May Updates

We took Anders Cramer to and from soccer practice on Tuesday nights, which was wonderful because it meant I didn't have to drive for soccer on Thursday evenings. We tuckered him out one time, but he and Isaac usually cracked each other up telling jokes.

A cheerful picture I sent Doug to let him see the delicious yogurt he was coming home to.

Doug taking pictures of the young men at one of their activities.

Doug and I had the best date to play racquetball and then to eat all you can eat sushi. This is a baby octopus!

Yum!

At Winco, Corban figured out how to hold on to the side of the cart while I pushed. I still prefer when he sits in the baby seat in carts. He's getting harder to keep happy at stores.

Corban enjoying the trampoline

I read this for book club, recommended by Lauren Cramer. It was really, really good. I've since passed it on to Peanut and recommended it to Isaac's scout leader.

May was volleyball month, and this is our cute team t-shirt! I loved volleyball month and want to play more.

Mother's Day wonderfulness! The kids, school teachers,  and church leaders outdid themselves. I've saved all of this, and I'm trying to figure out how to keep it safe--in a memory book, maybe?

We checked out Millersylvania as a family. It was wonderful.

A fun, cool trail.

I love this picture. The problem with it is that I had just told everyone to smile.

Blurry, but cute. Corban loved to walk, but he had his own plans about which direction we ought to head in.

Brookie's birthday invitation. It was a great, crazy one and a half hours; I'm glad we did it.

Doug got to be a nerd for one of their building's spirit days. I wish I'd taken a picture of him as a cowboy, because it was amazing. He won first place that day.

My cute darlings at Woodard Bay.

Dallin Hammond and Sierra Stevenson are on missions right now, and I'd love for them to fall in love and get married, so I introduced them to each other in an email.

The picture of Sierra with her sisters Natalie, Hailey, and Savannah I sent to Jen to enlist her in the cause.

Cute Cason at the children's museum

Corban loves scooping the beans.

Brooklyn got an award in May and was pretty excited about it. I took a cute video as Mrs. Rossi announced how Brooklyn had blossomed so much this year and is so helpful to everyone. She has been in the top reading group all year and it has given her a lot of confidence.

bad grammar

The awesome birthday party

Brookie with her soccer coach at the last game

My percussionist preparing for a band concert. He played bells in his band, but has been taking private lessons to get better as a drummer. It's really expensive to have him take lessons, but that was one of the band teacher's requirements for allowing Isaac to join the band in April.

Isaac with his soccer team. Anders isn't pictured because he was late.

Brookie on her birthday!

The food she requested to celebrate her big day

My darlings at one of our go-to parks, Friendly Grove

The cake at Lucy's soccer party

And then off I went to Iowa and Wisconsin for Marshall's graduation and meeting Baby Tehina!

Handsome Blake asked to pose.

This was Marshall's favorite picture of the big day. It became his screen saver.

This is one of my favorite pictures from Marshall's graduation day. We were pinching him so hard, and smiling as nicely as we could.

Doug took the kiddies to the zoo while I was gone. So brave!

Our precious Tehina! She was 8 lbs, 9 ounces at birth, so just an ounce smaller than Lucy when she was born.

I got to go on such a fun run with Troy during our weekend there. I don't know how he was able to keep it together enough to take care of Breezy and Tehina at the hospital, give his kids tons of attention, and play with me and Mom.

A beautiful walk in Wisconsin. It was in the 90s in both Iowa and Wisconsin while we were there.

I did Georgia's after after I took the girls swimming.

Sayla's hair was really pretty, too. She did a lot of crazy poses for the camera.

Merry-Go-Round time on Memorial Day.

Doug took the kids on a little shopping spree. Lucy was pretty thrilled with this outfit. (The flower disintegrated in the wash already).

Captain America power!

Me on my way home to my family! (I didn't know that I had just left my precious water bottle behind at the airport.)

This was amazing. I was pretty sure we would be chasing the sunset the whole way back to Washington, and I was right. We chased it the whole way, and it was gorgeous. Washingtong has so many things going for it, but one of them is not visibility. I don't see sunsets very often because of our gorgeous trees and unfortunate frequent cloud clover. I took this picture flying over Minnesota.

The next day, I got to play with my buddies again. This was a video of Cason singing and the boys cheerfully playing with Isaac's toys. They love getting to play with toys from Isaac's toybox. That is going to come to an abrupt halt when school is out for the summer. School will be out in less than two weeks! I'm delighted for the kids to get their summer break, and I hope to figure out a routine that allows the kids to have a wonderful summer, but that also involves them being incredibly helpful and responsible with chores and prepping well for the next school year. I particularly want to work on reading and spelling with the girls and multiplication with all the bigs. I'd love to start reading with Cason and help Corban identify all his letters and sounds.