The first weekend in May, Spencer and Brandon picked up Mike at the airport and headed to San Diego for a bachelor weekend to celebrate Mike's upcoming wedding. They went to a Padres game, paddle boarding, and deep sea fishing, along with lots of eating and late nights of Spencer and Brandon giving Mike marriage advice!
The kids and I stayed home that weekend and hit up Tierra Linda's 20th Anniversary carnival! It was surprisingly a lot fun!
We also got a visit from Aunt Fay. She really is amazing - I love how she jumps right in with the kids. I walked into Cal's bedroom and they were all snuggled up reading books!
The night after Spencer got home from his boys weekend, the girls and I booked our free night (that was expiring) at the local Marriott for a girls night!! After swimming, Spence picked up pizza and joined us for dinner and FHE before heading home with Calvin. The girls and I popped popcorn, played games, and read books before calling it a night at 8:30pm.
It was a school night so we had to be somewhat responsible. We were up early and hit up the free breakfast before dropping Madi off at school at 8:10am.
Boppi and Grandpa Al stopped by one Sunday afternoon and the girls decided to fix up Boppi's hair. Pretty cute if you ask me!
Cal new favorite outfit! We love hand-me-downs from "Big Calvin" (Calvin Start)
Adam and Lora were in town for over a month and it wasn't until their last weekend here that we were finally able to go out on a double date! Made it a birthday celebration too - since Anaba does the music and strobe lights for birthdays!
The girls got a double date with their dad that afternoon - lunch at the Habit.
Cal and I were out running errands one afternoon close to Spencer's work so we picked him up for a lunch date and some wallet shopping. Cal is one lucky boy!
Elle's class had baby chicks this month and Madi couldn't resist a visit.
May 11-15 was Teacher appreciation week. The girls did something nice everyday for their teacher (handpicked flowers, donating class supplies, banana bread, gift cards, and sweet thank you cards)!
Spencer thought it was ridiculous that teachers get such royal treatment, but I thought it was great!
Elle loves reading to her brother and Calvin really does look forward to it. It's the sweetest thing!
Calvin LOVES his books and seems to have a new favorite every week. Cal requested I read this Franklin book 2-3 times a day for an entire week! I finally just returned it to the library!
Papa came to visit on the 15th. The girls didn't want to leave his side and begged to camp out on his bedroom floor, so for 2 nights this is where they all slept:
It's always great to have dad here! I love how he just gets things done. I tell dad one thing that needs fixing and he'll fix three! He also knew exactly how to fix our 3 wild ones that had too much energy one Saturday morning. He taught them some pretty awesome Zen techniques that had those 3 totally calmed down in minutes.
Mom flew in on Sunday the 17th (she'd been in NC helping Karlee with new baby Maverick). Dad had earned a special work trip for the two of them to Ojai so the kids and I drove up Monday after school to join them for some swimming. Just Papa and the girls got in:
Wednesday evening mom and dad flew home. They had two hours to spare before they had to head to the airport so they came back to our house to share this heavenly dessert with us:
Then mom spent the next hour and a half helping me make strawberry freezer jam for my first time.
It was super easy! We made all this is less than 2 hours!!
She even had time to sit down with Elle and read through all of her papers that we'd brought home from open house the night before.
What a great visit from Gram and Papa!
Open House was on the 19th:
Madi with Mrs. Joseph
Elle refused to get a picture with Mrs. Roth, but at least let me get a picture of her in her classroom.
My last day of teaching joy school was May 20th. Luckily I get to see a lot of these kids at church - they will all be sunbeams this coming January! Crazy!
Marli couldn't make it to joy school because she was on her way to Hawaii, but we invited her to play at our house earlier that week. I took these two cuties to story time at the library:
Madi made the speech team again this year. She chose to do a storytelling of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". She performed at the 4th and 5th grade assembly on the 20th and did a fabulous job!
I'm amazed at her confidence - even though she did admit to me that she got a tiny bit nervous this year (but what 2nd grader wouldn't - speaking in front of all those big kids)!!
The kindergarten classes had their speech celebration a week later and Elle decided she'd be brave enough to do it (pretty sure she did it just for the ribbon). She memorized "Spaghetti" by Shel Silverstein and nailed all her actions! Her teacher was super impressed - I think mostly because Elle is so quiet in class.
The kids from Elle's class who participated:
The 21st was a "volunteer tea" for all the parents who help in the classroom. I found out when the girls classes were signing and stayed long enough for both performances. Elle was on the top row in the kindergarten show and I never got a good picture of her, but Madi happened to be on the front row in the 2nd grade performance:
Cal loves scooting to school in the afternoons to pick up his sisters.
He's a little speed demon on that pink scooter with his sister's pick and green camo helmet!
