In April, Anna turned 2! I had a lot of fun making her this puppy cake. And she loved it. It was so fun to see her pointing at it and giggling and saying, "Foo, foo" over and over again. (She calls dogs "foo-foos".) I've never seen a girl who loves dogs as much as Anna. When we drive around, she always spots them. She says, "foo-foo, walk, cute".
These are some of the gifts she got. She loves to dress up, especially with jewelry. She loves to play with dolls, and purses, and backpacks. She loves to be big. Anna is such a sweet girl. She also gets into increasing amounts of trouble. Some days she literally makes messes faster than I can clean them up. It's exhausting, but in the funnest way.
We really enjoyed being outside this month. We went to lots of parks and had play dates with our friends. We enjoyed working in our yard and discovering all the beautiful plants. We've also started a little garden in our green house, and are hoping it will grow well.
We got to wash the car as a family, in our driveway for the first time. This was a big deal. The kids had so much fun!
We went to Boise for Easter/Spring Break. On the way, we stopped at the Shoshone Falls in Twin Falls. They are called the Niagra of the West, but as you can see, it wasn't too impressive this year. In wetter years, all of those rocks would have water flowing down. It was a fun way to break up the trip.
The kids did great on the drive, and we were able to make it faster than we have in a very long time. As you can see, they are snug as 3 bugs in a rug in our bag seat, but usually they handle it really well. We've thought a lot about vans this month, and hope to be able to find one soon. (How do you decide between having no car payment, but taking a risk on an older vehicle and spending a little more now to have a car that will last as long as we need it to?)
While we were in Boise, we did an Easter egg hunt with our cousins. (Their mom just had a baby girl!)
We went to church and enjoyed a yummy Easter dinner, including a coconut bunny cake!
We also colored Easter eggs. The boys were done in about 5 minutes, but Mary sat for at least an hour, coloring and recoloring and stamping, and glittering, etc. her precious 5 eggs. This one was her favorite.
Also, this month, we started trying to get everything ready for the baby. Daniel moved down stairs. Our basement isn't sectioned off into bedrooms, so we just put his bed in the corner of one of the big rooms. We're in the process of building a wardrobe for him. Anna moved into a toddler bed in Mary's room. I've had fun decorating their room with girly things.
I feel like the fact that I only have 6 weeks of pregnancy left kind of snuck up on me. I still have so many things to do, and don't feel at all prepared for his birth or the stressful newborn stage to follow. We're trying to stay positive and hopeful and just take everything one day at a time.
Thanks for the post, Lisa! I always like hearing it and seeing your pictures. Your kids are so cute! Good luck as you prepare for the baby.
ReplyDeleteI really like Mary's expression with the egg!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the photos and stories.
ReplyDeleteWe have recently struggled a lot with the question of car payment vs. reliability. I mean, ideally we would have saved enough to just buy a slightly used model under warranty with no payment, but so far that has never been our reality. We still owe about $17000 on our 2012 van and we have been really struggling with the question of whether to sell it and buy an older vehicle that we can afford or just try to pay it off as fast as possible. We recently sold my truck because we couldn't afford the new engine it needed, and then paid off the repair bill and bought an older car with the remaining money from the sale. So far it has worked out ok, but now I drive a kind of junky car that might break down more often, so its hard to say what the best choice is.
I can't say that this always works out, but when our van got totaled 3 1/2 years ago we decided to only spend the amount we got from the insurance on the car so that we wouldn't have a payment. We were able to get a car that was the same year, a 2004, which was 6 years old at the time. To find one within that budget we ended up having to get one with more miles than we had hoped, but we were able to find one with a good record of routine maintenance. In the end it has worked out for us. The car is still working well. With being 10 years old now and having lots of miles there have been repairs that we have to do, but only around $1000 dollars a year I would guess, maybe a little more. Compared to a monthly car payment is really not bad. This is allowing us to save up to by the next car without financing, hopefully.
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