April

April started for us with Spring Break, and then, if possible, got even busier.  First, we knew Steve was going to take a business trip and be gone for a few days, so we planned to jam as much fun in with the girls as possible with Daddy before he was gone for a little while.  One of the things we did was take them swimming at my work, which was Mckayla's first time in the pool.

Steve then left for a fun trip to San Antonia, Texas for the National Science Teachers Conference.  He got to see animals at the conference, sit in class for hours, see lizards everywhere, visit the Alamo, and get lost on a long bus ride to see the Spurs kill the Kings.

It also got warm enough here we could enjoy the yard and sunshine.

 We learned that given the choice Ellie will often choose salads at restaurants - and then I get to try new delicious salads...

And we went whole hog into cloth diapering, finding a brand we absolutely LOVE called Bottombumpers which are much trimmer than a lot of the puffy cloth diapers.

Other than those random occurrences, April was a month of fun science and projects at our house.  First for the science - which Steve has Ellie totally hooked on right now, which is great.  Daddy brought home some left over dry ice after finishing an experiment at school and Ellie played with it and loved it.  

I love watching Steve teach her - he is both an amazing teacher and an amazing father, and watching him combine the two things he's so wonderful at is fun to watch.

Daddy also taught Ellie about "rollie pollie's" or pill bugs.  Ellie was so excited every time she saw one of these for quite a while after.

 Just read my comment above.  He's amazing.  And you know you're jealous.

Ellie also had fun wearing hats and her apron while being a "helper" while I was in the cooking mood one day.  Here she was helping make pudding for dessert.

Ellie also made some fun art creations and I took pictures of this one because I loved how painted she got while making Daddy a picture.

Other random pictures - the family having fun with balloons and fans in the play room.  Mckayla was especially funny with the fan blowing on her.  Any time you blow in her face she thinks you are being hilarious, which makes this not a great disruptive tactic when she gets upset like it was for Ellie.

We also took pictures of the girls for a Mother's Day gift for Kerry when I headed to Spokane with the girls while Steve was in Texas.  I will share just these pictures because they are PRICELESS in showing how Ellie fell apart during pictures and then was her goofy self later on a second photo shoot attempt.  Later we found out our girl was quite sick (feel like a jerk much mom? Yeah, an ER trip after 105.9 F fever, a broken fever with popsicles and watching Iron Chef waiting for Daddy to arrive from the airport late Saturday night while a church friend watched Mckayla, and another mystery fever illness that we have no idea what happened.  FUN!)  ANYWAY...  the awesome photos I was telling you about:

First Take

 Second Take - I know, she's a gem.

 The other big news of April was that by the end of the month Mckayla was an accomplished sitter and could already reach forward, grab things, and sit back upright.  At the time I thought she was growing so fast, but now looking at this picture I can't believe how much bigger she's gotten since!  Miss Mckayla also cut her first bottom tooth around April 27th, followed by the second about a week or two later - technically in May.

And hopefully that takes care of most of April without forgetting anything too important...  Oh, except one fun story... Steve was reading Ellie one of her wombat books one night and the line in the book was "I sometimes come first, but I sometimes come last."  Steve changed it to "I sometimes come first, but I sometimes come Oakland Raiders."  Such additions and changes in books are not unusual for him...  Anyway, Ellie without missing a beat pipes up "Oakland Raiders come last!  Yeah!"  Yup.  Daddy was proud.  You may call it brainwashing, but in this household we call it vital character formation to look down on the Raiders.