maybe I'll post for May too...

May was a fun month. We had a lot of family-togetherness-fun time, and a lot of end-of-school-fun time.

I took this picture to show my husband that I bought myself a Mother's Day gift on his behalf. It was a cute exercise hoodie thing.

We try to have a Silvey Family FHE on the first Sunday of every month. This month's attempt devolved into a wrestling match between Scott and Hannah.

On May 2 we went to Sage Creek Elementary's fundraiser at the Arts Park. It was really fun! I bought some tickets, and my in-laws chipped in some tickets too, so we had a lot of fun. The kids got their faces painted, ate hot dogs and pizza for dinner, got balloon animals, entered some giveaways (and didn't win any) and got a bunch of treats.

Mr. Springville sang a song and invited the kids to go up and dance with him. It was cute.

My niece Maggie turned 3, and we went to her birthday party. Isn't she the cutest li'l princess?

I collected money from my sisters-in-law and bought a Mother's Day gift for Nate's mom. I think I liked it more than she did.

Sometimes I take my kids to the park.

The bishop's wife made enough of these adorable bundt cakes for every sister in the ward. Every. Sister. And she had 3 different flavors, plus some a gluten-free version. And she did it by herself. The cake was delicious, and I totally thought it was from a bakery.

And speaking of cakes, we went to my in-law's ward for their cake auction to raise money for the youth. (I went because dinner was provided so that meant I didn't have to cook.)

Papa Sam had his eyes on this maple bacon doughnut cake from the get-go.

I bought each of the kids a cupcake of their choice, because I'm nice (cheap) like that.

Sam won the bidding for the cake he wanted. He paid a ridiculous amount for it. And then he shared it with half the ward which I thought was a classy move.

Kate had her name drawn and got to buy this cake at the "buy it now" price. Papa bought it for her, which was another classy move. Also, the cake was delicious.

On the 14th I planted the rest of my garden. By myself. Like a mom.

I also let the kids play in the sprinklers.

Jude had the good sense to stay out of the fray.

I seem to remember that I promised the kids a moose bar from Reams if they did something, and they did, so we took them out for a treat after dinner. And we ate the treat at the playground at Brookside Elementary, because it was right by where we bought the treat.

When I helped my mom pack up her stuff, I found this really old iPod dock that just happened to work for our really old iPod. I was excited to find that it actually worked. We use it to let the kids listen to Scripture Scouts while they fall asleep.

On the 18th I went with Kate's class on their field trip around Springville. This was my first experience going on a field trip as a parent. Colin is standing behind me whining that I've never gone on a field trip with his class before as I type this.

The fire station was a major let down. Apparently there was a fire or something, because all of the firemen were gone and we didn't get to go inside. I was just as bummed as the kids.

We walked from the fire station down Main Street and then back to the Pioneer Museum and the Library. We appreciated the art.

I appreciated the architecture.

I found the Pioneer Museum fascinating. I have an ancestor who came across the plains with the Aaron Johnson company that settled Springville, but I couldn't find anything about him in the museum. There was a lot about that company though.

Kate and her friend Swayzie. Swayzie is the daughter of my friend Lacey Wing Daily that I grew up with.

We had a service auction for a Relief Society activity. The fake money that we used cracked me up, and made me glad I wasn't in the Relief Society presidency!

Jude likes to cook. He also likes to ask, "What you like?"

The 20th was Kate's last day of kindergarten. The program was short and cute, as always.

Mrs. Tanner said she was going to retire this year, but she decided to hang around for one more year, which made me happy, because now Gray gets her for his teacher too.

Kate also had a ballet performance that night at UVU. Her ballet class did Swan Lake, and it was really impressive.

The baby swans were my favorite.

Apparently a girl went at the wrong time and threw everyone off, and that made Kate upset. She hid it well though.

And when she doesn't want to smile, she won't.

I wish this picture wasn't blurry, because I love it so much. But they were having too much fun to slow down so I could take a good picture.

On the 21st we went to the AstroFest at BYU. I was thoroughly entertained. I love learning this nerd stuff and sharing it with my little nerds. We built rockets, made star charts, went to the Acoustics demonstration and the physics demonstration, looked at a bunch of cool rocks, held part of an asteroid, and went up and down a lot of stairs in the rain.

Sitting on a bed of nails.

Kate had another ballet performance that night. It was a long weekend for Mom and Kate. At least she got to eat fast food for dinner, which she really thought was awesome.

During rehearsal.

Backstage.

Kate also was recognized for passing her Primary grade ballet exam. She did amazing! I told her she had to smile just for this one picture, and then she didn't have to smile anymore. And she performed much better the second night than she did the first.

The kids looked so nice all dressed for church, that I had to take a picture of them. It wasn't Mother's Day, but we'll count it.

Kate wanted to do a ballet pose. I told her she was wearing an Aunt Heather outfit, and Aunt Heather agrees.

Nana brought the boys hats back from Disneyland. They wear them constantly.

Sage Creek dance festival! This was Mrs. Burr's last year as the principal, so I wonder if this tradition will continue. I hope it does. The kids love it.