A rainy/cloudy day means hot cocoa for an after school snack:
Something about the storm clouds and dark skies always makes my kids turn into the Boxcar children. They take umbrellas, blankets, snacks, books, paper, and pencils outside and create hide- outs.
Thursday the 21st we picked the girls up early from school and headed to Utah.
We were hoping to make it to Vegas by 6pm to have some good swimming time before bed. The traffic was insane though and we didn't get there until 8:30pm.
By that time Cal was exhausted and went straight to bed, but the girls insisted on going for a swim! So at 9pm the girls and I headed outside and ran from pool to pool (lazy river, to the big pool, to the hot tub, back to the lazy river, and ending in the hot tub again) until they closed at 10pm. Made for a very late night!
I was bummed we didn't have more time to enjoy the 2 bedroom unit we'd booked. Instead we got up the next morning and were on the road by 8am.
We were anxious to get to BYU though (we had a list of things to get at the bookstore).
I love the memories we make every time we go to BYU with our children and I can only hope that they all get to go to school there someday.
This was the perfect time of year to come visit too. It wasn't busy at all. The kids got a personal story time in the kids section - all to themselves while Spence and I shopped around.
We didn't get to Bobby and Amy's house until about 6pm and by that time Calvin was totally hammered. He'd taken a little nap in the van, but was not feeling good at all. We fed him and put him straight to bed (he ended up sleeping 14 hours that night!). After playing with Porter and visiting with Bob and Amy, we put the girls to bed and then Adam and Jen came over for dinner (picked up Cafe Rio) and game playing.
Saturday morning was Mike and Brooke's wedding. Bob and Amy kept the kids for us so we could go. It was a great ceremony that we almost missed cause I had forgotten my temple recommend and had to wait for clearance.
We had an hour and a half before the luncheon, so we hit up the new trendy cookie shop in Utah- Swig!
The luncheon was super nice - good food, good friends!
After the luncheon we headed back to Bob and Amy's to hang for a bit before loading up the kids for the reception. The Evan's sure know how to throw an amazing party. It was great for Spence to be with all his high school and college buddies. I mostly hung out with our kids who were having all sorts of fun!
It was cute to see how excited the girls were about all the wedding stuff - throwing the flowers, cutting the cake and feeding it to each other, and especially about decorating the car. What a fun wedding for them to experience!
It was a good night, but definitely a rushed weekend. Our visit with Bobby and Amy wasn't as relaxed as I would have liked it to be. I felt bad that we were always rushing out the door or rushing to get our kids into bed. Luckily we'll get to spend some good quality time with them at the Rudd reunion next month. We said our goodbyes Sunday at noon before getting back on the road and heading to Vegas.
We made a quick stop in Nephi to visit Sarah and her family and check out their new house. We got to Vegas about 5:30pm. We had contemplated driving straight through but then our AC went out and the kids started getting cranky, so we kept our Marriott reservation, fed the kids oatmeal packets for dinner, and crashed early. Cal was happy to sleep in the closet!
It probably would have been a lot easier for Spencer to have just flown out to Utah and attended the wedding alone, but I'm really glad we all went together. I love these fun memories we're creating!
Life just isn't slowing down. I'm ok about staying up to date on my blog, but I haven't been making the time to document the little things - cute sayings, sweet conversations, the moments that I've chosen to just enjoy and think to myself that there is no way I'll forget how I feel at that moment. But then the moment passes and I've already forgotten. So I'm trying to be better about snapping a picture to remind myself about these small moments. I snapped this one after Elle's speech celebration. The kids wanted to walk over to the park afterwards which I figured we had time for. I watched them excitedly chase after each other, talking about what they wanted to play. I loved how they had to walk off the paved road and explore every single "secret path" they could find. I love what good friends my kids are.
The other morning I had Cal help me make muffins for a little joy school party we were going to. He was so excited to help me bake and talked my ear off the entire time. Now I wished I'd stopped to write it down all the cute things he was telling me. I need to take more videos!
I know it sounds totally cheesy, but they are growing up WAY too fast and I don't want to miss anything!
The other day Cal was standing under the counter and I had to snap a picture to document his height at 3 years 2 months old. I betcha in 6 more months he'll bonk his head if he tries walking under there.
The smile... that hair.... his adorable munchkin voice - I can't get enough.
They're actually all at a fun stage right now! Elle's become obsessed with checking the mail. She LOVES getting letters and has become pen pals with her cousin Leah. She's great about writing RIGHT back when she gets a letter in the mail (FYI for anyone reading this that wants to make a little girls day and get a letter back from her)!
Madi is busy preparing herself to be baptized in a month which she doesn't take lightly. She studies her baptism book and her scriptures on a regular basis and has those covenants that she'll be making with our Heavenly Father memorized! She's such a great example!
How blessed I feel to be their mama!
