April 2016 little things

This girl never knows when she loses teeth.  There are sometimes just suddenly holes in her mouth, teeth gone, vanished off the face of the earth.

So when we were brushing her teeth and felt a wiggle we got kind of giddy.  It wasn’t quite ready but we did the good ol’ dental floss trick because she was so excited and out it popped.

Happy day right there (as you can tell).

In the beginning of April our cousins were still in town from Utah (they were here for Easter) so these cousins sure lived it up (along with one friend this particular night):

I love it for writing messages to the girls as they come into the kitchen.

Lucy took the happy-April-Fools- wishing into her own hands.  I loved it because see that spider right there?  That’s kind of my signature move for April Fools 😉  To see why, click HERE. (I’m so mad I didn’t get a plastic spider in the mail in time for Max for April Fools…next year.)

Check out this tiny little cousin we adore so much:

We always joke that we could put her in our pocket 🙂

Lucy’s backpack broke in April…or maybe it was even March.

More about prom back HERE.

Grace and her friends made use of this great floaty thing we were given:

Matchy-girls in the mornings…

More about “mornings” in my snapshot post coming soon, but man alive I have loved having these girls all to myself in the mornings.

Above is our night hike up to watch the view of the city.

And below is our little great after:

More of Lucy’s art while we were reading is back HERE.

Loved having both my high school girls on the tennis team this year.  Here’s Grace with her friend:

(Lots more about the tennis season HERE.)

Lots more about this girl’s soccer season HERE.
(She just made it onto this club soccer team so she is over-the-moon about that little fact.)

The washing-off-chocolate at home, not so fun 🙂 but boy oh boy these kids had a good time!  Gotta get the full-body effect:

There we go.

My sister-in-law just had her fifth baby.  She asked if I would capture the chaos of five littles so I did:

Oh man, I was JUST there!  Five kids nine and under (although she has four boys and one girl and I had four girls and one boy).

How did that change to these big girls so dang quick!?

Claire got chosen to be in the art show that they do each year at a nearby furniture store (I wrote a little about how she performed there last year back HERE.)

 She made a little ice cream cone house.

She was pleased as punch to get chosen and we were the same-amount-of-pleased to have a little date with her there to go check it out.

Lots of hiking happened in April…

I just wrote a little about that back HERE.  (Oh, and back HERE too.)

Claire went on her first YW campout:

(HERE)

Grace tried out for cheer and made it…

(THIS video…love that catchy tune 🙂

One of my best friends from high school has a son serving a mission close-by here in the desert.  She asked if I would go drop him off a birthday treat on his big day.  I was more than happy to show up.

I think I pretty much freaked him out more than anything.  I know him well because I hear so much about him from his mom but he has no clue who I am so it was a hilarious drop off.

The crazy thing is that his companion was in the MTC with Max.  He was waiting to get his visa (I can’t remember where he was going), but it was fun to have some “Max-talk” with him for a minute.

Oh boy, the whole thing sure made me miss my boy.

Claire is LOVING her ballet class…hard but so good.

…and oh boy she sure learned a lot about cells this year!

(I posted her 3-D cell a while back.)

I went to help with field day one day at the elementary school.

Love to see these sweeties with Lucy.

Our nephew pole vaults for BYU.

 And he is pretty dang good.

He had a meet here in the desert and had quite a huge cheering fan section (see above).

Claire and her cousin found some good ways to keep cool…

We watched BYU volleyball…they did really well this year except for that last dang game.

Fun to watch, especially since Max’s friend from Nationals last year is on the team, but it sure made us miss that boy of ours.

Waiting for FHE on a Sunday afternoon…

Beautiful sky.

Sweet friends bringing us the most delicious cinnamon rolls ever.

More coming on that business.

We went to a couple volleyball games after home tennis matches (we have a few friends on the team).

The first time I went in there I could only stay for a second.

I know I’m drama, but it made me tear up a little bit.  And caught my breath for a little bit.  It was like a small panic attack and the most powerful wave of missing came over me.  Max was just there.  On that front row.  Talking up a storm through the net and pounding that ball over it.  So I had to hurry and leave that place.

Hard to explain, but boy, we miss that boy.

Sunsets:

And dates:

Our nephew and friend were both in the high school production of Oklahoma.  They did such a great job and enthralled Lucy.

Dave got to accompany Lu on a field trip.

We got to do a cooking class with this crew:

I love this instagram feed my friend started:

From the previews I didn’t think I’d like it but Dave stole us all over to the theater for FHE one night and we loved it.

This was our Young Women night where we whipped up trek skirts.

Friends.

My mom’s birthday Facetime:

(Not sure why dave took that pic, but there you go…)

A school project with a sweet friend:

Spirit Day:

The sixth grade were super heroes, and the third grade somehow came up with the idea to have spirit day be “injury day” so that’s why Lu is sporting that ace wrap.

I know, if you’re puzzled, I was too, but those kids thought it was the bomb.

A day at the temple…

…with these girls:

Tons more on that back HERE.

End of tennis season wrap-up at the tennis banquet:

We hit state tennis back HERE:

And another prom (back HERE):

We checked out Claire’s kidneys:

(wanted to double check that her kidney reflux hasn’t progressed any further, and found that she’s doing great!)

More trek prep at the “kick-off fireside.”

Wow, they put so much work into this trek it baffles my mind.  So grateful for all those who worked so hard to make it so great.  I’ll get to the actual trek before too long…

Golden Scholars at the elementary school for Claire and these other cute kids:

Got it painted, washed it all up:

…so you can imagine we were pretty happy to get that done!

And the work that it took to get it that way.  Doesn’t that plant in the lower left corner look great?  Ha!  I’m just trying to appreciate all that work to get it there 🙂

Wedding stuff coming up next…I hope!

Oh, and intermixed with all the wedding festivities and house preparation, we cannot forget to record our toe preparation:

Ha!

…and much more important than toes, a baptism of this sweetie-pie cousin.

My brother-in-law blessed our sweet little nephew mixed into that weekend as well.

Yes, it was a pretty great party that whole weekend I tell you!