April

 

This picture really sums up how I feel a LOT of the time these days! Our life with 4 kids is so busy- I can't even figure out how or why we are so busy but I'm completely exhausted by every night!

As it got nicer in April we started hanging outside more. Chase hosted some friends over for a fire night and smores. It was a really fun night for them and it made Ben and me happy to see them all hanging out, throwing around a football, and enjoying our backyard that we've put so much work into for this very reason!

Hudson had his spring piano recital! He did awesome! I loved the song he learned, even if he did make the purposeful decision that he would NOT be playing any B flats in the song (total stinker). I'm not sure if his teacher really knows what to think of him, but honestly I'm just glad he's still playing the piano. 

One morning my mom and I took Lila to the Tracey Aviary. It was absolutely gorgeous with so many trees in full bloom! And Lila loved the birds! Also, my sometimes-yearly tradition of taking a photo of LilaC with the lilac!

There was a books and buddies breakfast one morning at the boys school. They were both delighted to pick a new book and eat a donut!

I finally invested in a proper tea pot so our fine china tea parties could be more legit. This also means we do tea parties ALL the time now and Lila loves to pour everyone's drinks (almost always lemonade).

Will and Katie went to France and my parents had the girls for a week, which meant we spent some extra time with all the cousins together and they had a blast. This little group of cousins just makes my heart so happy! Shortly after I snapped this picture I told them all to say good-bye and right on cue each kid turned to their respective cousin and embraced in a big bear hug! (Sad for Chase that he doesn't really have a cousin his age). 

Ben was out of town for a week and Sundays without dad get LONG. We walked to the temple and back! Sweet Chase actually piggy backed Davis a good portion of the way, and Davis was absolutely giddy about it.

My dad and I also had all the kids at Chick-Fil-A for lunch one Saturday while he was watching the girls (I think his exact words were, "If I buy lunch, will you come help me") It was wild and crazy and adorable. And luckily, Chick-Fil-A is one place all 7 kids can agree on!

Ben finished this beauty! After over a year of looking for patio furniture and not really finding what we've wanted/could reasonable afford, he decided to just build it! It's turning out so beautiful and he's really enjoying this hobby! Now we spend way more time out here!

Hudson's hair is long enough to french braid! I think it looks awesome like this!

We had an eventful night one evening with Lila. She was jumping on a neighbors trampoline, I was right by her, and she did some sort of summersalt and immediately started crying that her neck hurt. I took her home and she kept crying and wouldn't move her head. Then a weird dark red mark appeared across the back of her neck where the pain was. We quickly decided it would be better to take her into urgent care (it was the same time as Chase's first baseball game! Luckily he got a ride to his game but we were sad to miss it). We spent a few hours in urgent care, some really traumatic x-rays, and concluded it was just a bad "kink" in her neck and some motrin and tylenol should take care of it. We were glad she was okay, but she did have a good 48 hours of "princess time" (No one can milk a sick day quite like Lila) and then she was as good as new!

This was Hudson's outfit idea for class picture day! He knew he'd be on the back row and you wouldn't be able to see his shorts. He thought it was hilarious and I did too!

This was Davis for picture day! His teacher later told me "I'm so glad you just let Davis wear his headband in that class picture. I'll smile every time I see it because it's just how I'll always think of him!"

Davis looks so relaxed here at the dentist! I always do all their appointments together- all four kids. It's kind of a circus but then we are done for 6 months. All my kids love the dentist (I hated it growing up, still do actually). Our dentist is awesome.

Our little lemon girl had a few photoshoots where her real personality came right out!