An Adequate April

Seriously what am I going to do when I run out of whimsical and cute alliteration for my post titles? I'm not sure how I'll survive.

We went to the mountains to see how much snow was still up there - we've had more snow and rain this year then I can remember in a long time and normally this area is pretty clear of snow but there is plenty left - Elizabeth was very happy about that.

I'm not exactly sure what happened the first two weeks of April but I can tell you the last two weeks were a blur.  We have a full end of the month with family birthdays so we do a lot of celebrating.  I'm not complaining but sometimes celebrating can be a little bit tiring when you don't have the full strength energy of a child in their youth.  I swear Elizabeth and Olivia could go and go and go and go, on and on and on and on for days with just a small morsel of food and plenty of water (the girls love water). I on the other hand need my full eight hours of sleep.  If I don't get my eight hours everyone suffers.

Oh and there was this little occasion of Easter to celebrate as well.  Easter was a wonderful weekend full of fun at the Mele's.  My mom's parents truly have a family of families.  My grandpa Salvatore and grandma Marjorie have ten children.  And for most occasions to celebrate, those that are still living in Utah and even those that live out of state come together at my grandparents house.  Mostly we just eat and talk and eat and talk and eat and talk some more.  Sometimes we play games and watch sports on television.  Easter weekend was no different.

Saturday we had brunch including all sorts of munchies.  My mom wins first prize for best offering.  She brought this huge tower of sandwiches.  Three sandwiches wide and about twenty sandwiches tall.  Peanut butter and jelly, two kinds of jelly and then peanut butter and honey.  I should have taken a picture but alas I did not I was too busy trying to help little people not to destroy things.  I really thought I would win with these little treats but I was a close second place - can you tell what these are made of?

Part of our Easter family tradition is dying Easter eggs with food coloring and vinegar, as most do.  Also we decorate sugar cookies.  Normally we paint raw cookies with dyed evaporated milk and then when you bake them the colors come out super beautiful.  As of recent they have also added frosting baked cookies and topping them with all sorts of beads and bells and whistles, okay really just sprinkles but the former sounds better.  I prefer no frosting so I go for the painted one (they sort of look like stained glass).

Here are the girls in their Easter dresses - and a snap shot of Olivia smelling grandma's beautiful tulips. 

This year I also found a really cool new technique on a website that was shared with me (Our Best Bites). This site seriously has some great tips for crafts and cookies and everything I've tried to date has been super simple and easy.  When I say super easy and simple I mean it takes minimal amount of effort to prepare.  Mostly you have everything you need on hand and if you don't you only need to pick up a handful of items.  And everything has worked the way it should.  This year we dyed hard boiled eggs with silk at our house to test it out.  And it totally worked.  The uglier the tie the better the dye.  You can use any 100% silk item I just don't have any of that around so we went to a local thrift store and picked up ties.

The big event around our house at the end of the month was Olivia's birthday.  In case you weren't one of the few who received a little reminder in the mail here is her second birthday announcement - and yes those are hand made with love by mom (and a big help from her friend Andrea this year - we had some girl time and she helped me whip them up).  So I'll skip the words this month, mostly because I talked so much last month but also because I'm a little behind and I want to make sure I get this out there.  Enjoy! 

And here are a few other: Olivia when she was born 4/27/2009, Elizabeth at age two, 10/26/2008, for comparison and another cute one of Olivia for good measure. Here's to hoping May brings a little bit more sunshine to Utah so that we can get outside and make some more great memories!!