Craziest month ever!!

I have been stalling.  I admit it.  I'm just a little unsure how to blog Eric and the girls' Japan trip, because I wasn't there!  So I'm skipping it for now.  

April (and the first part of May!) was perhaps the busiest month our family has experienced, in terms of travel/huge events.  It was really fun and really crazy!!  I am finally catching my breath.  This post will be about all the non-travel events.

First of all, we see the MacKays about weekly since they moved to Utah!!  It is SO WEIRD but obviously SO GOOD!  I am just not used to it yet, I wonder how long it will take me to get used to the fact that I don't have to be sad when we say goodbye, because we'll be seeing them again next week!  And I am super excited because I already feel like I've gotten to know my nieces and nephews better.  So here are the kids playing dress-up while we prepared Easter dinner,

 And here they are doing a "play"- of which Katelyn was the narrator/main character lol.

 Next up is Katelyn's Rococo performance.  She is getting more comfortable with learning choreography, which is awesome to see!  I was super impressed at the improvement in her dancing from the Fall to Spring performance.  She loves to sing and was really animated and cute up on stage....I think we'll be driving her to Santaquin for Rococo for a long time to come!!

So here she is 4th from the right- the theme was 80's and 90's

and she rocked it!

 and Whitney and her MacKay cousins rocked it in the audience!  They were dancing the whole time!

 Katelyn also had a small solo and did great on it, even trying to dance a little while singing it. :)

 Then it was Whitney's turn in the spotlight; she had her Let's Play Music 3rd year recital!  It is a great program and she loved it up until the last couple of months.  I was right there with her; I loved hearing her play but was ready to be DONE with her teacher who was a little annoying.  after 5 years I need a break!!  

 Whitney did awesome on the cute song she wrote, America's Beauty.  It was very creative and she has a lot of talent that will hopefully carry over into private lessons!

 Random shot of Maris doing her "more!" face and arm motions- she does this at every meal!

We surprised the kids with a combined birthday present of a new swingset/playground!  They had been lamenting our lack of backyard toys, so they were super happy!  It's a really nice one that should last practically forever (Eric refused to get a wood one!) and it only took like 10 hours for Eric to build haha.  He is the best!

 Nice backdrop, eh? We are loving green spring in Salem!!

 Now to steal a post from instagram/facebook:

Katelyn totally SHOCKED me by winning her heat of the 50 meter dash trials and making the semi-final! I was so thrilled to hear them call her name. smile emoticonOkay so she was in a slow heat. And there were 8 heats of semi-finals. But that's narrowed down from 39 heats of trials! And this is the girl who "hates running" and purposely signed up for the shortest races. Well I didn't hear any complaining as she excitedly lined up for her heat of the semifinal. Or as she breathlessly smiled at the end even though she took 3rd in that heat. smile emoticon‪#‎thejoyofrunning‬ ‪#‎aboveaverage‬ ‪#‎itsthelonglegs‬

start of the 50- she's in turquoise

 middle of the 50 meter dash

 This was her in the 100 meter dash.

 and the standing long jump.  She was super cute and I'm glad she had a positive experience. :)

 Maris eating licorice/grass at Katelyn's track meet!

 And last but not least, the girls had a pool party when we got our new kiddie pool, and ALL the girls in our neighborhood came!  Like 12 of them!  It was hilarious.

And that was all the home stuff for April!