April Showers

Playing a little catch up here.  Back to April.. Lets see if I can remember what we had going on..

April started with a bang... Literally... To the back of Carson's head.  We were over at a friend's house for a play date one afternoon and Carson ended up falling off of one of the kitchen table chairs and hitting the back of his head on the chair next to him as he fell.  This split his head open and required a trip to the Emergency Room for two staples.  Carson was such a brave little guy through it all!  He had to wear a head wrap bandage for a week until he had his staples removed by Dr. Akrawi. His wound healed up very well and he'll just have a minor scar, thankfully.

I've mentioned before that we started up a Small Group with some families at church.  We started by just meeting once a month for a bible study focused on parenting.  Well, we all get along and enjoy each others company so well that we decided to add a family day each month. We started this in April when we went bowling at Holly Lanes and then all went over to Matt and Heather's house for dinner, drinks, and hanging out.  It was so much fun!

Kevin and I had a couple of days/nights out together (with no kids) in April.  We went to East Lansing to see our friends Denny and Kristi tie the knot in a beautiful ceremony at the MSU Alumni Chapel followed by a reception at the Lexington Hotel.  It was fun to see some friends from college that we hadn't seen in awhile. 

We also had our monthly Small Group study at Panera one Tuesday evening and we met up with some college friends in East Lansing for dinner at Beggar's Banquet at the end of the month, which was a lot of fun!  Three nights out with no kids in one month is a record for us, I think!  :) 

We made a trip out to Grandville (near Grand Rapids) for our niece's 5th birthday party.  She had an arts and crafts party that was a lot of fun!  It was so nice to get together with the Holleboom family and see Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van, too.  Unfortunately, I didn't take one single picture while we were there! 

The kids and I had lots of fun play dates with friends in April.  We went to Sloan Museum with our neighbors, Kerri and Jace one afternoon during Spring Break and we spent lots of time playing outside with Jace on other days, too.  We all went over to the neighbor's house for dinner and hanging out one night, as well. 

We also went to the park after preschool with some of Carson's friends a couple of different times during the month.  Bristol got to try out a swing for the first time and LOVED it!

We also went to story time at the library, went biking and walking quite a few times in the evenings, and played outside as much as possible.  We finalized all of Carson's Kindergarten enrollment information, as well.  He will be attending West Shore Elementary in the Lake Fenton school district next year.  He was a little disappointed that he would not be attending St. Paul, claiming that he is "only 5 years old and has so much more to learn about Jesus!"  But once we explained that he'll still have Sunday School and we can start going to church on Wednesday evenings if he'd like to (in the fall), he adjusted to the idea much more happily.  It's still hard to believe he'll be heading off to Kindergarten in the fall already! 

These kids need to stop growing.  Seriously.  Back in April, Bristol became quite steady at walking along things (the furniture, walls, etc.).  She started taking a couple of steps on her own here and there at the very beginning of the month, but she's taking the walking thing slowly.  It's been kind of foreign to Kevin and me, since Carson did the couple steps thing for literally a few days before he was running around on his own... and yes, he was actually running.  But Bristol is content taking it slow.  We're ok with that, though!  :)  By the end of the month, she was taking about 6-8 steps on her own, but she still much preferred holding a hand or walking along the walls and furniture.