behind

I get so behind on this blog, and then I don't want to catch up because just the thought of it is overwhelming. Blerg. But I shall do my best and try to recap what went on during the month of May.

Jude being adorable. He thought he was such a big boy sitting on Gray's chair.

I love playing potato heads with my kids. They often get mad at me for not doing it "right," whatever that means.

Kate required a fort for some privacy. I did my best.

She did not appreciate me taking a picture of the inside.

She did appreciate me taking a picture of her adorable curls on Sunday though.

I love her hair when it is curled. She looks so grown up!

On Fast Sunday I typically make Nate a pineapple upside down cake. This month's attempt came out just a little wrong. It still tasted great, but it looked nothing like a pineapple upside down cake when I tried to serve it.

Sick boys taking over my bed.

Happy, blurry, brothers having a snuggle.

Kate's preschool graduation. She loves Jude. I have a bunch of video from this event, but blogger won't let me upload them, so you'll just have to imagine a bunch of preschoolers singing ridiculous songs.

Kate and her friend Mia McCluskey.

Our sweet neighbor gave Kate this fairy costume. Gray thought he should give it a try too.

He makes a pretty cute fairy.

On Mother's Day I made breakfast for my mother (and siblings). I tried my hand at blueberry lemon rolls and cinnamon rolls. And I made raspberry crumb muffins and like eggs and stuff. It was delicious. But the cinnamon/blueberry roll recipe made a crapload of rolls, so we had plenty to share with some neighbors too.

My kids asked my mom to help them bake a cake for me for Mother's Day. They choose the frosting and helped with the sprinkles and everything. It was a very nice surprise.

Our garden as of May 14-ish. An embarrassment of weeds.

I'm just as surprised as you are to find these two hugging!

And then they both wanted to pose on the elephant chair.

And Kate wanted to take a picture of an unwashed, post-gym, sweaty me and a cute Jude.

Playing in a pile of cushions, blankets, and bean bags.

Nate and I decided that after 7 years it was time to do something with the planters in our front yard. Behold our plants!

They no longer look this nice. I'm not sure exactly how I'm killing them, but somehow I am. Also, they are shade plants and the front of the house doesn't get as much shade as we initially thought. So we'll have to trying moving some of them in the fall.

I took this picture of Buzz to send to my mom, who was on vacation in California.

Gray picked these weed flowers for me and was so proud of himself! I didn't have the heart to tell him that they were just weeds and I didn't want them in my house. So I found a vase and stuck them on the counter. He told everyone for days about the pretty flowers he gave me and the pretty vase they were in. It was so sweet.

We had an impromptu tea party with our little friend Zoe.

Apparently it was a clothing-optional tea party.

Jude and his little bottom teeth poking out.

Our garden the next weekend. I spent a LOT of time pulling weeds. We planted tomatoes, green beans, watermelon, pumpkins, zucchini, and jalapeños. We had some lettuce come up volunteer from last year too.

I really wanted a picture of this pan on Jude's head, but he just wouldn't keep it on by himself. Disobliging baby.

Ah, snuggles.

Colin's last day of kindergarten! His principal is Mrs. Burr, who was my creative writing teacher my sophomore year. She's a great lady. Colin is lucky to have her running the show.

He didn't want to look at me.

I also have plenty of video from Colin's program, but again, I can't upload it. They sang a song for each month of the school year. It was cute. It was also short, which I appreciated even more because I had 3 little stinkers running amok during it.

Colin and his teacher, Mrs. Tanner. She was amazing. We all loved her.

Colin and his best pal, Gage. They are going to be in the same class next year too!

After we came home all the kids had to have quiet time. And for some reason, they all insisted on having a picture taken of them lying in their beds.

Jude loves the washing machine. I wish he loved folding the clothes and putting them away!

The boys were sick on Sunday, so I went to church with just Kate. When it was over she asked if she could walk home with Mary. She also informed me that I was not welcome to walk with them. I had to keep a respectable distance behind them.

A manly man in a manly apron.

Colin's secret FBI instructions for Agent Silvey and Agent May.

Me and Batman. (The mask is actually glasses, and they are too big for his little face.)

Jude, the worst napper, taking a nap on my bed. Why my bed? Because if he were in his bed he would be safe, and also awake. On my bed, I have to keep a close eye on him so he doesn't roll and fall to his doom below. Thanks baby! (At least he slept, right?)

Some teenage weirdos at the splash pad. The picture isn't the best, because I was trying to be discreet. They were dressed as a pat and a raccoon, I think. Tails, furry arms, and crazy hat/mask things.

My mom was kind enough to move to a new place in Provo so that we could have the basement for our family. Our living arrangement had worked great for 7 years, but trying to fit the 6 of us in 3 rooms was not going great. We had talked about her moving out since the beginning of the year, but we weren't in a big hurry to kick her to the curb or anything. We were taking time to find a situation that would work for everyone and where we could help her out and everything. At the beginning of May a friend of my mom's offered her a duplex he owns for a great price. Mom was going out of town for 2 weeks in the middle of May with some of her girlfriends. She got back, had one week to pack, and then moved out. Needless to say it has been a bit of a crazy couple of months. Here are some pictures from the day she moved.

And here are some pictures I had taken of her new place while she was on vacation so that we could measure and make sure all of her furniture would fit.

It's an older duplex, but it has new carpet, new paint, 4 bedrooms, 2 family rooms, and 2 bathrooms. I hope it will do nicely for my mom and my sister until Heather moves out and my mom is closer to retirement. Then Nate and I hope to be able to buy her a small, first-floor condo with no yard work where she can stay more permanently.

