May

The first week of May was Spirit Week with a different theme for each day.  We don't go to too much trouble finding outfits...if the kids can figure something out on their own then that's usually what we do.  This is what they came up with for 80s day...simple, but I thought they looked cute!

May was the month that Ivy discovered playdough and it came out nearly every day.  It was a great entertainer for her, if a bit of a mess for me.

Here are the kids on dress like a nerd day.

The kids came home with their spring pictures for me to see, take a picture of, and send back.  I obviously forgot that it was even a picture day based on their outfits and hair.  Molly's poor jeans with their big holes.  I made her finish up the year with them like that.

We tried to get some pictures of the kids out in the pasture when the dandelions were at their peak after church one day.  You can tell that we are not photographers but we have cute kids so they are still fun to look at.

May brought on the start of watering.  I will take care of the yard but I let Justin water the pasture when he feels like it.  The kids (especially Stockton) like to go out there and help him move pipe.  We have been horrible this summer at watering the pasture.  It will be so nice to get a sprinkler system in the yard.  Someday...

We went for a walk down to the river one Sunday afternoon to see how fast the water was running.  Our neighbors at the end of the street have given us permission to cut through their property to get to this pretty little spot.

I planted some tulip bulbs last fall and was happy when they came up and bloomed.  They actually got really big and the leaves were so tall and then would flop over.  I did enjoy them but they seemed a little unruly so I wonder if it was the variety I planted or if I need to keep them trimmed...I don't know, all of this gardening stuff is so new to me!

Justin took charge of FHE one night and taught the kids about "staying in the boat" from from Elder Ballard's conference talk a few years ago.  He really made the lesson come alive when he used the kayak and helped the kids make props that represented different gospel principles.

I wanted to insert here some thoughts on FHE.  My kids, at this age, love when we gather on Monday nights.  Years ago, Justin made up a little jingle that we all sing to help us get ready...we sing "If you're ready for a lesson come sit down, clap clap, if you're ready for a lesson come sit down, clap clap, if you're ready for a lesson it will surely be a blessin', if you're ready for a lesson come sit down, clap clap" to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It."  They usually jump and fall on their bums during the clapping part.  That song cues that we are ready to begin and they need to start being reverent and attentive.  We don't ever do anything fancy for a lesson-usually it's just something that either of us have had on our minds...something we have read or listened to that we thought would be good for our family to hear.  As the kids are getting older we have been able to have more discussion rather than one of us just talking at the kids and that has been really nice and brought a different feel to FHE and our home that I appreciate.  I just love that we have this commandment to hold a formal meeting where we can talk about the gospel.  We've been able to bring up some topics that would maybe be hard to incorporate into daily, busy life and tell the kids what the church teaches and where we stand related to those topics.  I do try to utilize those spur-of-the-moment teaching opportunities and they are great but I don't think we would gather together and talk about spiritual things on a regular basis otherwise.  Not every Monday night goes perfect but I do see and feel the blessings of trying to consistently hold home evening.  I am grateful for those Monday nights.

Here's Brynn!  Ivy calls her Dynnie.  She had a rough May and the end of school was anticipated highly by me.  Life has been much better for her since school ended.

For a few weeks, Ivy was all about the toolbox and fixing things.

I saw a segment on Studio5 about these flower bombs and I thought they looked fun to try for teachers and Mother's Day.  Corbin came over on the day we were making them and got to help.

I don't think we'll try this again.  They were a lot of work, it was hard for the kids to shape them in the cookie cutter (I ended up having to re-do all of them), they lost their interest really fast (I spent way more time on them than I would have liked to), and they took forever to dry.  I ended up giving a couple to each of their teachers, along with an end-of-year-gift but I really am doubtful that they worked.  I didn't even give any of the rest of them out, I just have them saved in a ziploc.  I didn't even plant them at my own house.  Maybe I will next year.

Here's a total mom-fail of mine: last year for Valentine's Day I gave Molly a date to a play.  Well, here comes Valentine's Day this year and I still had not taken her to a play.  She reminded me often, it just didn't happen.  So when I saw that Anne of Green Gables was playing at the Covey Center I quickly purchased tickets to make sure that it would actually happen and to redeem myself.  We had such a great time and it was a perfect play for the two of us.  I have loved the books since as long as I can remember and Molly read an abridged version in 2nd grade and enjoyed it.

And lucky for her, she still gets another date with me this year!

We went to Gene and April's the night before Mother's Day.  We had rootbeer floats for dessert.

Evie, Brynn, Micah

Here are the doggie cousins.

Cash, Cece, Missy-I thought it was funny that I have one picture of kids and one of the dogs!  The conversation there is always too good to take the time to get my camera out.

Happy Mother's Day to me!  Ivy woke up with pink eye.  Everyone else went to church with me.  The men took over primary so I was able to go to Relief Society but I enjoy playing the piano in primary so much that I felt a little bummed not to be there.

