Busy May’ing

May’s got me like 😩 But we’re good, we’ve got all our countdowns and are wrapping up all the things, it’s an exciting time! 

I was listening to the All In podcast and one of their guests talked about making scripture time magical, so we lit candles one night during scripture power hour, because candles are def magic. 

I washed the girls sheets one day and found this in Delaney’s bed. 🤦‍♀️

Lots of scripture hour pics. It’s the time of day that we all gather and slow down, so I’m always tempted to snap a shot of the sweetness. 

The girls helped me stuff mailboxes with our staff appreciation week schedule. Delaney and I had stapled raffle tix and cut each paper in half for everybody.  

After school that Friday we met up with Evelyn and got everything set up. I climbed up on the tall chairs to put up all that bunting. 

Locked and loaded and ready for a fun week!

I’ve got some serving stuff I’ve acquired over the years that I always bring.  



Jackie and Paul went to the Kentucky Derby so I had to share about our Preakness and Derby winner Pensive (as in the street). All the streets in LG are named for Preakness horse winners and Matt and I were just talking about how maybe our vast knowledge of horse names could come in handy for a trivia night someday. Random info, but I’ve got my fingers crossed!

Adi and I set a goal to stretch during scripture time. And that’s 3 scripture power hour pictures for those keeping track. 

Apparently matching travel fits are all the rage, so we took Amy’s suggestion and got these bad boys. Delaney didn’t want to match, then Frankie decided she didn’t like it, adi requested a smaller size, and my color, though pretty was not flattering. So all of these went back and hopefully the next batch will be cute, at least for Adi and I. They are v v v comfortable!

That Saturday we had a family adventure to the movies and then tackled the grocery store for PTA fruit salad and drink supplies. I checked websites and calculated and planned and I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Our family had some fruit salad leftover - it was SO good - and a lot of these here kiwis weren’t ripe, but otherwise all the fruit was right on the nose for my 100 individual cups. 

One of our grandcats having a rough day on her ice cream truck shift. 🤣

My poor Emmi-bob got a weird infection in his cheek and looked like this for a few days. This picture cracked us up and we laughed and laughed, our poor baby! Thankfully he’s all better now!

The Sunday before  teacher appreciation week was going to be all hands on deck to make the aforementioned 100 cups of fruit salad, but Matt woke up sick and Adi ended up having a camp meeting and Delaney had friends over and I felt bad making only Frankie help, so that meant I got to cut up fruit by myself *all day*. We also had the missionaries for dinner that night, so between all the fruit I also made white chicken chili, salad, rolls, and… fruit salad of course for all of us for dinner. And you know how the missionaries always ask what they can do for your family? Well, I felt prompted at church to ask if they’d ever made a balloon arch and Sister Snyder said she loves making them and would be happy to put mine together for me! That made the dinner making in the midst of a busy day worth it. Oh yeah, that morning I also spent a few hours hand pumping balloons for the arch. I watched a ton of videos and you have to make the balloons rounded instead of oval shaped, it’s just a whole thing. Anyways, they whipped that bad boy together and I was so grateful! I had a zoom meeting at 7, then it was back to fruit chopping!

I first cut up half the fruit to see how much that would make, then I did another 1/4, and then I needed the second 1/4. I’m actually pretty proud of my calculating skills on this one. 💅 Here’s what I prepped:

6 lbs strawberries

72 kiwi 

24 bananas

4 lbs grapes

8 pints blueberries 

4 pineapples

2 cantaloupes

16 oranges

I decided to leave the bananas out and just put the whole bananas out for the teachers, and then of course at least half the kiwis weren’t ripe at all, but everything else was used. It took all. day. long. And my whole kitchen, even after cleaning and wiping things down all day felt all fruit juice sticky. 

Monday morning I woke up early and stuffed, and I do mean stuffed that balloon arch into the truck, along with the fruit, sunflowers and vases, and a few other supplies. I had offered the girls Chick-fil-A brekkie if they came with me to help and all three agreed. We were so stuffed into the jolly green! Adi ended up holding the big electric chcikfila tote warming bag on her lap and the other girls had stuff on laps too. We got to Chick-fil-A a few minutes before their 6:30 opening and would you believe they have a lineup already? It’s bananas. 

The girls told me I should dress western all week, so I had to. 

We got the balloon arch put up, the 100 chicken biscuits and fruit cups laid out, the orange and apple juice into the fridges, and the flowers arranged and it all looked so cute and everyone was so excited. Staff appreciation is the best job!

The girls were super helpful helping me carry that giant balloon arch - as all the students were coming in from the busses of course - and all my supplies in. D has Ms. Sheehan for home room and Ms. S told her to come to class when she could and she wouldn’t mark her tardy since she was helping. They love hanging out in the staff room and seeing teachers away from their classes, and of course the praise the receive. Adi walked to the high school when it was time for her classes to start, and Dominique had also come to help. She offered to stay an extra hour to rotate stock and tidy up as the teachers came in, so I was able to bounce just after 8:00 for a nice morning nap. I headed back to clean up every day at 1:00 and then I just brought the girls home with me. And that was one day down!