April in a Big Nutshell

 April 1st - announced on Instagram that we are expecting our sixth baby!

Went to Walmart to see the Wienermobile with these three.  They all thought it was cool!

Our first Sunday in our new church building. We share a common parking lot with the temple.  We are so blessed to be this close to a temple and we get to go see it every Sunday.  While the weather is cool, Kevin took the time to go every Sunday with the kids for a walk around the temple, just like he used to do in Utah.

 Annual Easter Hunt with Merrill cousins - Grandma Lorraine hides the eggs and we all show up and have fun.  Allie didn't find the big ticket eggs, and so, hence the look on her face!

Mason is happy to be running errands everywhere with me.  I love this boy and his calm personality!

We colored eggs with our Merrill cousins.  The big kids didn't care so much for coloring them anymore but the youngan's loved it!

Kevin took the three older kids to the Easter pageant.  It was a great experience and they all loved it!

 Kids woke up to their Easter baskets - simple and fun!

Easter Sunday tradition - after church they all pose for my annual Easter photos.  

I turned 36.  Yikes.  Kevin went above and beyond and got a huge cake for my birthday, haha.   

Collin got third place in the school spelling bee - the word "panache" got him out.  He did great and had great composure up there!

For family home evening one week, we went to get Dole Whip soft serve at Menchie's.  Tastes just like Disneyland!

Common occurence in our backyard - these two are always in the dirt, digging and getting dirt baths.  They love it so!  Collin digs and makes tracks for his RC car and these boys go and ruin them.  Dirt and Boys = Fun.  All the kids have asked me if we could please have a big patch of dirt for them to play in when we build our new house.  Haha! Not a problem!

Mason's hair in the mornings, scratch that, all day.  He loves to get in laundry baskets, bins and boxes.  So funny!

Maddie on one of the days she came to preschool.  Since school doesn't start til 12 noon for her, she comes to preschool beforehand.  She says she loves our school and would like to come here forever.  I love her!

 Silly kids hiding !

 Love his winky face in this one!

Cheer season ended with a bang. Allie's team won 1st place at CAA state championships.  This was their recognition night at the school.

Watched the bloody moon (eclipse) one night.  It really did turn into "blood" - super cool capturing from my camera, and wished I had a 400x zoom lens!

 April is perfect weather to play outside!

Mason loves to wear shoes in the house, and knows where the food is.  Here I caught him with a big bag of chips he had gotten from the pantry.

And bigger photos of Easter Sunday:

Allie also got her Young Women Medallion for completing Personal Progress!  Kudos to her for working super hard on all her value projects.  She wanted to get her award before she got too busy in high school.  Go Allie!  We are so proud of her and her great focus.  

My only "pregnant" picture this time around!  

Mason loves my sunglasses and always tries to put them on or on his head.  

Caught taking pots and pans out again!  He loves to just play with them and tries to fit the lids on.  

So that in a big nutshell of pictures was our April!  Life is going at warp speed, and I am glad to have taken a few pics to document our busy life.

Maddie's graduation

This year went super fast!!  Maddie graduated from kindergarten on May 15th!  She always tells me she wishes she was still in preschool so she could stay home with me, or that she wishes I was her teacher at school so I can be with her all day.  I love this sweet age!  Maddie is not just a sweet little helper at home but I hear, also at school.  She is so responsible, and being the middle child, sadly, has to learn how to do things for herself without my help most of the time.  I will always remember how she would come home and go straight to the dining table, get her stuff out, run upstairs and change into play clothes, come back, get a drink or snack, and go right to work on her homework, day in and day out.  She would do it all by herself with no prompting from me (since she can read very well!).  When she was done, she would go to our big bookshelf in the theatre room and pick a book to read.  She would come back to the kitchen, set the timer on the microwave for 15 minutes and read her book.  When it beeped, she would come find me and announce, "I'm done with my homework, Mom!" She is so independent, one of the things that I love about her.  She would usually help me make dinner and clean up (she is the best vacuum helper there is) and loves to do dishes too.  She always says she is just practicing so she can be an even better mom than me!  I love it, I said that she would definitely be a much much better mom since she is practicing so young!  Of course she kept straight A's all year and would tell me from time to time that she really needs to be in first grade since kindergarten is so easy (not so fast, Moo!)!

She grew a few inches and the same dress was above her knees before school got out.

Maddie on the last day of school:

Maddie dressed herself for her graduation - she picked out her dress, shoes, hair clip, and sweater to wear.  She ended up not wearing the sweater since it was a little warmer than she thought!

Maddie loved having Ms Jenny Jones this year!  She looked forward to seeing her teacher every day.

Standing outside her class room

Some of Maddie's kinder friends from our ward except for the 2nd and 3rd kids from the left - Jacob, Jackson, and Halle (who also all went to preschool at my house)

Maddie kept asking if her Grandma was coming to watch her graduation!

It reads: My favorite memory from kindergarten was Fun Friday because I got to play and get stuff.

Getting her diploma from Mr. Brown

We don't usually have everyone altogether to events these days but everyone wanted to come to watch Maddie graduate!  We love this girl!!!  Can't believe she is old enough to be in first grade!

Preschool graduation - Year 1 for Zaney!

Yep, May is a busy month and it's always scrambled with all kinds of end-of-year stuff to plan and go to!  Zane was super excited to get to do preschool graduation - I included the first years to this year's program.  It went well and Zane participated in it - was so cute!  He learned so much this year - recognizes most of his letters and sounds and loves the letter Z!  He would always say "hey that's z for zane" every time he sees it.  He likes to name things and tell you things that start with whatever letter he sees.  He loves being the name tag helper at school - surprisingly he also recognizes the names of all his preschool friends - he would take one look at the name tag and deliver it to the right child sitting at the line!  So even though I haven't really paid too much attention to him at preschool (I have 10 other kids to teach) - he has picked up a lot this year.

Zane and his class (he is sitting next to his "best friend Kate") - he loves Kate because she took on being his helper and mentor/teacher at school.

Grandma came to watch too!  

Zane's official first day of school and end of year photos (I take one of all the preschoolers to see how much they've grown and give them a portrait for their graduation gift from me):

Nope, he wouldn't smile!  and darn, his hair wasn't even done, but this is how he looked on the first day of school.

And yep, yet again, not dressed for pictures at the end of the year, but this ended up being the picture I printed since it captured his personality right down to the not so clean shirt.