April Little Things

Darin and I got away for a temple visit at the beginning of the month. We tried out a Mexican place in Waterloo on our way there. Darin's dish was really good. Mine was not. We keep hoping we'll find some good Mexican in upstate NY, but it isn't looking likely.

Darin had a conference in Chicago the first weekend of April. His flight got cancelled out of Ithaca Thursday morning due to crazy winds. It was rescheduled to leave from Syracuse that evening, which meant that we got to have him for the day. We went up to Syracuse a bit early and went to their Science Center which the kids of course loved.

Here they are playing a little virtual basketball.

Paleontologists 

One of their exhibits was structures made out of toothpicks. So cool. 

So cool to see the SLC temple.

And Borobudor in Indonesia!

Being weightless.

Remind me to never fly with him as the pilot...

The kids and I wandered around an entire floor of the SC without Darin. When we went back to find him, he was  in the airport control room. He was so excited to tell us how many planes he had just helped land :).

The kids thought this massive 5 story structure was the coolest thing ever. 

The kids and I filled our days with fun activities while Darin was in Chicago. We went to Home Depot for their kid workshop the first Saturday of the month and build bird houses.

Then we went to the YMCA's healthy kid party where the kids patiently waited in line for SO long to get their faces painted b/c they think it is the best.

Her sweet little face. She is looking so big to me.

Shae got a breastplate from an Armor of God lesson in primary and then Darin spent the rest of Sunday afternoon making the rest of the armor with them. Made for a fun FHE the next day.

She has been falling asleep in random places much easier as of late. Loved this one Sunday afternoon that we curled up and got to snooze and cuddle a bit.

Belén’s first swim lesson.

One afternoon in April when we were so sick of being stuck inside. We went out in to the woods to explore a bit. We didn't last too long because it was still quite cold, but it definitely got us excited for warmer weather and all the outdoor adventures to come.

Trying out his kite. He was so bummed that it never flew.

Trying my hand at some new hairstyles. It's gonna take a lot of work, but I'm determined to learn to do girl hair.

Our library does lego building every Saturday afternoon. After you are done building you get to display your creation for a week out with the books. We finally went and the kids loved seeing their creations when we visited the library later that week.

Belén got pink eye in April (poor girl can't catch a break) and stayed home from church one Sunday. After Darin and I switched halfway through church, he took the car home and me and Shae walked home after branch council. I told Shae that I wanted to get a picture of him in his cute blazer when we got home and he said, "That was so much walking, I am SO tired." I heard slight variations of that line the entire 30 minute walk home. 

We read The Bright Hour for book club last month and the paragraph that starts with "Downstairs..." just about destroyed me. (It's about a woman dying of breast cancer...so heartbreaking, but a very beautiful well-written book). 

Play date with friends.

And another one with a tea party. These two and their sweet conversations get me every time.

First job interview in over 5 years (eek!) for an evening ESL teaching position. I may have been just a tad nervous, mostly about the 10 minute role play I had to do teaching something as though I was teaching an ESL class. I didn't end up getting the evening teaching job as the other candidate was one of their substitute teachers who has already worked quite a bit with the evening class. I did, however, get hired as a substitute teacher and will be starting a long term sub job next week for a teacher going on maternity leave until the end of semester (end of June). I'm feeling slightly nervous, but mostly excited about this opportunity. I've been wanting to do something like this for so long but the timing never felt right for our family. The timing probably still isn't the best since we'll be moving overseas in the fall, but I'm learning that if I wait for the "perfect" time, it may never come! Maybe it will just be a short term thing, maybe it will be something I can continue when we get back to Ithaca, who knows, but feeling very grateful for the opportunity nonetheless.

We had a lot of fun going to the South East Asian Banquet. Love this little girl in her cute batik dress.

Darin's class performed and he wanted nothing to do with it. Haha, love that outgoing man of mine.

Poor Shae has been having night terrors for the past few weeks. It's become a bit less consistent (thankfully) as of late, but for a good two weeks he would start screaming about an hour and a half after he went down. He was clearly not awake and would just cry and shake. It's kind of scary to see him like that. The crazy thing is that he has absolutely no recollection of it. Everything I've read says that it is definitely scarier for the parents than it is for them. Snapped this picture after he finally fell asleep in my arms after one of the episodes.