What a busy month it has been!

Today I took the time to go through my millions (well, that's what it seemed like) of pictures that have been downloaded over the past year, to organize them and put them in places so that they are easier to find later.  I realized as I've been reminiscing that most of my pictures are now being taken via my phone, and honestly I can't even tell the difference between the pictures I take with my phone verses my camera. Makes me wonder if and why we still need our camera??  I'm no professional photographer, I leave that up to my sister ;).  As long as I have something to click and freeze those special moments in time I'm good. 

Anyway, enough about my rant on the change in technology. Onto my very busy past month.  

First is report cards!! I love this time of year. For us it happens three times throughout the school year and this is the second or midway report card and I couldn't be a more proud mommy of my kiddos!  They all are doing great!  

 I'm especially blown away at Xander Mans Reading level.  He is in grade 2 but is reading at a mid grade three level!  He's not even on their chart description they sent home with the report card, I had to ask his teacher.  

 Good job smarty pants!!

 Living in Canada you would think that I would be use to living in weather like this, but when it's mid April and still snowing it's kinda depressing!  These photos were taken end of March.

This one was taken just last week on our way home from walking the boys to school.  It has since been warming up slowly and melting away pretty fast.  This morning we woke up to a bit of rain and it smelled absolutely WONDERFUL!! I love that fresh rain smell.  So spring is almost in reach.

EASTER!!

Easter time!  The kids love this time of year, what kid doesn't!  I think they were more excited about the gift in their baskets than anything else.  We got them these really cute angry birds blankets.

We also had a new cousin born into the Johnston family!  We were very excited to meet baby Garrett.  Look how adorable he is!

April always starts off with a celebration for us, Bean's birthday!  She of course wanted yet again another princess birthday.  This time I specifically asked her who was her favourite princess and I was surprised and excited to find out that it was Rapunzel!  That's probably my favourite princess movie so I went to work researching (mostly on pinterest) for ideas for her party.  

Fun was had by all!  We had a little party at home, then we went to the pool to swim (her favourite thing to do) and then back to have a little sleepover party with her two besties.

Since I quit my job last year and Bean started kindergarten, I've had the opportunity to really get to bond with this little man, and let me tell you that I just love this little guy to bits!  He is definitely a challenge and has his moments but he is so full of life and love.  So I've made it a personal goal of mine to spend at least an hour a day just doing something with him.  I've found that his favourite things to do are play with play dough, water and be read to (that's my favourite, then I get some good cuddles in!)

So almost everyday the kids bring random classroom assignments and artwork home. I'm sure you parents know exactly what I'm talking about.  My counter is usually covered in them!  So anyone that knows me knows that I'm not a hoarder!  I'm the exact opposite...less is more.  I dejunk regularly!  And the funny thing is that I married into a family that is totally opposite.  After we got married we received a bag of my husbands baby clothes and random stuffies and toys from when he was a kid.  Lets just say that bag didn't stay to long in our house.  It was a hard adjustment for my husband to be married to someone like me, but over the past 10 years he has become accustomed to my need to "cleanse" our house every once in a while. That's great that some people are sentimental and want to keep every piece of scrap paper that their kid draws on, but that's not me.  

Anyway, I usually just take a quick look at their pieces of art, tell them how proud I am of them and if something is really impressive or describes who they are and what they are like right now I'll usually take a picture of it to keep as a memory.  Well I came across this assignment that my daughter did in school the other day and it stopped my heart!  We are members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and every week we have a night devoted to our family and we usually teach them something gospel related, plus we go to church weekly and participate in various church activities.  All this time we spend teaching them sometimes I wonder "do they really understand any of this?"  Well, I got my answer today when I saw this.  This validates to me  how important it is to teach my kids important spiritual things at a young age.  

Yep, this is a keeper :)

Along with all of the family and kid things going on in our household we have still been working hard on our renovations.  We have finished painting walls (YAY!!) and are slowly chipping away at the baseboards and casing.  Our tile backsplash in our kitchen will hopefully be going up this weekend, so I'll definitely have a post about the kitchen renos when that is completed (a year in the making!).  But for today I want to share our ToyRoom renovation.

Before

and AFTER!!

I love the way this room turned out, especially the fireplace!  That took about 3 days just to finish.  Who knew it was soooo hard to paint brick!  We had to do a primer coat, then a base coat and then (the fun part!) I had to individually sponge each brick a slightly darker color.  I got the idea from pinterest and was going to share the link here but it's gone now!?  I think it was on Lowe's website but I searched for it there and couldn't find it either?? 

Plus I was able to refurbish the dresser under the TV and make it into an entertainment storage unit.  I wish I had taken before pics of the dresser. I always seem to forget.  I got this idea from here http://southernrevivals.blogspot.ca/ .  It holds all of the kids movies and wii games and stuff.  The kids were so excited about having their room back too that I didn't even get time to take a pic of the room when it was all clean!  Oh well :)