All the April Things

We're one week into April, and boy, did we hit the ground running. We've had a bit of a crazy start to the month. 

We began with April Fool's on the 1st. Nicky stayed up late Thursday night creating this mess:

He was a little disappointed in how it played out because he thought I'd go down in the basement early in the morning and find it, but in reality, I rarely go down in the basement and could have gone days before I discovered his little prank. Instead, the girls found it and had a heyday - messing up his "April Fool's" lettering and causing him much distress. 

Sisters ruin everything, so I'm told.

That evening, we had our 4th annual April Fool's dinner.

I moved the table into the living room so we could plate the kids' food without them seeing. I made them eat with tongs. It's always funny to see how long they can endure a silly utensil before they end up sticking their faces in their plates. 

We listened/watched General Conference over the weekend. On Saturday, Scotty cleaned out the shed while I washed all the windows on the house. While I was up on the ladder cleaning our bedroom window, I saw someone across from me, also washing windows, and I was really confused until I realized it was my own reflection in my bedroom mirror. 

Also on Saturday, we took a load of donations from our community to a drop-off location to be shipped to Poland and Romania for Ukrainian aid. 

I hadn't been able to park in the garage all week - which is a good problem to have when you're trying to assist with humanitarian needs - but it was nice to get that space back. 

On Sunday we went to Scotty's mom's house to listen to Conference. Nicky and his cousins had a boxing match on the trampoline, and we think Nicky might have blacked out after taking a punch to the face. 

I'm not sure what level of parental involvement should be expected in such situations. Do I let them beat the crap out of each other? Do I tell them to knock it off? 

I settled for, "No ER visits today, you guys." 

We had our first BBQ of the season in between sessions, and my burger was delightful, thankyouverymuch.

On Monday, I got my hair cut by a new stylist. I think it went okay. I'm currently navigating a self-inflicted hair crisis that I don't want to talk about, so my full opinion of my hair cut is pending. 

Later that day, the kids and I headed north to eventually meet my friend Lynsie in Logan for a spring break "retreat." But first, I dragged my kids to the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve to look for birds.

(Just in case you weren't sure, kids don't want to spend their spring break looking at birds. What has two thumbs and doesn't care what her kids think? This mom!)

I made them walk the mile loop. There was much whining.

Unfortunately, we didn't see a lot of birds at the preserve, but I want to go back in a few weeks to see if more migrate in. There were a few red-winged black birds, and at the very end of our excursion, as we were driving out of the gate, a great blue heron flew right in front of us. Other than that, it was mostly cow poop.

From there, we headed farther north to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, and IT. WAS. AMAZING...

...if you're into that sort of thing. Which I'm pretty sure the general population is not. 

There is a 12-mile drive on a dirt road where the bird watching was superb! My kids stayed busy doing Mad Libs, and as long as I didn't try to stop them from using potty words they were content (I've never heard the word wiener so much in my life). I saw herons, cormorants, grebes, and avocets, to name a few. There was also a flock of about 50 pelicans. Oh my! So much bird geekery!

(This is how you know you're aging). 

From there, we headed to Logan and met Lynsie at a hotel. We stayed two nights with our kids. It was fun but also a lot of work. Some highlights from our little vacation:

• We went to the Pepperidge Farm store
• We ate at Big J's... twice

• We stayed at a hotel with a water slide (which had pros and cons that I could write a 30 page paper about)
• Zoe brought her goggles - always the goggles

• We went to Gossner's and got some cheese curds, milk, and ice cream
• We went to Willow Park Zoo, and it was freezing

• We stopped and played at two different parks... where it was, again, freezing
• We went to the DI to look for weird stuff

• We went to the hotel pool 35 different times with 800 people 
• We ate at the Crepery and Sabores
• We went to Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center

And even with all of that, I think our kids still ended up on electronics for no less than 12 hours and watched 65 episodes of Sponge Bob and Big City Greens. 

We got home around 5:00 on Wednesday, and I was completely exhausted. 

Yesterday we had an appointment at the Jordan River Temple to do baptisms for the dead. I took Nicky, Daisy, and Daisy's friend, Grace. Nicky can perform the baptisms now, which is pretty exciting. He did his first baptisms a month ago, and I was planning to be there, but then herpes happened, so I wasn't able to go for his first time (his grandparents went). So yesterday was my first time seeing my son baptize other people (while Daisy and I were acting as witnesses), and it was one of those "wow" moments. I just gave birth to this kid, I swear, and now he's baptizing people. If they hadn't changed the ages for priesthood progression in 2019, Nicky would still be nine months away from being able to perform baptisms. The age change put him an entire year ahead in his priesthood progression (since his birthday is December 27), and he was only a deacon for one year instead of two. 

At the temple, Nicky got asked twice whether he was endowed, to which I responded, "He's tall enough, but not old enough." 

After the temple, we had lunch at Cafe Rio (temple work always justifies eating out) and then everyone played with friends for several hours. 

Last night, Scotty and I went on a date. It was actually "running errands," but we call that a date now if we get to go without kids. We had some coupons for free stuff at Bath and Body Works, so we went and redeemed those, stopped at Sally Beauty Supply to buy some products to help with my aforementioned hair crisis (the products did not help), and then we went to Smith's and bought a brisket. 

Brisket shopping is what true romance is made of. 

And that brings me to my current state: 

Friday morning. 

I have a hair problem I need to solve. Zoe has a grand plan to make herself a dress out of a scrap of fleece. Eva has just been given her final warning that if she yells "shut up" again, she will have a hefty consequence. I haven't unpacked a single thing from our trip. I have no clean socks or underwear, but I also can't find any dirty ones to put in the washer. I have no energy, and I have been asked no less than 50 times "Can I play Roblox?" (to which I have said no). 

Ah. Spring break, indeed.