June 4, 2014

Due to some miss-communication, Taylor and I (and Jackson) ended up at Anna's nails to meet my sister. They ended up being at the Walmart nail place. Oops... Taylor and I took advantage of the mistake and got our nails painted. No mani/pedi's for us--I can't stand people touching my feet. Just a paint on our toes and hands. It was fun! :)

After that, lunch at Cafe Rio with my friend, Heather and her two daughters, Jessica & Mandy. I love these girls so much. Jackson does too, apparently. :) I'm proud to be their middle aged friend!!! :) HA HA. Katrina and Kayla also joined us.

After lunch, we got to hang out with our favorite cousin singing our favorite song. Both girls are obsessed and belted it out to each other...

That afternoon, Taylor had gymnastics, so we thought it would be fun for Kezie to join the class for the day. She is so funny! Taylor's coach, Kayleigh was so good with her, and totally wrangled her in. She was a cutie jumping around doing the somersaults. She actually did a lot better than I thought she would! :)

It was a fun day with family in town. Can't wait for them to live here permanently. Hopefully....one day!!! :)

June 3,2014

Kenzie got here! And Kayla & Jason, too! :)

I love this little girl so much. She is so fun and spunky and sweet...

A good little poser, too. I told her to sit so I could take her picture for a Father's day project I was doing for my dad, and these two pics turned out perfect! :)

We are excited to have them here for the week for Jesse & Hannah's wedding.
{too cool for school}

Meahwhile.....this guy is getting SO dang close!!!

June 2, 2014

Our neighbors are moving. She is one of my best friends and our kids have become like family. We are so sad about this. We have a ladder that goes over our joined fence so that our kids can easily come and go. I love this. It's perfect for me, because I'm social enough to love having friends that are like family and I love having neighbors who are totally comfortable at my house and visa versa. But I'm also anti-social enough that I don't want to have to put a huge effort every day to plan and organize play day's. So, this really is the perfect scenario for me! :) It happens very naturally and I don't have to put a lot of work into it! :) HA!

It's only fitting that one of the photos of the day include the McLaughlin boys before they move. It was nice enough that the kids were able to bust out the hose while on the trampoline. Summertime perfection right there.

Even though they are only moving a few minutes away, it will never be the same, and that makes me sad. I will miss our daily Maverick runs and hops over the fence to chat. I will even miss having to go over and pick up boxes off her front step so her hubby doesn't see... :) shhhh....don't tell!

This was the week that they moved. It all happened so fast. They got their keys for the new house on Thursday afternoon, and they had to be out by Saturday at 5. And that night and Sunday the new family moved in. We all went and helped on Friday and took loads up to the new house. I was busy this week getting ready for our neighborhood yard sale all the while trying to help her get packed up and moved. It was a crazy week, but lots of good memories made!

While the kids jumped next door, Jackson and I hung out in the perfect weather. I inherited some cans of paint from her that she didn't want to take up. More like her hubby didn't want her to take up to the new house. :) So I started some projects. I had been wanting to paint this mirror for a while and now that I had some black/texture paint, I finally tackled it!

I love the moments I have with this sweet boy.

He likes to put things on his head. Food before he eats it, toys, blankets, pretty much anything...

It was a beautiful June day and knowing Spokane, it will be cold and rainy next week. But we enjoy it while it lasts...

June 1, 2014

Photo a day challenge. I thought that for the month of June, instead of writing blog posts in topics, I would go day to day. Someone somewhere in the blogosphere, or facebook world challenged 'us' meaning anyone who happened upon it, to a photo a day in June challenge. (I personally think that a photo a day in May sounds better, but alas, May had already passed.) So it would have to be June. It's already almost the end of the month, but I am going to start posting my daily photos. Some days there are lots of photos, and some day it was a stretch just to get one.  Either way, I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

It was a Sunday, and it was Stake Conference. And actually, don't tell anyone, but me and the kids didn't go. Ben went to all the sessions by himself. I tried to find a babysitter for the adult session the night before, but since it was just opened up to 12 years and up, I had a hard time finding a babysitter. All of my babysitters are good Mormon girls! :) But we had fun playing inside while daddy was away at 6 hours of church by himself.

