April 2016

April has been such a fun month!  We started it off with a Spring Break trip to Palmyra and Niagara Falls.

We drove about 7 hours to our hotel in Rochester, New York.  The hotel staff recommended a really cool restaurant, Dinosaur BBQ.  We loved it!

After dinner, we drove to Palmyra and dropped Matt, Merrody, and Joel off at the temple for Joel's first trip to do baptisms.  They loved it!

In the meantime, I took the youngest 4 kids to the Hill Cumorah and the Sacred Grove.  It was really windy and cold, but the kids were really interested in everything.

The next morning, we headed to Niagara Falls.  It was so cold!  It was snowing and hailing and really windy all day, but what could we do?  It was our one chance to see the falls, so we took it.  We weren't sorry, that's for sure!

We bought tickets to ride on The Maid of the Mist boat that goes right down into the valley between the falls.  So cool and wet!

After our ride, we took the kids to the Canadian side of Niagara--a very impressive view!  The town had a real carnival feel with lots of fun rides and cool shops.  We took our kids to the moving movie theater and the wax museum.  I thought it was creepy, but the kids loved it!

The next morning we headed back over to Palmyra to "do the sites right", but most of them were closed on Sunday morning.  It was snowing and freezing, but we went back out to the Sacred Grove.  We had a little program with Norah singing, "Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning" and Merr, Joel, and Jack reading different parts of the Joseph Smith History.

This is what it looked like as we drove up to the top of the Hill Cumorah:

It was a great trip, though not very Spring-y for Spring Break!

April was also the month that Grandma and Grandpa Malone came back from Florida after a long winter there.  We missed them!  Henry loved playing "this little Piggy" on his grandpa's lap!

Surprise, surprise, our kids found themselves another toad to keep as a pet!  Why is their Mom so mean that she won't let them have a real pet?

Also, April was the month when we discovered the FaceSwap app.  Endless hours of entertainment!

Matt and Sarah

This one of Joely and Heather will give me nightmares for a long time!

Hazie and Hank

Joel and Jack

Jack and Joel

Joely and Henry

Sarah and Joely

 See what I mean?  Pretty fun and creepy!

Last week we took new portraits of our kids.  They're good kids.  Here's a little run-down of what they're up to these days:

Merrody is 13 (almost 14).  She keeps very busy these days.  Between, school, piano, swim and church activities, she was already busy.  She is our full-time babysitting, and now she has another job.  Merr works between 15 and 20 hours a week at Matt's office sterilizing instruments and assisting the hygienists.  She actually loves it and is really blossoming as a worker girl!  We are proud of her hard work and good attitude!  It doesn't hurt that she's making lots of money for her college fund!

Joel, 12, is such a self-starter!  He doesn't have to be told what to do (and he doesn't like it when you do!)  He gets himself to bed nice and early each night because he's determined to get up at 6:30 and run 3 miles before school.  He gets his schoolwork done in a hurry because he really likes to get his "cleaning lady" job done with time to spare for some of his other hobbies.  Joel loves making movies and singing.  He is a really great swimmer and is advancing nicely in Scouts and at the piano.  He also does our lawn and the office lawn for extra money.

Jack, 10,  is our peacemaker.  He is such a pleasant kid, and always willing to help!  He is usually on "Hank duty" and often will just start cleaning something up to make everyone's life go smoother.  He is obsessed with Legos and loves messing around outside.  He is also on the swim team and in piano.  He's my go-to helper for anything I need (bringing up the trash cans from the road, unloading the dishwasher, tending the kids, etc).  Every night before he goes to bed, he comes and gives me and Matt hugs!  What a great kid!

Norah is really growing up at 7-years-old.  She has really learned a lot this year in homeschool.  She is a great reader and writer, although she pretty much hates math.  She loves piano and adores gymnastics.  She can even do a cartwheel!  She has started swimming with the older kids in preparation for joining their summer swim team.  Norah is a real Lego Friends enthusiast, and will bake something in her Easy Bake Oven every chance she gets.  She's also a great helper, often offering to sleep with Hazel to help get her to go to bed.  She's such a sweetie!

Hazel is almost four, and she's got enough personality to last a lifetime!  She is funny and clever and very wicked!  She can write her name and she loves our "preschool" time that we do with her.  She idolizes her big sister, Norah, and would do ANYTHING to be just like her!  Hazel loves Primary and wants to go everywhere with her mom.  What she looks forward to more than anything else is going to PreK this fall.  She is so excited!

Henry has a major case of the terrible twos!  He is as hard as any kid we've ever had.  He won't sleep, refuses to do anything we ask, and insists that his mother is the only person capable of getting him a drink of milk!  I have started taking him on a drive every afternoon to help him take a nap, but it only works about 1/2 of the time.  He's keeping us all on our toes, but we just adore him!  He's so dang cute and smart as a whip!  He can identify all of his colors, can say the ABCs, count to ten, and even sing "I Am a Child of God".  He loves to be held and can't be without a cup of milk.  We adore him!

We have lots to look forward to in the coming month.  We will be finishing up school and we can't wait for the Strawberry Festival!  It should be great!