Marpril (get it? March/April?) Recap...

Okay, in my logical mind I know that whether or not I'm caught up on blogging has no impact on how/where/when/etc this baby will come, but in my current crazypregnant mind, I would place the importance of catching up on the blog above, say, picking up newborn diapers (which we've yet to do...) on the priority list.

Thus, this lengthy write-up of a bunch of March and April stuff!

Two evenings a week for SEVEN long weeks found us at the Rec Center for swim lessons. This was one of those things that I'm glad we did but holy moly did it suck in the meantime. The first session was a semi-private course for just Clyde and Will and the fun that I had trying to keep Jack happy and out of the water is impossible to describe... without expletives :). 

The next (longer) session was regular class lessons for all THREE boys, woo! Clyde dove headfirst into Level Three, Will strengthened his strokes in Level Two, and Jack and I tried not to embarrass ourselves in Parent-Toddler. This was Jack's first time in swimming lessons and he took to it like a fish [who doesn't really care to exert himself that much] to water. 

The real treat was getting the boys all dried off and changed in the family dressing room afterwards; Jack decided two locked doors felt oppressive, so he'd try to unlock them regardless of the state of nakedness his brothers were currently in, so that was fun to try to stay on top of. And I have weird germ issues with wet floors so that was special. Luckily Chuck was there to help a few of the nights and if I was so exhausted by the time we left each evening that we for sure got McDonald's for dinner, then so be it :).

One of the brightest spots of March was a happy happy reunion with HOLLY and ELLA!! All the way from Seattle, hooray! We celebrated with a trip to Krispy Kreme:

and then came back to the house to enjoy the beautiful weather and let the kids play off their sugar high :). It was such a perfect flashback to days gone by when Holly and Ella lived close enough to just walk over and hang out for a few hours.

And Ella did awesome dealing with these three crazy boys:

Ohhh they make me happy :).

As I mentioned before, the end of March brought Will's sixth birthday, woo!

The festivities kicked off the weekend prior with a special Daddy-Will date to the Morrison Center to see 'Sid the Science Kid LIVE!'. Will loooooves Sid so when I found out it was coming so close to his birthday, I decided to splurge. I also decided to send Chuck because a) if there's anything Will loves more than Sid, it's hanging out with Chuck and b) Sid drives me slightly batty. And it was all well worth it - Will had an absolute blast. Per Chuck, he stood up almost the whole time and danced and laughed and called out answers and we'll probably never be able to top that birthday gift :).

The festivities continued on Will's actual birthday with a last-minute playdate/party. He invited over some girls his own age (Ivy and Hallie) and some girls a little older (Grandma Pam, Holly, and Karlina) and we had a great time:

Of course Will wanted a Sid birthday cake and I said no, because that sounded really hard to finagle. Luckily grandmas are indulgent and nice and creative, so my mom put together that super cute Sid cookie and luckily bffs are indulgent and nice and creative, so Holly did the "W" and the magnifying glass on the top of the cake. Will loved it all!

Chuck helpfully told all the wee children they could have seconds of cake and ice cream, so he was obviously then in charge of taking them outside to burn off that energy with some freeze tag:

And because, again, Holly is awesome, she got in on the action. These are some of my favorite shots: the one with both of my little boys on the ground, the one with Chuck on the ground, and the one of Holly snaking out her hand to unfreeze Will. That was basically her main job; Will would get tagged and immediately call out, "Holly! Come unfreeze me!", which she would and then he would go about two steps and get tagged again, thus continuing the cycle :).

Then we came inside to open some cute cards and presents, including his brrrrannnnddd nnnneeewwww bike! Which he profusely thanked Daddy and Clyde for, since Clyde was the one to wheel it in. It's cool; I'm not in this parenting thing for the credit. That much.

Hmmm, it's all becoming a bit more clear why Will invited so many girls to his party.....

Will's final birthday festivities occurred that weekend when I was gone for my girls' trip. Chuck took the boys to the church parking lot for bike riding AND to a real fancy movie theater to see the LEGO Movie, courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Izatt! (Thank you, thank you; they loved it!)

We've done lots of bike-riding in the front yard lately; Clyde is now old enough to tool around in the street (we love living on a quiet stretch!) and venture as far as a couple friends' houses nearby. In fact, there's a fairly hilarious story related to that buuuut I think I'll save it for a rainy day. It deserves a post of its own, haha.

Oh, right after I had my girls' trip, Chuck got to split town himself and go on a work trip to . . . . New Mexico!

Specifically, Albuquerque. We missed him lots and were happy to have him home at the end of the week and mad props to anyone who sends their spouse off on a regular basis!! Jack and I did enjoy picking Chuck up at the airport, minus the bit where Jack ran THE WRONG WAY INTO THE PLACE WHERE IT SAYS DO NOT ENTER A BAJILLION TIMES and I had to run in after him (an hilarious sight, I'm sure) and grab him and I expected TSA to tackle us both any second. Good times.

Oh, here are some cute pictures I found on Chuck's phone:

Oh, it was Easter a couple of weeks ago! Chuck had to work, but he was a superstar and filled eggs the night before and hid them that morning so the boys could wake up to an Easter egg hunt, which they loved:

 Obviously my priority on Easter was making sure the boys looked cute and pastel-y for a happy family Easter picture. I'll let you decide how well that worked out...

 

 Buuuut if you take Clyde from the first picture and Will from the second picture and Jack from the third picture and put them all together, then I did it! Go me!

 And that night after Chuck got home, he spearheaded a family egg-dyeing activity, to rave reviews:

 Random pictures of cute brothers gliding together :).

March and April took us outdoors for some gardening work, which is always fun and also adorable:

 We had a Will-led Family Home Evening outside one night to plant some of our early crops: spinach, lettuce, sugar snap peas... maybe something else? Can you tell I was super involved? :)

 And finally, I joined instagram, wooo! The incredibly sweet Heidi bequeathed me her old iphone and I figured with instagram I can flood the interweb with pictures of the new baby without clogging everyone's fb feeds (although I'm sure plenty of them will be cross-posted, no worries).

So here are the last pictures for this post, in their instagram form:

 Chuck was around on a Sunday, woo! He works every other Sunday and the Sundays he's off are usually pretty full of meetings, so we were pretty thrilled when he had some extra time one week to read with the boys :).

 That same afternoon/evening, we followed up reading time with a family walk around the neighborhood. The sunshine may have been a little bright when I went to take this picture:

 And after months of talking about doing it, I finally got together with my dear Andrew and Emily for lunch, hooray!

Next up will be a girls' date (sorry, Andrew and Tim!) to a creperie Emily brought up - sometime around your bday Em??

HOLY MOLY, congratulations if you made it through this whole post. I wanted to quit like five times writing it, so you're a superstar for reading it all! And there's still more from April (bfsc weekend! youth talent show for church!) that will require their own posts. Soon!! Before I do laundry again! Priorities!