The Gales: April was a Busy Month

While going through pictures and videos, I realized that April 2013 was a busy month. I'm going to show some general pictures from the month in this post, and then I will have some other, more specific posts to follow.

We went on a shopping trip one Saturday morning. What was meant to be a fairly quick trip ended up going into the afternoon. So we decided to get some lunch at Braum's. And when one goes to Braum's, it's pretty much a rule that they need to get ice cream. In fact, when Allie sees a Braum's or if we pull into their parking lot, Allie automatically yells out with excitement, "Ice cream!"

Allie excitedly awaiting her treat.

Since we had food in our tummies, we went ahead and went to Ross, the last store that we wanted to go to. We needed to get a baby shower gift for Allie's playschool teacher (the main high school teacher who leads the high school students), and Mommy wanted to see if she could fine any shoes. For being a girl, I don't buy shoes (or clothes) very often. Perhaps it is just part of being a mom. Rachel was thrilled to go into the shoe section. She developed a love of shoes early. I don't remember how old she was, but at least a few months before this, she once started crying because we had to leave the shoe department in a store. Her face lights up with pure joy when we enter shoe departments. I think we're going to be in trouble when she gets older. Both girls enjoyed trying on shoes on this trip, though Rachel surpassed the number that Allie tried on.

Purple Shoes

Pink High Heels (and she actually walked pretty well in them)

Gold Shoes

I had to get a picture of Rachel in the last pair she decided to put on. We had already told the girls to put their shoes back on, but she grabbed this pair and was insistent. I couldn't help but think of my Grandma Payne, and I let her put them on. My Grandma Payne loved her gold shoes. I remember going on several trips to the mall in search of new gold shoes for her when she'd come to visit us. She was one styling lady, and perhaps Rachel got a little bit of Grandma in her.

Allie has started drawing more things, versus just scribbling. Sometimes it still takes a little bit of the imagination to see what she says she has drawn, but she once told me that she drew a duck in water, and I was really impressed when she showed it to me.

Allie's Duck in Water

Lunchtime is not always my favorite time of day. It usually goes better than dinner, but it sometimes seems monotonous with trying to get the girls to eat their food without taking FOREVER. With nap after lunch, I'm always anxious to get them down, and they usually demonstrate that they are ready for nap during lunch. But, they do like the food at lunch, so they will eat. I surely just need more patience. Occasionally, we might come up with ways to make lunch more fun, like taking turns wearing Allie's visor, or "hat" as they called it. The girls were even insistent on me having a turn.

Rachel thought I was silly-looking in the visor.

But they wanted me to keep it on. Here's a picture of our smiling girls.

Before lunch was over, Allie wanted to take a picture of me without the visor.

When we got Buddy, we intended for him to be a mostly outside dog. But Allie was so excited to have him, and anytime he'd come near the sliding glass door, she'd say, "He wants in," and would let him in. It was still somewhat cold outside, so I'd just go with it. He became accustomed to being indoors more, and was so sad if we kept him outside for awhile. It might not be as good as being inside, but one day Buddy discovered his favorite place outside, the table. If he is left outside for awhile, he will jump on up and lay down on the table. If he hears something, he'll stand up and bark, deciding whether it's worth getting down or not. Sometimes it is, sometimes he decides to lie back down.

Although he loves being inside and resists going outside while the sun is up, he gets excited to go out at night. We finally discovered one reason for this: an opossum. Buddy started barking a lot one night. He was jumping at the fence. We investigated with a flashlight and saw this ugly guy.

Buddy was so proud of himself.

He fenced the opossum (or perhaps there was more than one?) several times. Once a baby opossum was crossing our yard. Buddy kept getting close and barking, but it would hiss at him and he'd back up. We ended up taking Buddy in so that he and the opossum could be safe from each other. He still gets excited to go outside at night, but he hasn't seemed to have any visitors lately.

Jared saw Buddy with this rope in his mouth. He had to take a picture. There was no doubt he was meant to be in our family.