Time flies like an arrow

Fruit flies like a banana.

It's funny on so many levels. Or maybe just on two levels.

These first pictures somehow ended up in reverse order. So we're working back from general conference weekend to the beginning of the month. Then they start going in the proper order to the end of the month.

Nate and Jude enjoying a fake snack in front of a pile of dirty laundry. Just trying to keep it classy.

I played Lincoln Logs while I listened to conference. Sometimes I let the kids help. But mostly I hollered at them to keep away from my amazing creations. I'm proud of the outcome, but not of my behavior.

Now these two pictures really need to be swapped in order, but I don't feel like messing with it. Here's what happened: The kids wanted to play soccer outside. They begged Nate to join them. He went out, kicked the ball a time or two, and then blasted Gray right in the face and gave him a bloody nose. I think the bottom picture is right after he did it. Poor kid.

How Nate reads children's library books. Alone.

Gray was so delighted with some hand-me-downs that Heather sent to us. He is in love with these flip flops. He kept asking me who gave them to him. I would tell him they came from Cousin Bryant. Gray would say, "Bwywint gave these to me?! That's so nice of him!" He made me send this picture to Heather.

Gray making a huge mess with his frozen yogurt after a trip to the health food store. Gross.

A call this series of pictures "Boy with Blue Cube in Poor Lighting." Enjoy.

Oh how he loves to stand. He really is nuts with his physical skills. He's so small, yet so powerful!

On Friday the 11th I met up at a park with a couple of my best gals from high school. Really I think we've been friends since 8 or 9th grade. Its crazy now to think that we're all so old and growed up. (And I do mean growed up and not grown up.) And a big thanks to Stacey for bringing out her camera and taking some pictures of us!

Here's me and Britney and some of our kids.

And here's all of us who were there. Stacey Staheli White with her two, Ross (3) and Ruby (1). Me with Colin (5), Kate (4), Gray (2), and Jude (6 mo). Britney Richey Manning with her two, Levi (2) and Kylee (3 mo). And Hollie Jones Hunter with her three, Jefferson (6), Thomas (3), and Lucie (9 mo). Thanks Britney for getting us all together! It was so fun!

Some of my embarrassing drawings. Gray was demanding pictures at church. I asked him to describe who he wanted drawn, and then I did my best (REALLY! THAT'S MY BEST!) to draw what he said. I stink at drawing. Nate's pants are a bit exaggerated because I was teasing him about the pleats before church.

Gray also asked for a dragon. I only know how to draw one kind of dragon, and that's Trog-Dor.

Gray is a good helper. He doesn't get much done, because he gets stuck against the wall, but he loves to help. Jude loves to try and attack the vacuum.

Colin and Kate finally did it. They finally cute their own hair when I wasn't looking. Thankfully they both didn't do too badly. Kate cut her bangs quite a bit, as in before she didn't really have bangs and now she does. And Colin took a chunk out of the middle, but you couldn't really tell. We just buzzed his head and now it's all good.

Four kids, one stroller, one looooong walk. I has tired.

This is my friend Bekah's parent's backyard. I love it. I love it so much that I snuck back there and took some pictures of it while they were at work. (I asked permission first. Kind of.) I took pictures so I could show Nate what I would love to build in our backyard. I don't think we'll get anything nearly this awesome, but it's a good starting off point.

On the 18th, Colin's class had an egg drop. Mrs. Burr (the principal, and my old Creative Writing teacher from high school) dropped the projects off the roof of the school. And by dropped, I mean threw. She really launched them up into the air. Colin and Nate built a contraption, but it was unsuccessful. Faulty execution, I say. The idea was good though, because it came from me. I looked some stuff up on the internet, but apparently I didn't find the proper YouTube video like all the other parents did. Most of the projects were eerily similar.

Splat.

One of the wooden blocks that Nate used to secure the egg-in-nylon ripped free of the cardboard box. Oops.

Colin didn't want his picture taken afterward. He was a little bummed.

Jude is the worst napper in the world. The worst. He refused to sleep, and then crashed when we got to the park. He slept in that swing, despite the strong wind, for like 30 minutes. Don't worry, I stayed right by him.

Gray and his friend Zoe.

Easter! And by Easter I mean the day before Easter. I don't have many pictures. We went to an Easter Egg Hunt put on by our neighbor's ReMax company. There were a ton of people there. It was nuts. But the kids had fun on the bouncy houses, getting cotton candy and balloons, and generally running wild. The egg hunt part was a joke, but my kids each got a few eggs and everyone was happy and satisfied.

Gray is sporting a blue cotton candy beard here in this picture, if you couldn't tell.

We went straight to Caleb and Heather's new house in Bluffdale afterward for a family lunch. It was delicious. Papa and Uncle Caleb spent the whole time setting up bees in the backyard. Or back dirt area, to be more precise.

Gray was enchanted by the bees. He was a dedicated helper, following the other two around all afternoon. Papa even got out a beekeeper outfit for him.

My delicious dessert. I dipped strawberries in orange-colored white chocolate to make them look like carrots. Then I made a dirt dessert with chocolate pudding, cool whip, and cream cheese with crushed Oreos on the top. It was awesome. I ate way too much of it.

I don't know what's so special about the bottom of the exersaucer, but Jude loves it.

I love this picture. Gray was being so silly, and I loved it. We had a good laugh.

I love pictures of Jude gnawing on things. He's so happy. And focused. Also, he's adorable in cloth diapers.

Two teeth! So fun!