Rest of April

Candace finally has enough hair for a teeny-tiny pony tail! She had it for church on April 15.

Here is our big 9 month old practicing her standing.  She is just starting to cruise.  April 15 before bed.

Brooke and Megan found Daddy's Red Sox hat and thought it was hilarious to try it on.  Cute girls on April 16.

Sundays can be rough when you are 2 and you love your naps.  Brooke snuggling Daddy after church on April 22. 

Look at those blue eyes!

Silly Megan sticking her tongue out.  April 22.

Another blue eyed girl.  Candy was crawling around being adorable on April 23.

The weather was so nice this month.  Here we are having a picnic lunch and reading books outside on April 24.  

Joy school was at our house that last week of April, and Candy just couldn't leave the calendar alone.  Brooke is such a big helper.  April 27

Megan on April 27

Happy baby on April 28

Meanwhile on April 28, her sisters passed out after a busy Saturday and a birthday party for our neighbor.  Megan hardly ever sits still long enough to fall asleep these days, so she must have been REALLY wiped out. 

Easter and a week with extras...

We had such a fun Easter morning (April 8, 2012) with our cuties.  Megan and Brooke were so excited to find their eggs and baskets. 

Candy was there too.  She was sleepy :)

Here are Megan and Brooke all spiffy for church!  These sisters sure love each other.  Too bad Candy was being too wiggly for a photo.

After church we headed down to my Dad's house to say hi and to pickup Shad's younger 2 kids.  Shad and Amy got to go on a much awaited trip to Hawaii with all the adults in Amy's family.  And we got to party with our 3 girls plus their 2 for a week! It was crazy and busy (but not that much busier than just our 3) and lots of fun.

Grandpa got all the grandkids new coloring books for Easter.  They came in handy that week!

And then we had a lovely Easter egg hunt in the front yard.

And last but not least (my favorite pic of the day).  My Dad used to let us stay up til 10 pm on Easter Sunday watching "The 10 Commandments"--we would get to watch the parting of the Red Sea and then we'd get sent to bed.  So he DVR'd "The 10 Commandments" and we all snuggled up on his bed to watch the parting of the sea.  Cozy :)

 
 Ashley was kind enough to still do our regular grocery swap.  Because adding 2 kids to a group of 6 really doesn't matter all that much!  Here they are eating lunch.  Cuties. April 9, 2012

Candy LOVES to "help" Daddy do the dishes each night--here she is on Easter after dinner.

Rub-a-dub-dub 3 cousins in the tub.  And 2 more toddling around.   On April 10.

I had fun getting all the girls ready in the mornings.  Here they are on April 11, ready for playgroup with matchy french braid hair.  I was pretty proud.

We went back down to Dad's that night to celebrate his 60th birthday!  We had family and friends coming for a bigger celebration in May, but we couldn't let the day of pass without a quick party.  Plus it let Chloe and Molly see their older siblings for a bit.  

My Dad, photogenic as ever...Happy 60th!

Carrie and Candace...

Giggling-til-he-cries Ty...

The little girls were WILD!

I was really excited because for his birthday I had printed off all of the blog posts my Mom had ever done.  The book looked great and Dad loved it.  

"Sneezing"--haha

Snuggling with Candy.  I love this pic!

The rest of the week was busy and fun.  

 I had just the little girls (Molly and Candy) while the big girls were at joy school on Thursday (April 12).

Candace has gotten a little more busy as of late--while I was packing for our weekend adventure (more on that later), she found the toilet paper (April 13).  Good thing she's cute...

 
We ended it with a crazy adventure.  It was my ward's campout and I hated to miss it just because Dan was on a scout campout.  So I convinced Carrie that it would be a blast to take 7 kids camping!  She was a good sport and we did it!  We were up late and up early and up in-between, but the kids had fun.  Carrie and I did too I think :).  Carrie then headed home with all of Shad's kids and I was back to my regular 3.  It was a great week!

Timber!!! and other activities

We played a rousing game of "Don't Eat Pete" for family night on April 2.  It's always more fun when you can play with starburst jelly beans (my favorite!).

So when we moved in, there were 4 big pine trees in the backyard.  Very quickly, the one in the middle of the yard died and had to be cut down.  Another one started looking sick, losing bark and limbs and whatnot but we kind of ignored it for a while.  Until...I was doing dishes on Monday April 2 and happened to see movement in my next-door neighbor's yard.  They had a dead tree just like ours and while I watched, it just fell right over!  What are the chances that I'd be right there glancing out the window at the exact moment it fell right over!  Thankfully the tree didn't hit their house, but it did knock down part of their fence.  I began to have visions of our dead tree falling down on the kids while they played on the swings and we decided to have it taken down!  Immediately!  So we called our tree guy and he came to cut it down on Tuesday April 3.

There she is...

So tall.  

And poof!

Down.  And it didn't even hit the garden boxes.  

It was our night for babysit swap on April 6.  It's craziness but it's a good time.  Here are the 9 kiddos--7 big kids

And the babies, Candy and Trent--just 3 weeks apart in age (so they are both just shy of 9 months here)

Then on April 7, it was the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt.  The girls loved it--even Candy took part!

My Dad broke out the Ukrainian egg supplies this year, so Dan and I tried our hands.  Mine is the pale one.  We had fun trying it out.  It had been a LONG time since I'd made one myself.