April: school! and friends!

So one sunny Saturday evening we were in the backyard and I thought I heard the front door and sure enough, it was the beautiful and amazing Emily! They were in town for a quick visit and she was running around like crazy hugging all of her friends and I'm so glad I was home and got my hug! And holy moly her girls are all crazy grown up! So good to see them.

Chuck and Clyde got some male bonding in the next Saturday when they went to the Boise State spring scrimmage with Andrew, Dan.../Bishop..., Hunter, and Ryan. And because what's male bonding without some red meat, they hit up Big Jud's afterwards for hamburgers the size of their heads. I can't really complain because they brought some home for me!

While they were out partying, I was... in partying! I got to join forces with Janell and Rachel to host a bridal shower for the adorable Allison and it was way fun. Probably my favorite part was Lee and Noah being in charge of the decorations - seriously the sweetest brothers!

I got to have Nicole's kids over one afternoon and these pictures of Myla pushing Carma around KILL ME... mostly because they mirror Nicole's and my relationship perfectly - Nicole is amazing and does so much for me while I sit around and enjoy the ride :).

Speaking of Nicole, here she is with the other amazing attendees (we missed you Nycole!) of girls' night. Fun fact: see how I'm clearly laughing awkwardly hard and trying to maintain composure?? This was SO awkward (and yet another reason I should learn how to use the selfie stick Paulina gave me hahaha) - there wasn't a Shari's employee handy so I asked a couple girls heading to the bathroom if they would take our picture real quick. They kind of laughed and said yes so I handed over my phone to one girl while the other one turned around and went back to her table.... okay? But then she started coming back with a third person and I overheard enough of the conversation to realize that SHE THOUGHT WE WANTED A PICTURE WITH THEM. Apparently they were some kind of pageant queens?? I was dying. I grabbed my phone and made a swift exit to allow her to realize her mistake sans witnesses ;).

And then this happened in the parking lot and Emily may or may not still be my friend when she sees this, but I couldn't resist - Em found a whistle (right?) that like summons Big Foot... with whom Kara is obsessed... and Kara tried it out for us haha (must have been an off night; he didn't appear...). And now I'm weirdly laughing alone in my dark house while everyone's asleep...

April = the beginning of walk/run club at Park Ridge! Carma vacillated between being super into it and running... or hopping... or bear crawling... on her own:

to lying down mid-lap and requiring various children to carry her or hold her hand hahahahaha.

Jack was a superstar - I usually just let him go and he'd end up with at least one more lap than me!

There was a fun assembly one day with players from the BSU football team; they came and talked about hard work and determination and did a great job - the students were all really into it. Will got to be one of the students to ask a question so I sneaked in to watch. They stuck around and took pictures with all of the classes afterwards which was way cool!

That afternoon we went back for another assembly - this time because Will was being recognized for the monthly character trait, specifically... something I would remember if I were a good mom, whoops! Compassion maybe? Just kidding, I remember! Self-disclipline! Whew, #nailedit

After school I tried to take advantage of my BSU-clad children and get a cute picture - I envisioned them all lined up on that slide together - but it did NOT happen haha.

I did find these playground pictures in the Park Ridge hallway though - Clyde was a character trait recognizee (possibly not a real word) twice earlier in the year and these are the other kids from those months... which were... teamwork AND... something else....

Okay, I will admit straight off that I stole these pictures from facebook but come on! Park Ridge staff made an awesome video for the kids to watch before standardized tests hit and Mr. Eilers and Miss Overcast both really got into it haha. Here's the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4f_7cW8xUk  Amazing, right? Have I mentioned lately how much we love our school?

And they must be doing something right because these are Will's crazy high scores from the IRI - Clyde's were the same at this stage. Is there an NFL equivalent for kids who can read aloud really fast?? I'm just looking for a way to retire in style off their talents, is that so wrong?

Finally, this just makes me laugh because back in April I was blogging a ton! Just not actually about April... I was trying to catch up to the end of 2015 to get mint brownies... and here I am, six months later basically in the same boat.

Spoiler alert: I did not get March done by June. I got it done last week. In October. hahahahahaha