It was beautiful and sunny outside, so after daddy's afternoon nap and while I was making dinner, the kids played.  I love our backyard. I love summer evenings in Spokane. They are absolutely perfect in every way. Not too hot and not too cold!

Now that I think about it, I think it was a photographer that I follow on facebook, that I don't even know, or don't even remember who it was. But the whole purpose of the challenge was to get people to get out their nice cameras for every day use, and not just their phone cameras. I'm glad she did, too. Because these pictures I would have just taken with my camera phone and they wouldn't have been as great. I need to do this more! I usually only bust out the big camera when I'm going to a session, and for my own kids, I use my crappy phone. Which is actually pretty great and convenient, and I can totally see good in, but it's nice to use my nice camera on my own kids every now and then!

My baby...

And just some cute extra's of my baby in May. Just because I love him so much. I seriously just can't get enough of him! I sometimes just nibble on him...

He had a huge marshmallow stuck to his hand at papa's house and didn't even realize it was there or what it was...

The boy loves some spice. He eats guacamole by the spoonful's. Like the stuff that Ben and I eat that Tucker won't even eat because it's too spicy! He also likes to feed himself, and so I gave him a green onion one day and he loved it! :) He also loves our pepperoni sticks, again, something that my other two won't even eat.

Our neighbor, Wayne, brought this over for Jackson one day. He said he bought it for his nephew last year at christmas and it was too small, so it had been sitting in his garage, and he was going to donate it to charity. But then thought that it would fit Jackson pretty well, so brought it over! It was so nice! I went out and bought them some Krispy Kreme as a HUGE thank you! Jackson really likes it, too. It lights up and makes sounds, and he just will sit and move all the handles. 

Unfortunately, when you're the third child, this is what it looks like most of the time when he gets on it. One of the other two are all of the sudden SO interested in riding it,and playing with it with him, that he gets annoyed! :) But how could you be anything but excited with that little girl behind you???

Doing what he does best, chillaxin'...

May extra's...

May was just lovely this year. Taylor even brought me a beautiful flower from our yard on May day itself!!! :)

Tucker also took a little glass jar full of flowers to Mrs. Larsen for May day. I think that Tucker has his eye on Mrs. Larsen! :) He sure does love her! :)

Then off to the park with our friends it was to take advantage of the beautiful weather. It seems that maybe Taylor has her eye on a certain boy, too....

1st park day of the season. Yay!

And this guy's first swing ride. Maybe second? I think he likes it!

I do love coming home to this on these beautiful spring/almost summer evenings...

Our bird friend who was only at the front window before has started following us. If we are upstairs, he finds us upstairs and starts tap tap tapping on the window. Here he found us in the kitchen. Part of me wants to let him in and keep him!

Gomer is still alive and well. Everyone who comes over and sees him tells us that he is the most active turtle they have ever seen. And it is true. I can hear him roaming around in his cage all day long. That's not typical for a turtle. I hope it means he is happy! :) And when I put that lettuce in his cage, he bee lines it straight to the lettuce faster than I have ever seen a turtle move! We still love our little Gomey.

Ben told Tucker he would pay him .10 cents for every business card that he gave out in our neighborhood. He is such a little business man and was happy to help. He did all 10 of the houses on our street for $1 and was done. :) But I was so proud of him, he actually went up and rang the doorbell and talked to the people and said, 'my dad owns a fence business, so if you ever need a fence, give him a call' It was really cute. Taylor and Brandon were happy to help, although I think Taylor just wanted to wear her 'Uncle Star Fence' shirt and Brandon just ran along next to them.

