April: What a month!

April has come and gone and what a crazy month it was!

The most exciting part of the whole month was the birth of my beautiful baby girl, Evelyn Prudence Strasburg. She was born on April 26th, weighing 7lbs 3oz and 19 inches long.

Mom and baby are happy and healthy. And for those of you interested, I will be sharing my birth story in a post just as soon as I get it finished. I started it a few days after she was born and I still haven't finished it 4 weeks later! Everything takes longer than you expect with a new baby and a 2yr old vying for attention.

The next most exciting part of April is that Lewis got a job! Evelyn was less than 24 hrs old when he got the call and they needed him in Southern California for training the following week! So I was not as thrilled as I normally would be for him. But everything went fine the week he was gone and now he has a job he likes.

I also had my birthday this month. I am now officially no longer a young person. To quote one of my favorite books "Being 'still young' is so different from being young!" (The Blue Castle, L.M. Montgomery) Of course, maybe that's more about being the mother of two kids than it is about being 27. I had a good birthday though. Lewis surprised me with a sapphire for my charm bracelet. You know any birthday where your husband gives you precious stones is a good one. ;)



Now onto how I did in April...

Completed:

•  Not have my uterus explode Yay! You can read all about that in Evelyn's Birth Story
•  Name the baby
• Make window seat for hope chest I didn't have this one slotted until September but I realized I needed to finish it now if I was going to use that as a diaper changing station for Evelyn. It turned out really well, I think. 

• Have at least 1 out of the house activity per month This month we did quite a few things as a family. We went to the Liar's Competition on April Fool's Day. It was a fun new way to celebrate this rather absurd holiday. We went to the Art Stroll which was fun but the baby shifted and I had a pinched nerve after only 2 blocks of walking. I was so ready to have the baby get out! We went to the nickel arcade with my brother Ben's family to celebrate my niece Cordelia's baptisms. And the day before I went into labor, we went on a fun hike up the Provo River Trail past Bridal Veil Falls.

Right on Target: 

• Write at least 20 blog posts (8/20)
• Host at least 12 game nights (4/12)

Needs Improvement:

•  Go to the temple 12 times (2/12) So much for going a bunch before the baby arrived...
• Hold at least 45 Family Home Evenings (13/45) We only got 3 again and that includes the one I squeezed in on the very last day of the month. :S

Failed: 

• Find and start baby book for Baby Girl

May Goals:

• Create savings account for Ireland trip (For our 10th anniversary we want to go to Ireland and stay in a real castle but that's really expensive and by then we'll have at least 2 children to tag along too so we need to start saving now if it's ever going to happen.)

  The month of April felt like a never ending stream of doctor's appointments and job interviews but it ended with a bang that gave us everything we wanted. And looking back, we really did have some good fun along the way.