Our neighborhood has an ice cream party right after school on the last day. It's been a tradition for like 20 years. This was the first year that the baton was passed from the Williams family to the Vorkink family.

After ice cream Nate and I took all of our kids to the movies for the first (and last) time. We saw Zootopia, and then it came out on DVD the next week. Annoying.

Memorial Day weekend I went hiking with my kids and sister. We hiked Timp Falls, which is the Timp Summit trail, but you stop after about a mile and see 2 waterfalls. It's a shorter hike than Stewart Falls, but it is relentlessly uphill the entire time. It is also a less popular trail, so that was awesome. We only saw like 4 other hikers, and the parking lot at the base of the trail was completely full. (The parking lot accommodates this trailhead and Stewart Falls, too.)

My failed attempt at getting all of us in a picture.

Gray was excited to find snow to play in.

Check out all that dirty snow covering the water. I was kind of amazed at all the snow by the second waterfall.

Selfies are the worst. And yet, I keep taking them. And I'm wearing my new Disney hat, a Boba Fett hat. I love it.

Tired boy. I'm tired, too, Jude. May was exhausting.

April was a long time ago

Wow. I knew I was behind, but I didn't realize I was THIS far behind. My bad.

I found this in Colin's backpack. He's too young to be in love with a girl from school, right? I texted the picture to my mother-in-law who works at the school and asked her to investigate this girl and make sure she was good enough for my boy.

Looks like Jude's eardrum burst early in April. It certainly explained why he had been such a terrible sleeper the night before. Poor li'l guy. More sickness to follow.

Jude playing Tenzi.

Conference! I love coloring in the Conference packets more than my children do. That round head template was perfect for drawing Elder Cook.

How Nate watches General Conference.

I love playing with Potato Heads. The kids probably helped me, but it was so long ago I can't be sure.

Awww, look how cute and little he was!

Playing at the cool park. Until some obnoxious big kids showed up and starting using language I wasn't comfortable with, so we bailed and went to a different cool park.

Spring Break hike to Battle Creek Falls! Thanks for going with us, neighbors! This was the only day that had nice weather during all of Spring Break, and the hike was super crowded. We almost didn't find a place to park!

I think Jude was trying to tuck Nate into bed.

So in April Nate and I started looking at lots to build a new house on. I loved this one. You could see the whole valley, and it was just beautiful.

There was already a house built on it though. And the house was beautiful, it just wasn't exactly what we wanted. And we decided that we aren't moving unless we can get exactly what we want.

Kate lost another tooth!

Creepy pile of doll pieces leftover from my awesome white elephant present I made.

Nate wears multiple pairs of sunglasses!

The following are pictures my kids took with my phone one day:

Jude loves making silly faces.

Our windows were so dirty! But I could only clean half of them because I didn't know how to take the screen off. The CLR worked wonders to take all the gross mineral deposits off.

I can't resist little boys in dress ups with blankies.

I love that my kids love Legos. I just wish they would play with them more often because they are usually kind to each other when they play Legos.

We celebrated my niece Lydia's (or Lyddie, Liddy, Lid-E) first birthday. I gave her books. She obviously loved them.

That day was also prom for Maple Mountain High, apparently. We came home to see this parked outside of the neighbor's house. I was a little jealous, having never ridden in one myself. For my senior prom the boys rented a 15 passenger van, and it was awesome. They even had a red carpet.

Nate has discovered that he can shoot darts with deadly speed and accuracy using the PVC pipes from our fort kit. I do not like it when he shoots at me.

Gray didn't mind being shot at as long as he had his helmet shield.

Nate thought he would give an extra long pipe a go. It was not a success.

My sweet li'l Baby Swan. This was Kate dressed in her Swan Lake costume for the first time. She was so adorable.

This is one of my favorite books. We read it for Grandma Book Club (I put it on the list ages ago, and someone besides me FINALLY voted for it too). The grandma who usually leads the discussions didn't quite get the book, so she asked me to lead. I said sure. I pulled out my sticky tabs and reread the book, promising myself that I would only mark the really REALLY good parts. This is what my copy looked like when I was done. Most of the ladies in the book club didn't care for the book. They just thought it was weird. But after I pointed out what I loved about it, they were more open to it. "I need to read this again so I can see what you saw in it," they all said (well, some of them said). That felt like success to me. If you haven't read this book, you should. Neil Gaiman's other books are amazing too.

Jude started running a fever, which means he basically stopped living life and only wanted to be held and to sleep with a blanket covering his face. I moved the blanket for this first picture. After a few days of constant fever and no other discernible symptoms, I took him to the doctor. The doctor looked at his ears (I had explained about the goop leaking out previously) and said Jude's ears were infected. I asked him to do a strep test too, because we have been burned by strep before. The doctor said the antibiotics would treat both infections anyway, but I wanted to know if he was contagious or not so I could be on the watch for my other kids getting sick and limit Jude's contact with other kids. Sure enough, he also had strep. Poor kid.

I love giving Gray haircuts. The pre-cut mohawk is my favorite. He's just the cutest.