestling in our home for too many days before it starts to show. ha!

These are a smattering of pictures throughout the month, they don't really have any sort of flow.

Spencer is very into UNO these days and he legitimately beats me most of the time. He is a GOOD player! During this particular game, I was out in the evening running an errand and Gordon texted me this picture with the caption "I don't know how it happened, but Spencer was dealt ALL of the wild cards." He's such a sweet Dad. That was almost a month ago and Spencer still talks about his "super lucky game when he got all of the wilds".

Spencer and his buddy, Nova, have been taking a gymnastics class for the past 8 weeks. He has done this little gym class through the city a few times before, but now they are old enough to do "real" gymnastics in the next level up. They loved having each other there to rely upon. One week Nova was out of town, and Spencer was very worried that he wouldn't know where to go. "I always just follow Nova when we split into classes! How will I know where to go?" Luckily, he made it just fine without her, but was very relieved to see her back the next week. He always came out beaming with excitement and also with sweat. He got SO hot and sweaty in there!!

G and I made it up to the Oakland Temple last month. We've had a goal to go once a month this year and we've only missed one month so far. (I realize we're not very far into the year yet ...) But, that's huge progress for us! It's always so nice to be there with him, we just need to make sure we get there!!

Some of our good friends in the ward moved to a new apartment a while ago and I was going over to help them move in/unpack/clean and Spencer came to help. He was a great help and did whatever she asked him to do. He loved it, but also was excited to play at the park when we were done. They've got a great little park next to their new place. Oh, and her husband cooked him up some really tasty BBQ while we were there. He didn't mind that either. :)

Sunday bike ride and stroll for our family. We found some fun trails near us and we've had fun exploring them on the weekends. The weather has been so nice for it!

This picture is to prove that I did once have pretty hanging baskets in the backyard. I bought these at Home Depot while G was in China and they looked beautiful for about 4 days and then on the fifth day, I woke up and they were limp and totally dead. I have such a problem keeping plants alive. Ugh.

D really loves playing at the park now. It's so fun and so much work! He's just about stable enough that I trust him to climb up the stairs and toddle around the small structures, but I still worry. If someone were to knock him, he could totally fall off of one of the open sides. But, he loves it - so we follow him around. :)

Gordon still sends tic tac toe boards to the printer when he's gone. Spencer loves playing with him, and now that Spence is reading- Gordon leaves little messages in the middle of the page to tease him. "You are a stinky monkey! You beat me again!" things like that.

Yes.

That's my dress and ... my bra. He found both during quiet time one afternoon and came out giggling. He cracks me up.

Daddy asked Spencer if there was anything in China he could look for to bring home for him. Spencer thought about it for a minute and then asked if he could get him some "fancy Chinese pajamas like Jack has". Daddy delivered!

Daniel obviously loves his.

This was our attempted photo shoot at the park one afternoon. We just love these kids, they are so fun.

Sometimes, I am just so impressed by Spencer. He is SUCH a great helper to me and to Daniel. I was getting us all ready to go somewhere and Spence got Daniel's shoes out and was helping him get them on. Whenever we say "let's go bye bye" to Daniel he says "buh buh" and waves his hands like crazy and runs to the shoe basket. For shoe, he says "sss ssss" and then he gets out his own shoes and brings them to us. He is learning SO much lately, it's been really fun to see him picking up words and understanding pretty much everything we ask him to do. I love this stage.

Every once in a blue moon, Spencer takes an afternoon nap with Daniel. If he doesn't nap, he has quiet time and takes stuffed animals or cars onto our bed and plays and he gets to watch one show also. This day, I thought he was just playing and I came in to find him sacked out with all of his animals all around him. Later that day, I asked him if he just decided to nap - or what happened. He told me that he was playing with his animals and he was playing that it was night time, so he closed his eyes to pretend to be asleep until "morning" and he fell asleep for real! So cute.

It's that time of year! We are breaking out the swimsuits and hitting' the pool. I love this season. Spencer is turning into a good swimmer lately! He can swim all the way across the pool (length-wise) but we're still working on his stroke. He doesn't look too smooth while he swims, but he's getting there! He loves it!!!

Daniel hasn't been such a fan so far, I'm going to just keep putting him in. My kids have to love to swim - it's mandatory in our family. :)

Spence had his buddy from preschool over during their week long spring break and they had such a great time together. They requested bean and cheese burritos for lunch (refried beans and cheese rolled up) and acted like it was the best meal they'd ever had. They even put down their superheroes and gobbled it all up.

Easter fun! Some of our good friends organized an Easter Eggstravaganza and the kids had an egg hunt, ice blocking and an egg roll contest. And afterward, they ran and ran and played for hours. Spence had such a great time. Daniel wasn't too sure about this egg rolling business. He was pretty possessive of his egg and wasn't sure he'd get it back if he let go!

Our ward has an egg hunt at a local golf course every year that one of the member's owns and it is always a hit. Spence had a blast and I think all of the kids came away with plenty of goodies. There's also an arcade attached and he and I had a little Mommy/Son date there. It was so fun to play with him and just focus on him.