April Phone Pictures

April Fools Day is kind of a major holiday at our house, haha, and this year was no different. Curt came up with an awesome scavenger-hunt-puzzle thing where he locked up the fridge (since the boys always go down first thing in the morning to have cereal and milk), and he had clues hidden around the house to give the numbers to the code to unlock it. (He also hid the cereal the in the process, haha)

We set up the Wyze Cam to watch and see the boys' reactions...and as we logged in to watch everything unfold in the morning, we found our own surprise...

Apparently Tucker had gotten up in the middle of the night (1:30 am!) to set up some pranks of his own. We weren't sure whether to be proud or mortified, haha, but it was pretty funny to see some of his middle-of-the-night shenanigans. And then the best was Calvin's reaction in the morning when he went down and realized the Wyze Cam was on--and he turned it around haha:

Tucker had all kinds of pranks--including the traditional putting salt in the sugar container, making "cinnamon sugar" out of salt & cumin, attaching a balloon to the bathroom wall with a pin on the door, so when someone opened the door the balloon popped, switching out all my workout DVD's with kids movies, and taping a minion figurine to the backup camera on our car, as pictured below:

As frustrating as some of his pranks were, we were pretty impressed, hahaha.

That night the boys & I ding-dong ditched some "brownies" (brown colored "E's") to some friends, with a package of real brownies to go with.

I forgot to take a picture of the whole package before we delivered them, so here's a screenshot of our neighbors' instastory about it, haha:

General Conference. With everything going on in the world with COVID-19 and quarantine and everything, we were so excited to hear from the prophet and apostles and receive some much-needed guidance and peace. This is how conference started out--with everyone paying attention and taking notes:

And this is how it ended, haha:

Mom & Hallie conference selfie:

And Hudson playing in the bean box in the background:

We were excited about the prophet's invitation to participate in another worldwide fast on Good Friday. Bronco even joined in with the rest of us and fasted for the first time, for almost the full 24 hours!

April brought more kitchen scale weight-checks for Hallie, though I wasn't nearly as stressed about it anymore.

The boys found a family/group of snakes living in our window well (ewwww!), and they loved to get them out and hold them. They said it was like having pet snakes, and I reassured them that that was the closest they would EVER get to having real pet snakes. ;) This picture still makes me shiver...!

Curt's birthday. With it being a quarantine birthday, we kept it pretty low key--he worked from home for part of the day, took the afternoon off to start working on a shed he got, then we had a delicious dinner of smoked brisket, and a few family members and friends stopped by for social-distancing visits in the front yard.

Curt's parents took this picture of us as we visited them 6 ft apart in our driveway. :)

And our friends Ryan & Suzy were so kind to stop by and drop off some chocolate chip cookies...and Hudson helped himself to quite a few and got super messy, haha:

This is how Curt spent the afternoon of his birthday--prepping the ground on our side yard for a shed:
(doesn't seem very exciting, but he was actually really excited about it!)

Calvin helped him build a platform a few days later:

And Collin was so kind to come down and help assemble the shed to make it go faster--his birthday present to Curt. 

All finished:

It's mostly to store the boys' bikes; Curt was getting really frustrated with his car getting dinged every time the boys got their bikes in and out of the garage, so he found a good deal on a shed to store the bikes and help clear out our garage. It's been really nice to have! (and we have more stuff in here now than just the bikes) ;)

Bronco loves to hold Hallie every chance he can get...for about 42 seconds, and then he's done, haha:

Random Calvin selfie:

Some amazing bedhead after Hudson's nap, hahaha:

This made us laugh so hard! I had changed Hallie into her pajamas, and left her clothes in a pile on the couch. Later that night after the boys went up to bed, we found her clothes laid out like this--courtesy of Calvin! (crying face emoji)

Curt's favorite way to attend bishopric meetings via zoom on Sunday mornings: (#covidstyle)

Tucker was in a stinky mood, so Curt put his poopy pillow over his face for some comical relief:

Typical Calvin--he was looking all around for his other slipper...when it was under his arm the whole time, haha:

Easter egg hairstyle (the boys closed the eggs with hair stuck inside to keep them on top of his head), because why not?!?! ;)

The boys have a lot of fun doing trick shots on the trampoline...

