Kindergarten Graduation

My little man is so cute. He was so excited for his graduation from Kindergarten. He'd worked hard to learn all of the songs and even made his own poster for one of the songs. I can't believe how quickly this year has gone. He asks every day if he can go to school in the morning, so first grade will be PERFECT!

I was at the back trying to keep my girls quiet, so I didn't get a great shot of him getting his diploma.

I asked Little Man a few weeks ago who he thought was cute in his class.  This little girl was one of the three that he liked!  Her mom asked to get a picture of them together.  Apparently she talks about Little Man at her house quite a bit!  Too funny.

This is the poster he made all by himself.  His part was to draw a picture about Spring.  It went with a song about the four seasons.  He drew a tree getting new leaves and animals coming out of hibernation.  He even labeled everything.  I loved it.  He also made a graduation picture of himself.  The questions on the paper asked what he wanted to be when he grew up-teacher.  His favorite thing to do-horseback riding, and a couple of other things I can't remember right now.

May Craziness

May isn't even over and it has already been a very crazy month! Little Princess has had her last day of preschool, preschool graduation, and a dance recital. The week after that was all over was a big let down for her. She was bored and didn't quite know what to do with herself. Luckily we've had lots of play dates to make up for it.

In the middle of all the craziness, I ran the Susan VanKomen 5k Race for the Cure.  It is my mother-in-law's 20th year of being cancer free.  She wanted her daughters and daughters-in-law to all run it with her.  We decided to make it a girls weekend and stayed downtown at a hotel.  It was a lot of fun. This was the first time we'd had a girls weekend in the 10+ years that I've been in the family.   Nothing like running a race in a tutu and tiara.  Wahoo!

Big Man had a piano recital as well.  This is really the only picture I got of him (even though it's not really of him).  He did a great job.  He'd practiced hard.

The Mover continues to be my biggest helper.  One night while I was getting dinner ready, she got out the cups all by herself (without me asking).  She spend at least 10 minutes arranging them around the table.  I think she got out around 10-12.  She was quite proud of herself.

She's my biggest helper, but also my biggest mess maker.  After spilling the whole can of Pringles on the floor, I had her sweet them up.  The sweeping actually made a bigger mess than she started with, so it turned into the perfect photo-op.  You can only see a portion of the chips in the picture. 

Still coming up is Little Man's Kindergarten graduation this Friday.  We also had a Spring Fling at the boys school.  I have a few videos on my camera, but I didn't get any individual pictures.  I can't keep up with all of the excitement!  I need school to get out just so we can have a break.

Let's go Camping!

We have wanted to buy our own camper for a while now, but it has not worked out-until now!  Jeff has been eyeing this camper since we moved to Mona.  It has been parked in the Wendy's parking lot in Nephi.  A few weeks back the lady who owns it posted it on one of the indoor yard sales sites online.  They had reduced the price a bunch and so we went and looked at it.  It is perfect for our little family.  The front part has 4 bunk beds with a door that goes down below to the storage (this is their favorite part if you can't tell).

We've never been a big camping family-until now!  We have some fun trips planned. Our camper will get lots of use. We're excited.

Dairy Field Trip (and animal fair too)

Tis the season for field trips.  Little Princess's preschool class got to go to the dairy in Nephi.  Her teacher's really good about letting siblings go too.  Since Little Man goes to afternoon Kindergarten he was excited to go.  I'd never been to a dairy before and found it fascinating (minus the smell of course).  The cows walk onto this carousel themselves, get hooked up to get milked, and then back out on their own when they're done.  

 

Little Princess was having a great time with her friends the whole time.  I had to go find her to take her picture.  It was fun to see her having a great time with her friends.

They keep the baby cows in a separate area until they are 3 months old.  All my kids loved this area checking on each calf.

Little Man took good care of The Mover at the dairy.  He was really cute with her.  This picture cracked me up (and you can't see it very well) but every cow in this area was right up against the fence watching the kids. 

Also this week was Big Man's animal fair.  I didn't realize the picture was kind of fuzzy until I put it on here :(  The second graders at his school have worked really hard at their animal reports for a couple of months now.  They made a book with 4 or 5 chapters on different facts about their chosen animal.  They then made a poster board with pictures and the rest of the school and parents got to come and see it.  We have a friend who had a badger skin that we borrowed for the fair.  Big Man did a great job.  It was fun for him (and me) to see all his hard work come together.

Kindergarten Zoo Field Trip

I won the zoo lottery and got to go on a field trip with my son.  (Only 17 chaperones could go, so the teacher drew names).  It ended up being on the coldest day in April.  Brrrr.  It was fun though.  Going to the zoo doesn't sound like a big deal, but when it's an hour and a half bus ride each direction, it makes for a LONG day.  Little Man had never ridden on a bus before, so he loved that 3 hours of the day.  It was fun to see him interact with his friends.  

 

This and That.

Most of the time I forget to take pictures.  The rest of the time I forget to get them off my phone.  So here's an attempt to clean off my phone. 

 

 

The Mover is my biggest helper around the house.  She LOVES to help clean.  She will help with the bathrooms, dishes, sweeping and wiping stuff down.  On this particular day I asked her and Little Princess to clean up the play-doh on the counter.  This was her attempt.

It's rare to get The Mover to smile in a picture.  I guess all it takes is a super fun ride on the car at Walmart. 

Do you ever have one of these laundry weeks?  I am great at washing and drying, but not so much at folding and putting away.  This particular week I kept adding new batches every day until it looked like this.  I'm surprised my kids had any clothes left in their closets.

Dad and his girls cuddling.  So cute.  For the first 20 months of the Mover's life, she didn't want much to do with Jeff. Now she asks where he is ALL the time.  I don't know which is worse :)

What a Weekend!

It might be the OCD in me, but once I get something in my mind, I become obsessed. I decided that I wanted a swing/play set for the kids in the backyard. They have loved the trampoline we got last fall and I was envisioning the hours of time a swing set would occupy them in the backyard and OUT of the house! It's a win win situation!

I contemplated a new set, but didn't want to pay $1000 for a nice one, so I got on KSL.com over a month ago and started watching. There were a ton of good, cheap sets that came on every day.  The problem is a ton of other people had the same idea.  I've missed out on so many sets because I didn't call within the first 5 minutes a set was listed.  It was very frustrating.  I finally posted an ad that I was looking for a set and if someone would call me before they posted it, I would come pick it up.  In between conference sessions on Saturday I got a call from a guy in Woods Cross asking if I was interested in his swing set.  He texted me a picture told me his price (which was a steal)  and we headed up there.

It took two hours to disassemble.  We dropped the kids off at my parents house so they weren't a distraction :)

I love this picture.  It looks like a used wood yard sale.  It's crazy how many pieces we had.  Luckily we didn't have to put it together from scratch (I'm glad we didn't go with a new one for that reason). 

By the time we got back home to start setting it up it was about 6:00 p.m.  The kids were so excited they could hardly stand it.  This picture was at about 25% of the reassembly. It only took about 2 hours to reassemble.  I was expecting longer. 

This is the finished product.  I LOVE it.  The kids are thrilled.  They spent all morning moving stuffed animals, toys, and pictures out.  We spent all afternoon making them move it all back in!  :)   The next step is staining it.  I don't know if I can keep them off of it long enough to do that!  This was another lesson in patience, but it really paid off. 

I have 4 very happy kids and one very sore and tired husband-who I owe big time for all the labor in my brainstorm.  Love ya!