The Smiths: Awesome April

April. . . April. . . April. Ha! It's almost June! How do the months disappear???? April seems like a lifetime ago and right now I'm just happy to have survived May. But we'll get to that. Right now I'm digging way way back through my (thousands of) pictures to the month of April. And April. . . well, April was awesome. April brought Easter, General Conference, Lydia's birthday, the Cattle Baron's Ball, school projects and performances, a blooming garden, an international festival, an all-nighter for preschool registration (yawn!), lots of baseball, watermelon, beautiful weather, and a visit from my mom. Here's a look at our awesome April:

We spent the day at the Elementary School's International Festival. One of the things I love about our neighborhood and school is that my kids, through their friends and classmates, are always exposed to lots of languages and cultures. Here is Isaac with two of his best friends.

We watched (and interacted with) the Chinese dragons while the school choir was setting up.

Clayton performed with the choir. They sang several international songs as well as "America the Beautiful" which is what they were singing when I snapped this picture.

Eliza loved these pink umbrellas.

It was fun for the kids to see their friends from class perform.

Here is a girl from Brigham's class. She was amazing.

Lydia and Eliza got fancy Chinese fans.

And, even though the place was full of delicious international foods, the boys stuck with some good old American hotdogs and pizza.

Nate and I ventured out - enjoying tastes from all over the world. Mmmm.

What a fun day. . .

In April, Nate and I went on a date. Without our kids. This is huge! We went to Houston's famous Cattle Baron Ball with his firm. I wore cowboy boots and a belt buckle. (this is also huge) We ate way too much delicious food. And of course, thanks to Nate's country dance class at BYU, we Texas Two-stepped the night away. . .

We also had a front row table next to Travis Tritt.

This is kind of a scary picture of us, but you can see Travis there in the background. We were close enough to see him sweat. A lot.

My favorite performance was this fiddling group, though. Sorry Travis. These violinists were seriously-seriously awesome.

April also brought General Conference. My kids are getting older and we actually made it through two and a half sessions this year. . . without incident. Candy Bingo helped and so did these activity booklets.

Love Isaac's drawing of President Monson. . .

Harry Potter has returned to our universe. Isaac and Clayton both read the entire series in April. (Isaac read the last three books in one week). Our house is exploding with constant spells and charms. I love this picture of Isaac jinxing me and the balloon in midair above Brigham's head. See magic is real.

Even the girls are picking up a few spells here and there. I was in Costco with them and Eliza was playing with a stick she found in the shopping cart. Without warning she pointed it at another shopper and yelled "Riddikulus!". Thankfully the guy was a good sport and played along.

The boys also discovered "Texas sledding". It took them a while to get the cardboard just right, but in the end they had quite a fun time sledding at the park. And I was entertained watching them.

In April Clayton engineered and constructed a working gumball dispenser out of Legos and the springs from a mechanical pen. He's demonstrating it with a marble here (since we don't stock up on gumballs) but it works. . . smoothly! Just slide a coin through the slot, push the lever, and the marble drops down onto the track and out the door flap. I am amazed by this kid.

He took it apart to show me how the springs work inside.

Lydia is enjoying her light-up princess cup from Grandma and everyone else (Eliza) is jealous.

Eliza got a CTR ring from her primary teacher. But if you ask her, she'll say it's her wedding ring. She wears it night and day and it's turned completely green now.

Brig likes to steal my sunglasses for basketball. I keep wondering why they're always missing.

Swoosh! He sure is getting good though.

I'm not usually smiling to find a mess in the toy room, but when it's a mess that looks like a miniature replica of the Battle of Bunker Hill. . . I'm smiling.

Glad to know my boys aren't so grown-up yet.

I'm also glad to know that when left to their own devices, they still know how to have good old-fashioned cardboard fun.

These cardboard space speeders took them hours to design and construct.

We ate a lot of watermelon in April. It was on sale. Mmmmm.

Violin happened in April. Yes! (Not so much in May. boo. . .) Lydia got a stuffed violin for her birthday and when she's not sleeping with it, she's playing it right along side her sister. Here she is at violin lessons.

Here's Brigham waiting for his piano lesson. Ms. Asya's dog, Jerry, is the number one motivation at lessons. Brigham looks forward to seeing his friend every week.

Thanks to my mom visiting, Eliza had pretty hair everyday for two weeks. Sure wish I could figure out how to do this. . . Isn't she beautiful?

Our garden bloomed in April! Sugarsnap peas galore!

Here is Eliza picking herself a snack on the way out the door to eat in the car.

Our tomatoes appeared in April. . . tons!

We also had a few backyard visitors who appreciated our garden. . .

Look at this baby oppsum. . . ew.

And here's the big news for April: Eliza finished her "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons" book, which was really like a thousand lessons because we had to repeat everything so many times.

But she did it! And Eliza is officially a reader.

Here are a few pics of her dance "dress rehearsal" with her BFF. These girls had so much fun dancing together.

And the main event of April was camping out all night at the elementary school to register Eliza for Pre-K. Who are these insane people???? Yes. Me.

I headed to the school (with all my kids, snacks, homework, soccer balls, blankets, pillows, games, coats, water - but not too much because there are no bathrooms, and a blow-up mattress) at 4:30 in the afternoon the day before registration. There were already 27 people ahead of me in line. No kidding. Twelve hours later (4:00 a.m.) there were more than 90 people in line (for 44 spots) and two news stations. It was a real party at the school, let me tell you. And freezing cold!!!!! Finally Registration began at 8:00 a.m. and I am pleased to announce that Eliza is in! Along with her two best friends. Whew!