Father's Day

Don is such a good dad!   He is so cute with kids.  He talks to them, helps get them ready for school, goes to all their activities and events, reads to them and plays "Daddy Bear."  He says his favorite part of the day is driving them to school in the morning.  He definitely has a way with Jayne too.  She gets so excited when he gets home.  When I ask Jayne who her buddy is, she says, "Daddy my buddy."  They all love their daddy!

 Don had a good Father's Day.  I made breakfast for him that morning and the kids made him the cutest cards and pictures.  That night we had a nice dinner with Don's parents and Tami & Glenn.  Happy Father's Day Don!


Don and the kids

  

May Happenings

Playing pirates in the play house


 
Jayne got a new big girl bed and she loves it!  We try to put pillows all around her so she doesn't fall in the crack by the wall or off the bed but somehow she still does.  She ends up on the floor or under Elle's bed when we go to check her at night.  She sleeps right through it too.  Such a funny little girl!


 
Jayne loves to "layer" her clothing and often comes out with 3 different shirts, a dress and two skirts on.  It is pretty funny!  She loves to dress up too!



Reading books





Elle and I went to the Mother Daughter Tea Party for her dance school, Utah Artists School of Ballet.  We got to have a little tea party, see a fashion show of some of the costumes for the spring recital and just have "girl time."  It was fun!



Elle had another piano recital.  She played the "Green Frog Hop" and the "Five Note Sonatina."  She absolutely hates practicing but she is getting better all the time.  I keep telling her that one day she will be grateful that she can play and she insists she won't.  I'm pretty sure she will though.  :)


Butterflies and Ladybugs

Elle and Easton were both so excited when they got butterfly and ladybug habitats in their Easter baskets!  They couldn't wait to send in their cards from the kits for live butterfly and ladybug larvae to come in the mail.

 Elle loved watching her butterfly larvae grow and change into caterpillars, then chrysalids and finally into butterflies.  It was so neat to see the life cycle of a butterfly and watch how they changed each day.


  
Once they turned into butterflies and Elle had time to watch them for a couple of days, she was ready to let them go.  She released them into our yard hoping they would stay around our flowers that are supposed to attract butterflies.  They all flew away but one did land on the play house roof before flying off. They were all so pretty! It was really cool!



Easton loved watching his ladybug larvae turn into ladybugs.  He kept his ladybug habitat in his roof and checked them every day.  Man, does he love bugs!  He wanted to let some of his ladybugs go when Elle let her butterflies go.  He was so cute watching them as they crawled away.  It was a lot of fun for our kids.



Easton and Mommy time

Easton had a couple of days off of school for end-of-year Kindergarten testing so he asked to have "Mommy and Easton time" while Jayne was in preschool.  We had so much fun together.  We went and had breakfast at Kneaders, came back to our house and went on a little bike ride around our neighborhood and then went to the library.  I love spending time, just the two of us.  He is such a sweet little boy.  I am really going to miss having him around when he goes to school all day for First Grade.


Breakfast at Kneaders


On our bike ride


After we picked up Jayne from preschool we headed to the zoo.  It was a lot of fun!  We saw the elephants, the tigers and all the small animals in the reptile house.  It was really cool too because the gorilla came right up to the glass and just stared at us. What a fun day!


Spring Soccer

Easton was excited for soccer to start again.  He improved so much since the fall and even scored a few goals.  He had a lot of fun playing with this friends and learned a lot too!




He would get so excited when anyone on his team made a goal!  It was so funny!  They aren't really supposed to keep score but every one of the boys knew exactly what the score was.


Easton with his team and with this buddy, Drake


End of Year school activities

 
Elle and Easton both did the school egg drop.  Easton decided to put his egg in a teddy bear and then taped up in a box.  He was so anxious to see if his egg broke after they threw it off the school roof.

  
Woo hoo!  His egg didn't break and he got a prize!  He was thrilled!

(Elle's egg made it too but I didn't get any pictures because I had to leave to pick up Jayne from preschool.  Don got video though.)


 
 Elle's class put on a program for all the parents to show some of the different things they had learned throughout the year.  It was all done through song and was really cute!  Her sweet teacher passed out some awards to the kids too.  Elle got an award for getting above 90% on all of her end of year testing.  Way to go Elle!



Easton's class put on the play, "The Little Red Hen."  It was really cute!  He was one of the cows.  Kindergarten is such a fun age!



At the end of the year, the Kindergarteners get to have lunch in the cafeteria with their parents to prepare them for First grade.  The food was not the greatest but it was so fun to eat with my little buddy.  He is so excited for first grade.  I can't believe he is getting so big!



I was the room mom for Elle's class so I got to decorate her teacher's door for Teacher Appreciation week.  I was nervous because I had no idea what to do!  Luckily, my neighbor had a fun idea and Elle helped me decorate it.  It turned out pretty cute.


Jayne's last day of preschool

Jayne did so well in preschool.  She starting talking a little bit more, continued with her potty training and enjoyed singing songs and all the fun crafts.  She loved her teachers and they loved her.  Unfortunately, she will get all new teachers in the fall.  Her main teacher, Miss Ashley, had a baby and will not be teaching anymore and her favorite aide, Miss LeighAnn, is retiring.  It makes me sad because they have been so sweet and cute with Jayne.  LeighAnn always tells me how much she loves Jayne and insists on carrying her from the car and bringing her to me.  Jayne is sometimes a little shy when we drop her off but she will always go to LeighAnn.  I'm so glad that Jayne had a great first experience with school.  Teachers make all the difference.  Hopefully, she will have just as great of an experience in the fall.


Sister time in Texas
When I found out that I was having a girl, my cute sister, Heather, said that she wanted to make new baby bedding for the baby.  She suggested that I come visit her and we could do it together.  Heather is great at sewing and super talented and I knew we would have so much fun together!  I couldn't wait!  We had the best time!


We got to do a little shopping


 
I was excited to see my adorable nephews, Mason and Memphis, and niece, Lilah.
Cute Memphis accidentally took Easton's Buzz Lightyear 2 years ago when they moved to Texas and was so excited to show me that he still had it.  He had written his name on the foot, just like in the movie, Toy Story.  It was pretty cute.  I told him he could keep it and he was so happy! I love that boy!



After a "hard" day of walking around shopping, Memphis and Lilah were arguing over who could rub my feet.  How cute are they?  They are both good at it too.  I finally had to say, "Don't worry.  Everyone can get a turn."  Heather was laughing so hard.   When I got home, I asked my kids to rub my feet and they looked at me like I was crazy.  Heather has her kids well trained!

I arrived in Texas late Thursday night and the kids were already in bed.  Friday morning I came out and saw the kids and Lilah looked at me, then at my pregnant belly, and said, "Um, did you eat too much food?"  It was so funny!



I got to see Mason playing in his flag football game.  He is such a sweet boy and did awesome in his game!



We got to have a girls' night while Todd watched the kids and Heather took me downtown.  We got to have dinner at this fun restaurant on Lake Austin.



And we hiked up to this place where we could see Lake Austin and the skyline of downtown Austin.  It was so pretty!



And ta da!  We finished the bedding!!! It turned out great!  We didn't want to use up all our time together sewing so I picked out the fabric and sent it to Heather a couple of weeks before.  She made the bedskirt and got the bumpers started before I got there and we finished it together.  Heather did such a great job!  I love my sister!