Our Awesome April!

So far, so good!! We are still enjoying gorgeous April days! It is the 15th and we are still all about playing in the outdoors and enjoying as much sunshine as we can.

Here is Miss Emma in one of her recent violin lessons.  She is doing very well and I am quite proud of her and her ability.  We have only had a few minor incidents with practicing and mostly she is still thrilled to get our her instrument.  Especially now that most of her practicing includes playing duets with me.  She thinks that is pretty special, and I have to admit that I really enjoy it as well.

Just a cute pic of my favorite little boy.

One morning I was finishing breakfast clean up, when I heard Emma whisper to Grant, "let's surprise Mom and do a service for her by making her bed."  About 2 minutes later they both came out and pulled me into the bedroom where they told me they had a surprise for me.  This is their sweet little service act and I was so touched and pleased by their idea.  It's not perfectly made, but I didn't fix it all day, because every time I saw the bed my heart melted a little thinking of their kindness.  For all the tantrums and fits of rage, this made my day.

We went with Ashley and Jaylee Mascorro to see their babysitter Lexi in her Junior High play.  The girls loved every second and were so cute seeing Lexi afterwards.  She was a regular celebrity. :)

The Lorenzens spent Conference Saturday with us, which was a real treat!!  During sessions, Emma and Alex turned the sprinkler on and put it underneath the trampoline to jump on.  They had endless fun and it was so sweet to see them playing together so well.  JJ and I think this pic will definitely make the wedding video.  haha.

Little George at the park during priesthood session.  Just love his little happy face!!

Some fun with photo booth.  All 3 of us were giggling so hard.  This really is such a hysterical app.

My sweet friend Rachel sends along cute and thoughtful packages to my children.  She is such an angel.  This time around she found these darling sandwich cutters that turn sandwiches into trains, boats, octopus, and whales.  The kids are in HEAVEN.  They BEG to have sandwiches every day now!  When Grant opened his up he exclaimed, "oh. my. goodness!!!!".  It was darling.

Our year of Let's Play Music is almost complete.  Emma and I have had a lot of fun being in the class together and spending the time on homework together.  Emma loves the class and really enjoys playing her bells.  Here she is practicing.  Despite her solemn face, she really does enjoy it! :)

And I completed my third Triathlon!  This one was in Litchfield Park and it was AWESOME!!  I loved it so much.  I hope to do it every year.  It was in a quiet community.  There were only 150 participants. The distances were a bit shorter (9 mile bike, 300 yard swim, 2 mile run) - which was PERFECT for me.  And the bike was along groomed and stunning neighborhoods, instead of busy Phoenix streets, which I REALLY REALLY enjoyed.  It was like I was on a Saturday morning ride, instead of a race.

The whole family drove up Friday night and we stayed at the Wigwam Resort which was across the street from the race.  Emma was SO excited to stay at a hotel.  She packed her bags 2 days before we had to leave, the whole time singing, "I just love going on trips and packing my bags".  She got to swim on Friday evening and most of the day Saturday, which is her heaven.

The Resort was also hosting a famous Jazz Festival, so we enjoyed LOUD music blaring through our hotel walls until 10pm.  Although it was pleasant music (could have been heavy metal :/) I was a little frustrated that I had paid money to come stay at the resort to get a few extra hours of sleep and then the music kept me up later than I wanted.  But, alas, they stopped and I was able to snooze for a bit before my alarm went off at 5am.

Greg and the kids slept while I did the race and Emma was just waking up when I finished and called Greg.  We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing by the resort pool.  We even ordered lunch pool side, and Emma leaned back into her pool chair and said, "this is really nice, isn't mom?  getting our food brought to us by a pool?".  Haha.  Yep Emma, it is really nice.  I think she could get used to the finer things in life.  Too bad we can't afford it very often.

I was proud of myself for doing another triathlon.  I am not an athlete.  I am not coordinated.  But I train and I exercise and I prepare so that I can stay healthy and set a good example for my kids.  I don't win and I am not fast, but I finish!! I really do love triathlons and the variety of training they provide.

You can't see my name really well, but I was 40th out of 58 women, which is pretty good for me.  My swim was 7:22, my bike was 40:08 and my run was 27:20.  Again, not fast, but I finished and I had fun and I was proud of my training and accomplishment.

A view of our transition area.  It was in the grass, which was really nice to run in barefoot from the pool.  My only problem during the transitions, was getting my sports bra on over a wet swimsuit and getting my legs used to running after biking for 9 miles.  yowza, that was tough!!

And the kids relaxing pool side at the resort!

And as if the day wasn't exciting enough, we bought tickets (a long time ago on Craigslist) to take Emma to see Beauty and the Beast at Gammage.  This was her first Broadway show and she LOVED it!!  Our cast was amazing!!  Greg and I were really impressed.  It was fun to spend the evening with our little princess.  And yes, she did choose the yellow dress to be like Belle.

Less you think our life is all sunshine and lollipops, out wonderful weekend was thwarted by a very rotten Sunday.  Emma's behavior was ATROCIOUS all day long, starting at church and extending through bedtime, where she ate dinner alone in her room and stayed in there for almost 2 hours.  One of her many tasks was writing 10 times, I will not act rude.

Thankfully, she is back to her sweet self today and Greg and I think the weekend was just too much stimulus (and little sleep) for her and she crashed hard on Sunday.

And on top of Emma's horrid behavior, out ward got divided and we lost 75 of our strongest ward members.  It is so hard to have a ward divide and lost people that have become family.  Thank goodness we still have them in the stake and thank goodness we still have so many wonderful people in our current ward!!  But even still, Greg and I were a little melancholy all day.

Some painting fun.  Grant LOVES to paint.

I love their sweet little bed heads.  I generally do not take pictures until they look "picture perfect"... but I'm glad I captured these morning picture, because I love these little faces in the morning.

Emma beating me fair and square in memory.  I'm serious people.  I tried my hardest to win and I couldn't.  In fact, Emma had to help me a few times to get the few matches I did get.  Oy!!

Half of April over and it was a wonderful one!!