Another funny story about business cards is that one night Kathryn and I were on our way to the Stake Center. She was going to watch my kids for me while I had my recommend interview. I was following her in her car. She ran out of gas. So I ran to my house, got a little gas tank that we have with gas in it, and went back to rescue her. Well...we couldn't figure out how to get the gas into the car. The new little tanks have these nozzles that you have to click into place to prevent them from just spilling. So, we had the nozzle in her car, but no gas was actually coming out. I felt like an idiot. Finally a nice man stopped and helped us and showed us how to turn and click these little green pieces into place and then the gas finally started coming out. Well, we were thanking him profusely and he said, well, the best way to thank me is to give out my business card if you know anyone who needs concrete work done. Tucker, upon hearing this ran back into our van grabbed one of Ben's business cards and said, well, We'll take your card if you take our card! :) He is so funny that kid!

This was a busy photography month for me too, it seemed. With graduation coming, I made a few grad announcements, which I love doing! Also, a lot of time spent on my cute cousin Stormee's wedding invites/Save the dates. We found this really cool website, printstagram, that prints your instagram photos. So, I Instagrammed one of her engagement photos, and turned them into little stickers.

They came in little booklets, then I had to cut them up, use some double sided photo tape, and I taped them to the back of her announcement as a 'Save the date' sticker they could put on their calendars! I thought the idea was so cute, and I love the way they turned out! I think everyone should do this!

I also designed her announcement:

And even though it was quite the project and took a lot of time, I was happy to do it for Stormee and so happy with the way it all turned out!

But back to reality with 3 small children. Lots of time outside making habitats:

They made many of these habitats for bugs they would find. Surprisingly the bugs never stayed. hmmmm

Tucker's school art walk. His ice cream cone is the blue one two up from his head where he is standing. I thought it was so good!! I loved the colors.

I'm so proud of this little man. We got his end of school year test results, and this is how he fared:

Although they don't have GPA's in elementary, it says that his equivalent GPA would be 4.0!

He is such a smart little dude, and I couldn't be more proud of his desire to learn and how fast he catches on to new ideas and concepts. Way to go, buddy!!!

Not only that but his teacher has told me numerous times that he is a helper in class to those who don't understand as quick as him. Lots of kids to go him with their questions, and that he is a good class leader. The other kids will pick up on his ideas, or jokes even, and they will become class jokes, or class ideas and discussions. Like during writing time, he started writing made up stories about 'Bob' and he would think they were so funny, he would read them to his friends, and then his friends started writing stories about 'Bob' and eventually 'Bob' kind of became the class joke or theme and a lot of their discussions were about 'Bob' or even Mrs. Larsen would use 'Bob' as an example to teach something. And it all started with Tucker. He even always talks about Bob at home, so it totally doesn't surprise me that Bob made it into the classroom! :)

The two awards that he got this year at the end of the school year, for their class are: The joyful jokester award, and The most creative writer award. And that one is true, I've read some of his stories from writing time at school, and they are hilarious! It's amazing to me sometimes how he understands and gets jokes and concepts that I wouldn't think a 7 year old would understand. I feel like I've been able to talk to him as an adult almost, for a while now. The boy probably has a better vocabulary than me! :) Anyway, he's just a great kid (that totally drives me nuts-O a lot of time, too!) and I am so proud of him!

Family Fun Night at the school. Tara was in the midst of packing and moving, so I took her kids with me. It was quite the night! :) I don't know how people have 5 kids all the time and stay sane! :) Collin & Tucker at the candy bar walk:

Taylor helped with the clean up:

And this guy just sat back and enjoyed some pizza:

Another beautiful night of fun, food, friends and dancing! Can't go wrong with that combo.

These two brothers sure do love each other. At Tucker's annual eye exam we learned that his Stigmatism is getting a lot worse. The doctor was a bit concerned about how fast the shape was changing. So, we have to go in in three months for a re-check to make sure it's not moved more. He got a new Rx, and the doc said that was probably the reason he hadn't been wanting to wear his glasses lately, because they probably don't really help much because his eyes have changed so much. But he says a lot of time, too, that he sees just fine without his glasses; so we'll see!
May was an exciting month! :) Can't wait to see what June has in store!

