April

We kicked off April with Eliot's birthday.

Dad's birthday rainbow pancakes.

"I'm free."

Grandma's unbirthday present for Ira.  This Siberian tiger will explain why he's so fond of Tiger's further down.  Could this be the next obsession to replace dragons??  Wishful thinking.

Steak n' Shake for dinner.

The Party

If these pictures look strangely familiar, it's because we repeated Ira's party theme, games and decorations for Eliot.  I'm conserving energy these days.  Luckily, Eliot was thrilled to repeat the experience.

General Conference, the Primary service activity, and Easter were all wonderful.

I need to go back and read all the conference talks of course, but caught a fair amount.  And the Primary activity involved the children making cards, paper flower bouquets, and blankets for members of the ward who can't leave their home, and long term hospital patients.

Other April fun included....

checking out the Toledo Zoo's new aquarium.  Small, but really fun.

Our annual Beatnik Poetry Slam.  There were new faces and original works, interpretive dance charades, and hot chocolate sipping.

Home improvement projects,

Swim lessons. Both boys are becoming more comfortable in the water, especially Eliot after his water scare last Summer, when Anthony rescued him from what looked a little like drowning.  He was pretty terrified when we started lessons, but has come a long way.

The preschool's Earth Day Extravaganza.

A surprise restaurant in the basement.

Spring!

Unfortunately, a freak snow shower killed our tulip and daffodils a few days after they bloomed.  April is the cruelest month.  

Those two specs are the boys frolicking in a giant field.  Ira probably circled this thing about 6 times.  Freedom!

A Tiger's Game

The boys were mostly as thrilled as they look.

But at least the Stadium has a carousel!  Ira was pretty pumped about the Siberian Tiger in his understated kind of way.

Lots of drawing, mostly of maps.

And pretending to camp out.  The boys have been sleeping in their sleeping bags on the floor for about 2 months, sometimes covered in stickers.  Not sure why we bought mattresses.  Speaking of slumber, Eliot kicked night time diapers.  Wahoo!!!!!

And Anthony and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary!  We actually both sort of forgot until the night before, and tried to make up for it by getting each other flowers, which has not yet been an anniversary tradition for us.  Great minds think a like. 

We celebrated by taking the family to one of our favorite deli's, the Bread Basket.  What can I say, this pregnancy has made me periodically ravenous for meat. 

And I gifted Anthony a Traverse Pie Company pie.  Mmmmm.  If any of you come to visit us in Michigan, remind us to get you one of these puppies.

I've been slacking, so May update is on it's way.  Peace!

March

March!

The month started off like this!  Actually, I believe this was the last day of February, but close enough.  I was able to observe my first two births.  One was on Saturday morning at about 4:20 am, and the other was Sunday night at about 10:30 p.m.  Both families are friends from church, the Stricklans and the Dethloffs, and both births were incredibly beautiful and amazing.  I'm so grateful and honored they let me be a tiny part of their births. 

In between those exciting introductions to life, I got set apart as the Primary President in our ward.  It suddenly felt like I was thrown out a window into a tornado.  There was an event that took place an hour before I was set apart that took two weeks to resolve.  It was an all encompassing, extremely time consuming, very emotionally draining way to begin.  Then the rest of the month has been spent putting on a Great to be Eight fireside, a Service Easter activity,  our first of regular teacher trainings, and have started streamlining teacher orientation.  Oh and then there's callings.  We have at least 20 families moving from the ward around the time of graduation at the U of M, and have been working with that.  Anyway fortunately I have an amazing presidency, any one of which would probably be a much better president than myself.

Anyway, let's take a break from my craziness to take in some happy images. 

The month also started off with some crazy ice.

Anthony took a trip to St. George, UT to see one of his best friends, Dave Sutherland, get married.  Sounds like he had a blast, the wedding was beautiful...and apparently it's t-shirt weather there.

Anthony with Grandpa Arave

Back at home, Ira was hoping for Spring

Testing out a new board game

Eliot's drawing of Adam for a family home evening about the creation.  

Not bad for a 2 year old, eh? 

Ira's FHE contribution: An eagle, cheetah, and lion.

The snow cave caved in.  But the boys had so much fun in their "snow pit," they asked to have a few picnics in it.

Pretending it's summer

St. Patrick's Day.  We just love it around here.

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The rest of life

Anthony's been doing well with his new job at GE as project manager.  He says it's a "change of pace," meaning it's more demanding.  He's handling it like a champ, and still making time to start gardening.

Ira has been really into Ninjas lately, which makes for some unwanted (by me) rough-housing.  He's just decided he doesn't want to keep taking piano lessons, but doesn't mind continueing to play piano with Anthony and me.  So we're still slowly working through the workbook.  I think he mostly wanted to stop because his teacher weaned him off of post-lesson tickle battles, which was the part Ira looked forward to most.

Eliot is making a lot of progress with his language.  Tonight he told me, "Me big boy now. Me three now!" (Birthday update next post.)  We're still working on grammar obviously, but having a string of words this long where he can articulate an idea in his head is pretty thrilling and cute.  Also, over the past week or two he's finally figured out the whole potty training bit that has to do with solid waste.  He's only wearing night time diapers now.  Happiness!  We've also had a few doctor's visits with him.  Looks like he has a hernia, so we have an operation scheduled for him in late May.  He doesn't complain about it very much, so hopefully that's a good sign.

As for me, besides the whole primary whirlwind, things are pretty normal.  I got Ira registered for kindergarten next year, and have been busy with some extra birth-class stuff I've had to do this month, subbing for other parents at the preschool etc.  I feel like I'm getting really large as I'm wrapping up the 2nd trimester.  Last appointment, the baby was transverse, so everyone pray that he'll (or she'll) get into a nice anterior vertex position.  

Happy April everyone!