April

The kids started out the month by playing an April Fool's joke on Jono.  They filled a peep with toothpaste and gave it to him!  (But, the joke was really on them; Jono could smell the toothpaste and just pretended to eat it, they still don't know.)  Then, we took a Spring Break road trip to St. George with Grammy and Grandpa.  It was a great getaway!  The kids watched "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" on the way down.  Rosie yelled out the window near Cedar City, "Is that a centaur?", and we all laughed hysterically.   Jono is meeting us later in the week, we drove down with Grammy and Grandpa.  It was so nice to stop for a potty break; Jono will never stop!

Once there we went to the park, shopped at Target for supplies (Bud bought his first razor!), and at dinner at Chili's.  Coleman and I shared steak fajitas.  He ate all the meat (he loves meat; he refers to himself as a carnivore) and I ate all the veggies.  Unfortunately, we can tell that Bud is getting very sick.

The next day, I took Bud to an Instacare.  He has strep throat!  He got a shot of antibiotics in the hip that stung so bad he let go of his pants and they fell to the floor.  We don't have time for sickness on vacation and we dragged poor Bud with us at a non-stop pace the rest of the week.  Afterwards, we went swimming.  Coleman was so excited to jump in the hot tub that he forgot to take off this golf shirt!  We ate dinner at the Pasta Factory and Grandpa bought Bud a new tie at Christenson's to help him feel better.

Jono finally got here and the men and Bud went golfing.  Bud was feeling a well enough to take $5 off Grandpa on the golf course.  The women and Coleman went to Brigham Young's winter home.  There were lots of pictures and artifacts from our great, great, great-aunt Amelia Folsom who was married to Brigham Young.

After lunch, I took Rosie to get contacts!  She was so excited and not nervous at all about putting the contacts in and taking them out.  The woman helping Rosie said, "I love it, no fear! She just digs right in her eye!"  You really notice Rosie's beautiful blue eyes when she wears her new contacts, but I also miss her cute look in glasses.

Later we went fishing and caught so many fish!  It was windy, however, and we were grateful to eat dinner inside at Cafe Rio.  Back at the house, we finished the puzzle and let the kids stay up late watching "We Bought a Zoo", while we watched The Masters.

The next day was my birthday and I ate my favorite French toast for breakfast.  We went to an Art's Festival where we met Eric Dowdle selling his own puzzles.  Coleman told him it was my birthday and he gave me a calendar.  Jono and I bought an oil painting from a local artist to add to our collection of art.  Later everyone went to the golf course while my mom and I shopped for perfume for my birthday.  Coleman beat Jono in a chipping contest and said, "Can you believe a kid born in 2005 can beat someone born in 1968 in a chipping contest?!!"

We celebrated the April birthdays at Texas Roadhouse.  Coleman ate a 7 ounce steak and Bud and Rosie shared a fillet; they all ordered their meat medium-rare.  It was a yummy dinner!  The next day we went for a hike.  Coleman explored every side trail; uphill and downhill, and was scrapped and dirty by the end of the hike.  Grammy caught a frog and put it in a water bottle.  Bud said in awe, "My mom never would have done that!"  It was a very scenic hike and we all loved it.  That was the last activity, we then cleaned up and drove home just in time for Easter Sunday.

After church, we ate a delicious lamb dinner and watched The Masters.  The kids had an Easter Egg hunt in the back yard and we enjoyed the beautiful daffodils and tulips growing all around our yard.  

Later in the month Rosie got sick, then sick again.  Both times she had strep throat.  The second time I took her the doctor's office she had also been exposed to whopping cough at school.  She had to take a heavy duty antibiotic to get well.  Luckily she was healthy for her birthday!  She has done so well with her contacts; very responsible and able to take them in and out by herself.  She has astigmatism in one eye and that contact is huge.  She has such long eyelashes that she really needs to hold them back and open her eyes wide to get the contacts in.

