April Foolery

No, we didn't officially celebrate April Fools this year.  Life seems to have taken care of that for us.  Talia's hair, however, was quite the entertaining shock.  I still can't get over how red she dyed it.  The semi-permanent dye was only supposed to last a couple of weeks, but her hair still has a light pink hue three months later.

Gotta admit, she pulls it off pretty well.

Mother nature was quite into pranks too.  Even though it was April, the snow just kept dumping again and again and again!

The reservoirs were grateful; our backs were a little less so.

Dressing like a koala to stay warm.  Now we just need to refine your sleeping habits, little cub.

True to its volatile nature, April also had mild moments where everything would melt.  Violet's dress looks like spring!

Here we are taking Violet for a walk around our hood.

Meanwhile, Talia found a Judd to love.

Did we mention how FUN it was having Christy and Ben close by all semester?

Back to the hair, these pictures crack me up.  Check out the uncles' reactions.  Justin is like, WHOA!

And Ben is like, wait a second, did you change something?  Allow me to gesticulate with my squash.

 

Depending on the light, it looked more fuscia than red.  Talia confessed that she'd actually been going for purple.

Other sights from home.  In a moment of blessed harmony, Annika and Eli merged their Lego worlds.  I love how often these two play together.

Annie also got creative drawing this dragon where we were each supposed to take a page to color before assembling together.

In case you didn't know, dragons educate the dinosaurs around our home.

At the beginning of the month, Papa Kay came to visit from Omaha.  That's a great way to keep us smiling!

A man of many routines, my Dad almost always keeps a comb in his front pocket.  Gotta keep that hair (singular) well groomed.

Then at the end of the month both NomiAnn and Papa Kay came for another visit.  Here we are enjoying a fun lunch.

Wilhoit lovebirds.

April is a great month for theater as well.  Here's Ruby playing Cogsworth in her school production of Beauty and the Beast.  Great job!

As for Eila and Annika, they did a stellar job performing as Dorothy and Toto in the library's production of The Wizard of Oz.  

It was wonderful having so much family come to support them.

Nice job, thespians!

Let's see, what else...  Our good friends, Bruce and Brittney came to visit, along with their beautiful family.  It was so good to see them!  Now living in Smithfield, it's much easier to connect than when they were in Pennsylvania.

Eli and Zabien got pretty creative with their construction.

At the end of April Annika ended up back in the hospital for a repeat microlaryngoscopy to look at the scarring in the airway.  She was a little nervous, but her polar bear kept her company.

Fortunately her airway looked SO MUCH better and she was able to go home the same day!  Here's an image of what they saw, as opposed to when they went in the first time.

For the most part recovery was smooth, although she did struggle when we explained that she wouldn't be staying the night this time.  There were definitely tears when she realized she wouldn't get to play Minecraft.  My guess is that the anesthesia made the emotions extra strong. 

 On the way out, Jason and Annika stopped by the CICU to deliver this beautiful hand-drawn thank you for the many doctors and nurses who worked so hard to save her.  As they arrived, they ran into one of our favorite doctors, Dr. Stephanie Goldstein.  Dr. Goldstein cared for Annika during her hardest days, working over Hanukkah in her menorah socks so that her colleagues could celebrate Christmas with their families.  She stood at the foot of Annika's bed and orchestrated Annie's transfer to ECMO.  She was right there once more as we trialed her off, even texting us this picture.  

She'd intended to leave twenty minutes earlier, but got held up and was touched to see Annie doing so well.  She taught us the meaning of the phrase bashert, meant to be.  To so many, thank you.

Annika felt so great after her procedure that she talked Papa Kay into taking her to the skate park.

Strangely enough, the whole Wheeler/Wilhoit/Andrus clan ended up back at Primary Children's that evening anyway.  

Is it odd to meet up at the hospital cafeteria for dinner?  Probably.  However, we came to enjoy the beautiful background music.  Talia volunteers every Thursday evening to play violin.

(Okay, so this second picture is older.  The hair gives it away.)

Other April events: we got a new stake president.  While we adored our former stake president, Scott Pickett and his wife Nanci, we are equally delighted to support our incredible friend and neighbor, Stephen James.  Congratulations President James!  It just so happens that Jason and Stephen biked from the Capitol to the Bountiful Temple on the morning of the interviews.  Heading to holy places on so many levels.

And this beautiful girl?  Our Baby Brooklyn grew up and went to Senior prom at the Salt Palace.  How we love this princess!

Just for the record, Brooklyn's adorable mug is the very first one featured on this blog.  We're all glad that her table manners have improved.  Love you!

The next morning was stake conference.  Brooklyn and Talia performed a beautiful violin/cello number in the Assembly Hall with Ryan K. Olsen from the Quorum of the Seventy presiding.  Over the pulpit, he basically said that Talia's hair was amazing.

So, we all took a few pictures after.

Back to the April Foolery, Annika talked Jason into digging a fire pit in the backyard to roast s'mores.  When we went to turn on the sprinkler system, we discovered that they'd roasted a few pipes at the same time.  Oops!

Ah well, life is still beautiful.