May pictures

 jumping

 End of the year Awana Awards, Emily has over 200 verses memorized

 This little tooth has NO room

Our bed is always the best

 current silly face

 holding a beer and a sword, wearing a life jacket

 We still haven't shown the kids Star Wars, yet it is such a pop culture event he knows all about it

his sprayer broke about a 100 times.... but coat one is done

Dear Summer

Dear Summer,

It is so glad to see you again. The first trip to the pool was lovely, and chilly. Hello over night lows of 40 degrees!  Kids don't care about cold water.  Emily was very nervous about taking/passing her deep water test.  Nervous to the point of crying about it.  I know she has the skills to pass but doubt was taking over.  I was trying to be kind and nurturing but I also wanted to play my mom card and make her go take the test.  In my mind it was better to get it over with on day one, less to linger on, ya know?  After she calmed down and played a bit, I suggested we go over and watch the lane they were testing in.  Then I made her do it! Mean mom... but she did great and was so proud.  I am sure she will be wearing that little purple bracelete on her ankle all summer.  Dallas is still content to not be in the big pool.

Dear Summer,

It was so glad to retire long division, remainder 2, reducing fractions, adding fractions, sounding out words ever so slowly.  I know we will meet again soon. Real soon, as we still need to finish some stuff up, but we were ready for a break! The rest will be considered summer school. 

Dear Summer,

I am so glad we gave the kids a trampoline for Christmas.  It is such a delight to see the kids play, jump, lay, bounce balls, and even read.  I can't believe I lived so long without you.  I also love the creativity you have inspired, I bet the kids have come up with 10 or so original games since we set the trampoline up.

Dear Summer,

Thanks for not raining that "one" day last week so we could stain the deck.  Let us know the next time you will be rain free for 24 hours so we can apply the second coat. We are ready to get out the table and chairs.  Come on over, we are ready to BBQ and host you for some backyard sitting!

Dear Summer,

I love all of your food.  Berries, grilled chicken, chips and sun tea. I will eat my way all through this season. Just wait until the garden is giving tomatos!

Dear Summer,

Thanks for giving us opportunites to gather with friends.  Especially friends with fun water toys.  Seeing Emily and Dallas kayak for the first time was awesome.  And then watching Emily try stand up paddle boarding, AWESOME.  I want all the toys, and then a bigger garage, and maybe a place on water!

 I love this picture, says so much about Noelle

 This is my fridge 30 hours after buying $70 worth of groceries. We sure eat a lot around here, and what they say is true, eating healthy does cost more, but glad to be able to feed everyone good food. 

 My phone had several dozen pictures pretty similar to this one!

 Lego house with garages custom fit to their vehicles.  They want to be in the Lego magazine so we are submitting this picture.

 Look, our Christmas present is here.  There was even "snow" on the ground.

 Robert is the MOST patient person ever!  Long day at work, comes home to put the trampoline together, all 96 springs - on and off twice. And he lets them help, he teaches along the way.  I would have shooed all the kids off.  He is like the Ying to my Yang.

 May Day arrived like clockwork.  Noelle was thrilled to participate more this year.  In past years I let her do one or two houses because it is such a pain (and not fast or steathy) to get her in and out of her five point harness seat. 

 We had a little visit from Robert's college roommate Dusty.  He was driving home from a meeting in Boone.  He has a pretty cool job on the railroad.  We don't get to see him often so it was a nice surprise.

Last official fieldtrip of the school year was to the Zoo in Des Moines.  The hour long presentation was pretty neat, we got to touch and learn about several animals that are not on display but instead used for educational presentations.  But I would say the next most interesting thing they found was this old Toyota you could climb into, the back window is actually the window into the Tiger enclosure.  Emily was interested in a bunch of stuff but the other two would have rather been watching Wild Kratts.