Branch campout...

The last weekend in May was spent with our awesome branch, and Pines ward. We had a combined ward/branch campout. It was the perfect night and the perfect location. Beautiful in every way! I love our branch family, and the awesome families in the Pines ward.

Tucker likes to give Luke Peterson a hard time. I think Luke likes it because it gives him his boy fix, with three girls this is all he gets for now! :) I personally think that Tucker is trying to get in good with Ellory's dad! :) I hope so too, because that Ellory is a cutie! :)

Silly kids I have...

Juan was the grill master for the night, cooking up some delicious burgers!

The lady folk from our branch...

We played a game with the bishopric from Pines ward and the branch presidency from our branch, but Juan was the only one there from the presidency of our branch, so just him and Maria represented! :)

They put shower caps on with shaving cream, then the wives had to toss cheese puffs and the men had to catch them on their heads. My friend Dori and her husband also participated because he is in the bishopric of the Pines ward.

This sweet girl sure loves her daddy. And the feeling is mutual!

Jackson with one of his BFF's, my friend Dori's son, George...

Ben, of course, has to challenge anyone who will, to feats of strength. Juan and him arm wrestling...

It was just gorgeous!

Ben teaching the young'ns how to skip rocks...

We opted to not spend the night and just went up for the evening. I didn't really have a desire to sleep in a tent with a one year old. On our drive home that night, this was our view. We sure do live in a beautiful part of this earth! We are so lucky!

Memorial weekend...

Memorial day weekend snuck up on us and I didn't really have much planned. I really wish that I lived closer to gravesites of family members. All of my most recently deceased family members whom I knew and loved are in Oregon. I almost packed up the kids and drove down with them just to visit graves. But that's a lot of work, so I just thought about them and sent them extra love during the weekend. Tucker also didn't have school on Friday for a snow make up day, so we had a 4 day weekend.

Friday I took the kids and Owen to Mobius:

I love the Mobius science center. But not as much as this big boy loves his baby brother:

Saturday we headed out to the lake with the Christensen's. They were having the maiden voyage of the year for their boat and were camping in their trailer. They just recently put their trailer at a new lake for the summer, so we had to go test it out with them! :)

Jax and Kirt are buds with their shades on:

It was still pretty cold for me. The men folk took the kids out on the jet ski's and we stayed in the trailer with our sweatshirts on playing cards. It was actually really fun! It wasn't that cold, but definitely way too cold to get in the water.

We forced Tucker on the tube. He hates the tube, and repeats over and over every time we go to the lake how he doesn't want to go on the tube. I think he would like wake boarding better, once he got the hang of it. I hate tubing too, I don't like not having control of where I'm going. His daddy went with him,and by the look on his face, I'd say he had a pretty great time! :) This boy cracks me up!

The crazy lady had a pretty fun time...

This boy is so funny. He had a great time watching in my lap.

Taylor is definitely our more adventurer child. She wants to try everything and is always first in line to do new things.

She even caught some air and kept on going! :) One of the many things I love about her!

I was busy watching the kids tube, and I noticed Jackson wasn't moving. I looked down and he had totally crashed. I guess he loves the bumpy ride!

Garret, Katie, Kirt & Ben were the only other ones brave enough for the cold water. Garret is, fearless in the tube, and was standing up, sitting on the edge the whole while Tucker is holding on for dear life! :) ha ha!

Ben wasn't too shabby for it being the first time of the season...

This guy perked up after awhile. Gosh, I love this boy!

Intently watching their daddy:

It was a fun day and we look forward to many more lake day's with the Christensen's. Which, unfortunately will have to come in August. They are in South Africa for the whole month of June and we will be gone the first three weeks in July, so we will miss them for almost the whole summer!!! But I'm super excited to hear all about their Africa adventures!

