April 2016

I feel like t-ball and the puppy took up most of our April this year! Here are some other highlights!

Pretty sunsets!

Addie's best friend Damsel was baptized!

Dia is learning to save her money to buy things she really wants! She was so excited to finally have enough to buy a Doc McStuffins toy! 

My parents came for a visit in April. They somehow managed to escape without taking very many photos! I am horrible when it comes to getting pictures when people visit! We did go to the Meeker Mansion with them, Addie and Johnny. 

I love his simple journal responses.

Daniel and I decided that we wanted to start taking the kids on individual parent/kid dates. We started with Addie and went to see an Alice in Wonderland ballet! (We have not taken any of the other kids on a date and it is now November so we are basically failing at this idea btw!).

Trip to Chelan

Back in April Daniel and I had the chance to escape for 2 days to Chelan, WA. Daniel had a work conference so I tagged along. This time we didn't even have to take the baby! The weather was not fantastic but decent enough.

This was the view from the hotel room. We've stayed at this hotel several times now and I always love that every single room has a great view!

My Uncle Tom lives about an hour from Chelan. He is an airline pilot and owns his own plane. On our way out there we stopped at the airport he has a hanger at and got to go on a ride! It was a blast!! His Citabria is such a fun plane to fly. Since Daniel was in the conference the whole next day, I got up and met Tom at a nearby airport where he picked me up and we went out again. He even let me fly for a bit. I wouldn't mind having a toy like this one day!

Daniel and I enjoyed an early morning run together along the water. He had to cut his short but I stayed out and got my 3 miles in!

This isn't the best picture but can you see the trail that leads all the way to the top of the hill?  On the last day, Daniel ditched part of his conference and we went hiking! The hill didn't look too bad from our hotel room but we were dying! We didn't even make it all the way to the top before we called it quits. It was fun and beautiful but so steep!

T-Ball 2016

Johnny tried out t-ball this year and really liked it! He was probably the most serious kid about it on his team. Always paying attention and trying really hard. This age is just so funny in sports. There were kids in the out field rolling in the grass, playing in the dirt, running the wrong way. So funny. He was pretty excited toward the end of the season when they started doing coach pitch. He enjoyed that so much more! I'm sure there will be more baseball in our future!

His favorite position to play is first base. He loved getting kids out!

Not the most exciting sport to watch. We found ways to entertain ourselves and the girls. :)

Always wanting to be independent. Her carrying her own chair easily adds 5 minutes to the walk from the car to the field.  :/

He was thrilled that his number was 6 because he is 6 years old!

The 2 boys that live across the street also played on another team. We had a fun time when their teams played each other!

End of the year bobble head trophy, so cute!

We really liked his coaches. They were great with the kids and seemed to have fun with it.

Bella

After the devastation of returning Enzo passed, Daniel and I talked about getting another dog. I really didn't want a puppy because of the work involved. But we thought it might be our best option because then we would know what we were getting as far as temperament. So we took the plunge and got Bella, an 8 week old Great Dane puppy!

Everyone loved her! 

Surprisingly, I think Bella liked Opal the most. She was the most tolerant of her touching and laying on her. They were good buddies

As cute as she was, she was hyper. And sassy. And with 4 kids in the house (and 1 on the way) I didn't need any more sass in my life. She was also very easily excited. Like every time the kids walked by her she would jump on them. The poor neighbor kids were terrified to come anywhere near her. So, per the in home dog trainer's advice, we had to limit her to certain areas. Basically she was tethered to a leash almost all the time. 

We took her on walks, continued with her training but the sass was killing me. We finally decided that she was just not right for us. We had her for 4 months and a lot of her behaviors should have been getting better but they weren't. So, sadly we took her back to the breeder. The kids were not nearly as sad as I thought they would be. I think they were all in agreement that Bella was more of a nuisance than she was fun. 

The day we took her back. She was so big! But had so much more to grow!

We are once again pet less except for our chickens. (we gave away our parakeets a few months ago) As mush as I like pets, I think maybe we are just not supposed to have any right now!