April

It's Spring time in New Mexico.  Have to make sure we start April off right by playing a few jokes on each other.  This year Annika had fun with April fools day...and so did I. 

Grilled cheese and ham sandwiches for lunch.  Yummy!

Annika ate her favorite sandwich, ham, first.

 A little surprised after taking a bite of grilled cheese.

 Hey!  This is pretty good!  Lightly toasted pound cake with yellow butter cream icing.

 I think I'll try this again!

 

Yummy!!!!!

 Annika got doughnut seeds to plant.

 She was pretty eager to plant a doughnut plant.

 We also made cupcakes for dinner...the meatloaf mashed potatoes kind.  So tricky!

 Dinner is served.  Some things are normal, some are not.

 Fries and ketchup, or pound cake and frosting?

 Wearing the birthday hat she got from school a few days earlier.

 

I love this boy!

His hair looks funny to me here, and his cupcake looks like it has a hidden smiley face in it made of peas for eyes, green bean for a smile, and a carrot and pea for dimples.  

Such personality.

Now his cupcake looks like it has eyebrows and hair.

Can you believe it?

Liking off the "frosting."

Making sense of it all.

Taste testing.

Dinner receives Brayden's stamp of approval.

We had a day of snow in the beginning of April.  Brayden played in it while Annika was at school. 

Love how this picture turned out with his silhouette.

Watching the snow fall.

Enjoying the snow.  Such a cute little boy Brayden has become!

Little man with man's best friend.

This was a fun morning in the snow.  By the time we got Annika at noon it was practically all melted.

Every year we make "tombs" for Easter.  This year was no exception.  The kids had fun doing it too!

Brayden eating frosting.  Can you tell he was having fun?

Typical Annika and Brayden. 

Look at the empty tombs.  

He's not here!  He is risen!

There's a mystery person in our ward who does fun things for people in our ward who live in our neighborhood.  For Easter they left eggs on every ward members yard.  For St. Patrick's they left a green bag full of green goodies on the door.  For Valentine's they hear attacked each members front door.  You get the picture.  It is fun and we totally enjoy it!

Annika and Brayden finding eggs left by the Easter Bunny in the front yard.

No egg will get by Brayden's careful eye.

Partners and best friends.

This is what you call teamwork.

They had lots of fun!  So thanks for the good time mystery person, I mean Easter Bunny.

Such a lovely patch of dirt.

We had friends from Maryland, Dila Trefflich and her kids Issac and Julia, come visit for Easter.  They were driving to meet there dad who was in VA after being in Afghanistan and it just turned out they made it to our house for Easter.  It was lots of fun! 

The kids having an egg hunt Saturday evening.

Brayden and Issac scoring eggs. 

Brayden discovering the eggs have candy inside.  His egg collecting slowed down considerably from this time on.

Collecting eggs.

Homer joining in on the fun.

 

Brayden always loved Dila.  I guess both my boys do.

Annika after church.  Why we didn't take pictures of the kids before I'll never know.  We're just supper organized with things like that around here.

Julia and Annika!  

They had a great time and Annika loved seeing her friend again.

Easter basket cake!  It was yummy for sure!

Friends.  The downside of the military is seeing your kids miss their friends.  It was nice we could get together.

Little man had a blast!

 

Let's hope our paths run across each others again!  Dila is such a special person.  Thanks for taking the picture, Annika!  Good camera skills.

Joe had a meeting in LA, so while he was there he made a trip to see my newest niece, Emily.  She is really cute and I can't wait to meet her later this summer.

Uncle Joe with Emily.

So wish I were there too!

The kids are going to have fun with Ben and Noah this summer.

I had to add this shot because I love how Joe takes pictures.  It's headless Erin.  But Emily looks cute.  Check out that hair and those highlights.

Family fun!

Fun times!

 

 But it would have been more fun with me : )

So our kids picked up doing graffiti on the wall.  

Their Uncle David would be proud.

It's so fun to watch them make works of art together.  Annika was working on math and making tally marks.

Funny story about a cake.  This is what happens when you have mom brain.  So I made this adorable cake for our new neighbors who moved a few houses down our street and are in our ward.  Cute, yes, but I digress.  Because it was so cute and easy to make, a few days later I made one for us too.  While adding the chocolate chips Annika asked for a few.  Being a sucker for pleasing my kids of course I indulged her.  I was a little confused when she said the chocolate chips tasted yucky.  After trying one I had to agree those were the grossest chocolate chips I had ever tasted.  I bought them at Sunflower Market and couldn't figure out why their brand of organic chocolate chips were so nasty.  I picked up the bag to study the ingredients only to discover I had bought unsweetened carob chips.  Totally nasty.  Suddenly my mind flashed back to earlier that day in church when our neighbor asked where I got the recipe.  Pinterest of course.  Yeah, that moment of feeling I'm such a crafty neighbor, you should feel lucky you live so close to me was suddenly overshadowed by I'm so embarrassed I treated our nice neighbors to possibly the most disgusting chocolate cake ever created.  They were kind to me when I apologized and said they picked off the nasty chips.  I guess that's what I get for feeling so proud of myself, a lofty serving of humble pie.

  

Annika is looking at this picture saying those chocolate chips were gross.

Annika loves putting candles on every cake we make.  Notice the chips are only in the middle of our cake.  Too bad Annika didn't sample them earlier.

Way to blow out those candles.

Now let's eat cake!

Annika's school had a bring your parent to school day.  Joe went and they had a great time together.  I'm going to miss these days when Annika grows up and we can no longer go to school with her and experience the excitement she get going there.

Painting on the table with shaving cream.

Painting a magnet she made out of a clothespin. 

Looking adorable sitting so straight and with her ponytail.

Oh to be five and care free!