April

April 1st: April Fool's Day, Easter, and General Conference! 

We started the morning with our traditional scavenger/clue hunt to find Easter baskets.  The boys LOVE this tradition, and so do I.  This year I made Ethan's more riddle like, and it was definitely challenging for him.  Asher got to read words for the first time.

 Benton found his "healthy" basket first.  He acted excited, but then sat forlornly in the kitchen, insisting that nothing was wrong.

 Ethan liked the mini egg in the hummingbird nest.

When Ethan found his healthy basket he laughed a lot and was mock mad about getting baby carrots in his eggs.  When Asher found baby carrots in the Easter eggs, he kept saying, "silly eggs"!

 I only have videos of when Ethan and Asher found their basets.  Ethan laughed a lot and was mock mad about getting baby carrots in his eggs.  When Asher found baby carrots in the Easter eggs, he kept saying, "silly eggs"!

The boys were polite, but the event was somewhat anti-climactic.  After I prompted them to put the letters in their basket together, they found a secret note.

 And then received their real baskets, which they were thrilled about!

Towards the end of the first session of Conference, the Woodens arrived.  Our tradition is to do Brunch instead of dinner on Easter (because breakfast food is way better than holiday food).  We had almond poppyseed bread, fruit, biscuits and gravy, savory waffles, and sweet waffles.

 The boys LOVED having a cousin to play with!

Ricky looks a lot like Mike in this picture!

That night we took the Woodens scorpion hunting and then they went back to their hotel.  We met up early the next morning and hiked up Camelback and down the other side.

The boys playing math games for homework.

 Our artificial turf and worn out prematurely, and Mike was nice enough to go along with getting it replaced even though it wasn't at the top of his house project list.

 One of my young women really wanted to hike the National Trail, so I told her I would take her.  This was the visual packing list.

 Both girls that came were troopers to get up and get started really early!

 They did great!  We took an Uber back and I hopped in the pool!

 And then got to read poolside.  Mike had taken the boys to Wet N Wild, but it was too late for me to join them.

 The teachers in Arizona started a movement to improve pay for teachers and support staff and to increase funding for schools.  Arizona is 49th or 50th for school funding.  Every Wednesday there was a walk in at the school

 My 1st Counselor in YW loves this painting, so we found it for her for her birthday.

 Asher learned to ride a "pedal bike"!  I planned on getting him one for his birthday, but then our neighbors had one out on bulk trash pick up.  It took me weeks to get new tubes for the flat tires.  I finally took the wheels off to replace the tubes and then realized the tubes were fine and if I had just pumped up the tires, it would have been fine.  After about 3 lessons, Asher could ride all by himself!

 While Benton's baseball schedule was conflicting with Asher's gymnastics classes, we were able to use buddy passes to take Aden to gymnastics with us and go to morning classes.  They had a great time.

 I planned a progressive dinner for the youth in three wards.  They had a great time walking through the neighborhood, socializing and eating.

 I wear them out!

 I love it when the boys find a series they get really into.  Benton loved this one.

 I kept Asher in this backpack while I hiked so I could get in better shape for my Grand Canyon hike.  It was getting hard to get it from the ground to my back, though, so I'd get him set up in the van and then put it on.

 Trip 4 to Wet N Wild!

 I ended up with this cute bunch one morning and was really grateful for Target's fast online order service so I only had to go to customer service to get all the things I was there for.

 REDforED demonstration.

 The teachers chose to walk out and there was a huge march on the capitol. 

Our school went to half days, but I kept the kids home as a show of support and because I figured the limited staff would probably result in more of a day of crowd control than teaching.

We went to the Children's Museum and brought Aden and Alec with us.

 Accidental orange day.

 I looked over and these two were sitting like this playing with Playdough.  I love how cute they are together.