On Monday, Kathryn and I took the kids to a movie. And to be honest with you, I can't even remember which movie it was! Isn't that awful! I was in the hallway or bathroom most of the time with Jackson or Taylor, or both! Tucker seemed to enjoy it, though. So, that's good. Good thing it was at the Garland so we didn't pay full price! :)

Sonic for dinner before the movie and it was a perfect night! :) So that's where those skittles went. We were looking for those things all night, and here's proof right here that Jackson, at one point, had them in his possession! :)

I love having my babies home with me all day and doing fun things with them. They are so fun. Lots and lots of work and blood, sweat and tears. But totally worth it, and totally wonderful! :)

Taylor Rae...I mean Elsa...

I'm starting to worry about Taylor's obsessive habits. We were a little late on the frozen bandwagon. I mean we saw it in the theater on Thanksgiving day, and loved it. But she never really talked about it much after that. THEN Easter came. My mom sent her the frozen soundtrack and we have seriously listened to it NON stop since then. April 20th. We also now have the movie, and many many accessories. I am constantly having to clip a blanket around her neck so she can be Elsa. She loves Elsa. This obsession is reminiscent of Tucker and the movie Cars. ALL. DAY. LONG. FROZEN!

I posted this picture to Instagram and it cut off the top words part, and said something like, 'We've been obsessed with something around here and I'll give you one hint'. And for the most part, people knew who this guy was. But I love Kathryn's comment, 'Is that Paul Bunyon?' Totally made me LOL!

Also, I have this really old book that I got in an old bookstore in the Old City of Jerusalem. I've had it on our book shelf with all of our other big fancy looking books. I just think it looks cool. I can't read it, it's half in Hebrew and half in German. Randomly Taylor one day had it in her hands and I asked her why she had that book and she told me that it was the book that the King found in his bookshelf that had the map to where the rock trolls were. I didn't even remember that part of the movie until we got the movie and started watching it again, but she walked around with my old Hebrew book from Jerusalem for days!

Love this frozen girl of mine!

May birthdays...

I have such awesome friends. And somehow most of us have May Birthday's! :) OK, that's not true. But two of my very good friends have May birthday's and SO do their spouses! Is that crazy? Meg's is the 4th, her husband, Wes's is the 10th. Emily's is the 10th, her husband, Kirt's is the 17th and mine is the 20th! So there was a lot of celebrating in May. And I didn't mind it one bit! :) Twigs for lunch on Meg's birthday. With Tara, Whitney & Abbey:

Not pictured are : Lunch at Thai Kitchen (the best!!!) for Emily's birthday, and dinner at Fire Artisan Pizza (the best new pizza place!) for Kirt's birthday. 

Also, my friend from the branch, Rosa's, birthday is on the 18th, so me and the sisters made her a cake. Because she is scared to death of worms, naturally, we made her a dirt covered brownie with gummy worms all over it! :)

PS...I love Hna. Rosado and Hna. Taylor, too! :)

It was so funny, our glass is the kind that you can't see through. So people can't see into our house. I always think it's so funny when I'm standing right there and the kids are trying so hard to see in. Hna. Rosado was tapping on the door, and they were trying so hard to see us! :) It was funny!

And surprising her with her cake:

The worms didn't freak her out as much as we had hoped! :) Probably because they weren't real! :) Rosa loves her some Jax! :) Can't say that I blame her!

Finally it was time to celebrate me! :) ha ha, jk! But I did wake up to a nice delicious treat! :) That Ben really knows what I like. A Candy bar boquet, AND a dark chocolate mint cake. Perfection. Cake for breakfast. Since he is long gone before I am even close to being awake, he left it for me.

