Loving me some April (Part 2)

Continuing with the adventures of the month (post 1 here)....

Birthday for Poppy!  Celebration at Lauren and William's house!

Homemade cards and gifts can be a lengthy process.

The is one loved Poppy that is for sure!

Zoe got her belated birthday present from Aunt Lauren...

Which she loved of course!

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Part 2 of the zoo field trips, this time with the second graders.  Zoe was pretty excited to find an owl (her favorite animal).

A posed area for many years!

I must say this trip was a lot less stressful with calmer children and more parental help.

Although, I always wish I could spend more time with the sea lions but the kids seem to busy to stay long.

It was another special morning for sure!

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One beautiful Saturday we stopped by our car repair place, Mickeys, for a fun little celebration!

All the kids were pretty excited to see the firetruck!

And to even pretend to drive one!

(They were barefoot pretty much the whole time due to the fun of the jumpy house).

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"Who wants a ride to bed?"  Double duty with both of the girls meant it was more of a sloth ride with this good sport of a dad.  

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It was little man's turn for a birthday date with Aunt Lauren.  

Topped off with a trip to Chick-fil-a!

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Rainy day sisters means an excuse to use her umbrella!

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There are often days I can't do much of anything....so I came up with "10 minute time" where each child gets one on one time with an activity of their choice.  Shiloh was really into giving me art lessons for awhile!  Rainbow fish this day!

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One of my favorite times is right before nap time....

where we still have lots of snuggles with our singing and praying each day!

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Another day's 10 minute time we made little ballerinas!  (And by we I mean me, and Zoe watched.)

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Love my boys!

Thankful for the fun highlights of another mixed month!

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Arting it with the Birthday Man

A birthday is a great excuse for a date night with my man!  Before we had littles we enjoyed going to Artista Vista, and since it fell on his actual birthday this year, we headed downtown and grabbed some dinner first!

We made our own little lanterns, which was a fun activity to break things up.  I had our girls in mind when I made mine, as I knew they would want to keep it!

For some reason Beach didn't want to march in the lantern parade (Ha!) - with as much walking as we did my heeled sandaled feet was good with that.

I was a little disappointed that there were very few galleries participating, as there were many in the past, but we did enjoy the ones that we saw.

Except when I was making Beach really nervous with my lantern, as he was scared I was going to knock into some art work or something.  (A pretty mural calls for another picture....am I right?)

What I didn't know about was a new artist building (near One Eyed Cow - which we also enjoyed) that had their grand opening that night.  Many different rooms set up with a variety of artist.

This was by far my favorite; this amazing artist used pieces of toys and whatnot's to create beautiful pieces of art...

The fascinating thing about it, though, was that because the space was not that wide, you could not tell exactly what it was unless you looked through your phone or magnifying glass.

I enjoyed getting to know her and will keep my eye out for her unique original work in the future!  It was a great way to end the night!

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The parting was not over yet for Beach....as we celebrated with the family a few days later.

Shiloh collected the cards and had Beach read them.

There were some fun gifts as well...

and of course, cake!

(Mom even made it gluten free so I could have some - She is the best!)

We so love being together

Another great birthday in the books!  So beyond thankful to have this amazing man in my life, as my support and BFF!

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Strawberry Fileds Forever

 A beloved family tradition is for us to go strawberry picking.  I wasn't feeling all that well but slept in, saved up some energy and headed off with the parents when Beach had to work on Saturday.

Last year I think we went to late in the season, so we were pumped when we found that the strawberries were so bountiful!

I could hear people walking by talking about how one should not eat them out of the fields, but I don't know how this is even possible...that is the best part! (Plus it made me feel a bit better knowing how Cottle Farm cares for their crops and the quality of the berries - worth the longer drive from my house).

The littles were all were great helpers (although I spent a lot of time sorting through the "picked" ones....most of the "rejects" got eaten don't worry).

These girls crack me up!

I love this face of messy giggles!

Right near by is a community park, and since it is quite a haul from a house, we enjoyed having a picnic by the water.

And then exploring around a bit....

So thankful for this precious gift of a morning and adding it to the treasures of my heart.  (Thanks Mom and Dad for joining the fun!  I couldn't have done it without your support!)