Surviving May

Carson has a new love of watermelon...so much so that when I forgot to put away the garbage can, he promptly crawled right over and pulled a rind out and went to town

This past week Emma participated in her school's 1 mile fitness run for the 3rd and 4th graders.  She has been preparing for this race for several weeks.  This was NOT an easy thing for her and she was discouraged as race day approached thinking that she couldn't do it.  In fact, she wanted us to give her permission to not run...which we refused to do.  Instead Ellie, Carson and myself went to the race and ran around at different parts of the race yelling and cheering her on.  I am proud to say that the ran and finished the entire race.  Yes, I might of shed tears over one of my children yet again.  She placed 20th out of 100 girls.  All we wanted was for her to finish, but this was awesome!

Enjoying a post race glass of water with her friend and running mate.

Ellie's Kindergarten class had a simple music program demonstrating all the  musical skills they acquired this year.

Since it was the middle of the day and Matt couldn't make it, I took Emma and Brady out of their classes. Emma tended Carson and Brady took video while I took pictures of the program.  We were a great team.

Our once terribly shy Ellie happily recited her part of  the program (and even wrote her own part).

One more picture of her whole (quite large) Kindergarten class.  I can't believe that she will be a first grader and at school all day long in just a couple of months!

Yay! Brady put his baseball hat on me!

Matt caught a picture of the girls doing Pilates with me.  I'm trying my darndest to exercise!

Happy Memorial Day to all of you.  We're headed out to Breakfast and then to the lake with some friends.

May filled weeks

Brady finished his spring soccer season this week with a record of 8-2.  He has been recruited by 2 different coaches to play on the travelling league next year.  The coaches both know that he can't play on Sunday and they still want him.  In my opinion, that's saying a lot.

His coach took everybody out for ice cream and he handed out team pictures and trophies.

Brady couldn't even wait to finish his ice cream before busting into his trophy.

The other morning we had some deer in our yard during breakfast. They cut through our yard a lot, but it's not often we see them...they're usually running through, not grazing like this morning.

Ellie had a Birthday party at the park with some of her Kindergarten friends earlier this week. They decorated their own cupcakes, played at the park, decorated the sidewalk, danced to the bubble machine, and had races down the hill.  It was good simple fun!

The Birthday girl was totally in her element.

Rolling down the hill.

The park has the best hill...they rolled, skipped, ran, hopped...as many things as I could think of to fill the time. :)

She was SPOILED with gifts and money! She has thank you cards on her to do list this week.

Carson chilling at Fort Island (the kids school) waiting for the wax museum to start.  And yes he was still in his jammies since he slept in that morning.

Here we have our very own Betsy Ross at the 4th grade wax museum.  I know I'm biased, but seriously she did a fantastic job.  Grandma Eccles made the dress, I drove her to the library, and she did the rest including memorizing her 2 1/2 page biography so she didn't have to read anything.  The community was invited and every time somebody pushed her button, she came to life and recited her biography.  It was awesome!  I might have cried a tiny bit.

Ellie was super excited when her class came in to see Emma, but as you can tell Emma's trying to stay in pose and like any good sister would do gave her a quick hug before pushing her away.

Brady and the second graders learning all about Betsy Ross.

I just had to take a picture of all the great toys I got at a yard sale on Friday  for Carson.  Now I never would have purchased all these toys for Carson from the store because retail price would be close to $200 if you can believe it, but I got all these plus a Playskool walker toy and a see-n-say for $25.  The girls cleaned them and took them to the basement.  You better believe they're getting wrapped for his Birthday (well some of them...the rest I'm saving for Christmas).  And to think all I planned on giving Carson for his Birthday was a carseat. :)  I scored a lot of other great deals as well.  Don't you just love getting a good deal?

Ellie had her tap and ballet recital yesterday.  I might have cried then too.  This girl has music and dance in her blood.  All her shyness disappears when she sings and dances.  Her class did a tap routine to "I just can't wait to be King" and a ballet routine to "Somewhere over the Rainbow."  Enjoy the pictures.  She doesn't have her dance shoes on in any of the outside pictures because I didn't want her to ruin them.  We are so darn proud of her.  It honestly was so beautiful to watch her dance...the gracefulness of her body doing ballet really choked me up. Matt posted the videos on you tube.  Let me know if you need the link.

A quick note about this picture.  Ellie had to work and stretch her body for several months before she could master this move.  She is extremely proud as she should be.

I love my kids so darn much and watching them in whatever it is that they choose to do is so very rewarding as a parent.  It never gets old.

Now that the hearth is sufficiently covered Carson has moved onto the fireplace. I caught him red handed. He grabs and shakes the fireplace doors REALLY hard (he does the same thing to the kitchen table) so Matt used zipties to keep this from happening.  This kid is SUPER DUPER strong! As I write this I just discovered he shook the kitchen table so the Mother's Day cake the girls made me slid to the edge and he's sticking his fingers in the frosting and slurping it off his fingers. This boy is strong and smart!

After he got tired of the fireplace it was on to this ball of twine he found...I didn't even know we owned a ball of twine until I found him unrolling it.