Video of it:




Sometimes I am still amazed that we have a little girl. I look in the mirror and see that I'm holding a baby girl, and I just can't believe it!! And she's just so cute!

And seeing Curt hold his little girl just melts my heart.

This outfit was my favorite for the longest time--little girl clothes are so fun!

Hudson LOVES the roomba. And he loves to hold the roomba. If it runs out of battery and doesn't make it to it's dock at night when we run it, we have to be sure to run downstairs early in the morning to move it before he sees it, otherwise he insists on moving it himself...which is a little sketchy haha.

Video of him trying to hold it:




Typical dinner scene:

...And a typical afternoon scene during those first few months with Hallie. I would always fall asleep during or after feeding her, with other various kids all around me, haha: (and Tucker doing schoolwork on his chromebook)

Watching AFV as a family--our favorite:

Tucker & Hallie:

Hallie smiling at Bronco--melt my heart:

SO many kids! And Hudson wasn't even in the picture...!

Bronco lost his front top tooth!

We were struggling with quarantine with lots of fighting and everything, and I was feeling like I was spending most of the time trying to just survive--instead of enjoying the extra time we had together as a family. So we had a little family council and decided to do some sort of activity together each day as a family: Movie Monday, Try something new Tuesday (new recipe, new game, etc), Walk Wednesday, and Service Thursday. We kept it up for a few weeks, and it was a lot of fun. These are some pictures from one of our walks, when we picked up trash in the neighborhood along the way. Service really does bring happiness, because the boys didn't complain or whine the whole time because they were focused on picking up trash!

Showing off our trash bags afterwards:

Try Something New Tuesday--we let the boys stay up late and played the game "Rummikub" for the first time:

Hudson loved the dirt in our yard--whenever he would go outside with the boys, he would sit in or throw the dirt...which I loved. (eye roll, haha)

More cute pictures of Hudson--here he insisted on having his bear on his shoulders while he ate breakfast:

And here he is showing off how much he loved eating mustard that night. His yellow nose is my favorite! :)

Screenshot of him messing with the Wyze Cam, haha:

Our primary did a ward chalking activity where they gave chalk to families and asked everyone to decorate their driveways or sidewalks, and then during a time block on Saturday we could walk or drive around to see everyone's work. It was fun! Tucker did this cool minecraft block and then some stained glass squares.

Sunday snuggles:

Hudson loves to sweep! One of the boys spilled some kix cereal on the floor, and Hudson immediately got the broom and happily worked on cleaning it up for them. I hope his love for cleaning carries on into the teenage years, haha:

Hudson loves to drag this stool around to reach all kinds of things he's not supposed to, and this day he brought it over to unlock the deadbolt and open the front door... (face palm)

He's also in love with the kitchen aid in the pantry. We don't have a shelf tall enough for it to sit on, so it's just on the floor...and Hudson thought it would be a good idea to drag it out by its cord...

Our first "date" during quarantine! We had to get gas and pick up something from someone's porch that Curt bought off facebook marketplace, so we put Hudson to bed, buckled Hallie in the back seat, and left the older three boys at home playing minecraft. And it was so fun to get out just the two of us! (three if you count Hallie, haha) Oh coronavirus, how you've changed everything.

Sourdough bread for days!

I forgot to post this in my March post, but here was our St. Patrick's Day decor:

And here was my Easter setup:

Lastly, here are some fun videos...mostly of Hudson. (he's at a fun age--what can I say?!)

We have these ducks that love to hang around our neighborhood, and Hudson loves to chase them around. They're just barely faster than him, so it's the perfect setup haha!



Hudson also loves to sneak up and steal the boys' electric toothbrushes...



Hudson LOVES Uncle Collin and gets so excited to see him. And he often asks throughout the day, "Uncle Collin go?" wondering where he is. All of my kids have had different ways of saying Collin's name, so I of course had to document Hudson's cute way of saying it: "Ungle Coggin"



For whatever reason, Hudson started calling Calvin "Baggin," and it's stuck for months and months now. We've all started calling Calvin "Baggin" now sometimes too, haha!




And finally, a cute little video of Hallie: