So, April kind of got away from me... but I'm getting the jump on May. I'm always hopeful that I'll post more than once a month, but I can't make any promises. I know if you're peeking in on the blog, you're pretty much looking for pics of the kids, so here you go:

We all headed outside as soon as the weather started improving

Nora hugging the "baobob tree," ala Jules the cat in "Hug Time"

Nora helping me push John (I'm off to the side), right before she stepped a little too close and took a swing to the face. Ouch.

John slowly accepting the idea of chewing food... extremely skeptical at first, but he's getting a lot better now. We rounded the corner this weekend and he's really doing quite well eating baby food with texture (minimal texture).

He is crazy about cups... particularly ours. He's dumped beverages on me a few times when I thought the cup was out of his reach. He's getting very good at drinking from a sippy cup (throws his head back so that the cup is vertical), so hopefully we'll be moving towards cup drinking more and more soon.

Nora is an excellent helper... though sometimes she's helping when I don't realize it. I opened the dishwasher to load it with dirty dishes to find that she'd put her sippy cup (still fully assembled) inside).

Nora and Brett decked out in MSU stuff for the final games of March Madness (she's wearing an old shirt of Andy's... still way too big for her)

Working in the yard w/ Dad

Safety first... though with John getting the ride, it seems he should be wearing the helmet

At the very end of March, my cousin Michelle and her family welcomed their new baby girl, Madeline, and a week later, we showed up to say howdy, too. Michelle has a magic camera that always takes great pictures of her kids, so she took some of mine while we were there. Her son Lucas was gracious enough to share his high chair with John while we visited with him and his little sister (he and Nora were best buds, but unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of them together).

Nora and Madeline

I know those last few are sideways, but I'm out of time... I'll try to fix them next time I'm on. I have pictures from Easter/ April on the camera ready to be loaded onto the computer (the camera is sitting right here, hooked up!), so I'll try to post more later tonight/ tomorrow. For now, as always, thanks for thinking of us!