Neighborhood Carnival

Our HOA fees at work... We actually love how many fun activities our neighborhood does throughout the year. In May, they do a carnival.

Petting zoo

Pony ride

Bubbles

Cotton Candy

Face painting

(Austin is a bunny rabbit--he asked for Batman, which wasn't an option)

I didn't catch any pictures of Caleb and Carter because they were running off doing their own thing. They enjoyed plenty of pizza, cotton candy, a snow cone and playing some of the sports games. (There was a pitching game that they loved and a basketball shot.)

Random Pictures

Austin loves finding tree frogs in the backyard!

These two are great friends! Austin asks to play with his cousin, Morgan, most every day.

Mother's Day 2019

Matt made crepes for breakfast for Mother's Day.

Me and my boys

I led the Primary children in singing a mother's day medley of "Love is Spoken Here" and "Mother Tell Me the Story." After church, we met up at my mom's house for dinner. Clayton smoked a brisket and the other men helped with the sides.

Carter's Mother's Day gift

Bryson's Mother's Day gift

Some things harder to decipher:

Favorite food-- cookies

Drink-- orange juice

Favorite TV Show and Movie-- "America's Got Talent"

Song-- Living in this world (first line of "I Will Be What I Believe," a song I'm teaching at church)

Heavy May Rains

We had 2 crazy thunderstorms in one week! 

Friday afternoon in early May, the rain came down heavy and quickly. This is what our backyard looked like after about an hour.

School pick-up was delayed. Fortunately I was about 25 cars into the line and was able to get my boys home safely before they stopped the car rider line due to thunder/lightning. Some kids didn't get picked up until over an hour after school got out! In other areas of the city, some students/teachers had to spend the night at their school.

Then the following Tuesday it happened again! Heavy downpour. The drains couldn't keep up with the rapid rate and soon the streets were flooded and it was creeping up the driveways.

Front yard (notice the river flowing from our backyard on the left)

Backyard--creeping over the basketball court

There were heavy rains again a few days later on Thursday night. Because some areas of the district were flooding preventing teachers and some students from traveling safely, they went ahead and cancelled school about 5am on Friday morning. The boys were happy to wake up to the news that there was no school. It ended up being a beautiful, sunny day. We headed to Pump It Up in the afternoon for some fun and exercise.

Needless to say, we had no baseball practices/games this week! It was nice to have a break and catch our breath!

Easter 2019

Egg hunt on Saturday morning with Carter's baseball team.

Austin taking off

Bryson on the hunt

Coloring eggs

Family Easter egg hunt

So glad Lindsey's family made the drive and joined us!

Monday we went to the Secret Beach with friends and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

General Conference & The Family Proclamation

In an effort to get the kids more actively listening and participating in General Conference, I spent time making this activity board where we could keep track of the main topics that each speaker addressed. I personally loved the visual! Some of my kids got into it better than others. :)

 In between the Saturday conference sessions, we celebrated finishing our family goal for 2018 by going out for ice cream: memorizing The Family: A Proclamation to the World. It took us through March 2019 to finish mostly because we weren't rushing; we wanted to make sure we knew it well. It was such a fun and rewarding goal to work on together! It brought such a spirit of unity--just naturally each of us knows some bits of it better than others. All of us working together, we can repeat it almost flawlessly. When we try to say it individually, there is more struggling. I love the parallel to how we need each other as a family in this life, working together and helping each other. Caleb and Carter know the whole thing well. Bryson knows about the first 4 paragraphs with help. Austin will randomly join in for certain words or lines when we say it. Just as we still say The Living Christ from memory weekly together as a family from our 2015 family goal, we plan to continue saying The Family Proclamation and hopefully keep it memorized for a long time. There are such powerful beliefs and testimonies in both that we want these to be anchors in our boys' lives.

Carter's 9th Birthday

Carter opened presents first thing in the morning. We've really enjoyed the game Splendor!

With his birthday on a Saturday, we had baseball to fill the day. Unfortunately Carter's team lost their game, but the team sang 'Happy Birthday' and enjoyed cupcakes.

Birthday buddies

Matt had a brisket competition that night for an Elder's Quorum activity, so we were able to snag a few pieces of brisket for dinner, which Carter and I love. It was yummy!

I felt loved and appreciated by the friends/family who stopped by or wished me a happy birthday!

Grandma and Grandpa came over for a steak dinner on Sunday (official birthday dinner for Carter/me/Matt) and to wish Carter a happy birthday. We had the leftover cupcakes I made for the baseball team--cookie dough-filled cupcakes.

Carter is a hard worker in everything he does: school, piano, and baseball. So far Carter is a straight-A student with excellent conduct marks. At baseball practices, Carter is out there hustling the whole time. Piano is not a favorite activity, however, and Carter and I butt heads quite a bit. It takes both of us consciously being patient with each other for a piano practice to go well when I sit down with him. Piano doesn't come as easily and naturally to him as Caleb, which I think is hard for him to see his older brother so celebrated for this talent. He asks to quit often, but he knows that if he wants us paying for baseball, then he needs to keep pushing on in piano.

Carter is our best worker in the yard and cleaning bathrooms. He is not afraid to get dirty and do the "gross" jobs. If his dad is out working in the yard, Carter likes to be out there helping. We love that so much about him! Occasionally, just to be nice, Carter will come home from school and sweep the leaves in the driveway. He's not afraid to clean toilets and has also been a big help in the past if Austin had a poopy accident in his underwear.

Matt and I also love that Carter is our most adventurous eater! He will try everything and likes most everything he tries. He is starting to have a humongous appetite which gives me a glimpse of what teenage years might be like trying to keep the house stocked with 4 boys! 

In our Family Home Evenings and home church, Carter is the best listener and is always quick to give thoughtful answers to the questions we ask.

Matt's birthday was on Tuesday, April 2nd. I sneakily got up early and made one of Matt's favorite cookies--snickerdoodles--and showed up at the end of seminary so that the class and I could sing 'Happy Birthday' to him. Some students wrote notes as well, which Matt appreciated. It was a good start to his day.