Welcome April

April was a great month, and we welcomed April into our house with open arms.


General Conference

AWESOME (as usual).

We did our traditional song pool again.  Here were the stats:

Nathan: 35%
Rachel: 42%

At the end of general conference, Nathan said to me "I'm starting to realize that you end up winning the majority of the song pools."

We had the missionaries over for a couple of the conference sessions as well.  Hannah enjoyed the extra company.

On Sunday I had a mild migraine, which made it harder to focus and concentrate.  Ugh.

Easter

Hannah and I dyed Easter eggs in between conference sessions on Saturday.  She enjoyed it so much that when we started eating them the next day she had issues.  She didn't like us eating the "colored eggs."

The Easter bunny made a stop at our house.  Hannah LOVED seeing what was left behind.

Hannah fell in love with her new clothes that the Easter bunny brought.  She put on all of them immediately, along with some of her other clothes, and came out dressed like this (she calls these her "fairy clothes":

It was too cold outside on Easter, so we did an Easter egg hunt indoors.  I think Hannah's favorite part of the hunt is opening up the eggs later and seeing her loot.

Hannah in her Easter dress (thanks Mom!).

Rachel's birthday
It was my birthday this month.  Woo woo!  My birthday present was a day in the basement for me to work on some furniture projects, while Nathan stayed upstairs and worked on his "honey-do list." That was exactly what I wanted and wished for.

I got one of my furniture pieces done in April.  I had a friend give me this nightstand/small dresser back in January.  It's been too cold in my basement to work on things (until my birthday), so I did a quick sanding job and then painted it.

Later that day, we had the missionaries over for dinner and ate some cake!  I had to use one big candle because I didn't have any birthday candles in the house.  Oh well.

Warmer Weather

Spring is finally here.  HOORAY!  It's been so nice going outside for walks, riding bikes, playing in dirt, etc.

We have even made a trip to eat some ice-cream at a local dairy shop.  We brought sprinkles for Hannah to put on her ice-cream.  This kid will do almost anything for sprinkles.

Odds and ends

Hannah wanted to snuggle with Nathan one day when he got home from work.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home and wasn't quite ready to wake up.

We were in church a few weeks ago and Hannah just laid down on my lap during Sacrament meeting. That's never happened before.  Warmer weather + longer days + being outside more = a tired child (no complaints here).

There was a beautiful rainbow just outside our front door a few days ago.  Hannah was excited to see it and asked if "we could ride on it."  I guess Rainbow Brite and the Care Bares make it look fun and easy to do.

I serve as a secretary in the Relief Society for our ward.  Our Relief Society president brought this to me on the 22nd (Secretaries Day).  We had a good laugh about it because I put Secretaries Day in her calendar about 6 months ago.

One day I was so tired from doing all kinds of jobs/tasks, and I was a little chilly too.  I had just finished baking cookies so I opened the oven and just sat there to absorb the warmth (no worries, the oven was off).  Nathan came home and found me just like this:

Pre-school Graduation

Not sure why there was graduation in April, especially since the pre-school kids go to school the whole month of May.  At first, I thought these graduations were pretty silly to have.  But after watching this one I came to the realization that they are more like concerts/recitals for the kids because they sing all the songs they learned, and show the parents many other things they did during the school year.

After the ceremony we had a party in the classroom.  Hannah enjoyed the food, especially the "pancakes."  She keeps calling cupcakes pancakes.

Snowmen in April

Each month, Nathan visits his assigned unit for his calling on the high council.  In April, Hannah and I decided to tag along with Nathan.  We were invited over to eat lunch at a home near Punxsutawney. This couple has a HOUSE-FULL display of snowmen.  Not kidding.  There were snowmen E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E you looked.  Hannah was in heaven.

Purchase of a car
We bought a car!  Long, LONG story behind this one.  I'll post more about that though in May.  In the meantime, Hannah is very excited about the new (to her) "blue car."

Maniacal March

March was pretty crazy this year.  Here's how it went down.


Ice storm

March started out really rough: we got an ice-storm.  Sigh.

I've been through worse ice-storms living in Iowa, but this one was still bad.  Penn State even cancelled everything, which NEVER happens!

We went to go shovel our driveway and it was a solid sheet of ice.  Honestly, we could have ice-skated on the driveway.  I had to scrape the ice while Nathan shoveled off the driveway.  It was definitely a two person job.  Hannah I think was the only one that enjoyed the ice.

Snow Day

Mid-month we got some more weather (will it ever stop?).  It snowed about 3 inches one day, and thankfully it melted the next.  The neighborhood kids had fun trying to make a snowman.

Church callings

This is our 3rd March is PA, and each time it has proven to be extremely busy with callings. We have a very large Stake geographically.  It's about the size of New Jersey -- not kidding.

Well this March it was Nathan's church calling that had him going everywhere (quite literally). He went to Altoona (4 times), Brookville, and Johnstown -- a total of 753 miles in one month.  WOW!

In fact, of the 5 Sundays this month he was gone doing high council stuff 4 weeks in a row. Unfortunately, on the last Sunday when we could have gone to church together, Hannah was sick so Nathan stayed home with her.  I have a new found respect for Bishops and Stake Presidents.



Parties

Hannah got to go with me to a Relief Society activity because Nathan had a separate church meeting that night.  She was quite happy to go get toys from the nursery and play with them. But then she found her buddy (a girl I visit teach), and Hannah sat next to Coop the rest of the night.

Hannah had several St. Patrick's Day parties with her co-op school, and her pre-school.  A leprechaun came during one of the parties and left some treats.  She loves her parties!

Eating Vegetables

The last few months Hannah has started to branch out to new foods.  But she has always been very obstinate about vegetables.  So I made a deal with her: if she ate some vegetables then she could have chips.  That sealed the deal.  This kiddo will do anything for chips (especially "green" chips).

She will now eat green beans, corn, carrots, peas, red bell peppers, and even yogurt now.  And we're talking large portions too.  Wahoo.  We are making progress.



Haircut

I finally got Hannah's haircut.  It was starting to look scraggly and uneven so I took her in.  This was her first haircut ever! (Remember, she was bald for about 2 years).  She loved getting her haircut.

After Hannah's haircut, I showed her the trimmings on the floor.  She looked at it and said "that's my hair?!"  I replied yes, and then she said "we put it back on?"  Cute.



Fun stuff

Hannah finally finished her Valentine candy early in the month.  One of her Valentine's were some marshmallows and toothpicks, and she constructed Olaf.  This was her interpretation of what the snowman should look like.

Hannah dresses herself about 90% of the time now.  Most of the days I don't really care what she wears.  But on other days I have her change clothes if she will be going out in public.  This was one crazy outfits she put on.

Nathan had a $5 gift card to Barnes and Noble, so we gave it to Hannah.  We made a trip to the store and she played with some Lego's before making her big purchase.

Hannah got to choose how she wanted to spend the $5.  Her decision: a princess coloring book with stickers.

Sometimes at night while she is asleep, I will take her coloring book and color a page or two. She likes those pages a lot and will ask me to find them for her.  It's really cute.

Speaking of princesses, she likes to dance to the frozen song "Let it Go."  She likes to mimic Queen Elsa.

And on the last Saturday in March, we did a lot of chores around the house.  Nathan and Hannah tightened loose screws, while I did a very thorough deep cleaning of the bathrooms.