The Ducote Family: April happenings

The month started off with some April Fool's Fun as the kids got into it this year and decorated the mirrors in the bathrooms!

Westwood had a paper picnic one Friday where if you brought in a ream of paper for your child's class you could have a picnic lunch with them. Such a fun way to end the week and spend time with Joseph and Ella during the school day!

The school had spring pictures and although we didn't end up purchasing them due to the price and strange hand plaacmeents/poses I did snap a picture of the proofs so we have them here!

Snapped a picture of Joseph before school, too, with his hair all done and looking so handsome!

I love love love watching the kids play together. One Saturday morning they literally spent hours playing "puppy" and even though they had so many things out they were so entertaining that it totally made up for the mess!

My mom got the girls all matching dresses for Easter and of course they begged to wear them immediately, before Easter. I caved and let Julia wear hers to school one day the week prior to Easter and when I picked her up I noticed that there was almost this circular stain like mark on the top of her dress. I touched it and it felt crunchy...I asked her what it was at the same time looking inside the dress and found a piece of chewed up gum!!! She told me that she was chewing it before school and forgot to throw it out and that during circle time she realized that she had it but got nervous about it so didn't want to ask to throw it in the trash so stuck it in her dress!!! Ha ha ha!! Oh, Julia!! We talked about how her teachers wouldn't have minded and then tried to get it out. I was able to get the gum itself out but there is a permanent stain there. Quite a story though!

Four Ducotes in the bath! They are way too old for this but they loved it!

Charlotte rarely lets me do her hair in the morning but today she requested a braid and a bow so I told her I had to take a picture, which then resulted in a morning photo shoot. These two girls are so sweet together!

After we dropped Julia off at school we headed to the park to meet up with Finn, Nani and Poppa. Charlotte rode her bike with the tutu and all.

And then crashed in my bed that afternoon for a nap!

The girls are still going to Nani and Poppa's on Thursdays and they almost always end up at the Safari Park which they just love! Such special time together with Nani and Poppa!

It's even more fun when they go to Nani and Poppa's and Rudi or Zoey are there, too!

I've been starting to feel a little emotional about Julia going to TK next year and not being with me as much so I've been trying to savor and soak in the time with her. We've been eating lunch outside together a lot during this month and just spending quality time together when Charlotte is napping and the other kids are at school. I'm so thankful for this time with her.

Easter wasn't until April 21st so we had a few more weeks of face paitingin this month at the fish dinners at church on Fridays.

One Friday afternoon the cul de sac crew came to our house to jump and hang out which was a great time as always.

I did a little DIY project this month. We don't like our fireplace with the granite but isn't on the top of the priority list of projects to do around the house to renovate right now, but after I bought a new rug that really clashed with the fireplace I knew something had to be done to tone it down. So, I bought a can of chalk paint and painted the granite around the fireplace and am so happy with how it turned out! Eventually we'll get some stone on there or something but for now this is a great fix!

We went bowling at Urge in San Marcos with Nani, Poppa and the Ozeck kids one Saturday afternoon. It was the first time bowling for my kids since Texas and they had a good time! We grabbed an early dinner after there so it was a fun time!

We had an appointment one afternoon to get passports for our upcoming cruise this summer and I found these pictures on my phone after. They did a good job of entertaining themselves while waiting!

We had to get some dinner and ice cream after the appointment! They were great during the appointment and it really was an easy process and our kids LOVE going out to dinner so with that as a bribe they were great!

Entertaining themselves during Joseph's baseball games!

The school had a spring dance/festival that we went to and everyone loved! The girls wanted to dress up for it and although Joseph opted to go in his regular clothes they all had so much fun dancing, running around, eating junk food and playing games.

Rich found out that the West Point crew team was competing in a race in Mission Beach so we decided to make a family morning out of it and go check it out. It was a neat experience and they had an etntire expo set up around the race. The kids raced Daddy in an erg completion and Rich even made the leaderboard for his age group...he still has it ;).

Ella is continuing to have a good soccer season and is enjoying practices and games. We've had to divide and conquer a few times this month between her games and Joseph's baseball but we've made it work and she loves it when the Ozecks come to cheer her on and to keep her company during Joseph's long baseball games! Sad brought her hair chalk one day and they had fun in between games playing with it!

Joseph went to Zack's birthday party this month and had a great time!

Lots of baseball this month...betwen games and some extra practice with Poppa and Cole, the month was filled with baseball!

And, finally, just the typical craziness out and around the house for the month...

Charlotte's so sleepy waking up from her nap...always has to be woken up with the school pick up schedule! She isn't napping every day and when she does nap it seems that bedtime is harder for her since she isn't as tired but there are some days when she just needs a nap!