April Showers....

my before pic of my herb garden

and after

As promised here is my April Rowland family summary, just in time for May flowers I hope, because we have had our fair share of April showers this month!

Grant likes to hold the banana like a big boy

I guess well start with Will first.  On the 7th Will ran in the GO! St. Louis half Marathon.  This was his first time to run an early spring race like this.  He wasn't hoping for a PR (Personal record for you non running folks) just to complete it and have a good race under his belt early on in the year with hopes to stay in shape and run some faster times later this fall.  I think all his goals were accomplished.  He finished with a time of 1:41:19 (a 7:44 mile a minute pace).

a all to common melt down

Ok my turn.  Um...hmmm?  Its hard to think of what I did this month?  Oh ok I know.  I started a garden.  Who knows if anything will grow but I prepped 2 raised garden beds and planted sunflowers, jalapenos, bell peppers, carrots, and cilantro.  I cleaned up the raspberry bed which is growing like weeds already.  I also transplanted 2 kinds of mint, coriander, chives, oregano, pink yarrow, and thyme I was given by a family friend.  I have spent a lot of time staring at the dirt this month.  I am finally starting to see some little sprouts of a few sunflowers and maybe cilantro.  I am worried that some of the others may have succumbed to the cold nights and me not knowing what im doing.  I have had several people tell me that buying the already started plants is a good route to go.  So if nothing comes up soon I will probably be headed to the store.  Also I successfully weaned a baby (well actually a toddler) this month.  Which is one small step for baby (he must have been ready because he is doing great with out the nursing times) and one giant leap of freedom for Mommy!  This now means other people can put him down for naps and bedtime...and I can be gone for more than 4 hours (remember he wouldn't take bottles).  Although after this many months I dont even know if I would know what to do with myself away from home or children for more than 4 hours.  Anyway I have loved every minute...well almost every minute of nursing baby Grant and I definitely am sad its over but Im also glad for a healthy growing boy who doesn't need his Mommy to sustain him anymore.  I guess I already have started doing something for myself that I have missed all this months.  I am slowly starting to get back into running.   I started by alternating walking and jogging every 2 minutes to the park and now im jogging all the way there and back.  Its only 2 miles but its a start.  I have new headphones and new running shoes.  Now I need to start building up my distances, im hoping by the fall I can be ready for a 10K or maybe even a half marathon.

Mr. April...

Walker

Grant has a new favorite game....turn on the light

I love this chubby finger

and these chubby toes.

Grant out in the Grass...yea there is green Grass finally!!

Poor Grant had his first ear infection (and a double one at that) this month....he spent a lot of time in my arms feeling miserable for a couple of days. It definitely made me thankful for how healthy my boys usually are.

Grant I have already done a few posts about this month with his big 1st Birthday and his starting to walk.  So I will mostly just flood you with pictures of him now.  I still find myself being caught off guard when I see him walking into a room.  His little toddle around the house is absolutely adorable.  Ive tried to take pictures but I feel like I cant quite capture the cuteness of it.  And I really want to because I realized the other day I dont really remember this stage for Rex.  I remember he didn't walk till closer to 15 months but im sure he did his fair share of cute toddling around.  Not being able to remember Rex doing it makes me want even more to remember Grant doing it.  And then I started getting worried about what else am I not going to be able to remember!?  Some things like tantrums and potty chair accidents I would be fine with not remembering but funny phrases, and silly songs, and games, and toddling, I want to remember for a long time!!  I guess that's partly why i'm doing this blog.  To share pictures and stories with friends and family that we don't get to see often enough but also to be able to look back and remember.

Grant was kinda hating this...and kinda loving it.  This was Rex's idea of holding baby Grant

Rex playing with a pile of rocks left from the snow melting...it kept him busy for a LONG time!

I also did a long overdue post about just Rex so I dont have much more new to report on him.  One thing he did that made me laugh this month  was to explain to me one morning that Daddy is called Will and he is his Father and that we were his Parents.  He has also been asking me if im called Beth and if im Married a lot.  Rex's favorite book this month was "Thats good...No thats Bad." and his favorite song was "In the Temple"  the line he repeats the most is "It was Jesus, It was Jesus in the Temple there, And with the lights on heaven was shining".  For about the first 2 1/2 weeks of the month Rex didn't take one single nap I was about to give up on them when all of a sudden he started taking them here and there again.  Im not sure how much longer into 3 I will be able to get him to take naps but im hoping for a little while longer.

Ready or not Here I come....hmmm I wonder where Rex is??

Ok well thats it our April in review.  I feel like this was really long, well I guess I did have a lot to cover.  I dont know if can keep up!  I think I can, I think I can...

 one of my sunflower seedlings.