May Roundup

The kids have been eagerly awaiting the opening of our neighborhood pool. Finally-- it's swim time!

 We have Kevin's cousins who live in the area over for dinner. It was lots of fun and we will have to do it more often. The kids loved playing together. Evelyn played with them too, for the most part, but then came back and shot a bunch of selfies with Jason's phone. 

 Kevin and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. No big celebrations were feasible this year, but that's ok. We've loved new routine of regularly scheduled  twice a month date nights I instituted 6 months ago. New traditions can be part of celebrating too!

Here we are then--

and now! We celebrated that day with the kids as our 'family birthday' which they loved of course. 

 

We took a long kid-free walk at the tulip festival for date night the week before our anniversary and went to a play at Hale Center Theatre for date night after our anniversary and called it good.

Evelyn has been loving tutus lately. Here she is, all dressed and ready for church! Or so she thinks!  

 

 Evelyn fits into this cute shirt Liz sent Cora or Violet a few years ago. I love pulling out the clothes the older girls have worn and remembering about when they wore them and how they were then. It's fun to do this one last time....then pass the surviving remains onto neighbors who might be able to use them. So many memories! 

 Violet wrote this self-motivation note for herself. Ahhh, sibling love! (The i's at the end are exclamation points.) 

Mother's Day was fun! The kids and Kevin did a great job with breakfast, yum. The kids all made cards on their own, in school, and in nursery (including one from Violet who said she loved me because I'm the best mom she's got :)). I took a nap too, and everyone behaved all day, so it was pretty wonderful!

Violet and Cora completed a safety course called Rad Kids. We heard about it from a neighbor, who arranged to have classes for neighborhood kids at our clubhouse. It was really great! Not only did they talk about safety but they learned techniques to defend and escape scary situation and practiced them, not just talked about them. They learned a lot and had fun too. 

 Park date with Evelyn! One on one fun time with Evelyn doesn't happen all that often, so we took advantage of the beautiful weather to nix errands and swing for as long as she wanted.

 

 Evelyn thinks she is as big as the other kids and wants to join right along. Some of her climbing makes my knees weak. She'll still stop to blow dandelions though, so cute! 

 

 Double breakfast shake morning. I love protein shakes for a quick breakfast and Evelyn thinks carnation instant breakfasts are part of waking up.

 We got our garden planted! It's a double plot this year, which should keep me on my toes with weeding, watering, harvesting, and processing. The kids got to take turns helping us plant while some stayed in the van watching a movie and keeping Evelyn company. We have 7 kinds of tomatoes, 6 kinds of sweet peppers, carrots, peas, beans, cucumbers, sweet potato, tomatillos, jalapeno, watermelon, and a few kinds of pumpkins. I hope they all grow.

 We also spent quite a bit of time on our yard this year. This isn't the final pic, I need to get an updated one. But we have 4 new trees (two little, one medium, one large), lots of new perennials and annuals, new mulch, and we planted our flowers and herbs in the growboxes. We also moved a few bushes, planted zucchini, squash, kale, sunflowers, and decorative gourds and pumpkins in the backyard beds. I even got a few packets of flower seeds to try out. I hope everything takes well to its new home. We didn't do much with our yard last year, so it is nice to have a place I like to look at this year! 

 More park time! And we have been watching Star Wars. We are through Episode IV now. Cora and Violet love it! Luke is very interested but has worn out before the end of most of the movies, and Evelyn will point to Darth Vader and say 'Da Va-er... scary'. This day Luke was walking around with a blanket on saying 'Mom, I am your father!' in his best Darth Vader voice. Pretty fun to experience classics with the family, and to see them straight through. I've really liked it. 

 

 I went shopping one night kid-free and came out to this huge shock! Apparently a hotel van was pulling through the spot next to me and caught the bumper. There was no PA system at the mall, so when I didn't show up, the officer and other driver left. Not a fun surprise to come back to! It took a while, but the officer came back, gave me the information, and amazingly stuffed the bumper in the car so I could drive home. 

 We were lucky the driver had insurance and while it was a hassle, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And we got to drive a new Jetta while the Corolla was being fixed! I had forgotten how nice it is to drive a new car, especially a step up from the Corolla for us. It took 8 days to get our car back (Memorial Day weekend stretched things out a little). We haven't had a car in an accident for 6 years (and not our fault then either luckily!) and hopefully it won't happen again for a long time.

 Violet had her last day of tumbling for the year. She's had a great class! Lucky for us, she can continue with Miss Kara in the fall, even though she only has 2 after school classes. Violet has learned so much this year and really worked hard and excelled. Lately she's been trying to see how many backhandsprings she can do in a row and is up to 4. She's working on making them perfect and starting work on her aerial too.

 We separated Cora and Violet's bunkbeds so we braved IKEA for another lamp. Of course, Luke decided two days later he wanted the same one (which was just fine, he was using his Noah's Ark one that matched the old baby nursery bedding), so it was back to IKEA we went. I don't mind the store as much as the long lines at checkout! We took a lot of pictures to help pass the time. I haven't been there for over a year and I hope I don't have to go again anytime soon!

 The girls wanted to be twinners for school last week! I think it's so fun when they plan out their outfits to match. I wonder how much longer those days will last??

 

 Cora's school did Art for a Cause. The kids made sculptures out of recycled materials, and then relatives were invited in to see the art display and vote for their favorites by putting coins or dollars in the cups by the kids' work. The charity was Heifer International, one of my very favorite charities! So the kids were excited when they got a lot of change to distribute. They ended up collecting over $600, which was enough to buy a cow and some other smaller animals for people in Cambodia. I love the awareness of the world that this school emphasizes.

 Luke had his last day of preschool for the year! He has loved Miss Angie and has learned so much! He and Marlee carpooled just about every day this year, which was so nice-- and fun. They are good little friends. And they will be carpooling next year too-- hooray! 

 

Luke and Kevin went to the Fathers and Sons outing this year. It was their second time (last year was pouring so they skipped). Luke was so excited, he wanted to pack his backpack first thing when he got up, even though they weren't leaving until 4:30. He made a new friend and they both had a great time!