Because of the pink eye, we weren't able to go visit my mom like planned which also meant I hadn't shopped for a nice meal. Justin did a pretty good job at making something out of what we already had and he was a good sport to make the day as relaxing as it could be for me.  I didn't want any gifts but did want to go pick out some bushes and flowers for our yard and had done that the day before.  I got some of my favorite treats that morning along with a yummy breakfast.

Justin stayed home with Ivy so I could go to Relief Society.  He's a fun dad and Ivy is a daddy's girl.

Molly brought home a card from school that I loved.  I took pictures of all the paragraphs, you should really try to zoom up on each one because it is a great letter that I loved. She is really the best.

The girls gave me a Mother's Day hairdo after church.  I don't think Ivy liked it much.

Sometimes we are a little less traditional for FHE...like when there is work that needs to be done in the garden.  We didn't do much in the garden this year.  My dad brought up some more raspberry starts and I wanted to plant pumpkins.  We are approved for a greenhouse grant so everything else will wait until we get that here and installed.  The kids were actually really good about helping us prep the garden area.  Molly and Stockton attacked those weeds with gusto!

Molly woke up with pink eye two days after Ivy.  She missed four days of school, it was awful.  I snuck her in on the fourth day in the afternoon just so she could be in the 4th grade program that they had been working on all year.  She was so excited for it and would have been so disappointed to miss it.  Her eyes were so close to being cleared up that I felt okay with her being there just for that.  She was supposed to dress as a person from Utah history and she made her own costume.  She refused to dress as a pioneer because she didn't want to wear a dress to school so she went as a Native American.  She decorated an old T-shirt of Justin's using fabric paint.

This school puts on the best programs.  I have enjoyed all of them.  All the classes did a square dance too.

This is the look Molly makes when she catches someone watching her.

Justin was at a meeting in Sandy and couldn't make it but she had a pretty big cheering section anyway.

Molly and Grandma April

Grandpa Moyes, Molly, Grandma Kay

The very next morning she had her last soccer game of the season with this team.  Her eyes were all better.  She had such an awesome spring season and we are so proud of her for working hard and improving so much.  She loves soccer and I love watching her!

Back row: Bridgette Ferreyra, Carley Anderson, Kylie Bishop, Jordan Gibby, Regan Heyward, Reese Meyers, Eric Anderson. Front row: Aspen Ivie, Hannah Risto, Caroline Turner, Natalia Wagstaff, Molly

The team went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A after the game.  It is nice to see that Molly has been able to make friends with all of these girls.  It was overwhelming for her last year to be the only new girl on the team...now she is just one of them and fits in great!

Regan, Jordan, Molly, Kylie, Carley, Bridgette, Caroline, Reese, Hannah

The kids dressed up in all the 49ers gear that we have and went out to surprise Justin in his shed.  They even dressed Cash!

Ivy doesn't usually get the tramp to herself and was delighted one afternoon when she did.

Justin got pink eye about three days after Molly.  His was bad too and he missed a whole week of work.  Ivy enjoyed having him home, especially when he let her comb his hair.

Brynn finished up her gymnastics for the year.  At the last class they did pictures.  I didn't even know they were going to order uniforms or do pictures.  I liked the company okay but they were super disorganized.  But Brynn had fun doing gymnastics and we'll probably do it again this next year.

You can tell I was clueless about pictures-just look at her hair!  Also, the owner guessed on sizes for the uniforms and got her a size 8 in shorts.  Needless to say, they were a bit too big-they didn't even stay on when she was standing still!

One week after we weeded the garden, we were out planting our pumpkin seeds.

 

 Ivy was not interested in the planting but enjoyed laying in the big tall grass that the horses can't get to.

Brynn had a gymnastics recital.  After taking care of everyone else's pink eye and a full 11 days after Ivy woke up with pink eye, I got it.  On the day of the recital.  So everyone went without me and I stayed home nursing my red, swollen eyes and feeling sad I couldn't be there.  Brynn was very forgiving and Justin was able to make it along with my mom and dad.

Justin's Grandma (Ruth) Goodrich passed away on May 25th.  She was such a neat lady.  She was so kind and loving and always seemed to have a twinkle in her eye.  She loved kids and whenever our kids were around her, she was so cute with them and always had a song or a game for them.  I will record two stories that I loved from the funeral...both of which I had heard but not in detail.  Grandma grew up in Salt Lake, in the same ward as President Monson.  She was his Sunday School teacher and had to tie him to a chair one week because he was being bad.  When Grandpa (he liked to be called granddad) picked her up at the church for their first date, she remembers Tommy Monson calling down the hall as they were leaving, "Ruthie's got a boyfriend!"  My kids enjoyed that story.  The other story was about the time she was struck by lightning.  Her and granddad lived in a one car garage for several years while they were building their house.  I don't know how many kids they had at that point but I want to say it was 4 or 5.  They had a big wood-burning stove on one end of the garage that was used for heating the home and cooking.  One night during a storm, the lightning came down the chimney and struck Grandma.  She shot across the room and was knocked unconscious and the curtains were lit on fire.  Granddad was away and just the kids were with her.  She came to and was able to put the fire out.  She was not injured besides some bumps and bruises and a sore neck and the doctor says it was her rubber-soled shoes that saved her.  Really an amazing story.  She had an amazing life and I could probably listen to those kinds of stories all day.  She left her legacy of faith with 7 kids, 38 grandchildren, 127 great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great grandchildren.  I am lucky that, even though not in that total count, through marriage and the sealing together of families in the temple that I can be included in her posterity because she really was a remarkable woman.

