John and Kylee: April 2023

April started out with finishing up Eliza's fundraiser for her DC trip. She made these delicious twisted croissant bread in three flavors: butter, cinnamon, and chocolate. I was surprised how well she did. She was able to raise more money than she even needed for the trip. We only expected her to pay $500, and we paid the rest. She sold them for $6 per loaf or 3 for $15. I was surprised at how many people paid the 3 for $15. We made them over the course of 3 Saturdays. It was a lot of bread making, but I am so grateful it was successful.

We made cute little tags and wrapped them in parchment paper with twine.

The chocolate ones are the best. So surprising that that is my opinion.

The girls made a fun April Fool's menu for lunch. It was really fun. We called it Mystery Cafe.

Our various meals. This was such a good day. General Conference, listening for questions, Mystery Cafe, snacks, puzzle, bubbles, a walk, board game, etc. Darcy saying "I don't want to be eaten." "Thank you for making this milkshake, Mama!" Eliza saying, "It is at the top of my life plan to never be abused by someone."

Puzzles for General Conference.

A fun snack plate that used fancy cheese and crackers from Christmas that John's work gave him. We also wrote questions on paper and when we heard an answer to the question we wrote the answers on the sticky notes and put them on the papers.
I really loved the talk on parenting by Elder Uchtdorf. He is amazing.

Flowers coming up, is it Springtime?

A day or two later, no it is not.

Guess who won Settlers?

One Spring break day included getting things done with the girls, playing and cooking together. We managed to play a couple of board games, but during the first Darcy tried with all of her might to dump as many colored pencils as she could on the floor and then summed up with "Oopsie Daisy."

Another day of Spring break we leaned hard into the board game playing. We played Settlers 3x, Low Down 2x, and Quacks. Lots of variety in winners so everyone had a good time. This is also the day that we did the hair salon. They are so fun.

Another day in Spring break we drove up to Ogden. We picked up my mom, and my dad gave us a lot of their houseplants. My girls were so excited and immediately clamed some. It is so cute how much they love plants, like their momma.

Morning cuddles in bed on Spring break.

On one of the days of Spring Break we did fancy hairdos.

Ellie got her ear's pierced. She is was so brave and delighted with the result.

One day I asked Darcy, "Who is your favorite?" She answered, "Mama and Grandma, and I actually really like myself." What a great answer!

Another day I asked Darcy if she was stinkin cute. She said, "No, I am grateful cute. Daddy is stinking handsome."

One day Darcy climbed into bed with me first thing and said, "I like you Mommy." Later she was telling me about mean guys so I asked her if I was mean. She giggled, "No, you're perfect!"

Sometimes the things that she says are so funny even if just writing the words down don't fully express it. For instance, one day Darcy told us there was "a little bit left" of the milk, but she "drank most of it all up."

One day she copied John and said in the cutest sing song voice, "Mommy is my sweetheart."

Another day I tried telling Darcy a story at bedtime about an ice princess of the penguins. "That's a crazy story about crazy things." She wanted a Catsandra Story.

It made me laugh when one night Darcy kept interjecting the word "Indeed" into our conversations. She is so funny!

We had the feeling that we need to focus more on Easter this year. We put so much effort into celebrating Christmas but don't really do that much for Easter. Then, to our amazement there was a General Conference talk on this exact thing. We decided to do a week long count down activity. We also decided to invest in some Easter decor. It was fun to do with my girls. It was nice that my mom could be here for the holiday time.

Unfortunately, this was the last time that my mom stayed with us. It was a difficult visit. I could tell that her anxiety had shot through the roof. She had many episodes of fear and sadness. It was heartbreaking to say the least. Her medication was not being administered effectively, and it wasn't really helping her. This was eye opening for all of us. She needed better medication, dosed regularly. It was also right after this that it was determined that she should go on Hospice. This was more difficult than I can really describe. My mom was always so afraid of Hospice and considered it a death sentence. As far as I know, no one ever told her that she was going on Hospice.

Lot of stained fingertips after egg dying.

Parent child dates--Eliza and John to Outback Steakhouse.

Holland and I went to the creamery and got burgers and ice cream. Actually Holland got a grilled cheese. She asked me so many "Would you rather" questions. Those are signature Holland right now.

Holland asked me, "Do I have a trust fun account or do I need to save money for college?" She is so funny!

We walked around the duck pond and the south gardens of BYU. It was fun.

Easter egg hunt!

This corner of our yard changed a lot in the last six months. The trees look so tiny.

The Easter Bunny hid some eggs up in the cherry tree that were tricky to get.

I thought this photo was interesting. It is a photo that John took of me while I was taking the picture directly before this one. It is interesting to think about how no one has the exact same perspective as you.

Holland got these glasses as part of her Easter basket.