{I think someone else was impressed, too!}

Also, funny story. Ben found this beauty at a garage sale with Kirt one day. I had no idea. It was kind of a joke, but kind of a fun weird thing that he thought would be cool in our backyard, just for fun. Well, Emily happened to be driving by our house, and wanted to get it out of her car. So, she stopped by to drop it off. I must have been in the shower or something because I didn't hear the doorbell. So, she just left it on the door step, facing the door. So, another friend came to pick up Taylor, and when I opened the door, this guy was staring at me. I was dying. I didn't know what to think at first. I didn't know if it was a birthday present from someone, or a joke!!!?? It was pretty funny. He has been on our front door step ever since, and while I like him, and I can appreciate him as a fun, different, unique conversation starter for our backyard, I feel like I have to explain it to everyone who comes over who may not 'get it'. I kind of think he goes with our house, too a little bit. 

Anyway, that afternoon, we had some lunch and cupcakes at the park with friends. We have a fun park group going on right now, and I'll be sad when older kids are in school and it has to change. Dori, Danna, Hannah, Marianne & Angie and I. Dori, Marianne, Angie and I all have babies just a few weeks apart, so this boy band won't be breaking up anytime, but it's always sad to see the older kids go off to school. I can still remember when my friend Danna's son, Tate started kindergarten, I was sad to see him go, and now I see him at Sunrise as a big 5th grader, president of the student body!!! I did bring myself a cake to this park date. I knew that if that dark chocolate mint cake stayed at my house, I would eat the whole thing, so I brought it. But also Danna brought me cupcakes, so we had quite the sugary feast! :) The kids were in heaven! It was a beautiful day and I was happy to spend the afternoon with friends.

Then that night my friends surprised me and took me to dinner at twigs. I was just planning on a low key dinner at home with the family. I have awesome friends! Tara, Meg, Emily and Tammy and I.

Weekly appointments...

Now that soccer and basketball are over for Tucker, we have only two other weekly appointments to remember each week. 

This girl started gymnastics. Maybe I've already mentioned that. Here are a few pictures from said gymnastics:

The girl loves it and it is totally her thing. I really hope she stays with it. I feel like her body is perfect for it. She is so buff!

I absolutely love watching her every week. Not only does she seem to really enjoy it, but she has no fear! She gets right up on the beam or the bars to flip around them, and some of the other kids are a little bit scared. Her coach always is telling me how well she is doing. And she just goes for everything, she tries and tries until she gets it most of the time. I love that about her!

Our other weekly appointment is when Ilene comes to visit Jackson for some Physical Therapy time. He seems to be happy to see her whenever she comes. He enjoys playing with her and doing the therapy. Sometimes towards the end of the session, he is tired of her moving him and putting him in all these uncomfortable positions. :) 

Ilene is so nice and easy going. She totally works him and loves on him and it has been SO SO SO very helpful to him. I am amazed at how much progress he's made in the past few months. 

A few weeks ago he started standing like this, like a champ. Now he's on to bigger and better things. Not quite crawling yet, but so very close. The main difference is his motivation to move and bend those legs. Before he had absolutely no desire to move, and now he seems to want to go everywhere! :) 

I love it! I can't wait for him to be mobile. But, I'm sure that after he is, I will be wishing he wasn't! :)

Last Preschool of the year...

The end of pre-school was a little bittersweet for me. I was so sad that it was ending because Taylor just loved it so much. I was a bit glad not to have to worry about teaching it anymore. Not that it was hard. It was actually SO much better than I thought it would be. I actually enjoyed planning the lessons and the crafts and activities when they were at our house. It was difficult with a baby sometimes, but we managed. And we survived! :) I am going to miss these kiddo's!

Ollie just might be one of my favorite little boys ever! 

And this Tucker man sure is a sweetheart!

Our theme for the last week at our house was planting and gardening and growing. It was fun! I'm not much of a green thumb and I'm sure one of the other mom's would have been much more suited to teach it. But I found these cute little mini green houses in the dollar section at Target and was so pumped! They were perfect and the kids just loved them. We had half cilantro and half basil.

