life in april

We enjoyed a beautiful General Conference weekend, which meant watching hours of inspiring and Christ-centered messages from the prophet and other church leaders.  We didn't make cinnamon rolls like we usually do, but opted for cinnamon roll coffee cake instead.  That was definitely the wrong decision because it wasn't nearly as good, so Colby begged to make pretzels that afternoon.  And guess what? They were delicious and definitely worth the extra effort. 

The Solar Eclipse was on a Monday, and since we were in the path of totality, the district purchased glasses for every student to participate!  I planned on going outside just before my teletherapy speech session, but when I noticed it getting darker in the house, I looked outside to see neighbors gathering in the lawn across from our house.  I decided to go outside and join the Hawkins family and I honestly felt a little bad that I hadn't thought to keep my kids home so I could experience the eclipse WITH them. 

During the few minutes of totality, the sky turned dark, street lights turned on, solar lights illuminated, the wind changed, and you would never have imagined it was 1:40 in the afternoon. Such a cool experience!!

Colby made the class Instagram page, so at least I had a picture of him experiencing it.

Also from the class Instagram account...

Colby is SO close to earning his 20 mile charm at Daulton Dashers!  I'm super proud of his dedication.  And I'm loving his new blue shoes!!

I look gigantic in my cozy jacket, but I have to post about the sweet stake activity that Brooke and I attended together.  The theme was "We Are Daughters of God" and everything was so beautifully done!  We enjoyed listening to a few speakers, picked out tiaras, then crafted together.  Unfortunately we had to miss lunch to get to Brooke's soccer game, but we loved our time and were grateful for all the effort that went into the activity. 

Meanwhile, the boys attended the Father/Son Fishing Day at our community pond.  It was very well-attended (crowded, haha), so Kevin took Colby over to the marina and they fished in our slip.  I called to check on how they were doing and in that moment, Colby felt a nibble and caught his first (and only) fish of the day.  To say that he was excited would be an understatement :) Just look at that smile!!

One day we went to pick up our boat seats from the upholstery shop in Fort Worth.  Kevin had to stop and use the bathroom at Whataburger and it somehow turned into milkshakes for everyone, haha. I joked with Brooke that she looked like an employee with all that orange :)

The Young Women invited the Activity Day girls to join them for a "pampering" night.  Brooke enjoyed herself and is excited to join them in January!

I was able to rearrange my work schedule to chaperone Colby's second grade field trip to the Fort Worth Zoo.  At the parent meeting that morning, I reconnected with Noelle's mom and we planned to keep our little groups together at the zoo.  Such sweet kiddos!

My kids have always LOVED feeding the giraffes...

I had the best day with Colby!  I loved our time at the zoo, our ice cream date right after, and walking around Tyler's with him.  But parenting isn't always that easy.  The next day was a really hard parenting day and I shed quite a few tears at the end of it.  But a few days later, when emotions settled, all was well again.  (Posting thing a few days after the fact reminded me of my old mantra that there is no such thing as perfect children or perfect parents, only perfect moments.

An impromptu afternoon water gun fight with our neighbors, Kayla and Annayiah.  I wish Spring would last forever!!

A very belated birthday lunch to celebrate Andreia's birthday!!  Friends for 17 years and counting.  I really feel SO grateful for these friends and the support and love they have always shown towards me.

I think this picture was from a night we had the missionaries for dinner.  Brooke was in charge of setting the table and she was feeling creative :) We try to have them over once a month and we always enjoy having them in our home.

Colby put in a lot of work this week preparing for his baseball game.  He used Brooke's weighted balls and tee from her softball days and I think it really helped :)

We planned an "outdoor game" activity for the Activity Day girls, and since the boys didn't have an activity for some reason, we let the boy siblings of our girls join in on the fun.

Springtime is for chalk art...

The last day of Daulton Dashers was spent playing dodgeball and eating donuts.  Colby was disappointed that he "only ran 22 miles", but he's already talking about how many miles he can get next year!  Way to go, buddy!  I'm super proud of what he accomplished.

Colby's newest obsession: wall ball.  He plays every day after school and then begs us to play together as a family.  He even convinced Brooke to leave her painting project to come and join the fun. 

Impromptu bike ride around the neighborhood to end our Saturday evening.  We just can't get rid of the chopper, haha.  Colby was the first one to pull it out of the garage, but then Brooke wanted to ride it out along England Parkway, haha. 

