Spring Events- May 2016

May is a busy month.  I spend most of it getting preschool scrapbooks done and other preparations for preschool graduation.

Lily wanted to run an 8 minute mile for her gym class, so Tom would take her out running some nights to help her get better.  One night, our whole family went around the block.  Tom, Lily and Jeff ran, Cedric started out running, but switched to his bike, and I rode my bike and pulled Sophie in the bike trailer.  It was a fun activity! (and definitely reminded me I need to exercise more often.)   

On May the 4th we celebrated Star Wars Day!  I did Sophie's hair like Ray from "The Force Awakens" and bought her a new Star Wars shirt.

All of us wore our Star Wars shirts that day.

"May the 4th be with you!"

Cedric also lost another tooth and looks like a jack-o-lantern.

One day, Tom and Jeff were cleaning the turtle tank and left Tank, the turtle in the plastic bin (shown at the top of this photo) while they cleaned it.  Well, the tank we'd been using was starting to fall apart, so they ran to the store to buy a new one.  I decided to go check on the turtle after they'd be gone a while, and was startled when I walked in and saw the bin empty and a turtle crawling right next to my feet!

For Mother's Day I wanted real flowers to put in our front flower bed.  So on Saturday, we went together as a family to pick out flowers and then we all hurried and planted them before the storm came that day (well, most of us helped).

We had a fun date night/ surprise birthday party for Tom's good friend, Jeremy.  We all wore shirts that talked about turning 40 that night.  We went to dinner and then to go see Captain America: Civil War.  It was a fun night!

Our ice machine stopped working and started leaking water down the back of our freezer.  We didn't realize how bad it was until we tried to clean it out!  Tom was so great to help get all the frozen stuff out of the freezer and defrost the glaciers that had formed in there.

Tom's bees are thriving nicely and he was able to spot the queen bee.  So far, only Tom, Cedric and Sophie have been stung.  Tom got stung when he was changing out the bees sugar water and didn't smoke them first, Cedric got stung while playing with a dead bee, and Sophie got stung because she was walking around by the bees in bare feet.

It finally got warm enough to turn on the sprinklers and run/jump through them in swim suits.

The kids have fun spending time with their cousins when we get together each month for Sunday dinners.  We get together with Tom's side on the second Sunday and my side on the third Sunday.  Here they are with their cousins from my side.

One day, Sophie learned that none of her friends wore Pull-ups to bed.  She asked why she had to wear them and I told her it was because she didn't know how to stay dry while sleeping.  Well, she decided she wanted to be like her friends and started staying dry at night, all on her own!  When she went about three weeks, with only one accident, I decided to switch her to underwear.  She did great for the first five days, but then was having more accidents than wasn't.  So Tom and I decided to put her back in Pull-ups and we'd try again later.  Unfortunately,  this has caused her to relapse and wakes up wet almost every night. 

May always includes preschool graduation.  Although Sophie has another year of preschool, she did get a completion award and the award for being the best friend in class.  Everybody would fight over Sophie.

We had fun going to Wheeler Farm one night for our mortgage lenders work party.  The kids got their faces painted.

Maren and Charlotte came too.  Tom and Lily left early to go help paint the dairy pool, while Maren and the little kids walked around the farm.  The weather was perfect and the kids were asking to go back again.

Jeff has been trying to grow his hair long.  It got long enough to put a pony tail in it. 

Sophie, Charlotte and I went and helped with the fun run at the boys' school one day.  

It was a hot day and the boys did great!  My friend, Kristi and her daughter, Alyse were there too.  The girls were good to play, eat Popsicles and play in the sprinkler hose while we were working.

Jeff wanted to put his hair in a front pony tail so it wouldn't be in his eyes while he ran.  He came in fifth place for his grade!

After having a special Sunday class at church on doing family history, Lily and I decided to try out Familysearch.org and see what it was about.  Our neighbor, Linda came over and helped us and we were able to find two family names that need sealing work done in the temple.

On Memorial Day, we had fun going to the Bee's game with Jeremy and Cheri's family (and Jeff's friend, Steven).  The kids were more interested in climbing around, eating cotton candy and popcorn, than in actually watching the game, but it was still fun.

Later that night we went to Bryce and Sara's house for a barbecue and got a big game of softball going.

Sophie and Charlotte had fun just playing in the yard and Nana enjoyed watching from the sidelines.

On one of the days the kids were still in school, but I was done with preschool, Sophie and I went up to our family cabin with Candalyn and Adair.  We had a good lunch and the girls played while we cleaned the windows to get them ready for summer.  It was a fun outing.

Lily had another choir concert for the end of the year.  They sang some fun songs again and she loved performing.  

May is probably my busiest, but favorite months of the year.  I'm sad it's over.

Spring events- April 2016

April

For April Fools Day I thought it would be fun to do a little prank on my kids.  Jeff and Cedric were having home lunch at school that day, so I made a very "funny" lunch.  I swapped soda for water...