Then for a treat, I made them those little mud pudding treats. Complete with a gummy worm coming out of the 'dirt'! :)

Of course, we had to get out and enjoy nature with this being our theme for the week. We even brought out Gomer to play with us for a while. The kids all love Gomer!

And no back yard romp is complete without a little jumping. I'm just so glad we can get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors now! Hallelujah for Spring and Summer!

Ollie was just a little obsesed with this rock. I'm pretty sure it's one that my kids picked up somewhere and brought to our backyard because it was nice and polished, but Ollie found it and it was his precious. I told him he could keep it and take it home! :)

Little monkey:

I bought an extra green house for Tucker and he planted his when he got home from school that night. The kids have been checking on them every day, and have been so excited about the progress of our little plants:

Watching them grow:

And getting distracted by her own reflection:

My friend Danna had the last week of preschool at her house. So she put on a little graduation/party for them. They even made summer bucket lists in the shape of a Sun, and when we complete one of the items on the bucket list, we can color in one of the Ray's. So cute! I love this little pre school graduate of mine! And I'm excited for her to head to Teacher Barbara next year!!! woo-hoo!

Mothers day weekend & Grandma's visit...

My mom initially came in to town for my birthday, even though it was the week before my birthday. Then once she got here, we realized it was mothers day weekend. I think that that was her plan all along so that we could spoil her. :)

She actually got here on Thursday to meet Allen for breakfast before he flew out. He came in for the day and one of the perks of living in Spokane is that we get the grandparent visits when they come in town to see everyone else! :)

After breakfast with Allen, he headed to the airport, and we stopped by Tuckers class to eat lunch with him. He was so happy!

Ben took Tucker camping on Friday night, so we were able to have a girls night (plus Jackson). This girl sure loves her grandma. And I sure love this girl! :)

And grandma got in some Jackson time. I am seriously afraid that I'll come home one day and she'll have stolen him! I can't seem to sneak even a snuggle on Jackson every time she's here!

Jackson practicing his yoga:

As much as I made fun of Jackson being in Physical Therapy, it has helped so very much! The boy is starting to move and stand and actually be motivated to go places! I'm excited for this enthusiasm! :)

Having grandma here to practice his skills helps, too! :)

For mothers day this year, I decided to make these little wooden blocks of old pictures for my mom & Kathryn & mother in law. For my mom, I found a cute picture of her when she was a baby and her mom, a picture of all four of us kids when we were small, and of course, I had to do one of my own kids! :)

For Kathryn (you can see in the background) I did one of her mother, one of her three boys when they were small, and one of her grandson. All photos stolen from facebook! And then I did this one of my three kids for my mother in law also. I didn't have any old photos of her and her mom, so I was only able to do one for her. But it was so fun. I love being crafty, and it was so cheap and easy. I think I want to make myself some

So, the Saturday before mothers day, I totally threw out my back! Doing laundry of all things.  I could barely walk, and when I did walk, I was hunched over. I didn't even get to go to Tucker's last soccer game. I had gotten all the stuff to make my mom Cafe Rio for dinner that day, and ingredients for Italian Sodas because I found Chocolate Syrup, not the Hershey's sauce, but like actual flavored syrup in Chocolate, that my mom loves for Italian Sodas, so that was part of her mothers day gift as well. I was able to make the Cafe Rio, and the Italian Sodas, but then had to rest it out the rest of the day. We didn't go to church, and I just kind of hung out on the couch most of the afternoon. But it was still a fun day with my mom and kiddos! 

Here we are with our Italian Sodas taken with my crappy camera phone! We did head out that morning to get the sacrament program to the branch president so he could make copies for the meeting. I know my mom loves me because she walked into that church building full of people in their best Sunday dress and she was in her sweats with a head full of bed head still to give that program to him for me. Now that's love! :)

I was spoiled by lots of beautiful flowers. A bouquet from my mom, from Ben, and some small bouquets from the kids. I love this time of year when the flowers start to come out, and I get some beautiful bouquets from the kids.

