May

It's kind of hard to tell, but these are 3D French braids. It's a little easter to tell near the bottom.

Adri planned a "Sunshine" Relief Society activity where we collected yellow items to make cheerful baskets to give to women in our ward. 

Olive had her end of the year, dance recital! She was in 6 dances. Three for dance company, one for tap company and then a production number (where ALL the girls from the company are included) for dance company and tap company. My favorite dance was Now I Can Fly! It was the dance company production number. Olive was probably only in 1/4 of it but oh my gosh it was so amazing! I loved the music! I would get tears in my eyes watching. My Wish was also beautiful and would get me choked up. New York New York was sassy and fun to watch! This girl danced about 13 hours a week this year and has had to miss Activity Days and birthday parties and other fun things. She has been tired and sore and had drama with dance friends but also had so much fun and loved her teachers and improved a lot. I'm the proudest dance mom!

Love finding these gems on my phone. She cracks me up.

Well, look at my dreams coming true!!! I have wanted a double oven our whole marriage! When the microwave broke I realized we could replace it OR take this opportunity to get a double oven! My wonderful husband treated me. It was expensive. But what made it even MORE expensive was finding out our house wasn't wired correctly to support the necessary cables needed for a double oven. So we had to hire an electrician who cut holes all over my ceiling so he could string the new wiring from the fuse box, across the house and to the oven. Oy! Well, it's been 6 months and I can say wholeheartedly that it was WORTH IT!! I love my oven so much! Plus the racks inside are flat instead of having the annoying lip on the edge that my old oven had that made it so I had to lift pans up in order to get them out. What moron designed an oven rack like that?! 

I'm just a little wary of what will break next. We have had to replace the microwave, dish washer, washing machine, vacuum and printer this year. And thus, also bought a new oven and dryer. I guess the last thing to go will be the fridge!

Mother's Day! 

My sweet family made me my favorite, Puff Daddys for breakfast... with the right amount of butter haha.

How sad that this is the only picture I got on Mother's Day. With my girl after I took pics of her hair. I guess that's what happens when no one else is making sure a picture is taken of you with your kids.

My bishop wouldn't let us bring in all the women for Mother's Day, but we still had a lot come. I prepared everything for a soda bar and boy was it well received. These women appreciate their soda. It looks simple enough but it kind of killed me to do this. I wasn't the only ward with this idea so the freezer and fridge were already full and no room for my stuff. I had to bring it right before church and then was running back and forth between the RS room and kitchen so many times I was actually sweating. It's fine. At least no one else had to stress about anything.

These sweet girls choreographed a dance for us moms for Mother's Day during their free time this month. They've been working so hard on it. It was adorable!!

Spirit Week at dance! I swear, between dance and school spirit weeks multiple times a year I am OVER spirit week. Kids rummaging through costume bins and stressing that they don't have a Hawaiian shirt or something. Please, schools, give it a rest!

Olive had her tumbling recital at the school next to Inspire. She is in the highest level so her dance was at the very end. After watching so many classes of the other kids, often with older girls than Olive, doing very simple things like cartwheels and back bends I appreciated more how far Olive has come in such a short time. She's only been taking tumbling for a year and a half and can do ariels and running back hand springs and standing back hand springs. I was so impressed! She has worked hard and loves doing it. She's not scared to try and seems to be naturally talented at it. I was so proud watching her! There were only 2 other girls in her class and one was her friend, Mia, which was so fun!

I volunteered to help with a soda reward at Greenfield and loved seeing this cute boy when it was his class's turn to come into the library for their soda! His class won the kickball championship they had been playing at recess too!

Since we had been in Israel for Travis's 40th birthday, we went out to dinner as a family on another weekend. He chose Gecko grill and the kids chose to complain. What did we ever do to deserve kids who don't like Mexican food?!!

Early morning baptisms for the deacons!

Because of conflicts, the Evans celebrated Easter a few weeks late. Tanner found one of the golden eggs in Kayda's hair!

Collin was dismayed I didn't know his egg was Baymax.

