Other happenings

 

Lane had another great season of baseball!

Only this year was coach pitch.

I figured I will be buying baseball pictures for the rest of my life

so I opted out of purchasing team pics this year.

I brought my camera and zoomed in as close as I could.

It didn't turn out bad at all, and saved me 30 bucks!:)

 

 

He played in 2 different All Star leagues.

One in Gilbert and one in Mesa.

I have no idea why they made them play the Gilbert team.

They were a whole year older and they lost the first game so they were out.

But in the Mesa league they got 2nd place!

He has been playing with his best buds for 3 years now and they

are all so good at this sport!

 

I found this selfie on my phone and thought it was cute.



I went to girls camp for the first time in 10 years!

It was a ward camp this year and we had lots of fun!

A family in our ward let us stay at their cabin in Heber.

This is a group pic of all the leaders.

Such an amazing group of ladies.

We hardly slept at all with our late night chats.



All of the YW!

This was on the 3rd and 4th year hike.

It was 4.5 miles but was really enjoyable.

We hiked to the lake then back out to the road.

They each had marshmallow guns that were being fired

constantly during the whole hike.

Who's idea was that?!

 

 One of the girls was trying to shoot one into my mouth.
I put my hat over my eyes and hoped I wouldn't choke if it actually did go in!

 



Another day we went back to the lake for some kayaking and canoeing.

I forgot how fun (and tiring) girls camp can be!

All of our girls are delightful to be around so that always makes it nice as well.

Lane lost his first tooth.

Yes, at the age of 7.

I never thought any of his teeth would come out!

 

We celebrated Fathers Day.

We had dinner over at my parents and dessert at my in-laws.

So grateful for wonderful grandfather figures in my children's life!

 

We especially love our DAD!

We made a poster board with pictures of them all at the hospital

when they were born. It was fun to see if Casey could guess which

child was who.

 Hospital baby blankets and beanies make it hard to distinguish them.

Casey was fixing the stroller and Lindi wanted to help.

She picked up a screw driver and went right to work!

She is obsessed with goggles.

She will wear them all around the house.

Marcie was babysitting and sent this to us.

It gave us the giggles.

Cousins came to play!

 

 

 

My sister fell down her stairs and broke her back a few weeks ago.

Her recovery would take her 4-6 weeks.

My mom went and picked up her kids in New Mexico and brought them

back here so my sister could rest and heal.

We would have them for 2 weeks.

If you ask my sister it was the worst 2 weeks of her life.

And I'm sure it was. She was in a lot of pain and

the feeling of being helpless is not fun at all.

But for us we were excited to have cousins over

for spend the nights and lots of play time!

 

We had Collin and Weston for most of the first week.

Casey took them on an errand and I received this picture in a text.

I don't know what we did to wear them out!

 

 We also got to have miss Olive spend the night a few nights the second week.

Lindi and Olive are 6 months apart.

Lindi LOVES Olive.

I swear she even learned how to say her name.

Lindi and Olive remind me of Stephanie and I.

Even down to their looks.

 

 

Stephanie is on the left, I am on the right

 

 

On the first night Olive wasn't so sure about bath time.

I later found out that she had never taken a real bath yet,

she was still using the baby tub.

Oops, no wonder she was so freaked out!

Lindi's face was cracking me up.

Not so sure what to think of that crying baby!

 They played together, just like they were sisters.

 On the second night I filled the bath tub up first, then put Olive in it.

I think the noise made her nervous. It worked, she didn't cry at all!

I tell ya, they played so well!

 

I kept thinking about how this is what it would be like to have twins.

There are lots of pictures of my mom sitting in her rocking chair holding

Stephanie and I when we were babies.

It really wasn't hard at all to have 2 babies at the same time.

Granted Olive came sleeping through the night and on a normal schedule:)

I also keep forgetting my mom was only 21 when she had us.

I still don't know how she survived twins then turned around and had 6 more!

 

 

At the end of the 2 weeks Stephanie and Travis drove down to Mesa.

And thankfully her back was feeling much better!

It was Memorial Day so we had a bbq with my family.



Piggies

 

 

 

Lindi is known for her wild hair.

When she wakes up it usually look something like this:

 

 Nope, that is not a wig!

Luckily it tames down pretty well.

Her hair is finally long enough to pull into full pig tails.

I think it ages her instantly.

 She is also known for her Miley Cyrus top knots.

 And these half piggies with big tool ribbons might be my favorite!

\

Her hair is pretty fine and silky, but she has lots of it!

With a little curl at the bottom.

I love to run my fingers through it.

Having a girl is so fun!

 

 



Mom Day

 

Lets get real, who calls their mom, mother?

Nobody!

It should be called mom day.

And we should say it like how our kids say it.

By either screaming it at the tops of our lungs,

 or repeatedly over and over again:)

 

Casey was sitting in ward council when they were trying figure out

what the Mothers Day gift should be.

