Arts in Bloom

Delaney borrowed my phone towards the end of our presidency meeting. 5 year old selfies are the cutest.

  

And then for lunch, little Miss refined taste enjoyed some pepperoni and cheese. Cause she's so fancy. Also, she likes her pepperoni served frozen, please and thank you.

 

After our meeting and dropping D at school I went to help alice pack. Moving is the pits so I was happy to help. 

Picked the girls up, quick snack, and time to head to Addie's gymnastics. And that is why we love our no schedule summer. I know some people love summer camps and some people have to continue the summer grind, but I am so grateful to (after many years not having this luxury with my big kids) be able to stay home and enjoy summer laziness. S'wonderful. There was a thunderstorm while at gymnastics and we stay in the car because dance studios are straight cray cray. D did not care for the loud sound of the rain on the car or the lightning and thunder. But she told herself "Delaney, you're safe, your ok!" like she does when she's anxious and she was just fine. . 

 

Straight from dance to the school for the Arts in Bloom event. We were able to get in on the cookie decorating.

The girls loved decorating their emoji cookies.

heart eye emoji for lanes - all the heart eyes.

And kiss blowing emoji for Frankie, all the kiss blowing.
 
Addie the good sport and good sister let the littles do the cookies and she went to do cupcakes. Those were some loaded cupcakes!
 
They had artwork all around the school. Every student had art displayed. Pre-K is doing the alphabet backwards, they started when there were 27 days left of school. They do a new letter and art project each day and it is so very cute! I taught D to sing the alphabet backwards and she is so hot stuff! Each day has a theme, so today was F for finger painting day. Anyways, super adorable, D loves it. Her piece is the ladybug. :)
 

Frankie had some angst, but she was trying hard to smile for this picture. She couldn't remember which sushi plate was hers. She was positive it was one with a red bowl, but when I peeked at the name on the back, it wasn't hers. She was just SO sure it was and she was so upset. Finally Matt and I peeked at the backs of all of them. Another class friend came by and he couldn't remember which was his either, so totes a first grade thing.

When we finally found it she did her patented Frankie laugh and "oh!" and all was right with the world again.

Addie's art was a little lame, not the piece actually, but that we've already seen it because this was her Square One art.
 
We tried these fun noise making sticks. That was a crazy loud room! D the dancer was jamming out! She was dancing all over the place.
  

We also line danced with Ms. McNeil and Frankie sang karaoke. But more on that to come.

Luau's and daddy dates

 

Yesterday Miss thang got to go to PE. And on the one day I didn't have her wear shorts under her skirt!

It was also the 100 Book Challenge Luau. All the kids that read 100 books (and whose parents had them fill out their forms, no small feat!) got a lei, pizza, Popsicles, and then separated into groups for games. 

Everyone brought a beach towel to sit on. Luckily I saw a mom dropping off towels when I dropped D off so I was able to grab 2 for the girls. 

 

I got to take Frankie's group around. She had fun running the lei relay. 

And the beach ball hockey was everyone's favorite!  

All those kids going crazy for the ball, but my girl holds steady at the goal!

 

Then the groups juggle, which works better with less wind and not 1st graders. 

 

We love to party, so right after school we headed to Chick-fil-A for military appreciation night. Who loves free food? These guys!!!

 

We played on the bounce house and checked out all their fun setups until it was time for Frankie to go to dance. 

I wanted a crossbody purse for Mother's Day and I found one I liked from thirty-one. So when I started looking through the catalog I saw that I could sign up to be a distributervand get the bag I wanted plus some other fun bags for just a little more. It was fun opening our starter box!

Brenda is such a good A days leader that even in the midst of the biggest trial of her life, she still put on a wonderful night for the girls and their dads. Matt took it seriously and made Addie a cute candy lei (against my wishes, but whatevs) and insisted on driving separately from us so he could really treat her like a lady. I instructed him to get lots of pictures, so naturally this was the only one he took. 

He said none of the other dad's were taking pictures and he felt weird. Boys!

And some better Luau pics from chris. 

 

The kids had so much fun! In spite of some of the other kids that weren't able to attend sticking their tongues out at the attendees. 

 

One day Laney's new friend that's a boy, Clark had the pre-k princesses over. All 4 of them!

 

And Laney is a bratskee that doesn't snile for other people. She might be my first kid that behaves better for me than for other people. If I didn't think she was so awesome I'd be pretty amnoyed. 

