April

Mim's birthday started the month off right. She'd been looking forward to it for weeks and weeks. She woke up to 300 and something balloons outside her bedroom door (she moved into her new basement room a few days beore, right at the end of March). I wish I had done that many for her birthday party, but now I know how many balloons it really takes to cover the whole family room floor.

 We had just the grandparents over for cake (rainbow cake, of course) and ice cream on her actual birthday. That's when Mike and I gave her the presents from us, too.

{Marble run was a big hit with Mim.}

{Poor Danger. She's terrified of balloons and she had to cross the family room to get between her food and going outside.}

A few days later we went to the aquarium with the Youngs while they were on spring break. I could watch otters all day.

The next week I was picking up Mim from preschool and she asked if she could go splash in a puddle there in the parking lot. I said ok, so she went and splashed and then ran back to me. One of her little preschool friends yelled hi to her as she was running and Mim turned her head but didn't stop running. That's when she smacked her forehead right into the edge of the car door. It was one of those moments when you see what's going to happen and you want to stop it, but you can't get the words out because it happens so fast. It was very sad and there was a dent in her skin that lasted for about a half hour and kind of freaked me out.

We also got an awesome sectional during April. It makes me love our basement so much.

My birthday is also in April, of course. Mike took me out to City Creek for a little shopping (with no complaining from him) and then to the Melting Pot, which he'd been dying to have me try.

Mim got me a big notebook and a bunch of pens for all my lists. Pretty cute.

We also got pretty farm-y during April. For the first time I did all the garden prep, planning, and planting myself, without any help from my dad. Well, I did call him a bunch of times, but I did all the actual work myself this year. Tilling nearly tore my arms off. We also got some baby chicks- 7 of them. We got some dwarf bunnies, too, because why not?

{Post raking, tilling, and raking again, pre- planting}

{All planted}

{She was my favorite. I named her Sweetie Cake and she would fall asleep almost immediately when I picked her up.}

 We did a lot of playing outside during April, too. So fun.

{All of Mim's play kitchen stuff had been packed away in the garage, so they got to play outside with it for a few days.}

 Bits and pieces:

{Eleanor does what she wants.}

{These two had a really long streak of being sweet to each other- it was mom heaven.}

{Eleanor played in her for awhile one day.}

{A message from Mim to Mike.}

{This is her current favorite outfit- all her sparkliest clothes.}

{We finally got around to taking Conner and Alicia out as a thank you for watching the girls while we were in Vegas. Ruth's Chris- so delicious.}

{Mim organized her crayons into color families.}