Since we had grandma at our house, we had the benefit of skyping with all the cousins. Kenzie and Taylor had a long distance 'Let it go' Dance party! Both girls are obsessed and REALLY good dancers! :)

Not only did I miss out of my wonderful Cafe Rio dinner, but just about the time they all sat down to eat it, I jumped up off the couch to hurl in the bathroom!!! It was gross! So, I also missed out of my delicious Ice cream cake they had gotten me! Boo!!! So this is how I looked most of Mother's day. Needless to say there were no annual mothers day photos taken that day! :)

I sure am grateful for these little's who made me a mama! :)

The next day was much better. I felt fine, and my back was better, so we got in a good picture:

We also met up at Rancho Viejo with the Schlerf's. It was so fun to be back at Rancho with them. It is fun to be anywhere with them, but Rancho holds a special place for us! :) Good times catching up and eating yummy food! 

And just like that, she was gone!!! I'm so glad she got to be here for mother's day though. I sure am lucky to have her as an example of love and kindness. She may not have taught me how to be domestic, but she did teach me how to love and treat people. And I'm so grateful for that.

Cinco de mayo...

Cinco de Mayo in the Spanish branch had to be a par-tay! Just kidding. Actually, most Mexicans don't celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Lots of people believe that it's Mexico's Independence day, but that is in September. Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of the Battle of Puebla. Puebla is a state in Mexico and it celebrates a defeat over invaders back int he 1800's for the freedom of that particular area. So, the people of the state of Puebla celebrate, but that's about it! :) But still, we had to have a fiesta.

The Elders Quorom was in charge, which means that Ben and Jared Wiberg  put on the whole thing. Which also means that there was zero decor, but some delicious food and a serious game of kick ball. It was a fun evening.

{Sonia, Hna. Taylor, Hna. Rosado, Jared Wiberg, Ben, Lucas Peterson, Melissa Peterson, Jackson & Jenny}

{Hno. Cabrera, Hno. LaCasse, Juan, Hno. Martinez y Hna. Martinez}

{Elder Magana, Ben & Jared Wiberg}

{Lacey, Merial & Karinna}

{Ellory Peterson (my future daughter in law), Zoe Wiberg & Kyla Lopez}

{Just some dudes}

{Me, Hna. Martinez & Hna. LaCasse}

Big boy enjoying his favorite food, Guacamole:

Oh Odalis, my crazy lady friend...

Intense game of kick ball:

And, of course, no branch party would be complete without a pinata:

Cute Kadmiel:

I love our branch!

Since Cinco de Mayo was actually on a Monday, I believe, our party was actually the Saturday before. We had to stay true to tradition and go to Rancho Viejo on the actual day, and as usual it was a party! Taylor & John had fun coloring together:

So cute! :)

Tucker Soccer...

Spring soccer came and went. I think I'm the only mom who enjoys the sports seasons of my kids. All my friends were so happy when soccer season was over, but I love it! I do only have one child, so I'm not too over scheduled yet, but I do love me some good sporting events. (Even if they are 1st graders!) :) I love that Tucker loves sports and has friends on his teams and enjoys playing. I want him to continue with it as long as he can! :)

His coach is awesome. He is the uncle of one of the kids, Beau, on the team. Actually, Beau's dad and uncle co-coach and they are both great! We got really lucky, I'm really hoping that this team sticks together!

We loved going to all of the games every Saturday. It's easy when you only have one child in sports, and we are definitely enjoying that!

Dylan, Canon, Beau, Ezra, Tucker, Jack & Johnny after one of the games when they got really cool soccer cookies with their names on them. Unfortunately that black and purple frosting is still smeared on parts of my van! :) These boys are all so cute!

The boy definitely has a heart for soccer, and I'm excited to see him continue to grow...