My Kindergartener had a special Mother's Day morning at her school.  We did 4 special activities together and it was really nice to just be able to focus on her.  Unfortunately Carson cried a LOT for the nice lady tending him, but she was a good sport about it.  I reassured her that he cries a LOT for us too.

We had fun taking some serious and not so serious (see below) self portraits.

We even made up an acrostic poem with Ellie's name.  In case you can't read it, it says, excellent, lovely, lively, intelligent, and eager. 

One of the highlights was the "spa" where Ellie painted my fingernails and gave me a back massage. We did however have a little mishap with the bottle of nail polish and now I have pink polish on my jeans as a souvenir.

Carson enjoying his Saturday morning pancake and "cheesing" it up for the camera.  He definitely recognizes the camera.

The primary had a talent show and Brady was coerced to play the piano and also sing  a song with some of the other cub scouts in the ward.  As you can see, it was immediately preceding his soccer game.

Emma and her friend Katherine made up a dance routine to Taylor Swift's "You belong to me." I took a lot of pictures, but since they were in motion they all turned out blurry.  I REALLY wish our camera had a sports/action mode, but I guess that's a dream for another day. Anyway, they did great.

The soccer game was during Carson's nap time as evident by his protests.

Our local grocery store had a free event where they provided heart cakes for children to decorate for their moms.  I took the girls and they had a great time making some cute cakes.

Speaking of Mother's Day, today has been really nice.  Matt took the kids to get me a card and some yellow tulips last night. Then today they made dinner and cleaned up while I rested.  The food was tasty and the company even better.  I am blessed to have such a thoughtful husband and four loving kiddos.

The past couple of weeks

 Emma is becoming quite the little artist having won and/or had several of her art pieces selected for district wide art shows.  Her latest feature was her "cubist pumpkin" from last Fall.  Apparently her art teacher had saved it all year for the Spring art show.  It features certain art techniques. We don't know how or where she inherited her artistic abilities, but we sure are proud of her.

Carson was a fairly good sport trapped in Brady's hospital room with us for 2 days.  Since we didn't know if Brady was going to get rushed to surgery at any point neither Matt nor I wanted to leave...plus poor Brady was in tears if we even thought about leaving the room.  So I just turned the other cheek and let Carson play with the hospital toys and crawl around the floor when we were there.  It was one of those "no other options" things. Thankfully Brady did not have appendicitis and his horrible mesenteric infection cleared up quickly.

She also finished her second cake decorating class and here's her finished product.  She said she really liked working with fondant (something I've never even done before).  We're going to let her decorate Carson's cake for his 1st Birthday next month.

Here's Ellie all smiles at 6:45AM on the morning of her 6th Birthday chomping at the bit to open her presents.

A sweet big sister reading her card to her.

I love the look of anticipation and elation.

She got a child size real porcelain tea party set from us.

She got a Zoobles from her siblings and a Tangled Leapster game from G & G Eccles.  Grandma Eagar sent money and she used it to go to Build-a-Bear.  Needless to say she was one HAPPY girl!

I love that all my kids are just as excited as the Birthday kid!

I drove her to school so she could take 23 dirt cups to her Kindergarten class.

Then after lunch she had a special play date with her friend Julia and I took them out for frozen yogurt at Menchies. It was a beautiful May day so they picked a high table outside to eat.  They were feeling pretty darn special.

The fun never stopped and she selected Taco Bell for her dinner choice....

.....followed up with our Eagar strawberry shortcake/birthday cake combination.

On Friday night I took the girls to Build-a-Bear so Ellie could use her  Birthday money.  She selected a shaggy puppy she affectionately named Ruby.  She LOVED every minute of the experience.

After she stuffed the puppy, she put in it's heart.

After the puppy was sufficiently fluffed up, it was on to the clothing selection which is where the puppy got her name.

Since a red sparkly dress was chosen, the name Ruby seemed like a perfect fit.

Emma was more than happy to "help out" and had almost as much fun as the Birthday girl.

Aren't they cute?

I just love hand holding pictures....especially whey they aren't prompted.

Saturdays around here wouldn't be complete without a game.  Brady is finishing up Soccer and is just sooo fun to watch.  He's a great athlete and gives 150% through the last whistle.  Here he gets some congratulations on the goal he just scored and some good advice for the last quarter.

Carson enjoys playing with the tires on his stroller, eating the grass, and crawling after the ball during the game.

A win of 5-2 definitely deserves a team snack!

We had a big Cinco de Mayo fiesta at our house last night.  We had a lot of fun with our good friends.  Emma and Ellie decorated the house all day long and so it was quite festive.  We dined on Cafe Rio salads  (since we finally perfected our recipes) and enjoyed sopapillas for dessert.  These friends have never even been to the Western half of the United States and so it was extra fun to introduce them to the fun flavor combinations.  They ate multiple servings and kept the compliments coming so apparently they liked it.  It was also fun to watch the Kentucky derby.  What a great race to watch with a last minute win!

Enjoying a leftover sopapilla after Sunday dinner today.   They were still just as good!