One afternoon I got a call from the school to pick up Coleman.  He had been hit in the nose with a ball at recess and had a bad bloody nose.  Poor little guy!  Regardless of a few sad days, we had a great month!

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Rosie's Birthday

Rosie turned 11 this year; it's a fun birthday for a special girl!  We sang to her early this month at Texas Roadhouse during Spring Break in St. George.  It was actually my birthday, so we celebrated both April birthdays.  She was surprisingly embarrassed by the attention, something very unusual for her.  

The day before her birthday, we had a family party for her.  We served her favorite whoopie pies and she wore her new Toms from Grandma and Grandpa and showed off her new bike. After school on her birthday, we hit a bucket of balls and putted at Fore Lakes, then she opened her presents.  How fun!

Rosie choose to have a big friend birthday party this year.  She invited all the girls from school and the neighborhood over for a campfire party.  They grilled hotdogs and roasted marshmellows for s'mores.  Those girls ate so much food!  They made up skits and performed them for each other, then sang campfire songs.  It was a fabulous night!

We love Rosie so much!  She has her sassy moments, but she is mostly very sweet and funny.  She takes good care of Coleman now that they are the only two at the elementary school.  She loves to play with her friends and her cousins, and she loves school and primary.  Rosie is a very good writer and enjoys ballet, reading and playing the violin.  She is always laughing, singing and having fun. 

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Don't Tell Dad

Even though we have only been in our new house for only 6 months, we have had our fair share of "don't tell dad" moments.  Jono thinks it is good that the children are scared of him, I think it's ironic because I am the strict parent doling out the punishment.  Here are some happenings we'd like to share. 


Bud is responsible for two "don't tell dad" moments.  The first was when he inexplicably climbed under the pingpong table and crawled over the board underneath, snapping it in two.  We can no longer prop the table in half and practice hitting against it as a back board.  We knew something was wrong when Bud yelled upstairs, "Mom, can you please come down here but don't bring dad?"  The next was when he stepped on Rosie's bottom shelf in her closet to reach something high.  The shelf cracked.  Bud tried to say it was already like that, that he does it all the time in his closet and it never breaks.  Again, he begged me not to tell dad.


Rosie knows we have a rule about not climbing out the basement windows to get outside.  It is very tempting because the window wells are dug out and rocked.  When friends are over and want to do it, it's hard for Rosie to say no.  She has tried to sneakily do it, but when she is suddenly outside playing without coming up the stairs, I know what she did.  Instead of being afraid of me, she just begs, "Please don't tell dad!"


That is minor compared to what happened in February.  Rosie was getting ready to shower and flung her shirt up in the air.  It landed on the bathroom lights over her mirror and sink, she didn't notice and was singing loudly in the shower.  Later, I finished reading to Coleman in his room when I smelled something burning.  I ran down the hall to the stairs, but the smell got fainter.  I turned back and could tell it was coming from Rosie's room.  By now the shirt was smoking and ready to burst into flames.  Rosie still had no idea, even though the bathroom was filled with smoke.  I grabbed the shirt, put it in the sink and turned on the water.  Rosie cried when she realized what happened, and said "Don't tell dad!"  I assured her he would smell the burning and he would know what happened.  It was very scary for me to think about what could have happened if I wasn't downstairs at the time.  I didn't sleep that night and Rosie still gets scared to talk about it.

My moment of panic about telling Jono something happening soon after moving in.  Our driveway is narrow and curved, making it difficult to back out of.  After hitting the curb, and once going up over it, I finally mastered it.  Luckily, I usually don't back out, I turn around in the driveway and go out straight.  I park in the double sided garage, Jono parks in the single.  It's a little tricky to manuver because we have a giant pine tree in our driveway.  My "uh-oh" moment came when I tried to park in the single garage space and scraped the van against the side of the house.  We have since sold the van, but the stucco mark reminds us daily of my mishap.

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