 I dyed their apples blue...

 I put their sandwiches in a mac & cheese box...

 And their cookies in a tomato sauce can.

 I included a note, so they would look inside the can and box and not just throw it all away.

 Jeff got a pretty good kick out of it. However, for Cedric, it wasn't as funny. I guess he got in trouble at recess and had to eat his lunch that day in the office.  I felt bad when I found out.

Sophie put ketchup on her arm and acted as though it was blood to fool Lily.

 Then the girls and I put dolls in Jeff's room.  He is terrified of these old fashion dolls.

Eventually, Cedric was happy that day after I showed him the new bike I'd bought for him, since he was outgrowing his old bike.  

 Jeff used the money he'd collected at Easter and bought his recent favorite game, Cover Your Assets.  He learned about the game when he stayed at Grandpa Kent and Grandma Suzy's house a few months back.  He's taught all the neighbor boys how to play it.

 Lily used some money to buy a hair extension.  It didn't fill out her head the way her real hair does, so they only way to make it look real was to braid it.  

 Sophie had been watching a show where they make homemade pizza's and begged to make them one night.  It's not my favorite thing to make, but the kids loved it.  Sophie was pretty proud of her pizza.

 Lily and Sophie made a fairy garden together one afternoon.

 On General Conference Sunday, we had our traditional conference rolls and listen to conference.  The kids did pretty good to find quiet activities during the sessions.

 With the weather warming up, we've been eating outside more on our new patio table.

 We took the kids one day to see Zootopia.

Lily and her good friend, Sammy happened to wear matching outfits the day of Sammy's brother, Jordan's baptism.

Sophie likes to help make my bed while I'm saying my morning prayers. 

I've started helping with my step-grandma, Kay (Suzy's mom) about once a week.  She spends the day with me and helps with the preschool classes or my own children.  We've enjoyed getting to know her better and she's such a sweet and helpful lady to have in our home.  

 I've also been watching my niece, Charlotte about once a week.  Tom's mom had some back surgery that has a long recovery process. Since she's normally the one who helps with Charlotte, Maren's been having me help watch her.

 Lily can usually be found climbing a tree somewhere.

 I tried doing some fun hair-do's on Lily for a few Sundays.

She hadn't had sponge rollers in her hair since she was about three, so she wanted to try them again.  At first, they came out way curly!

 But they softened a bit and she looked beautiful.

One day, it was super windy.  So I bought some cheap kites at the store and we all went to the park that night to fly them.

 We had Sammy, Jordan and Hailey with us that night too.  It was a fun night together.

 Last spring, Tom went over to our bishop's house and watched as he started a bee box.  Ever since that day, Tom's been wanting to get honey bees.  He's been studying up through books and videos to know how to care for them.  He got some boxes from the bishop and ordered some bees.  The day those 3,000 suckers arrived, Tom was like a kid at Christmas!  He was so excited, and we all had fun watching as he poured the bees into their new hive.

One day Sophie was at a friends house playing.  I noticed that night, that her ponytail looked like it had been cut.

 Sure enough, her friend had cut her hair.  She felt bad, but it wasn't much so I wasn't too worried.

 The next day, my hair dresser friend came over and evened out her hair again.  It even brought back some of the curl!

Tom goes away on little trips a lot.  I was starting to give him a hard time about it, so he told me to go do something.  Although that wasn't the solution I wanted, I took him up on the idea and decided to go to BYU Women's Conference.  This was months ago, but the time finally arrived.  My good friend, Tiffany went with me.

We left Wednesday night and drove down to Orem.  We stayed at my cousin, Alana's house.  She and her husband were out of town, and although her brother was temporally staying in her basement, we pretty much had the house to ourselves.  We went to dinner and then grocery shopping.  Of course, we made some stops at Krispy Kreme Donuts and Swig before the night was over.  We had fun talking and watching Netflix in the evenings.

 The conference was so wonderful!  It was such a good way to fill my spiritual cup, have a break from the stress at home and have fun.

 We learned a lot about Charity.  I took over 20 pages of notes over the two days!  I wish the feelings and knowledge that come with a conference like this would last forever.  

 Some things I remember... To pray more for my children.  At family prayer to ask if anyone has, or knows someone who has specific blessings they stand in need of.  To think before speaking about or to someone "is it kind, is it true, is it necessary?".  Getting to know the Savior by studying His words.  How can we love someone, if we don't know them?    

 A lot of the things I learned, I've already forgotten or stopped working on.  Tiffany and I hope to be able to go again next year and hopefully with more friends.  It really was a good experience.

 We got to here from some wonderful speakers such as Sister Burton, the Relief Society President, Elder Rasband from the Quorum of the 12 apostles, and John Bytheway, our favorite speaker from our youth.

The next day, I had our Young Women spaghetti fundraiser dinner and auction.  Although we didn't get as good of a turn out as we would've liked, we were very successful with our fundraiser amount.  

Life's busy!