Countdown to summer...

In our house summer officially starts on the last day of school.  The kids have been so excited as the school days have been dwindling down.  This past week there were some fun end of the year activities.  Brooklyn had a school carnival that had games and food and friends.  It was a blast!

 Her and her friend Lilli.

 The bounce house!

Snacks..notice how intently she is focused. 

The boys had their field day on the same day.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of their morning games because it was the same time as the carnival.  Here is the afternoon box car races. We usually have a great time planning and making unique cars.  You will notice they have the same one this year. Tanner has this thing where if he doesn't think he can win and be first he doesn't want to try. He has been talking about it for the last month or so and weighing the speeds of all the kids in his class...so and so is faster than me and so and so is fast too.  After much contemplation he decided to opt out--despite our many efforts of persuasion.  I brought Kaden's car to Tanners race and was rewarded with Tanners decision to run.  He ended up getting 2nd place in his heat :)

 Brooklyn felt she had to be included too...

 Ready..set...

 GO!

Today is Memorial Day and it seemed like the official start to summer.  We had a great annual ward breakfast this morning.  This afternoon we took the kids to the water park here in our town.  After we came home and grilled. We had a great day relaxing and enjoying the sun.  It makes it hard to revert back to school mode for the next few days.  3 to go....

Happy Memorial Day!!

Mother's Day

We had a wonderful Mother's Day here at my house.  I was completely spoiled and loved every minute of it!!  There was sleeping in, breakfast, cards, flowers, chocolates, gifts, time to read a book and a fabulous dinner.  I feel like the most loved Mom.  Thank you family.  I love you all so much.  

Did you notice the earrings in the picture? Tanner made these for me. So cute...right!? I did modify them a tiny bit.  They originally had ornament hangers to go in my ears so they would be dangly.  Inventive, but not the most sanitary :)

                                                              These were my gifts from the kids from church.

The best were the boys answers to the questions on the back.  

Tanner:

My mom is as pretty as a rose.

She is as sweet as Brooklyn.

She is as smart as a teacher.

But most of all she is as special as a new table.

Kaden:

My mom is as pretty as a flower.

She is as sweet as a flower.

She is as smart as a squirrel.

But most of all she is as special as a gift.

So I learned a few things from this...how much they love their sister, I am apparently a little overprotective of the table and squirrels must be really smart!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day with your families too!

What a wonderful last few days we have had! Tim's parents have recently moved to Virginia. We are very happy to have them closer to us and got to go for a visit over Easter. We had such a great time and fell in love with Virginia. It is beautiful! The kids had a blast and were very happy to spend time with Nana and Popop. They already want to go back.

On our drive out we stopped at a cave and did some exploring. It was a lot of fun, but we were quite dirty when we showed up at Nana and Popop's house.

( I promise this isn't what it looks like. :) It was visually deceiving-he is just laying flat on the ground.)

This was their backyard. So awesome right?? The boys were very sad about the no fishing sign until Popop told them it was his sign and they were the exception :)

On Friday we went to a really great State Park close to their house. We had such a fun day. We played, had a picnic, fished, went for a walk, skipped rocks and splashed in the lake.

( I am under their somewhere...it started as a tickle Tanner fest and turned into dogpile on mom)

Easter Morning!

Thank you Nana and Popop for the wonderful vacation and priceless memories.

New Camera!!

Tim bought me a new camera for my birthday this year. It has been a need and a want for a while so I was super excited. I am learning how to use it and having a lot of fun. It is so nice to have a camera that can take a picture while my children are moving and not be blurry. I love it! Thank you sweet husband!

Leprechaun Mischief

We had some Lerechauns in our house this St Patricks Day. They were quite mischevious and the kids thought it was great.

This is a human trap. We think they might have been retaliating for the trap Tanner built to try to catch one of them.