They also got these girl colored legos. It was fun to play with.

Miriam and Grandma's tower.

We invited both sets of parents and Matt for Easter dinner. It was fun to get a cheesy tablecloth and use the nice china. The funny thing about this dinner was that we put so much effort into making it nice, and then I shook up the salad dressing not realizing the lid wasn't on properly. Salad dressing went all over the table and both sets of Grandpas. Yikes!
One cute moment from that dinner was that Darcy announced at the table, "I love Mommy upside down" again and again.

Our first Spring daffodils. They were so pretty but weirdly smelled really bad. Something to just enjoy outside.

Sometimes the best moments in life catch you by surprise. I have actually been really enjoying our laundry folding parties. We all take turns picking songs and sing our guts out while we fold laundry.

Another nice event in our routine is doing Teen Tuesday. We recently finished watching All Round Champion with Ellie. She is so much fun. Just playing board games with the kids is really fun. I love playing the more complicated ones, and the toddler ones. Especially if it is not just me and the toddler.

Another day I worked in the yard getting things spruced up for Spring. I really love working in my yard for reasonable lengths of time and effort. One day I planted a lot of flowers with the kids in the afternoon. Later I finished up in the evening with my headlamp. I was really hoping they would grow, but unfortunately we didn't have a great success rate with those. I ended up digging up a bunch and taking them back to Sam's Club. Later we tried online orders for other bulbs. We only had one type grow from tons. So disappointing. We have had good success buying plants in nursery pots. Too bad they are so much more expensive. Actually we ordered berry plants from a place my mom recommended online and they were successful--Nourse Farms.

Another day we planned a trip for just John and I for the summer. We bought tickets to San Fransisco. I love planning trips. We spent some time looking into things to do, and have way way to much to do in the time that we are going to be there.

A less great day was when we woke up one Sunday morning to find that the dishwasher had flooded over night. There was water all over the kitchen floor but it seemed to flow slightly toward the floor under the refrigerator. I guess because it is so heavy there is a slope that direction? Unfortunately there is an island between the dishwasher and the refrigerator. It was a big pain to try to dry out under the island cabinet. After mopping up all the water that we could we started taking apart the motor in the dishwasher. We never could find anything particularly wrong except that there was hair in there. I can't believe that there was enough hair falling off our heads while we loaded/unloaded dishes to cause real problems.

One day after school we had an impromptu dance party. It was fun to teach the kids some swing moves. I was proud of myself for being able to lift all of them.

Another day Miriam and I listened to music while we did yard work. I love hanging out with her. She and Ellie had friends over to play that evening. I am so grateful that they have good friends here. Miriam is such a wonderful sister too. One evening she helped Holland do her chores cheerfully. She just has a completely different approach than I would, and it helps so much. Her efforts makes such a huge impact on our family.

Eliza is such an amazing big sister and daughter too. One day she spent a lot of time helping Miriam with her choir audition, patiently dealt with Darcy while trying to do her piano lesson, was gentle with Holland helping her without being asked, and came outside to give me a hug when I was having a hard time with Darcy. What a blessing that girl is!

April 11th was a big day for Darcy. We started the Reading Lesson book! She was about 2 months before she turned three. That seems really young when I write it out like that. I felt bad that I neglected teaching her letters for so long because of the move, but over the winter we worked on letters a lot. (Mainly reading books about the alphabet and practicing the sounds.) It seemed like she was ready in mid April.

Playing with Grandma in her room.

These kids are so weird and love bread and milk like their dad. Ew.

Perhaps our first yard project of the year--extending and moving the rain gutter to better spots in yard. In this case, before the project, the rain gutter ended in the flower bed, which just resulted in washing away the flower bed dirt. We changed it to wrap around and end in grass where hopefully it could help. This was a little trickier than you'd think because of having to dodge the plant roots, sprinkler lines, and edging.

We hosted the Deru family Easter gathering. We had an egg hunt, egg decorating (Kayla brought stuff to do gold leaf eggs), and dinner. It was a nice afternoon/evening.

The craft was super fun and didn't even make too bad of a mess on the patio.

They turned out so fun!

This is a photo of Darcy looking cute, and it also shows the eraser marks on the wall where someone Darcy's height managed to get a pencil and mark up the wall.

Speaking of heights, Miriam has had a huge growth spurt this year. We had to compare heights.

Darcy doesn't only get into the pencils. She also got into the the acne stickers.

She put maybe 30 stickers on? Yikes.

Miriam competed in Battle of the Books with four friends. They had been going into the library and studying at lunch time. They assigned books out to review amongst themselves. All of that hard work paid off. They won the school competition and then the district competition. I am so proud of them! Miriam was crazy nervous, and it turned into big excitement. It is always the best to watch your kiddo succeed at something they put a lot of effort into.