Brooke was really loving her new outfit, so nobody complained about a Sunday picture.  Love these two so much!!

That's a wrap on April :)  I have learned that May is insane with all the end-of-year and end-of-season activities, so I am gearing up for the madness and fun!!

willy wonka program

Nothing like a 9 PM wig trim for Willy Wonka's Monday morning debut!

They performed for Kindergarten and First grade, then again for families that night.  Colby was looking pretty dapper in his tailcoat jacket (thanks, Amazon), silk scarf, modified Hermione wig, and top hat from a family in our ward. 

In the first song, the kids waved their hats multiples times and every time Colby put his hat back on, the wig became disheveled and totally in his face.  Kevin, Brooke, and I were dying on the third row, and a few songs in, I motioned for Colby to take off his wig.  Moments later, he disappeared out of sign and reappeared without the wig.  Problem solved, haha.  My friend Kristin was taking a video of her son (who was right next to Colby) and caught the whole disappearing act on video, haha. But he nailed his lines and the program was super cute.

Grandma and Papa came to watch the program as well :)

It's always fun to watch this kid perform!!

sod and trees

We had talked about doing sod in the front yard for a solid year before we finally priced it out and decided to take the plunge for zeon zoysia.  We found a company in Dallas called J & J Sod which had great reviews and decent prices, so we placed an order with them.  They recommended using a special soil and since we were investing in the sod, we figured we might as well give it the best chance for success with some good soil. 

I drove to Dallas for the "Super Soil" (which I was told weighed 270 pounds), but as soon as the weight was resting in the truck, it looked like we had lowered it a good 6 inches. I questioned the guy about the weight of the soil and he said that the bag weighed roughing 800 pounds!!  No wonder the truck visibly lowered from the load.  I quickly called Kevin to make sure that was okay.  He asked me to google the truck bed's capacity, which was 1,600 pounds, so I just put on my emergency flashers and didn't go above 55 mph on the busy freeway.  Definitely more stressful that I thought it would be!

As soon as Kevin saw the truck after work, he wanted to quickly get to work off-loading it...

Let's just say that it took WAY longer than I thought to move all that dirt!

We then scalped the lawn to get it ready for the new soil...

We rented a tiller from Home Depot and set to work really prepping the area for the soil.  At this point, it felt like a major project, so I was crossing my fingers that all the extra effort would be worth it.

I loved having the kids involved not only because they were actually super helpful with the workload, but because it was a great learning experience for all of us.  I want Brooke and Colby to feel confident in their ability to tackle a big project and to not shy away from manual labor. 

After all that work, we were FINALLY ready for the sod installation.  The morning of our pick-up was the rainiest day of the entire year!! We had to rent a flatbed trailer at U-Haul since the pallet wouldn't fit inside Kevin's truck, but it was POURING rain as Kevin ran in to the building to sign all the paperwork for the rental. Once we had the trailer, we made our way into Dallas for the pick-up. 

You're supposed to install the grass within 24 hours of it being harvested, and we also needed to return the trailer, so we had to get right to work.  Needless to say, we were literally drenched and rather muddy as we worked and our neighbors probably thought we were insane because it poured for HOURS.  I was hoping all the extra moisture would help the grass and soil work well together, but some of the soil was washing away from all the rain and the sod along the sidewalk looked like it was kind of floating on the sloshy ground. 

But the end result was definitely worth it...

We had enough for two sections of the backyard as well!  Oh, and after returning the trailer, we went back to Home Depot to rent a lawn roller to smooth out the sod and ensure that it made contact with the soil.  

I was religious with the watering and took pictures a few weeks later...

So far, so good!!

A week or so later, we had Juan (an arborist) come to trim our trees.  I asked him to be really careful on our new sod, and he did a fabulous job raising the canopy and thinning the trees out.  They arrived a few minutes earlier than anticipated, so we weren't quite back to our house yet from Six Flags.  As we pulled in, I was amazed at how many limbs they had already removed.  Brooke immediately commented that she was sad that they removed her "favorite branch", but it looked so beautiful when they were done.  It had been a few years since he trimmed our trees, so it was definitely a needed service. 

I don't have a great "before" picture, but the trimming made a HUGE difference.  The trees were really covering the front view of the house, so they look much better now.

We may not be winning "Yard of the Month" anytime soon, but we were pretty pleased with the difference the sod and tree trimming made to our front yard.  Definitely helped our curb appeal :)