A Few More Random Photos

Here are a few more random photos from April:

 Beckham and Claire stopping to pick some flowers on our walk at the park.

 Sleeping Claire
I love the little blood vessels on her eyelids.

Sleeping Beckham
He always has to have his fuzzy quack quack blanket.

Sprinkler fun!

 Yes, he's in his undies.  Don't worry.  It was 8:30 in the morning.  Not many people driving around at that hour.

 Getting soaked!

 Warming up on the driveway.

Coen's Kindergarten class after their Easter egg hunt at school.  They had to find one egg with each of their site words on them.

Dallin's Rainforest Biome

Dallin had to make a rainforest biome for school.  With Dada's help they put some of those roller blade boxes to good use.

 Those are real leaves from our bushes that Dallin cut off!  He did use some artificial plants, too.

The finished product.  Looks great, Dallin!

Texas Bluebonnets

It's that time again!  Spring time in Texas means family pictures in the bluebonnets.  Every April we have a beautiful show of flowers.  It's fun to get a yearly picture and the kids LOVE posing for them...I wish!  We did get a few good ones out of the 200+ that we took and now I have cute pictures of the family and each of the kids to hang on the wall.

Roller Blading Lessons

Tory decided it was time the boys learned how to roller blade.  It was one of Tory's favorite things to do growing up and still is!  Unfortunately his wife was raised out in the country in western Kansas with nothing but dirt roads and she never learned how.  So he fitted the boys with some skates and headed off to the high school parking lot for a little training session.  Claire came along as photographer.

 The boys couldn't even stand up by themselves at first.

 Slow and steady.

 Are they getting it?

Down they go.

They didn't spend a lot of time upright but they loved it and eventually learned how to do it.  Hmm...maybe I should take lessons?

April Happenings

Here are a few things going on in April:

Coen loses his second tooth!  He lost his first tooth before Kindergarten so it's been a long time!

 Minecraft style!  The kids love it when Dada helps them build.  Let's face it...Dada loves it, too.

 I made some finger paints for the kids to play with during General Conference.

 Getting creative!

 A few of the masterpieces!

 Tory was asked to make an identical rocking horse for some friends.  Their original is in the back.  They wanted a new one to give to their grandkids.  I think I want one, too!  I love it!

 Claire loves making projects.  I showed her how to make a tissue paper flower and she was in heaven.

All finished!

Dallin's Pinewood Derby

Dallin built an awesome car for the Pinewood Derby:

His car won the "Best Detail" award. 

He was super excited to race it!

And he was even more excited when his car won each heat it raced in!

We thought for sure he would get one of the top three spots.  But the track was bumpy and made the cars jump at the end sometimes and the timer seemed to be having issues so they redid a few of the heats and I think finally just called it good.  Not going to lie.  Dally Boy was pretty disappointed.  He definitely had a great car this year.  Once again the elusive trophy misses the Schoonmaker boys.  Maybe next year....

April Fool's Day

For April Fool's Day I decided to make the family a fun dinner.  

We had cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies for dinner (and asparagus):

The cupcakes were these Italian Meatless Meatloaf Muffins "frosted" with mashed potatoes.

The cookies were mashed potatoes with black beans baked in the oven to "brown" them a bit.

They normally love these meatloaves but they really had a hard time getting around the fact that they weren't cupcakes.  It really messed them up!  Ha!

Then I gave them brownies for dessert:

 Wow!  They did not like these at all!  They were quite upset in fact.

So I gave them MORE mashed potatoes...with gravy this time...for dessert.

After they tasted them they were much happier!

Vanilla ice cream with caramel "gravy".

Overall, the dinner "looked" successful...but didn't go over very well.  They just couldn't wrap their minds around the idea that the dessert really was dinner and the dinner was dessert.  I think it messed up their taste buds or something!  But it was still fun! :)