April Fun!

Throughout the month of April, I was super busy finishing up another round of 12 hours toward my Educational Specialist Degree.  It's definitely fair to say that I enjoy my time on the teacher side of the desk more than I enjoy my time on the student side.  I mean, the learning is good and fun, but that constant feeling of homework hanging over my head drives me nuts!  Luckily, I've completed 24 out of the required 30 hours oft his degree.  I'll take one more course in July for 5 weeks and then finish with an internship in the late fall... hopefully, unless my maternity leave prevents that from happening.  I'll be glad to be done with another degree, even though I highly doubt I'll ever use it to become a building principal.

Even though I was swamped with school work, we found plenty of time to play and have fun!  Here are few pictures from last month!

Daddy, Gracie, and I went to The Coterie at Crown Center to see The Cat in the Hat.  We stopped at Fritz' for lunch beforehand.  It's always so fun when the train delivers our burgers!

Gracie and Kianna cooked up a plan to spend the night with each other, declaring it to be the "BEST NIGHT EVER!" before I had even agreed to it.  As it turns out, they were right.  They had the "BEST NIGHT EVER" blowing bubbles and drawing with sidewalk chalk past dark, eating popcorn, taking showers, and giggling in their sleeping bags till I made them finally go to sleep at 10:30.  

Kiki looks like KISS!
I can imagine what her college years will be like!
Good luck, Steph & John!

Because I love to be creative in kitchen, I've been kind of tired of the same old lunch ideas.  I decided on this particular day to make homemade lunchables in ice cube trays.  They were a hit, even though my daughter will only eat ham if I call it "pink turkey".  So pink turkey was on the menu!

Scrum-diddly-umptious!

"The pink turkey is yummy, Momma!"

"What?!  This is HAM!"

A friend of mine, who also happens to be due with baby #2 in September, had a doctor's appointment to check up on her baby boy.  So big sister came to hang out with my crazy crew for lunch and an afternoon movie.  Natalie only got to watch for 10 minutes before I swept her off to nap, but the other girls snuggled like this for most of Aladdin.  Sweet friends!

While Daddy took his first fishing trip of the season, Gracie and I had a Momma & Gracie weekend.  We always cram tons of fun into these weekends... late nights and no naps (for Gracie... Momma always tries to squeeze one in!)  But Sunday mornings are Gracie's time to build her positive self-image with the help of her Daddy.  Without fail, every Sunday morning, Gracie gets all dolled up for church and runs to show her beautiful-self to her Dada.  He always tells her how amazing she looks and points out something extra special he notices about her.  But on our girl's weekend, Gracie got all dolled up for Natalie's 2nd birthday party.  She must've felt extra pretty with her curls because she asked if we could text Dada some pictures to show him how great she looked.  We started with silly faces and then I forced her to be sweet for just one shot!  

Happy birthday, sweet Natalie!
She looks so big in this picture, although she's still awful snuggly! 

Three pretty girls on party day!

The highlight of Natalie's party (for Gracie) was holding Miss Rachel's daughter Rylee.  Gracie is quite simply in love with Baby Rylee.  She held her for almost an hour, and still when I took her back, Gracie was complaining she didn't get to hold her long enough.  I have a feeling that I'll get that a lot once her little sister arrives.

These two could pass for sisters!

When we took the girls to see Home on our Momma & Gracie weekend, we saw some of their favorite characters.

Captain America!
And apparently that's Black Widow that Gracie's standing in front of?!
Who knew?!  Clearly, I only had a sister!

Gracie had a great time at Fun Run for a preschool friend's birthday party.  The pink icing was the only part of the cupcake she ate (of course!).  When she had finished all the icing, she came up to me saying, "I didn't like the icing."  I told her I didn't believe her, and snapped this picture to prove it!  Silly Monkey!