Grandma Ruth and Gene

After her funeral on May 30th, we met Gene, April, Brett, Rachelle, Grayson, Matt, Camille, and Kai at Dairy Keen for shakes.

Stockton, April, Gene

Molly's big end-of-year report was on Rich County.  She used those 4 days she was home from school to work on it.  She did a great job, was very thorough, and ended up getting full points on her project.

Justin also had to play mom for Brynn's field trip that I had signed up to go on...I had pink eye for two days and missed Brynn's recital and field trip.  He was a good sport and chaperoned a group of Kindergartners all around Farm Country.  Brynn was excited for him to be there and loved having her "BFF" Taylee in her group.

Brynn, Taylee Baird, Amity Grey, and new girl that moved in at the end of the year

don't know the names of the boys-Taylee and Brynn

Brynn and Taylee

At the end of the two-week pink eye plague I was ready to get out of the house.  It was Memorial Day weekend and my family was all going up to the cabin.  I didn't have a sub for Sunday so we went to church and then drove up and stayed until Monday afternoon.  It was a beautiful couple of days up there and it was so nice to get out of the house.  Thankfully, the pink eye did not recirculate after I had it.  (Brynn and Stockton had it a little but hardly at all, thank goodness.)

Stockton really loved the new badminton net and spent most of his time there.

Grandpa and Molly

Harper and Molly

Chloe, Molly, Grant, Tessa, Stockton

Grant, Harper, Brynn, Stockton

I have so many pictures of us at the cabin with family...so many that I think there's no way I'm going to take more.  Then I always end up taking more pictures of the same things, just with the kids getting older and older.

Ben, Grant, Grandpa, Abby, Justin, Jeff, Brynn

Seth, Grant, Stockton, Harper

Ali, Chloe, Ivy, Abby, Molly

Brynn's primary teacher sent me this picture of Brynn being King Noah.  She makes a cute wicked king!

Unlike most of our cousins, we still had one last week of school after Memorial Day.  The kids had parent teacher conferences two days before school got out.  I took pictures of the kids then so I didn't have to go back on the last day.

Molly had Mrs. Davis.  A lot of kids and their parents struggled with Mrs. Davis but Molly loved her, which probably has something to do with Molly's personality.  Molly's favorite thing about Mrs. Davis was that she told jokes and her favorite memory from 4th grade was the rendezvous.  Her best friends were Roxy Tobler and Kenny Fisher.

Stockton had Mrs. Murdock.  I loved her!  I wasn't in the classroom very often and probably got to know her the least but she was just so good.  She was happy all the time and just seemed to enjoy the kids and her work.  She really loved Stockton and whispered to me once during a student-led conference, "I love Stockton so much.  He is my favorite."  Stockton's favorite thing about Mrs. Murdock was that every morning she let them write in their journals about something.  His favorite thing about 2nd grade was the last day of school because they threw crushed chalk in the air.  His best friends in 2nd grade were Sam Pinter, Fisto Winegar, Carson Halper, and Mason Davis.

Brynn had Mrs. Palmer.  She was an interesting teacher.  I helped in Brynn's classroom the most and got to know her the best.  She is a talker...she would completely ignore the whole class when a parent was in there to tell them her whole life story!  That is a slight exaggeration, but she was a talker!  Brynn did great in her class, though, and she was a good teacher.  I miss Rees Elementary's Kindergarten reading curriculum.  I didn't realize how amazing it actually was until I had a child not go to Kindergarten there, and I found myself teaching her some of the things I remember from Molly and Stockton being that age.  Brynn is not as strong a reader at this point, whether it's her or it's the program they had at Rees, but she was always on level or a little above when tested so she is doing great and excited for first grade!  Brynn's favorite part about Kindergarten was having an awesome teacher and she liked all the students.  Her favorite thing about Mrs. Palmer was that "she teached us stuff" and she let them have a pajama party.  Her best friends were Taylee Baird, Macey (unsure on spelling?), and Mrs. Palmer.  She also said that Brooklyn was a nice girl. 

 

Ivy loves the hammock and loves when anyone will take a minute to rock her in it.
  
The video for the month is of Brynn's gymnastics recital.  They practiced this routine for maybe the two weeks before the recital-and it shows.  No one really knew what they were doing!  Brynn is also the smallest one out there.