Trainboy's Book One Violin Recital

Toward the end of April, we finally held a Suzuki book one recital for Trainboy. He had learned all the songs in book one and we spent some time polishing them before holding the recital. I did record the recital - but on a video camera that I have yet to download several years of video...so here is a video of him at the beginning of April while he is still polishing Gavotte (the last song in Book one) and also one of him playing Minuet 1.

(If you are reading this in email, you must click on a link and go to the webpage to see the videos)

April birthdays

  

Fixitman & I celebrated birthdays in April. I made my own cake this year after falling in love with the strawberry meringue cake on the cover of Southern Living. It was delicious! Fixitman took the kids to the dollar store to buy presents for me and I did likewise for him.

The kids enjoy giving us presents and then helping us use them. It is also fun to see the difference between the ages of understanding of gift giving. :)

Lego Temples

At April General Conference time, I made a binder for each kid with activities for when each of the apostles and the prophet spoke. It didn't work exactly as planned but it was fun and we enjoyed the many activities. The boys' favorite (I think) was making a lego temple.

There are two of Trainboy because I love the comparison of glasses to no glasses with him.

Dinoguy's tooth removal

Did you ever wish you had an extra set of teeth in case you lost an adult tooth? Well Dinoguy came with an extra tooth. However it wasn't a bonus tooth to save for later, but an annoying partial tooth that was preventing his adult tooth from coming in. Luckily it looked like it was a simple removal and the dentist even hoped it could come out naturally after he lost his baby tooth. However most kids lose their front teeth by 9, so when we were past 9 and his front tooth was not even a little bit loose it was considered delayed. So it came to oral surgery. The surgeon pulled out two baby teeth and then were able to pull out the partial tooth without much trouble. Now we wait for his adult teeth to descend on their own.

Dinoguy thought it was memorable because he got to get put to sleep with laughing gas. Fixitman thought it was fun because Dinoguy was so "happy" afterward. Dinoguy did try to pull out the stitches at one point thinking they were something stuck in his gums, but he didn't get far before we stopped him. I am very grateful it was simple and straightforward and there weren't any complications.

His two baby teeth and the partial tooth

So now that he has a big gap in his mouth we told him we were going to call him "Fang". He didn't like that idea at all. I wonder how long he'll have a gap in his mouth before the other teeth appear?

Blue Bell Ice Cream Tour

For fun on our Spring Break week we went on a tour at the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory.

The three brothers who founded Blue Bell.

Oops about Trainboy's face not being visible!

Sweet little boy with his short hair.

Handsome boy with his glasses. Nice to see his face!

My big boy is getting so big!

Princess actually looking at the camera.

So we have never really had a Spring Break before as a family - but this year we all had this week off! No teaching or classes for anyone. Well...except a certain grad student had tons to do anyway. But he joined us for this fun day trip.


The tour doesn't allow cameras but the kids really enjoyed seeing the ice cream be made. Then of course the ice cream at the end was a treat!

 Our camera has been slowly dying and really made that manifest on our trip. It just keeps doing the opposite of what you want - changing functions and such. So you could say it is becoming possessed.

On the way home we saw a pastured poultry farm and stopped. We were delighted to find a local farm that grows grass fed pork and chicken and actually delivers to our area too! The farmer also let us look around at all the happy animals. The kids loved seeing the turkeys, the chickens and the pigs. It is called Yonder Way Farms. Wish I'd taken some pictures but I'm blaming our dying camera on that.

We had a fabulous spring break week of low key fun at home. It could be called a "staycation". We also had a full day of video games and a full day of playing with friends among our adventures.

Pinewood Derby 2012

Fixitman and Dinoguy put a lot of work into the pinewood derby car this year. Fixitman says all he did was tell Dinoguy what to do and Dinoguy did it all. Yay for father son bonding I guess. However all that work paid off when Dinoguy won the Pinewood Derby! Dinoguy was surprised and thrilled. (Though since he won almost every heat, it makes sense.) It was really neat to see. Originally I wasn't going to stay the whole time but I ended up staying and it was really fun to see how happy he was when he won.

Sitting in the seats for watching your car race when he got to start the race.

Waiting for awards, wearing his first place heat ribbons.

All of the scouts lined up before awards.

What a reaction!

With his trophy and car and ribbons.

First Home Depot for Baby

Baby has been trying to use a hammer the past few times we've been at Home Depot for building projects. When it was a race car in March, we decided it was time for him to get to build. So he got an apron and built his first project (with a lot of help of course). The older kids loved this project too - they had a race track to race the cars down after you built them and the boys had a lot of fun racing their cars with other kids. Princess loved holding her car more than racing it. She also was more creative with the stickers.
 It's really past time to stop calling my sweet youngest Baby I guess. He is very much a toddler. Have to work out a new nickname!

Breakfast eggs

I was going to make eggs for breakfast March first. But I went to take care of something and when I came back I found this:

Baby demonstrated his ability to climb up on a stool and get things off the counter. Isn't he adorable covered in egg? :D Side note from about two months later - what do you do when you are about to check out at the grocery store and catch your son holding an egg in his hand and when you put it back realize there are no longer a full dozen in the carton? How many eggs did he throw out of the cart without me seeing?

Say Cheese!

For your enjoyment, Princess taking pictures with a toy camera and general little kid cuteness at breakfast one morning.

Princess takes Baby's picture. He is smiling and saying "Cheese"

Now he smiles for my camera!

Perhaps she wasn't too happy I brought out my camera too.

Violin Trio

Back to catch up posts tomorrow, today I want to share my boys playing in a violin trio with their teacher this past Sunday at the church for which I am the pianist. I love listening to them practice, they are getting so good! They love to perform and were happy for the opportunity. Enjoy!