 

Today and strawberries

We watched some more fun kiddos this morning. After they left we did some laundry including sheets. Delaney loves to do laundry, it's one of her 3 favorite chores - cooking, car washing, and laundry. She also enjoys being a mothers helper, oh be still my heart! On Sunday they had a lesson on 1 Nephi 3:7, "I will go and do the things the Lord commands," and she had to choose a chore that she would be obedient to do, and she chose mothers helper. LOVE. 

This afternoon Dari and I met for lunch at Salsa's and talked welfare. It's the one thing about my calling that still really gets me, I still have so many questions and unease about it, but that's probably because I know it's so important. I'm grateful to have the Stake Welfare Specialist in our ward. 

Addie, lanes, and I made a cheesy egg bake for dinner. Matt and I thought it was lovely, but the girls not as much. 

Then this evening Alecia and I went and did some visits. In the rain. We got to 5 of the 9 sisters we'd hoped to do. 2 sisters had moved, and 2 weren't home, but we had 1 really good visit, totally the reason alecia came with me and that we went tonight. I love seeing God's hand so directly. 

I've had Bubba on my mind a lot lately. I've been praying to know how to connect better with him, when to give him freedom and when to mom him. Tonight I came across a fun mom son journal (bought it), and also sent him a text telling him how much I love and miss him. He actually thanked me and said he'd had a really rough day. So then we had our longest phone call we've had since he became a college boy. Love, love, love. 

Last week we went to pick strawberries. D and I got there before they opened, so then we went and checked out a fun park nearby. 

 

There was no one else there and my little loner was in heaven.  

 

She loves playing by herself! She is so much like me! 

 

The weather lately has been so crazy. Hot, cold, hot, rainy, hot, cold, windy... anyhow, the strawberries were kinda slim pickings, but we managed to get several pounds and this weekend made some delicious freezer jam, and it all set!

Farm cutie picked a few, ate a few. She loves her some strawberries!

 

See?

 

It was such a hot day! 

 

And there were several school classes there so it was crowded. 

 

Before we left we checked out the animals. Charlie's Angels, these three are not. 

But they are cute!

Our crew. It will be so crazy to be out of playgroup next year! We'll have to have more girls nights and maybe some weekend play dates. 

 

Addie and Frankie are independent walkers, so if D and I dilly dally they often beat us home. I keep the house locked up tight, so this hot day they came in the garage and grabbed a drink out of the outside fridge. I thought they looked so cute chillin on the skateboard enjoying their juicies. And Addie was hot stuff in her new (to her) high tops. 

 

May stuff

The one picture I took today. It was a cray-cray day-day! We watched some busy kiddos this morning, went to the store, made muffins and dinner, went to yet another Daisy Scout event, and even more excitement. 

 

On Saturday laura made me weed our square foot garden beds. She and David brought over some plant starters, tomatos, peppers, radishes, and carrots. The girls and I weeded and yard worked together and it was nice and cool weather. And look at our cute little garden! The other square foot garden is full of strawberries. We picked like, a dozen!😂

 

Little Miss thang cane in one night to tell matt and I something and she just looked so cute. Such a precious little girl. 

 

This is what she wanted to show us: 

 

She'd written out every task on her chore board. She's such a studious little lady. 

Matt went up on Saturday to pick Dan up from the airport and take him to his summer apartment, so he was gone most of the day. 

 

On Friday there was an awesome, albeit short thunderstorm. 

I love when it's angry storm on one side of the sky, and nice clear day on the other. Frankie was my model.  She's a cute and silly one. 

 

Storm watchers. Such a nice evening. 

 

That day the elders had come over to mow the grass. I got out our ice dispenser to fill a pitcher if ice water for them because it was not a nice and cool day, more like hot and disgusting. D was enjoying some ice, when one got stuck to her lip, so she pulled it and it tore some skin off her lip. To appease her I gave her a bandaid that I thought might last for 30 minutes tops. She kept that silly bandaid on all day! She obviously struggled to eat and drink, but she did not want it taken off. It was several hours later that she finally let me slowly pull it off. Crazy. 

 

I found these gorgeous and delicious cookie pops in my church bag. Brenda gave them to her class and Addie gave them to me. They were a delicious treat to find!

 

Random catch up: take 873,431.