April 2014

I am totally playing catch up :) Seems weird to be looking at snow and skiing photos in the middle of summer, but here's a recap of April...

We went on a wonderful weekend getaway with the Stones to Tahoe! We were lucky enough to have one of the best weekends up there of the entire season...Tahoe really had NO snow until the week before we went! We even had a little winter wonderland as we drove in, dumping on us as we made our first stop to sled! It was great! Grady and Malin learned how to ski...they spent one full day at ski-school at Alpine Meadows. By the end of the day when we picked them up, they were both skiing down the bunny slope all by themselves. Well, if I'm completely honest, Grady was doing his own thing, skiing wherever he wanted to, and getting into some mischief by not being near his instructor :) Noetheless, they had fun, and they sure looked cute all bundled up in their ski gear (maybe not as cute as the Littles, though!). 

We crafted our first snowman, built our first igloo, had some serious sledding adventures, and watched Frozen. 

Can't wait to do it again next year~

And even weirder, is to go from Winter-wonderland to Spring time and Easter! But, that is one of the greatest perks of living in the Bay Area...literally, we drove just shy of 3 hours home from Tahoe to an 80 degree sunny, spring day. 

Our big project this spring was building some additional garden boxes on the side yard. John built them entirely by himself. I must say, I was impressed. I mean, he is in construction for a living, but the only thing he has truly really built by himself (and he had some good help) was the bench he gave me for our engagement. So when he had the 3 new boxes finished in nearly a days time, I couldn't have been more pleased. They are beautiful! It took us ALL day to get them in place, filled with soil and leveled, and we had 2 very good helpers assisting in the wheel barreling of soil :) The boxes are now filled with the biggest tomato plants I've ever grown! I'll post a picture when I get to June! 

Another Spring time event to note was Grady's special visitor. One day while we were reading in his room, we kept hearing a "peck, peck, peck." It sounded like someone was tapping at our door. Well, we finally realized it was a little tiny bird at his window tapping away on the glass with his beak! He was soon joined by a little friend and they literally hung around and pecked for 3 whole days! It was the craziest thing! We never found a nest, and still are not sure what they were up to, but it was 3 days of good entertainment for us all, especially when Grady decided to name the birdie Little Pecker. And his friend was Not Pecker. Maybe you can see Little Pecker himself in the photo below :)

A couple of random spring photos...Henry the Artiste, at the Habitot on a rainy morning. And the 2 brothers watching a "lil something" after nap with a snack :)

And we finished the month celebrating Easter, the beautiful culmination of Spring truly painting the perfect picture of New Life. We died our own Easter eggs again and the Easter Bunny paid a visit to the Branagh boys :) We had lunch and spent the afternoon with cousins and family and went to church in the evening followed by an Easter feast! It was a fun, but very long day, indeed, as you can see from the last picture when at the end of the day realized that we didn't get a single picture of the boys together in their Easter suits and forced Grady to put his tie back on. Clearly, I should have let it go, because this is the only picture we got from that lovely photo shoot :) 

I remember last year somewhat avoiding talking about Jesus's death on the Cross, for fear that G wouldn't understand yet, nor was he ready. But this year, I think he gets it. He talks about Heaven a lot, asking questions about what it is like, what we can take with us, and not wanting to die to get there. He says that he wants to stay in our house forever, with Mommy, Daddy, Henry, and Belle and never leave. Sometimes I agree :) Even though deep down I know that when we get to meet our Savior face to face, it will be one glorious celebration.