April In Numbers

Happy May!  May has always been one of my favorite months because the weather finally (hopefully) starts becoming a little more consistent and a little warmer, which makes me a much happier person.  It's also the month my husband and I got married, so I'm a little biased. *wink*  But before we can get into May, I want to share my April month in numbers with you.

If you read my March in numbers post last month, I did a special Orlando Edition talking about all the things that happened on our trip to Orlando and Disney's Hollywood Studios.  It's a pretty fun post, so go check it out if you want a quick recap of my trip using only numbers.  That being said, April was not nearly as much fun.  Why?  Two words: potty training.  But rest assured, not all my numbers have to do with the potty. *wink*

3 - Packs of underwear bought.  A couple of weeks before we left for Orlando, my son started showing signs of being ready to be potty trained.  We'd gone through this already with my daughter a couple of years ago and I was both terrified and ready to begin the process.  I took him to the store and let him pick out a couple of packs of underwear (Paw Patrol and Disney Pixar).  We ended up buying him another pair about three weeks later due to accidents.

6 - Underwear not salvageable.  I'm not going to go into this one in too much detail.  If you've potty trained your kids, you know it's a messy job and you're going to end up throwing away some of the underwear because it's just not worth it.

8 - Loads of just underwear washed.  No, I didn't actually count the number of underwear only loads, but there were enough that it's worth mentioning.  Or maybe not.  But I am anyway.  The first few days, we went through the entire two packs of underwear, which I expected, and the number of loads slowly dwindled from there.  We've had more and more days with no accidents and I am singing Hallelujah!

63 - Bribes made.  Okay, I didn't really count this one either.  And if I think long enough about it, there were probably more bribes made than I'm counting.  We started out with a sticker chart and some prizes he could earn along the way, but he quickly filled out the first chart and so I made another one.  After so many stickers, he wasn't as excited about them so we moved on to candy bribes: "If you go pee, you get one M&M.  If you go poop, you get two."  We did run into an issue where he was having more accidents that successes so the bribe changed to screen time on Daddy's phone playing one of the games he has on there.  That one worked pretty well and he still brings it up if he happens to have an accident: "I had an accident, so no playing on Daddy's phone."  Haha.

2 - Picnics in the backyard.  The weather has been all over the place lately.  Just last week, we had SNOW.  Mother Nature needs to get herself together!  But before the weather went all crazy, the kids and I were able to have a couple of backyard picnics.  They love eating their meals outside, even if they don't stay seated to eat their food most of the time and more ends up on the grass than  in their mouth. *wink*

12 - Rainy days.  Like I mentioned above, we had snow last week, plus it rained and was windy almost every other day.  My kids and I were getting used to spending the late morning and afternoon outside so the bad weather put a damper on all of our spirits.  One good thing about the rain though (besides helping with the drought) is that our grass is a beautiful emerald green color and my garden is growing like crazy!

2 - Books read.  Earlier this month, I shared 3 books I read in 3 weeks, but all of those were actually in March.  I was only able to make it through two books in April: Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham and Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas.  (Watch for the review of Throne of Glass next week.)  They are both totally different books but I really enjoyed each of them.  I've decided that Lauren Graham would be a pretty cool person to meet.  She seems so down to earth and likeable.

845 - Easter eggs stuffed.  Okay, this isn't a real number either, but when you are stuffing Easter eggs, it sure seems like a lot more than it is!  When I was pulling out my Easter decor, the kids noticed the plastic eggs.  They took them and started doing their own Easter egg hunts and hiding them around the house for each other to find multiple times a week leading up to Easter and even for a while afterwards.  They were still just as excited to do the real thing when Easter came though and it was so funny watching them.

1- Girls Night Out.  The parents of a girl in my neighborhood live in a beautiful house up the canyon about 30 minutes from where I live.  They were out of town for the weekend, so she asked them if a group of us could come up and have a girls night.  There were about 30 of us girls up there, eating soup, salad and rolls, stuffing our faces with popcorn, candy and brownies and laughing hysterically during the games.  About ten of us spent the night and let me tell you, it was amazing to get a full night's rest, knowing nothing was around to wake me up.  (Except maybe the giggling girls in the room next to mine.)  Another perk: no cell phone reception!  There was absolutely nothing that was going to interrupt us and it was so great to take time away and visit with friends and recharge.

2 - New recipes tried.  Last month, I pulled out all of the cookbooks I've received over the years and sorted through them.  Most of them were neighborhood cookbooks given as gifts.  I'd tried to go through them all and mark recipes I was interested in, but there were so many cookbooks and recipes to choose from that I never even opened them up.  So I decided to spend part of an afternoon looking through each one, marking ones that looked good, taking pictures of them on my phone and then throwing the cookbooks away.  It was so liberating, haha!  I found a chicken and mushroom quiche that was amazing and some brown sugar muffins that were yummy as well!  My family gobbled both of them up so you better believe I'll be sharing them on the blog.

1 - Dance pictures taken.  My daughter is in her second year of dance (she takes jazz/ballet).  She loves dancing and getting up on stage so it's perfect for her.  One of my favorite things about little girls and dance is seeing them all dressed up in their costumes.  Too cute!  We'll be getting the pictures back at her recital later this month, but I manged to snap a few behind the photographer and I can't wait to get the professional ones.

4 - Happy mail received.  I've been participating in the Momma Love Fellowship hosted by Little Dove.  My partner is Patricia from Life of a Minister Mom.  She and I have been sending snail mail aka happy mail to each other for a couple of months and getting to know each other better.  It's been so fun to actually receive something other than bills in the mail!  I've also gotten a couple of packages which is always fun. (p.s. Be sure to follow me on Instagram and watch for a post this Wednesday for a giveaway that has to do with the packages I received!)

You can check out my other month in numbers posts below:

February Month In Numbers
March Month In Number: Orlando Edition 

Also, I'm linking up with Deena from Shoes to Shiraz who hosts the month in numbers link party.  You can go see who else is linking up and see what their April in numbers looks like.

And that's a wrap!  I'm looking forward to what May has to offer!