I don't know how I didn't get a picture of Tanner on his last day of Kindergarten! He was so lucky to get Mrs. Stojanovic this year. She truly loved these kids and put everything she had into teaching. There were several very difficult personalities. I didn't know how she came to work every day so cheerful and positive. They had a water day to celebrate. Tanner started staying for the full day after spring break and did great. It was perfect timing for my new church calling. We will miss the cozy, small feel of Leman Academy, but not the homework!

Swim team season started mid-May after school and Tanner HATED it. He cried and cried and clung to me and wouldn't let go or get in the water. I was so patient with him and talked him through it, doing all the loving, right things for the first week. By the second week, I wasn't feeling so patient. He was so scared at the first meet but after melting down and holding onto me and refusing to try or be coaxed into it by the coaches, he somehow got in and swam freestyle one lap! And got 4th place! Boy was he proud!! And so was I! He did it!!

Collin's favorite teacher is Logan Hendrix, or Senor Hendrix, as he calls him, for Spanish. They are buds. Collin really looks up to him and talks about him allll the time. He's taking him for Spanish II next year so it's only goodbye for now.

Tasha was a fun mom and took them to In'n'Out for lunch on the last day. Goodbye, 8th grade! Collin is on to HIGH SCHOOL!!

I volunteered to help at Olive's end of the year party. Her teacher, Mr. Scanlan, had organized a dance party for the whole 4th grade. He does is a DJ on the side and brought all his speakers and equipment and set up a giant screen so the kids could follow along to Wii dance moves. There was tons of food and a craft table and corn hole games too. Olive has absolutely LOVED Mr. Scanlan. And he has told me multiple times how much he loves her. After school, they wait in their classrooms until their ride has come so she would get 15-20 minutes extra every day to hang out with him and a few other kids and he would play games with her. He's leaving the school next year and I learned about some problems the school is having so I decided to switch Olive and Tanner to Greenfield Elementary School. Olive is heartbroken. She has been so close to Brynn and Betty and has a big crush on a boy named Ezra who apparently likes her back. It's tough being the bad guy but I need my life to be simplified. Having them take the bus to and from school and be on the same schedule as Weston will be so nice. 

Ezra invited Olive, Betty and Brinn to his end of the year pool party. When I went to pick her up, Ezra walked out to the driveway to wave goodbye to her. Olive said he had cried all day knowing it was the last day of school and she wasn't coming back to ALA. I guess he's in touch with his emotions! 

Since Weston was graduating 6th grade, they had a graduation ceremony in the cafeteria on the last day. I made these origami flowers out of money to give to him, Mason and Liam. They had everyone's Kindergarten pictures playing on the projector and had Kneaders French toast for parents to come have brunch with their child. Then they lined them all up and read off their names as they walked across the stage and got their diploma and shook hands with all of the 6th grade teachers. Then us parents walked outside and lined the sidewalk to get ready for them to walk the halls one, last time. Then they blared music and let the kids run out of the building and through the line of cheering parents. The way football players will run onto the field. We yelled and shot confetti cannons and I did OK at the time, but thinking back on it, I'm all emotional! I love Weston SO MUCH! He is the best kid. He is so sweet and thoughtful and an all around good student. He really enjoyed going to Greenfield and made a lot of great friends. It was meant to be that he never got into ALA. 

I had to take the kids in shifts, but we were able to get our traditional, last day of school, Bahama Bucks treat!

There is something about this dress... EVERYONE has it, haha! Even my mother in law!

On Memorial Day morning, we met the Evans at the river. 

Then we went to my parent's house that afternoon to swim and have a BBQ! Yummy smashburgers with fake cheese courtesy of Casey. One of the best burgers I've ever had.

Olive had an end of the dance year pool party at Vivian's house. Maren went all out with decorations and themed toys. It was so so cute. Then we all went to the movies together to see the new, live action Little Mermaid!

Ok this is super random, but I had been looking for a certain email, when this popped up. It was an email I had written to David while he was on his mission. I couldn't even believe it when I read it. I've never been more grateful to not be in that phase of life. Being sick with little kids is THE WORST. I felt like it deserved a place somewhere. Also, why the heck did I go to a pioneer activity sick??