He had heard enough of my complaining over years past about how we don't

want a bookmark.

Or a terracotta pot with forget me not seeds.

 Or pamphlets on how wonderful mothers are.

Duh, of course we know what good moms we are!

All we want is CHOCOLATE!

Or an edible treat we don't have to share.

Ideas were thrown around and I think worried for my wrath

 he decided to volunteer to take care of the Mothers Day treats.

They gave him full reigns... but of course it had to gluten free:)

 

We brainstormed lots of ideas and then I saw an idea on pinterest.

Rice Krispies cut into the shape of a flower on a stick dipped in almond bark.

It was edible, gluten free and had chocolate on it.

 

How hard could that be?

Well, we found out it takes a lot of ingredients to make 120

thick flower shaped rice krispie treats.

 

And we learned it takes 6 hours to make 120 flower shaped rice krispie treats.

This was about 4 hours into it.

He hates pinterest now.



Really, Casey takes the award for sticking with it and making them all.

I was in and out most of the time and really only helped frost and bag them.

 

They did turn out super cute though.

It was a labor of love.

And hopefully it brought a smile to each of their faces.

Next year we will let the High Priests be in charge:)

 

There were some left over so we decided to take them to the single ladies

that live on our street. There are 6 of them! I had a picture but I erased it by

accident, I am so mad!!!

I think it brightened their day and the boys thought it was super fun.

 

I tried to get a picture with the people that made me a mom but we all know

the attention span kids have!

 

And my aunt MaryAnne emailed me this.

What a fun thing to cherish.

I am thankful for all the wonderful women in my life!

The end of the school year

 

Rusty loved his first year of Shinning Star preschool!

I usually get sad when things end that my kids love doing,

and when we have to give up wonderful teachers.

But he gets to go back next year so all is good!

 

Almost every time he would hop in the car after school

he would have an Adolf Hitler stash from smelling the ink

from the stamp on his hand!

 

The clever costumes got me every time, too!

And it was nice having a child excited to pose for a picture instead

of them ripping it off in the car before even getting home:)

 



They got to go to Rock'n R Ranch on a field trip back in April.

Rusty kills me with his social skills.

He is the biggest social bug and loved his preschool buddies.

He did not know one person on the first day of school.

All of his church friends went to a different preschool.

Which was kind of nice for him to branch out and make new friends.

It didn't take long at all for that to happen.

I am really trying to figure out which parent he got that from!!

It was fun to see him interact with all his friends I heard so much about but didn't

have a clue who they were!



His favorite was panning for gold.

He thought he hit the jackpot with those big gold nuggets he found!

He kept them for weeks!

This picture makes me want to stop my typing and go wake him up at 11pm

 and just snuggle him to death!

Such a handsome little devil he is!

 I got to be in charge and plan Lanes last day of school party!

Ms. Gonzales called the week before saying nobody signed up to be the chair

person and wondered if I wouldn't mind doing it.

Not going to lie, it overwhelmed me but now I think I might volunteer every year

to be the chair person.

It was a lot of fun!

We had a Hawaiian theme.

It must have been fresh on my mind.

And that was what the dollar store was full of decoration wise:)

 

We started with talking about things you do in Hawaii at a luau.

So instead of dancing the hula we had a hula hoop contest!

I had 2 hula hoops so Lane and Ms. Gonzales had a throw down.

That classroom got so loud at one point with them all chatting and yelling!

Wowza! It turned out to be the perfect way for them to split off into groups for

the rest of the party.

 



There were 4 rotations.

They got to do the limbo.

 



Eat snacks at the snack table.

I even brought fresh cut up pineapple.

Which I am sure was breaking the rules since all food had to be pre packaged:/



They got to decorate "beach bags" which they put their treats in.

I loved the little black coconuts Lane drew on his bag.

 And the last rotation I never got a picture of but they played a game

of play dough Pictionary.

 

Here they are lining up for the last time as first graders ready to go home.



 I cannot say enough wonderful things about Ms. Gonzales.

She was a perfect teacher for Lane.

I have felt so fortunate that we have gotten such amazing teachers so far.

Makes me nervous for next year.

Like I said before, it is so hard to give up good teachers.

You can see it on her face how much she enjoys teaching and that

she really did love Lane.

I promise Lane loved her too. He just gets embarrassed easily.

 



After tearing down decorations and loaded up the car we of course had to get

a special last day of school treat at the new QT kitchen.

This might be trouble for me...best pretzel and cheese I've ever had!

 And then we got home and I opened up Lanes report card and this picture

fell out of it.

Ms. Gonzales took this on meet the teacher day.

I had completely forgotten.

I am floored at how much looks can change in a year!

Lindi was so tiny!

My face was freaking FAT!

And that was when I felt like I was starting to look descent again.

Such a fun idea.

I love treasures like this.