Gradiversary!

Matty is officially a First Grader!! Last Monday we got to attend her Kindergarten graduation at the Meeteetse School. It was a wonderful ceremony complete with red caps and gowns, a sweet slide show that brought tears to our eyes, diplomas, and refreshments!! A big THANK YOU to everyone (in Lovell and Meeteetse) who has been involved in getting Matty this far! She has made progress in leaps and bounds and we are so very, very, very PROUD of her! Yay, Matty!!!!!



Special Ladies: Mrs. Campsey, Matty, Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Hiser

 We also had the pleasure of attending Kaleb's High School Graduation. What a fun day of celebrating everyone's accomplishments!! Kyle and I celebrated an accomplishment of our own that day - 13 whole years of marriage! Whew! Now that's somethin'!!

And just for fun...here are Matty and Anastyn singing "I'm A Little Teapot". They came up with some very entertaining and rather unusual actions to this song! In the second picture it looks as though Anastyn is rapping! You go, girls!

My Super Heroes

This is Anastyn "flying" around the house in the exact cape that I used to "fly" around in as a little girl.

Super heroes never go out of style!!!

 Today Matty was supposed to dress up as a "cowgirl" for school! Now, the average student here has to look no further than their very own closet for their costume. We had to raid someone else's closet! :) And I still didn't get it right! Notice (unless you are as clueless as I) that the chaps are on backwards! Fortunately, Matty's teacher fixed her wardrobe malfunction as soon as she walked in the door!

Another Unforgettable Moment...

My middle child is kind of known around these parts as a "spit-fire". And that she can surely be. She throws her fair share of tantrums. (In her defense I must say the majority of the time she is a real sweetie.) The other day she had a significant melt-down over a very insignificant matter. I told her to go to her room. She would not. When I finally got her to her room, I went back to whatever I was doing before. In the meantime I had the pleasure of listening to what can only be described as "weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth". I was tempted to get out my ipod and crank it up.

After a while when the noise finally died down, I called for her to come upstairs for a minute. She ignored me and I called for her again. Then I heard her yell back upstairs in a sweet little voice, "Okay, mom, I think I know what you are going to do." Well, I didn't even know what I was going to do. I suppose I was going to have a discussion about what had just transpired and let her know that if she acted like that again I would blah, blah, blah. So when she made it up the stairs I asked her what she thought I was going to do, to which she replied very matter-of-fact, "Give me a hug."    Oh.    Well.    What else could I possibly do?? So that's exactly what I did. We hugged and made up and went on with our day. If nothing else, at least my child knows I love her no matter what she might have done. That is a very good thing. :)

For The Record...

There are things that our kids do and say that we think we will never forget. There are times that I've thought to myself that I should write that down. But, I guess out of laziness, I talk myself out of it thinking that I could never in a million years forget something that crazy, or funny, or whatever the case may be. So I am noting some recent shenanigans. :)

One that has been providing frequent chuckles in our family circle:  The other day Mason got a small cut on his finger. There was a small amount of blood. I was looking at it when Anastyn came strolling by. She saw it and exclaimed, "Bloody Hell!" I was stunned. What???? I gave her that 'what-did-you-just-say' look, to which she explained, "Well, Harry Potter says it!"  We are really working on which words are appropriate to say and which aren't. It's really hard, because even the cartoons take the Lord's name in vain (which is not okay in our book) and include some inappropriate language. It's really confusing for kids...and its so hard to monitor and filter. It's dreadful. So, if you happen to hear one of my children say a 'bad' word...please know that we are trying to teach them. :) And, yes, I do have to confess that my mouth needs a good washing out with soap once in a while. Shameful.

A week or two ago I had to take Matty to the doctor in Cody. We drove thru McDonalds and got her a kids meal to eat while we were running errands around town. I had to run into Walgreens real quick to pick up her prescription and figured she and Mason would be okay in the car for a second. I forgot she still had the little bag of sliced apples from her Happy Meal. I came back to the car and got us out on the road when I heard Mason make a strange noise. So I asked Matty if brother was okay. She said 'no'. All of a sudden I remembered the apples. I asked Matty if she had given anything to her brother. All she said was 'apple'. Holy Crap!  I freaked out thinking Mason was choking on an apple. I swirved through the opposing lane of traffic to pull into the Holiday Inn parking lot - barely missing an oncoming vehicle - threw the car into park, jumped out of the car landing in a huge puddle of water, and prepared to yank my baby out of the car to get an apple out of his throat! I opened the door and found Mason sitting there....just fine. I talked to Matty. She had never given him an apple. I guess she just felt the need to watch her mother have a heart attack. Took me a while to settle myself down and get the heart rate back to normal after that one.

So, what else is going on around here?

Mason is going on 10 months now! He is crawling, pulling himself up to stand, climbing the stairs, occasionally playing in toilet water, and running around (literally running) in his walker! He is so proud of himself, and we are proud of him too! He is such a joy!

Easter came and went. There were fun Easter baskets left by the Easter Bunny (which I have no photographic evidence of). There were spiffy new Easter dresses and clothes. I have no pictures of those either - probably because we were in too much of a hurry to get off to church. We drove to Lovell to have Easter dinner and an Easter egg hunt at Grandpa and Grandma Tippetts - there were Easter baskets at their house as well! We also visited Grandpa Leithead and the cousins! It was a lovely day.

We drove the kids out to the 91 Ranch to see the baby calves, sheep, and to ride horses. They were so excited about this trip...they could not wait to get there! And they weren't disappointed! The Love's showed us a great time and even fed us a delicious dinner! Big thanks to them!