Adventures of April

 I feel like starting in about October I begin anxiously anticipating April.  That's when the air starts to chill and I know misery is upon me.  

And after months of testimony-building experiences in enduring to the end, April arrives.  And it is everything I had hoped it would be.  Sun-shiny, and sneezy and scratchy and snot-filled.  And if we all felt this miserable in January, we would never make it to April.  But it is April, and so we are gracious to be gunked and content to be clogged. 

Blessed, sweet April.

Time for the monthly iPhone purge. Let's begin:

 Linley and I glammed up the backseat on our trip to PA.

  So many glorious days were spent looking like this (which is pretty much how Heaven looks, I'm certain):

Tootsies were given the right to breathe.  And this baby thought that was the bees knees.

 I elected to match my hair to the blossoms.  Because when your husband doesn't allow brown or bangs, the only other obvious option is pink.

  And then I got my wisdom teeth yanked out of me.  Which was one of the more traumatic experiences of my life.  Puking for a day, intense pain for a week and numbness on half of my face still going strong on day 10.  All the while being attacked by allergies. I am now on steroids hoping to liven up my stupid mouth nerves.  Because dang, I am missing my slobbery baby smooches.  And eating like a normal human.  

 And after all that waiting, April vanished.  January could stand to take some serious pointers.

Seven Months in Spring

 Let's just get the bow (the size of an elephant) in the room out of the way.  You see, sometimes, after a week of sickness and sneezes and sopping skies, the sun shines and the blooms burst and a bow much larger than one's head is the only option.

 This baby, who, let's not fail to mention looks remarkably like myself in these photos, is now seven months old.  As in, officially closer to one than zero.  As in, hardly a baby at all.  As in, I may curl up a ball and cry myself to sleep.

 This seventh month marked many a milestone.  Besides getting more adorable than one person can manage (I mean, she grabs her dad's face with both hands and melts right into him), she got sick, and grew a tooth, and ate everything in site.

 And I mean, everything.  From grass to green beans.  Bread to bananas.  Rice to raspberries.  It's a bit ridiculous, and probably highly inappropriate, but one simply does not say no to that face.

 As proof of almost all of the above, I spy a tooth and a crusty nose.  Also a scratchy face, and I promise she swallowed at least three blossoms before I horribly removed them from her grasp.  See what I mean about saying no to her....

 And when she mutters "dadadadadadadada" all day long, and kicks wildly when she wakes and laughs straight out of her belly, my heart skips a beat and I know I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Confectionary Conclusion

***Below you will see a couple photos wherein we appear to be made of wax.  And while I like to think we are incredibly wrinkle free (we sure are not), they are simply stills off the video cam footage and apparently stills of video cam footage take 45 years off your life.  Or add 45 face lifts.  Regardless, we are all Botox free.  For now...

Minus the 45 degree days, Spring Break was wondrous.  Just a nice relaxing week with kids eerily well-behaved and content.  They even spent an afternoon happily scrubbing down their bedroom (drugs???). 

As a capstone, we elected to enter the glorious world of chocolate in Hershey, PA.

Talk about a delight for the senses.  The entire town of Hershey literally smells of chocolate decadence.  Everywhere your eyes danced was a chocolately confection.  The salivating does not stop until you drive far from Hershey and deep into the farmlands.  

Basically, it was precisely how I imagine Heaven.

 We began our journey through chocolate world on an adorable little ride (think "It's a Small World") that took us through the chocolate creation process.  It was perfectly imaginative and informative.  

And featured Heifers.

Go figure.

 Next up, we shrunk the kids.

The highlight of our excursion was creating our own candy bars.  Perhaps one of the most well-done experiences ever.  

Ever.

We began by selecting the type of chocolate we wanted our candy bar to be made of, then opted for our add-ins (I went for toffee bits and salty pretzel pieces in dark chocolate, because I am a sort of chocolate genius).

 Next up, we watched our candy bar be made by the robot machine things.

 Our name was put on the screen for each step so we could ensure we were watching the birth of our very own candy bar .

It was touching.

 The final step was creating our packaging.  

 And watching our names get laser-printed onto the box.

 The finale. 

So awesome.

And Tess is ticked I couldn't fit her bar in the picture.  Or ticked that she wouldn't be allowed to eat her bar until the next day.  Or maybe she was just happily munching on chocolate. 

 We ended our day with a little chocolate tasting.

Because how else would you choose to end your day??

 It was rather successful.

 Three days later and our bellies are still bursting.  

Not a bad way to spend a Friday.  

Or any day that ends in Y.

Rawr Rawr

While the Cougars may have fallen short of the NCAA Tourney this year, they did manage to make it to the semi's in the NIT.  Which just so happened to take place at Madison Square Gardens.  Which means, we had to attend.

 Luckily Allen was in Boston yesterday and able to come home just in time to board the train with us and head over to MSG.

Where we had unbeatable third row seats.  

 We could feel the sweat.  And see Haws repeatedly get the crap beaten out of him.  

It would seem the refs could have benefited from our seats....

 It's so satisfying to see Mormon's from all over congregate to show support for the boys in blue.

 And to have my friends there to boot.

 Not to mention we owned the Jumbotron.  I got texts all night from attenders telling me they saw my little head fill up that big old screen.  That's a lot of nose.  And teeth.
Bless my sweet heart.

 And I hear our faces made it onto television screens across America a few times when this dude made this shot.  Unfortunately, he rarely scored.

A perfect little Spring Break date with the love of my life and my future little Cougar man- minus that whole losing part. 

He is Risen!

 We began our Easter festivities Saturday morning, with a visit from the Easter Bunny-who successfully charmed the children.

Good Easter Bunny.

  Shortly thereafter we hosted an Easter brunch full of fanciful fixings and one eggstravagant egg hunt (featuring not one, but three!!! cash-filled golden eggs).  We had thirteen kids and 6 adults under this minuscule roof.  Creating a happy (and maybe slightly frenetic) chaos. 

The Littles. 

The Bigs.

 The Happy Hunters.

 Sunday was beautiful.  The sun was shining and the Spirit of the season abundant.

Unfortunately I was singing in the choir (not by choice...I'm not that selfless), and had to run out of the house extra early, allowing only seconds to shoot the kids in their new Spring stylings.

 That evening we had the missionaries and another little family over for our Easter Dinner feast, then ended with a sweet lesson describing the beauty and majesty of The Resurrection.

We are a lucky lot.  Us humans here on earth.  Loved unconditionally by a Father in Heaven and a Big Brother willing to sacrifice His own life so that we may all be joined eternally as a family together again.  

Indeed, we are one lucky lot.