Here we are in April.  The weather was starting to warm up enough to bring me and baby Mia out of hibernation.  We spent a couple of nice days at the park and went on a few little hikes during the day while Owen was at school.

Teslyn in quite a little hiker.  This is a fun little hike with a nice view of the lake and town.  The higher up the mountain you go the better it gets.

I ordered the kids rain jackets just in time for rainy spring weather!  They love to play in the rain and we get quite a bit of it here.

It's common for new craftsman style homes here to have a chain instead of a downspout in front.  I had no idea our home was getting one until I saw it, and I didn't love it.  But it's grown on me.  In the winter it turns into a huge icicle which is pretty cool.  It's neat to watch melt as it drips and water cascades down the ice.  Here is Teslyn getting splashed on from it.

April was also Easter!  There was lots I wanted to do to make the holiday feel special so we spread it over 2 days.  Saturday we woke up to Easter baskets which was really exciting for the kids because they didn't expect them a day early!

Their baskets had cute little gifts and toys.

Mia with some of her loot.

Then they realized there were eggs hidden in the backyard!  It's fun to watch kids hunt for Easter eggs, especially when the bunny does a good job hiding them.  We have a great yard for it.

On Easter Sunday we kept it more Christ centered.  We had a yummy brunch before church and I did a little activity/story with the kids.  They found 12 hidden Easter eggs and inside each one there was a symbol of Christ's life leading up to his resurrection.  It was fun and a new tradition we will keep.  After church we enjoyed Easter dinner together as well.  Here is the best shot I could manage of the 3 kids as we were heading out to church, all dolled up for the holiday.

A few days later my parents stopped by for a while.  We are always so excited to have them come!  I didn't take many pictures, but they did.  I still need to get them!  Nick works in Bonner's Ferry on Fridays so I took Owen out of school to join us for lunch up there with Nick and my parents.  We are quite fond of a little pizza buffet there, and eat there any excuse we get.  After lunch we went to check out the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge.  We were hoping to see some cool wildlife but it just ended up being lots of birds, ducks and geese that day.

We did go on a pretty little nature walk to a beautiful river.  Owen is trying to count the rings on a tree there. 

Here is a sneak peek of the beginnings of Nick's garden.  It has been a labor of love and is deserving of a post of its own from start to finish.  This garden is his baby, I tell you.  I tease him about it but I am grateful that he does most of the legwork for it because it's something we both really want but I usually have my hands too full of baby to do a whole lot for it.  He will usually go straight to his garden after work before he even says hi to any of us.  He will spend a good amount of his lunch break meandering the yard and admiring the fruit trees and plants.  I give him a hard time about it but I have to admit that it is really fun to watch things grow because they change and grow so fast.  And it is really amazing what a tiny seed can bring forth.  It's a good hobby for Nick, and very therapeutic.