The very first of April was Easter, which was a great day. This weekend was also General Conference weekend, which I am realizing is becoming quite the busy weekend every month. We stayed home on Saturday and got some things done around the house as well as watching conference. Then Saturday night Sam went to the priesthood session with his dad while I had a little girls night with my mom and some of my sisters. It is always fun for the cousins to get together and play. The next morning Gavin got to find his Easter basket and we watched some more conference. We don't do a ton of gifts and candy for Easter because well, I don't think Gavin needs more candy in his life and I always know he will get a ton from his Grandparents, so we don't need to go crazy with it. We then headed down to Bountiful to finish watching conference at Sam's parent's house. The next half of the day we we had dinner with my side of the family at my sister's house followed by a big Easter egg hunt at a park nearby. It was a busy, but fun weekend.
Gavin loved dying Easter Eggs, and was surprisingly pretty good at it. He didn't even make that big of a mess.
We bought Gavin a balance bike for his 2nd birthday but he really wants nothing to do with it. In an attempt to help him enjoy bikes more we thought we would get him a tricycle or something as a step up to the bike. I wanted to get a classic radio flyer tricycle but Gavin fell in love with this PJ Masks thing, so that's what we ended up with and of course he barely rides this one either. What do you do to help your kid like bikes?
The next weekend was even busier than the last, if that was possible. We maybe overbooked ourselves, but oh well it was worth it. We headed up north to Cache Valley to go to the Baby Animal Days festival thing at the American West Heritage Center with our friends the Meidells. We were worried it would rain and almost didn't go, but decided to brave it anyways. Well not only did it rain, but it poured the whole time. Everything was soaked and muddy including the animals, but it was still fun and Gavin was in heaven getting to actually hold and pet real animals.
(Pictures by Torrie Meidell)
Gavin was seriously so in love with this baby goat and I am so glad that Torrie was able to snap this adorable picture because I was holding two umbrellas at the time and couldn't get my phone out to take one. So thanks Torrie!
These baby turtles were probably my favorite (maybe because they were indoors out of the rain) They were so tiny and adorable and even Gavin got to hold one.
There was a moment when we got to hold baby chicks and ducks that Gavin really squeezed a poor chick pretty hard and I thought we were going to have a sad moment on our hands. So sorry little chick! I hope you were okay. Even though we were soaked and covered in mud we were glad we went. It is always fun to see friends and Gavin was just happy to see the animals. We couldn't stay long because we had to leave straight away to our niece Jane's baptism down in Farmington. We literally just drove to the church and changed out of our muddy clothes into some nicer ones. It was a sweet baptism followed by a family gathering at their house. Needless to say, by the end of it all we were pretty pooped.
We have really been enjoying the warmer weather and have been trying to play outside more. This winter I have let Gavin watch way too much TV! I am not against TV or anything and we are definitely TV watchers in our house, but it has gotten out of hand. With not having a real backyard or any friends by us to do anything, I have gotten complacent and we have gotten into the bad habit of letting Gavin watch way too much. There was one moment when I was asking if he wanted to play outside (which he usually says yes to) and he was like "no Mommy, just watch shows." I was like, okay, this needs to be changed. So it's not like we don't watch TV at all anymore, but we have been making more effort to do other things, especially getting outside. So here we are helping Gavin practice his casting with his little fishing pole, One of our goals this summer is to go camping and spend lots of time in this little fishing boat we bought with our tax return.
We won free tickets to the first home Royal's game at Rio Tinto stadium. If you don't know what that is, it is the new women's soccer team in Salt Lake. Unfortunately they lost, but it was still fun and we are excited to follow this team. We aren't really sports people, but we do like watching RSL games so now we can add the Royals to that.
So one random day I was looking at facebook and saw that one of my facebook friend's who is also a photographer had an opening for these mini sessions she does. I have thought about doing one before but just never have really acted on it. I am terrible at getting family pictures taken, but I have been wanting some more current ones done so I can finally put some up on the wall in our house. Well, in seeing that on facebook I jumped on it and took the open spot. It was a little crazy because it was a weeknight and Sam was still at work, and Gavin was napping. It was originally going to be in Kaysville at an apple orchard, but I guess the blossoms at the orchard had not bloomed so kind of last minute it go changed to the Capitol building in Salt Lake, which is like an hour drive for us. But we made it work as I frantically arranged and ironed outfits for us and did may hair and makeup (which of course I had not done that day). Even though it was totally crazy, it was so worth it. I loved the mini session. It is only 15 minutes, which is perfect for Gavin's attention span and all I wanted was a few good poses to put on my wall. The blossoms were so beautiful and for sure it was not an original idea because there were SO MANY other people there doing the same thing. I loved how they turned out and was glad that I jumped on it. We actually ended up having a really fun night and took Gavin to the dino place at City Creek and ate dinner there. I swear Gavin could play in that place for hours. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot. All pictures by Rachelle Monae Photography.
As if our month were not packed enough, Sam ended up taking on a big project at work along with a coworker that was a great opportunity for him, but also had him working 12+ hour days. Months ago we had planned a trip to Moab with some of my family and we were worried that he wouldn't be able to go because of his work hours. But miraculously he was able to come and we had such a great time! Moab is seriously one of my favorite places and we always have such a good time there. We went up on a Thursday night and stayed the shadiest most falling apart hotel, which was so sketchy and comical at the same time. The next morning we drove into Moab and went biking at the Bar M trails. I went with my two nieces who seriously schooled me on the trail. I could barely keep up with them, granted I have not really ridden a bike since the last time I did this trail about 4 years ago. We spent the rest of the day setting up camp and letting the kids play with rocks and sand around the camp site. The next day we hike to Corona Arch, which is a great hike for kids for anyone interested. We spent the afternoon at the Moab city park and then just Sam, Gavin and I went on a little hike along a creek so that Gavin could play in the water. We love Moab and literally on the drive home I started planning our summer of outdoor adventures.
This last weekend we spent all weekend down in Bountiful because I had plans in Salt Lake with my friend Ashley, who is moving to DC in May, and then a haircut the next morning. So we just stayed in Bountiful at Sam's parents to avoid driving so much. We ended up staying down there all Saturday and finally got to visit our new niece Charlotte, and got to have dinner with my Dad at a new restaurant in Centerville. It was a fun day. I was even able to visit my Grandma's grave on the 27th, which was the year anniversary of her death. To top it all off we had dinner last night at my brother's to celebrate the April and May birthdays in our family. We had to buy 5 presents for the party because we have a lot of birthdays these months.
So April has really kept us on our twos. We got a new niece and a new nephew. Gavin is getting his two year old molars and is growing like crazy. Sam is luckily done with his new project at work. We are planning new adventures for summer. And we are just glad to be done with this crazy month!
