Evelyn's birthday

Sarah is our neighbor and friend. She and Evelyn have bonded this year as she's driven our kids back and forth to school. For Evelyn's birthday, she made her a stuffed creeper.  Evelyn's in love.

 

End of school year

End of school and my birthday are always simultaneous. I usually ignore my birthday and just get done what needs to be done.  This year I didn't.  Seth and Evelyn had field day and family lunch day, so I went to that.  Then we met up with my mom and dad, Janelle, Sharon, Tiffany, Beth and Sarah with all the kids for a lunch date at the Ramen place close by.   Beth and I share a birthday so it was fun.  Then we went with Sharon, Janelle and my mom to the Butterfly museum.  Sharon and Ada were really good at catching the butterflies and both were good at sharing too.

Ada didn't know that there was a butterfly in her hair until someone said that they liked her hair clip.

Then we went to R&R bbque... I'd never been before it was yummy.  Then Ada and I went bowling with the Young Women.  It was a very busy day.  Sam wasn't with us because his friend invited him to go to Deer Creek to kayak with him.

 

Last week

Evelyn has started pretending to be shy.  She's not shy at all, but I want her to know that she's bold and capable.  We had a package to ship to Elder Joseph Brasher, I had cash and there was no line at the post office... so I sent Evelyn in to mail the package by herself.  Seth volunteered to go too and they did marvelously and were very proud of themselves.

Then we went to join my parents and Sharon at the new water/sand park next to my parents house.  It's a very cute park and it was a nice day.

I got to go to Lia's graduation.  I'm so proud that she made it through so well while going through so many challenges.  A grandmother dying, covid, loss of family income, three moves, the birth of two siblings, learning English, etc... and she's come out flying!

 

Last week

This is Tom and Inez, my parent's friends that were sealed in the temple last week. They invited Jer and I to be there in the sealing and I loved being there for that.

Ada and Hannah before the 9th grade dance.

 

Evelyn's bday party

Evelyn and Sam have always shared birthdays and most of the time they don't have friend parties, so Evelyn wanted a big ol friend party. We went to Classic Fun Center.  It was nice to not have to clean the house before and after.  It was cute, she also wanted Sarah Jolley to come to her party.  Sarah is the lady next door that takes our youngest two to school when I'm working. Cute.

 

Jer's phone

This is at Jer's Timpanogos Emergency Response Team training.

I'd already posted about Sam's band concert, but I found some cute pictures on Jer's phone.

 

Youth groups

So Ada's and my class planned and hosted a cake wars night.  It cost us 10 box mixes and $35 of frosting.  It was fun.  We gave each table a story from the old testament that they had to decorate a cake to represent.

 

catch up

So I was pulled up for jury duty for the 3rd or 4th time in the last 10 years. This is the first time that I've been actually called up for jury training.  They excused me from jury duty after an hour because I'm in childcare. They paid me for the day, but I'm really glad I wasn't called as a juror.  That would have been a mess to figure out.

We were so lucky last week!  Not only did we go to our last soccer games of the season, but we got to go Tanner's reception.  I can't believe that Alan and Rachelle have had a wedding, a grandbaby and a graduation in just a couple weeks.

Ada wanted to draw me during Stake Conference, so she grabbed a picture.  Sam, Ada and I all went to a special youth session of Stake Conference led by our area authority.  Sam wasn't too happy to be there but told me afterwards that he really enjoyed it.  Jer was there as the Stake technology specialist and had shown me all the stuff he does in the equipment room the night before.  After the youth session, I went and picked up the youngest two that were home getting ready for church, then we came back for Stake Conference.  Evelyn was being mean to Seth, so I told her to stop, she didn't so I ended up taking her out of the room.  She got overwhelmed and embarrassed... and spent an hour screaming in the car.  I'd asked if she wanted to walk around outside until she calmed down.... she said it was too cold (it wasn't), so I put her in the car and she told me it was too hot. Some days it's hard being the mom.  The rest of the day was really hard too.  We had a couple of YW's parents that had some complaints to make and a very long presidency meeting because we were in charge of the YW/YM activity.  We got it all lined out and I came home and shut myself in my room.  I get frustrated that parents forget that this is a family run and church supported thing.  I can't force their daughter to participate if they don't get their daughter to come. Most of the time I don't let it bother me, but the same day that Evelyn loses it in front of our whole stake is the same day that I get complaints from two different parents and I just needed a minute to be on my own.

Ada got a new dress and wore it to the 9th grade dance.  She's part of the student council for next year, so they hosted the 9th grade dance so that the 9th grade student council could have fun socializing.  It was fun for Ada because some of her friends are in 9th and some of her friends are on the student council with her.

Last night was amazing.  We went to the symphony again, but it was the first time that I'd been with both Jim and Judy for a while.... and the last time I'll have gone to see Tierry Fischer.  He's moving on to another symphony.  I've really enjoyed his music selections and his direction in the last years.   

 

Misc

 

Seth was just so cute. Hannah made this cute little strawberry hat and the kids all kept stealing it from her.  Seth looked like a little french boy so...

I love this time of year. Even though I suffer from allergies, the snowball bush makes me happy and the spring weather and sunshine is my favorite.

For family night not long ago, we invited the Rodes to go play pickleball at the park with us.  It was so fun!  I love that they have kids that cover all our kids ages and interests.  Ada and Austin are good buddies, Sam and Logan are and Seth and Collin are good buddies.  Evelyn just plays with all of the above. I went to school with both Rebecca and Francis, so it's fun to reconnect there.

Seth is just too cute.